Hardware

Oracle’s bombshell: We might buy HP

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , ,

And if the HP situation couldn’t get any weirder, Forbes speculates that Larry Ellison and Mark Hurd might attempt a takeover of HP if its share price drops far enough. HP and Oracle once were close partners, but now they hate each other.

I think it might be a little more complicated.

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How about hard drives that vary their speed based on workload?

Dave Farquhar Hardware

Facebook wants hard drives that slow down when the data they hold isn’t in high demand. They estimate that slowing a drive from 7200 RPM down to 3600 RPM could cut its power usage from 7W to 3W.

We already do something like this with other hardware. Why not with hard drives?
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Intel fixes a major issue with its 320-series SSDs

Dave Farquhar Hardware

Intel 320-series SSDs have an obscure bug in their firmware that can cause them to change from a multi-gigabyte SSD to an 8 MB pumpkin. Intel finally found the issue and posted a fix.

This might explain why supplies of Intel 320s have been a bit sporadic lately. If you have an Intel 320, get ready to download and install the update. You may want to wait just a few days to make sure there are no issues with it, as SSD updates in general tend to be, shall I say, rushed.

Psst! Want a cheap tablet?

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , ,

HP figured out what to do with all those unsold tablets. Friday they dropped the price in Canada to $99 and $149, depending on the memory. And this weekend, they’re doing the same in the States.

They’re underpowered and they’re orphans, but at that price, I’ll bet they’ll sell.

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Lenovo and IBM look back at IBM’s PC exit

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Register reports that Lenovo is gloating over its purchase of IBM’s PC division and its turnaround efforts, while IBM doesn’t regret pulling out, at all, even going so far as to call the PC dead. Who’s right?

Lenovo. Though IBM was right to get out–but the PC is only as dead as the television. Old media doesn’t go away quickly. Radio was supposed to make newspapers go away, and it’s only now, 90 years later, that newsprint is hurting. The old stuff adapts and evolves and finds new uses. Some people argue that if newspapers were managed better, they wouldn’t be hurting, but that’s a different issue. Let’s talk IBM PCs.
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Bombshell: HP pulls out. Of tablets and desktop PCs.

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , , , , ,

And speaking of duds, it looks like HP has one on their hands in their Web OS-based tablets.

Best Buy has about a quarter-million unsold tablets in their warehouse and has only managed to sell 25,000 of them. And when Woot ran a special on them, selling them for $120 off, they sold a whopping 612 of them.

And now it looks like HP is just going to discontinue Web OS altogether.
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Google drops a bombshell, buys Motorola

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , ,

I was shocked to read today that Google went out and plunked down $12.5 billion for Motorola. I’m sure that other Android phone makers aren’t exactly happy about it–it means Google is going to be competing with them, unless Google just bought Motorola for patents–but I don’t really see how Google had much choice.

Google risks alienating its partners, but…. More on that in a minute.
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64 bits or bust

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , ,

I’ve resisted the pull to AMD64, for a variety of reasons. I’ve had other priorities, like lowering debt, fixing up a house, kids in diapers… But eventually the limitations of living with 2003-era technology caught up with me. Last week I broke down and bought an AMD Phenom II 560 and an Asus M4N68T-M v2 motherboard. Entry-level stuff by today’s standards. But wow.

If you can get one, an AMD Phenom II x4 840 is a better choice, but those are getting hard to find. And if you can’t afford a $100 CPU there are bargains at the very low end too: A Sempron 145 costs less than $45, and a dual-core Athlon II x2 250 costs $60.  The second core is worth the money.
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Happy birthday, IBM PC!

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Retro Computing , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The IBM PC 5150 turns 30 today.

IBM didn’t invent the personal computer, but if your computer has an Intel or AMD CPU in it, it’s the direct descendant of the beige box IBM unleashed on the world on August 12, 1981. Without a huge amount of effort, it’s even possible to run most of that old software on your shiny new PC. You probably wouldn’t want to, except out of curiosity, but you can do it.

I wasn’t one of the people who rushed out and got one. At the time, I was still watching Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers. I had my first experience with a computer–a Radio Shack TRS-80–in 1982, and the first computer my family bought was a Commodore 64 in 1984. Even in 1984, there were still plenty of people who questioned why anyone needed a computer in their home. My introduction to the IBM PC and PC-DOS didn’t happen until 1987.
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Tom’s Hardware asks: Is an SSD the best upgrade for a slightly old PC?

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,

Not surprisingly, they find the answer is yes. Specifically, that a PC equipped with an SSD gets about a 30% across-the-board performance increase.

I don’t agree with everything Tom’s Hardware say in the conclusion, namely, that it’s pointless to put an SSD in a netbook. Indeed, when you put an SSD in a netbook, you get several benefits: improved latency, improved battery life, and much faster boot/resume times, all of which are useful.
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