Backside Bus

I recently obtained a new Sony Vaio Ultrabook - the SVT13128CXS. This is a robust laptop that can easily serve as a desktop replacement while, at 3.77 lbs. and .71" thick, being small an light enough to not be a burden to carry around on a daily basis. Specs The Vaio SVT13128CXS has a 13.3" multitouch screen and comes with an Intel Core i7 3517U CPU running at 1.9 GHz, a 256 GB Solid State Drive, and 8 GB of RAM, and the Windows 8 Operating System . It has all the common ports: HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, 1 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, and a MemoryStick/SD card slot, and has built-in 802.11 b/g/n wireless as well as Bluetooth 4.0. It also has a 1.3 MP HD Web cam. Design Like most high-end Vaio laptops, the SVT13128CXS looks great. The brushed aluminum casing and sleek lines look good and resist fingerprints. It feels solid, and, while a little thicker than some of the offerings out there, at .71" it is still very thin. The ports are easy to access and are spaced well enough t

As someone who does light to medium office work on my business trips (creating editing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, e-mail, skype chats) as well as wanting light entertainment (music, movies, games) while traveling, I would typically bring a netbook and an iPad on all my business trips. They both filled their niches and I was generally a happy camper.   I recently brought my Surface RT on a 10-day business trip as my only computing device. My initial conculsion was that it was working well for me after the first day and a half, and that impression didn't change throughtout the rest of the trip. One thing that really impressed me was the battery. Not only does it have adequate battery life - I never had it run out in the middle of the day with moderate use - but it charges quickly - about 2 hours for a full charge. This meant that I could use it all day, then put it on the charger while I went out to dinner, and it would usually be done by the time I returned to my hot

I've done a lot of thinking about the specifications of the computer I am going to build . My two main priorities are speed and storage. I use my main PC for video editing, some Web development, and as a media server for the house. I figure that whatever I build will replace it as my main desktop, and then I can give my current machine (a two-year old Dell Studio XPS 8100) to my wife. Motherboard Since the motherboard was a gift, there wasn't really a choice. It is an ASUS P8Z77-M Pro , which is a decent Micro ATX board that supports 3rd gen Intel  processors. It is a little light on the internal expansion ports (three total), but has decent built-in sound and video as well as support for several USB ports (front and back) in both 2.0 and 3.0. It can handle up to 32 GB of memory. Processor Since I have the luxury of shopping around and buying parts over time, I am looking at getting the Core i7 3770k processor. It is currently the fastest Core i7 that will fit in thi

I've had my Surface RT for a little over a week now. While I have generally been impressed with the device, enough to take it solo on a business trip , I have also discovered a few rough edges. Nothing that I would consider a fatal flaw, but things that bug me nonetheless. Inserting a flash drive does not pop-up a message or take me to the desktop automatically. While the system acknowledges the drive with a USB device attached sound, I am used to Windows either taking me to the drive window or popping up a "what do you want to do" window. Unless I am already at the desktop, I need to switch to see the device activities. Of course you don't need to go to the desktop in order to use a device - if you are using the Photos app and insert a USB drive with photos, it can be accessed without going to the desktop first. Some games act up when playing offline. This is not a Microsoft issue per se - it really depends on the particular game. Actually, most MS games worked

The Surface is at home on the hotel desk. I am currently on a business trip and decided to only bring my Surface RT along. Since Microsoft is positioning it as a device that can be used in lieu of a laptop for business users, I figured I would see how well it does. So far (after a day and a half), things are working well. I was able to get online at both airports (I had a connecting flight) and check/respond to e-mails. One of the airports had a walled garden, and I was able to connect without a hitch. My hotel has free wireless, so no problem here either. One thing to note - from what I read, there is currently not an official Ethernet dongle out for the Surface, but this MS community post has a potential solution . Since my arrival, I have had to take notes in a meeting and work on a budget for a proposal for my office. Office 2013 RT has worked well for both tasks. Since I have an Office 365 business account , I can use the included Office 2013 for Commercial use, however i

The comments are now open. The initial settings for the blog (I think the default - I don't think I had changed it) required people to have a Blogger account to comment. I have removed that requirement, so feel free to comment away...

This is a bummer ... I had been hoping to get one of these, but when they didn't come out for over a month and there was no word on how long they were delayed, I decided to get my Sony Ultrabook instead.

I've been using Windows 8 for a little over one month now, and have used it enough to develop some thoughts on it as an Operating System (OS) as well as on what I perceive as the broader direction Microsoft is trying to go with it. In a nutshell, Windows 8 an attempt at combining the traditional desktop OS with a tablet/touch-friendly OS. For desktops and laptops, this basically means that you get a fully-functional desktop OS (with some not-so-small performance enhancements over Windows 7) overlayed with an elegantly executed tablet OS. In some cases, this works very well, and in others it can be confusing or just weird. Personally I think that MS is headed the right way, and that as the lines between traditional computers and tablets continue to blur, we'll see more of this (such as Ubuntu for Android - a different approach to the same idea). Where's my Start Menu? The biggest change in Windows 8 is the addition of the start screen, which is really the tablet side