Tablet PC's

Electronic tablet more than notable in features. "The huge Consumer Electronics Show concludes in Las Vegas Sunday with what boils down to a single word of advice about what could be the hottest stuff in personal technology this year . . . That's tablets along the lines of yellow legal pads or Big Chief grade-school notebooks. But these are equipped with digital technologies that are supposed to replace our laptop computers, our television sets, our iPods and even our yellow legal pads. . . "

Faster processor

Intel cranks out new Pentium 4
February 2, 2004

"Intel on Monday served up a large helping of megahertz with five new Pentium 4 processors for desktop PCs.

The new Pentium 4s, which are expected to spawn a number of new desktop PC models, include three chips based on a fresh processor design, code-named Prescott. Intel also is adding two new versions of its current Pentium 4, dubbed Northwood. A sixth chip, running at 3.4GHz, will be announced Monday, but it won't be available until later in the quarter.

The first Prescott chips run at speeds of 2.8GHz, 3GHz and 3.2GHz, Intel said. The chipmaker will distinguish Prescott chips from Northwoods by marking them with an "E." The chips--with the exception of the 3.4EGHz--are available in systems Monday. The 3.4EGHz is expected around March, a source familiar with Intel's plans said."

Top 10 Electronic Products for 2004

Best of CES 2004.
"This year's Consumer Electronics Show is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever, with more than 110,000 attendees and 1.3 million square feet of booth space. With so much to check out, CNET's editors had a tough time narrowing down 10 products to be considered the best of the show. But after much debate, our editorial team selected the 10 that they consider the crème de la crème of CES."

New Buzzwords - Utility Computing

IDC bullish on utility computing spending - January 14, 2004

"As technology suppliers ease systems management, spending for products that deal in utility computing will surge in coming years, analyst firm IDC is predicting.

Spending of $1 billion in 2003 is expected to double this year and to increase to about $4.6 billion in 2007, IDC said in a conference call Tuesday.

An idea sweeping the computing industry, utility computing--known by various labels such as on-demand, adaptive or organic computing--has spurred all large technology suppliers to action. The companies are seeking ways to address customer complaints about the complexity of installing, operating or changing their computing gear.

IBM, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard are hard at work, increasing the automation of their gear so that a collection of servers, storage and networking gear will automatically reconfigure themselves to adjust to changing work loads or equipment failure. Related software is emerging from companies such as EMC, Computer Associates International and Microsoft. Even Intel is getting into the act, planning technology called Vanderpool to make it easier for one processor to handle multiple tasks simultaneously."

Comment: About time!

Links to Computer Sites

The following are just a few of the technical journals staff should be reviewing monthly.

http://www.infoworld.com/
http://www.networkcomputing.com/
http://www.iwsubscribe.com/newsletters/
http://www.techweb.com/
http://www.zdnet.com/
http://www.nwfusion.com/
http://register.microsoft.com/regsys/
http://www.tsif.com (includes speed test for your computer).

Digital Dictation

Digital Dictation Ain't Voice Recognition. Recent article describing the benefits of dictating in a digital format. http://practice.findlaw.com/worldbeat-1203.html

Links