Ultrabooks- light and many hours on a battery charge

Ultrabooks are light laptops that can be both fast and have long battery life.  For many people, including me- this is a design point that is very attractive.  There are tons of articles on individual ultrabooks, aggregate ultrabook reviews, and tips on buying them.  I'm not going to recommend any particular brand or size, but I'll  list my desired design points:

1. less than 3 lbs
2. i5 processor (not i3)
3. Windows 8 or Linux (Ubuntu)
4. Full HD 1080p
5. At least 1 3.0 USB and a total of 3 USB
6. digital video output (usually HDMI).  I would use a second monitor for work at home
7. At least 6 continuous hrs battery life- this means the flash storage needs to be fairly large:  at least 64 Gig.
8. The flash drive or SSD drive, may be all you get.  Remember that flash drives have a limited lifetime (about 10K changes to an individual bit.).  The drives are designed to minimize changes per bit, but this is still a consideration.  My best design point would be a machine that allows SSD only operation in power saver mode but it has a regular hard drive that can run when in a higher power mode.  Otherwise, be sure you back up everything of interest or importance.  When the drive goes, replace it.
9. Screen size- this is driven by #1- weight.  Also, if you want to use this in a plane, then stick with the smaller screens
10. Keyboard:  I like a touch keyboard, which means chicket keys are harder to use.  Test the computer before you buy.

I haven't said which brand, but Apple certainly has good characteristics.  However, it is way more expensive than some others.  Most of you know that I have been down on Apple because the quality seems to be less than stellar.  Having been in computer manufacturing for most of my career, I know the Apple markup is large- my guess is 35-40%.  Apple is also harder to integrate into a home network.  eMail can be a problem, especially when you try to use ATT with the Apple Mail program.

Any questions.

Sometimes you can't play HD TV shows and movies. Why not?

Many people use video streaming to watch TV shows and movies.  Video streaming is where the show or movie contents is sent over the internet and displayed on your TV or computer monitor.  One key requirement for streaming is that your internet connection is fast enough that the information needed to display the screen images arrives at your TV faster than your TV displays the images.  Otherwise, your show will lurch- start and stop- as the TV waits for the streaming information to be delivered.  I imagine most of you have experienced this.

Popular sources of streamed video include YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon.

I wanted to make you aware of one particular problem with streaming.  It has to do with viewing HD shows.  Sometimes, even though you have a fast internet connection and a monitor or TV that can display HD, you still can't see HD.  The following is a not I got from Amazon regarding this issue:

"At this time, playback for HD movies is not supported on the devices like Wii / Wii U GamePad / PC / Mac / Google TV / iPad / iPhone / iPod touch. 

However I've forwarded your feedback to our development team. They will work on it in next improvements. Customer feedback like yours is very important in helping us continue to improve the experience of using our digital video service. 

You can watch HD Movies and TV shows on the following devices: 

-- Wii U TV monitor. (The Wii U GamePad supports standard definitions video.) 
-- TiVo Series 3, HD, Premiere & XL 
-- Roku 2HD, 2XD, 2XS, LT, XD, HD-Streaming, HD Player 
-- Xbox 360 
-- PlayStation 3 
-- Kindle Fire HD models 
-- Certain HDTVs and Blu-Ray players from LG, Samsung, Vizio, Panasonic, and Sony 

If you attempt playback on a device that does not support HD, we'll automatically provide a standard definition version of the video to watch on that device. While HD movies cannot currently be accessed on a Mac or PC, you do have the option to stream HD TV shows. You can also stream HD TV shows on Google TV. 

To learn more about Amazon Instant Video compatible devices, visit: 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/devices "

Surge Protectors

Lightning generates a lot of my business.  We are into that season again.  To avoid costly repairs, please make sure all your sensitive electronics and appliances are protected by functional, working surge protectors.    Common missed equipment include your telephone and your refrigerator.  In my experience, for our area the telephone wire is the "weak link."

Don't use those cheap bar plug units; use a real surge protector. ( Link to explanation of surge protectors.).  The refrigerator may be the hardest to protect due to size constraints.  (You may have to put the surge protector under the refrigerator and you will need a long enough cord to reach the outlet.)

You might look at whole house surge protectors.  The link above gives you info on this type.  I just got an add from Carolina Heating for a whole house surge protector: cost $339.  It reads like this is "installed."  At least this will give you a benchmark.

Microsoft going to a subscription business model for personal users?

A subscription business model is where you pay a periodic fee for software.  I imagine most of you have at least one software application where you do that; eg antivirus software.

At least for personal/private/not enterprise customers, Microsoft has a licensing model, where you pay for Office or Windows and you get it... until 3 or more years later, when a new version comes out and, if you want to upgrade, you buy that new version.

Microsoft does have an "Enterprise" business model that includes the subscription approach.  According to an article by Brad Chacos in the June 2013 edition of PC World, Microsoft is going to evolve to eliminating the license model for the subscription model.  Coupled with this, Redmond will eliminate the big version change process for a continual update process.  Office 365 and Windows 8 may be the last big version release.

I don't know if I like this.  For "casual users," many are still on Office 2003.  I bet the majority of residents in our community are still on Windows XP.  Many don't have any desire to learn the new releases.  Can you imagine having to pay an annual fee for those programs?

Brad Chacos is gushingly enthusiastic about this change:  "Microsoft's incremental future truly is the future- not the past.  And its about time it arrived."  What do you think?

References:
Microsoft Licensing Models
Microsoft Office 2013 is not transferable to another computer... NOT
A New World of Licensing

Fishing emails again!

There has been a rash of fishing emails, where it appears that emails are being "sent" by residents to their email lists.  The latest is from Manila or the Phillipines and asks for money to "rescure' the resident.

Has their email account been compromised?  Not likely.  Actual "profit-motive" companies exist around the world that use various techniques, from trolling the internet to installing worms on a individual computers, to wholesale invasion of government or corporate web sites, to create large databases of email addresses and relationships between email addresses.  These lists are sold at so much per thousand entries, to "perps" that are sending out the fishing emails.

For an example, see http://www.downloademail.net/9/email-list-part-6420/6627.html.  Browse there incognito (Google "browsing incognito" to find out how to do it.  The specifics vary from browser to browser.)  In general, google your email to see where it is visible to public search engines.  (These companies use their own methods.)

So there is nothing you can do to prevent this.  It is has already happened.

In the future, change your user name (att has this function, so the email goes to your real account but you send the email under another user name).  You can also change your email provider entirely.  After doing that, change the "from" in the email to show that you are sending the email from the old account.  Move all your contacts out of your old account.  That way, only your "front" account is compromised.

There are other techniques you can use, depending on your expertise and patience.  I'll summarize these techniques and provide links to detailed instructions in a future post.

Best Free AntiVirus/AntiMalware

I've been away from this blog for a while, teaching a course in Ubuntu.  (Blog).  This entry is about the latest reviews on free antivirus/antimalware programs.  PCWorld's Review.  AVG Free came in first.  When I've used this in the past, it seemed to take excessive resources.  Apparently this is not an issue.  Also, I've installed Microsoft Security Essentials on many computers and it seems to work well, except.... In addition, Microsoft stood behind the product with customer support, which made it stand out from the other free options.  The except is that, as noted in the review, it seems that at times infections, especially just released malware, did seem to slip through.  Those that did, it seems to me, were related to malware that redirects your browser by adding a subversive search engine or changing the home page.

So, if you would like to change to AVG Free, let me know and I will install it for you.

From XP to Ubuntu

Next Monday I start an OLLI class at Furman called "From XP to Ubuntu."  That and the short illness and death of my mother-in-law have prevented me from adding to this blog in recent weeks.  I've got a lot to say here.  The first thing I want to do is review the process and considerations in purchasing a laptop now.  (I discussed this a while back (here), but it's time for an in depth explanation and update.

You can follow my course material and discussion on a new blog: http://leetlinkubuntu.blogspot.com.