Launched yesterday on AT&T, the Blackberry Bold 9700 is RIM’s replacement for the wildly popular Bold 9000. New changes include the inclusion of an optical touchpad and removal of the traditional trackball, a smaller screen, and a smaller form factor overall. I went over to my local AT&T store yesterday and decided to upgrade my aging flip phone to the new Blackberry. Does it live up to its expectations? Continue reading to find out.
Installing an operating system takes long enough, but the tedious process of installing applications later on often takes longer. Thankfully, a new application for Windows called Ninite promises to speed the process up.
Ninite is a system admin’s dream come true. Dozens of free widely-used applications can be installed in just a few mouse clicks, including Firefox, Google Chrome, Audacity, iTunes, FileZilla, 7-Zip, uTorrent, Adobe Reader, Flash, VLC, and Open Office.
Best of all, it’s free for personal use. Features such as local and network caching are also available, but will soon be removed from the free version when a paid premium version is launched. No word on pricing is available yet, but considering how many man-hours it could save in an IT department, it looks like it will be a worthwhile investment.
If there’s anything I don’t like about my notebook or iMac, it’s the lack of USB ports. Everything from printers to digital cameras to mice use the USB standard, but not all computer makers haven’t felt the need to up the number of ports in their products over the years.
That’s where USB hubs come in. Online gadget store Budget Gadgets was kind enough to send us the rather unique Robot Style High Speed 4-port USB Hub to review. As you can see in the picture, it’s shaped like a robot, with each limb functioning as a separate port.
After testing the device for several weeks, I found it to be more than satisfactory. The USB hub is well built and transfers data quickly, but is also lightweight. What I like most about it is there is no external AC adapter needed. Many USB hubs require an extra power adapter to provide juice to your peripherals, but this one only needs your USB port for power.
The obvious drawback to this is if you have a lot of high-power devices plugged into the hub, there might not be enough electricity for everything. But for flash drives, mice, cameras, and the like, this USB hub is perfect.
Best of all, the Robot USB Hub is very affordable at only $7.68. Budget Gadgets was also kind enough to provide a 5% discount to PC Fastlane readers. Use the coupon code DM5OFF13.
I have yet to see a more enticing camera as of late than the upcoming Canon T1i. A budget DSLR set to be released this May, it has several features that make it stand out from the crown, namely: 15.1 megapixels, full 1080HD video, and a three-inch LCD with LiveView…
For many years, Starbucks has been known for its high quality coffee. Opening up coffee houses across the world and invading grocery stores with dozens of fresh varieties, the Seattle-based company has become a household name. Last February, many were surprised to hear news of the company’s launch of a new instant coffee line. Dubbed VIA Ready Brew, it promises to provide the quality of traditionally brewed Starbucks coffee in a more convenient form. How does it stack up against the real thing? Starbucks was kind enough to send us some samples for PC Fastlane to find out.
With all the different forms of media out there, it seems to get harder and harder for us to keep everything in our collections in some form of order. Delicious has the answers for Mac users and is releasing the latest version of their media organization software Delicious Library 2.0.
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Samsung is trying to get a bigger jump on the mp3 market with their YP-S2 models being touted as the player for those of us on the go. The device which is according to Samsung is small like a pebble and can be worn like a pendant around the neck.
Over the years, I have used a variety of analytics programs to keep track of website traffic. From Google Analytics to Microsoft adCenter Analytics to OneStat, they’re all the same. Since last week, however, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to test drive a new sort of web statistics software, Woopra. Though still in closed beta, it offers a number of revolutionary features that promise to shake up what is currently an uninnovative market.
Kensington Computer Products Group announced that at the end of this month they will be releasing ShareCentral, a USB peripheral sharing device that will allow sharing of up to five USB peripheral devices between any two computers.
With vacation season starting to get underway, the latest buzz is about CradlePoint’s CTR500 3G travel router. The router, which is touted on the companies website as being “the most compact…in the world,” is unique in that it accepts both Express Card and USB-style Cellular Modems, and supports most of the popular modems and handsets of the major carriers. PC Perspective did a recent review of the device, the lowdown of which you can read after the jump.
PC Fastlane is a technology blog that keeps up-to-date with the latest happenings in the world of bits and bytes. The brain child of computer enthusiast Daniel Foster, the site has been around for more than two years and has been viewed by hundreds of thousands worldwide.
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