Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Tom Keating
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Computer Software

New Samsung Series 7 & Series 5 All-in-One PCs Feature Windows 8 & Gesture Recognition

August 28, 2012


Samsung today unveiled the Series 7 and Series 5 computers which are all-in-one PCs running Windows 8 with a touch-screen and gesture recognition. The Series 7 will be available in 23" and 27" versions, both of which utilize a 1080p touchscreen. It includes a small keyboard, which can be tucked under the display's metal stand saving on desk space. The 23" Series 7 runs a Core i5 CPU with 6GB of RAM, 1TB of storage and Intel Graphics 4000.

Microsoft Store in Danbury Fair Mall Is No Apple Store

July 9, 2012


The new Microsoft Store had its grand opening in Danbury Fair Mall recently and I wanted to check it out. I happened to be in the Danbury Fair Mall to (ironically) visit the Apple Store to have my busted iPhone replaced. [Side note - none of the Apple Store employees had ever seen my shaking screen problem and they were all oohing and ahhing over the oddity.]

Anyway, after getting my iPhone replaced I headed over to the Microsoft store, which had just opened a couple weeks earlier. I fully expected the Microsoft Store to be a cheap knockoff or clone of the Apple Store and to smirk at the audacity of Microsoft copying Apple's retail idea.


Windows on ARM - New Tablet Operating System With Some Limitations

February 10, 2012


Microsoft Windows President Steven Sinoksky OR is this Bruce Willis?

The next version of Windows will run full-sized desktop applications on low-power ARM-based tablets. However, the only desktop applications approved to appear on ARM devices will be those designed by Microsoft such as Internet Explorer 10, Office, and the Windows file explorer. Affectionately known as WOA (Windows On Arm), it includes desktop versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.


Japan Earthquake Devastates Global Chip Production

March 21, 2011


The Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor problems have had a devastating effect not just on people's live and property, but also the Japanese semiconductor industry which accounts for 25% of the global supply of silicon wafer. This will affect pricing on everything from PCs to smartphones to gadgets. Not good. Check out the news with additional information after the jump...

Hitachi Launches Three Terabytes (3TB) Drives

December 15, 2010


2TB not enough hard drive space? Looking for 3TB? Well, Hitachi GST today has launched a trio of three terabytes (3TB) hard drives.

First up, the new 3TB Hitachi Deskstar Internal Hard Drive Kit breaks the 2.2TB capacity limit on 32-bit Windows XP systems with no extra hardware required, i.e. special SATA card.


Opera Mini iPhone Review

April 13, 2010


Opera Mini has just been approved and is available in the Apple App Store. I have to admit Opera Mini was my favorite browser on my old clunky Apache 6700 Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. It was lightning fast. Opera Mini uses caching servers to compress images and text before sending the content down to your mobile device, which is what makes it so fast.

I downloaded and tested Opera Mini on my iPhone 3GS this morning and here are my thoughts.


NIC fixes VoIP for Gamers - Ok if you say so

March 24, 2009

Is it me, or this $130 NIC optimized for VoIP overkill? The idea behind this network interface card (NIC) is that it optimize packets and prioritizes games while offloading the voice processing from the CPU.

According to PC World:
...at the 2009 Game Developer's Conference, Bigfoot Networks has two announcements. The first: they are releasing the $130 Killer Xeno Pro card. The big deal this time around is that they've been able to get prices down, beef up the memory and pack on an additional chip that can offload the voice chat.


Greatest Linux Command Ever!

March 11, 2009

This is the greatest Linux command ever! Definitely my favorite.
find ./ -name \*.html -printf '%CD\t%p\n' | grep "03/10/08" | awk '{print $2}' | xargs -t -i mv {} temp/

What it does is look (find) for files that end in .html uses the printf option to format the 'find' output, then passes it to grep for searching for a certain date, then awk for printing a certain field, and finally xargs for executing a certain command.

Let's break it down...

The printf part within the find command has the format '%CD\t%p\n'.

%Cx = File's last status change time in the format specified by x. x=D. D=date in the format mm/dd/yy
\t = Horizontal tab
%p = file's name
\n = newline

So basically it outputs the file's last status change followed by a horizontal tab, then the filename, and then a new line.













Free snom Flexor CTI for Outlook Application offers Advanced Telephony Features

December 11, 2008

snom and Camrivox today announced free VoIP telephony integration with Microsoft Outlook with snom Flexor CTI software for Microsoft Outlook. Microsoft Outlook is the most widely used contact manager with a market share of over 60% of email users. A free CTI app for snom's VoIP phones? I remember the days where you had to pay thousands of dollara for a CTI server.

Black Friday Results are in!

December 1, 2008

It appears it just might be a Merry Christmas even with the doom & gloom surrounding the economy. I guess President-elect Barack Obama must be the Messiah, since he's already creating miracles and he hasn't even been sworn in yet. Or it could just be that credit card loving Americans just don't know when to quit spending & charging.

Check this out:

NRF Survey Finds Black Friday Gets Holiday Season Off to Energetic Start
-- Great Bargains, Pent-Up Demand Drove Shoppers to Stores, Web



Though the holiday season is far from over, retailers across the country are breathing a collective sigh of relief after shoppers headed to stores and websites in droves over the weekend. According to the National Retail Federation's 2008 Black Friday Weekend survey, conducted by BIGresearch, more than 172 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend, up from 147 million shoppers last year.*

Shoppers spent an average of $372.57 this weekend*, up 7.2 percent over last year's $347.55.






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