Earlier this week folks from all of Microsoft’s consumer businesses – Windows, Office, Hardware, Xbox, etc. – were in NYC for our annual holiday preview event for consumer press and analysts where we show off our latest and greatest stuff, and give them a sneak peek at what’s coming this holiday season (read: a lot). The Windows Team is showing the power of Windows 7, Windows Live, and Games for Windows on some of our newest and most eye-popping PCs, and I wanted to give you the quick rundown of what we’re showing off and why I nominated it for the show floor.  This post is kind of long, so if you want you  download the show guide in one handy-dandy document.

Asus Eee PC Karim Rashid Edition
Specs: 10.1" LED Backlight WSVGA Screen (1024x600); 250GB HDD; Atom™ N450; 1GB RAM; WLAN 802.11b/g/n; BluetoothV2.1 + EDR; 1.3M Pixels Camera;
Price point: Starting at $492

Why I picked it: It looks cool. VERY cool. The texture on the case looks and feels great, and all of the ports (even the VGA port) are concealed to present an unbroken silhouette. For the record, we brought the hot pink one.

 

HP Mini 210 Vivienne Tam
Specs: Intel Atom N450; 2GB DDR2 RAM; 250GB HDD; 10.1" 1366 x 768 antiglare display; Signature Vivienne Tam design applied with HP Imprint Technology
Price point: Starting at $599

Why I picked it: Right now it’s my favorite netbook on the market. Stunning design, excellent build quality and a very impressive skin from StarDock. Check out my review.

 

Asus Eee PC Carbon Fiber
Specs: 10.1" LED Backlight WSVGA Screen (1024x600); 160 HDD; Intel® Atom™ N450; 1GB RAM; WLAN 802.11b/g/n; 1.3M Pixels Camera
Price point: Starting at $492

Why I picked it: Asus continues to impress me with their innovative cases. This one is textured to look like carbon fiber, but since its pure polycarbonate, the price stays low.

 

Gateway LT2108u
Specs: Intel Atom N450; 1GB DDR2 RAM; 10.1” WSVGA High Brightness LED-backlit Display; 160GB HDD
Price point: Starting at $299.99

Why I picked it: It’s light, has outstanding battery life, and costs under $300. And the red caseback and LED-backlit power button give it a bit of flair.

 

Acer Aspire Timeline 5810TZ
Specs: Intel Pentium SU4100; 4GB DDR3 RAM; 15.4” Display; Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500 MHD; HD Audio Support with Dolby Sound Room

Price point: Starting at $599

Why I picked it: I reviewed this PC a few weeks ago and liked it. 8 hours of battery, slim design, and full PC specs for under $600? What could possibly be wrong with that?

 

Asus U33jc – Bamboo Collection
Specs: Intel Core i7-640UM; 4GB DDR3 RAM; NVIDIA GeForce 310M; USB 3.0; case lid made from sustainable, mature Moso bamboo
Price point: Starting at $899

Why I picked it: Lots of interesting features in this one. Great battery life, one of the first appearances of USB 3.0 in a laptop, and a caseback made from natural, sustainable Moso bamboo that makes each PC totally unique. Fun fact: Moso bamboo can grow up to 2 feet in a single day!

 

HP Pavilion dm4
Specs: Intel Core i5 Processor; 320GB HDD; 14.0’ HD LED Brightview display; Full metal chassis (aluminum + magnesium) with laser etching; ATI Radeon Mobility discrete graphics
Price point: Starting at $729

Why I picked it: Read my review for the whole rundown, but the short version is that HP introduced a laptop with great punch, differentiated design, and comfortable ergonomics at a very reasonable price.

 

Sony VAIO L
Specs: 24" Multi Touch (1920 x 1080) Display; Blu-Ray, Intel Core2Duo, 4GB RAM
Price point: Starting at $1299

Why I picked it: 24” of 1080p multi-touch beauty. Outstanding for looking at photos, watching movies, or everyday stuff like browsing the web and checking email.

 

Dell Latitude Z
Specs: 16" HD (1600 x 900) Display; Wireless Docking and Inductive Charging; 128GB SSD, Intel ULV Processor
Price point: Starting at $1799

Why I picked it: It’s the first laptop ever to offer wireless inductive charging and wireless docking. And oh, that gorgeous display…

 

Samsung R480
Specs: Intel Core i3 330; 14” LED HD Display; 4GB RAM; Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500HD; Webcam; built-in Blu-Ray drive

Price point: Starting at $829.99

Why I picked it: Core i3 and Blu-Ray player for about $800? Yes please.

 

Sony Vaio X
Specs: 11.1” Display; less than 2 lbs.; 128GB SSD; optional 3G Mobile Broadband and GPS Navigation
Price point: Starting at $1299

Why I picked it: It’s the lightest laptop ever built. It’s so feather-light that when you pick it up, you want to turn it on just to be sure that its real.

 

HP Envy 15
Specs: 15.4” 1080p display; Intel Core i7; 6GB RAM; 500GB HDD; Beats by Dr. Dre audio; ATI Mobility Radeon 5830 graphics.
Price point: Starting at $1259

Why I picked it: I can’t get enough of HP’s premium envy line. 1080p display, Core i7, laser-etched case and Beats Audio by Dr. Dre make it one of the most elite notebooks in the world. We brought the special Beats Edition and the standard laser-etched model.

Toshiba Portege R705

Specs: 13” in screen, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD (opt 512GB SSD), optional Core i3, i5, & i7 processors, DVD SuperMulti Drive
Price Point:  Starting at $800

Why I picked it: It’s brand new, and it’s the world’s lightest 13” full-feature PC.

 

Alienware M11X
Specs: 11.1” display; Intel SU4100; 256GB SSD; 8GB RAM; Switchable Intel HD + NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M graphics; up to 8 hours of battery life
Price point: Starting at $799. As I configured it for the show, $1719.

Why I picked it: Never compromise between performance and portability ever again. Read my hands-on post for a full review.

 

Toshiba Qosmio x505
Specs: Intel® Core™ i7-720QM; 4GB DDR3 memory; 640GB hard drive + 64GB solid state drive; NVIDIA® GeForce® GTS 250M discrete graphics (1GB GDDR5); Blu-ray Disc™ ROM and DVD burner; 802.11n & Bluetooth® wireless

Price point: Starting at $1199

Why I picked it: “Big Red” is one of the most powerful gaming rigs in the world. It’s comically big and mercilessly powerful.

 

Asus Republic of Gamers G51JX
Blurb: Affordable and powerful, this laptop is heavy on the action and light on the wallet
Specs: 15.6” display; Intel Core i7; NVIDIA GeForce GTS360M graphics.
Price point: Starting at $1259

Why I picked it: A full featured, high-end gaming rig for under $1300. Great design, great name, great specs, and a great price.

 

Dell Studio 15 (a.k.a. "The Muse")
Specs 15.4” 1080p display; Intel Corei7, 6GB RAM; ATI Radeon Mobility 5470 DirectX 11 graphics, 256GB SSD; Dell Design Studio custom case
Price point: Starting at $599. As configured $1900.

Why I picked it: My custom built Studio 15, The Muse, is a good representation of the sharp design and monster specs you can get in a Dell’s massively customizable Studio 15 line.

For more info on each PC, remember you can download the entire show guide. And as always, if you have a question about any of these you can leave a comment, hit me on Twitter, or Ask Ben Anything.

Apple John Hodgman’s campaign against the Mac continues to be a losing battle, at least among the readers of PC Mag, who for the umpteenth year in a row gave Apple high marks.

Sony Sony’s media-centric line of desktops are the favorites among the Windowsbased computers in our survey, despite a small market share.

When it comes to the overall satisfaction users have with their computers, Apple once again reigns supreme. The company’s Macintosh PCs—which we can all state unequivocally are actually Windows PCs too, if you want them to be—have consistently proven to be favorites among PC Mag readers. Apple’s significantly better than average (SBA) overall score (9.1 out of 10) marks it as a clear Readers’ Choice.
The company moved up significantly in scores for tech support since last year, too (8.6 SBA, up from 8.1). It suffered a little in that more of its desktop computers needed repairs this year (12 percent, instead of the 9 percent needing repair in 2008), and the likelihood of someone recommending a Mac to a friend dropped slightly to a score of 9.2 SBA. Still, these are very high marks. Even though we can call Apple computers “Windows machines” since they’re powered by the same Intel chips (and can run the same operating system), we still average the Windows-only system vendors separately, since consumers view the two Oss in such different light. And in the world of Windows vendors, not much has changed since 2008, when the average overall score was 7.6. The same goes for this year. That number held steady in part because of a nice showing this year by Sony. In fact, Sony almost didn’t make the final results in 2009, as a lower number of responses overall led to one-third as many Sony desktop owners participating in our survey. However, Sony owners who did respond are pretty happy with their VAIOs. Sony is the second Readers’ Choice vendor, with a better than average (BA) overall score of 8.2 this year— that’s half a point higher than the nearest Windows PC manufacturer, indicating satisfaction indeed. The company dropped the percentage of its desktops needing repairs by half (from 14 percent to 7 percent) from last year as well. Sony’s likelihood of receiving a recommendation to others also went up significantly, from a 7.6 in the average range last year to a BA score of 8.4 this year. Other companies saw very high percentages of products needing repairs— big names like Lenovo, Dell, and Gateway.

These numbers are very consistent with reader reports from last year (the only change was for the worse—Gateway’s fall from 18 percent to 21 percent. Needless to say, a high score on this metric doesn’t indicate pleased customers. Another interesting increase in overall satisfaction is with non-vendor PCs—those desktops readers either built themselves (which get an SBA 8.5 overall score) or bought locally from a no-name vendor (8.3 SBA overall). Yes, both types of systems received significantly better than average overall scores, giving them an edge over any Windows PC vendor, even Sony.

The other vendors in the final list either scored the same overall as last year (HP, Dell, Gateway, and Acer), or fell somewhat. Emachines went from a 7.3 to 7.2; Lenovo had the worst showing this year for an overall score in all desktops, dropping from 7.4 to a worse-than-average (WA) 7.1. HP did better this year, going from last year’s merely average 7.6 to a BA score of 7.7. Extrapolating the market share of a company based on the responses we received yields some intriguing information. Acer is the only vendor in the desktop survey to net more users than last year. It might not seem like much going from 81 responses in 2008 to 89 in 2009, but consider that every other vendor is down by double-digit percentages (17 percent in Apple’s case; 66 percent for Sony); this probably says something about how much PC Mag readers like Acer. When it comes to business-oriented PCs, Apple is still the top rated, but Windows vendors are led by Dell with an SBA 7.4. Dell also scores high for tech support, both overall and for business, and gets SBA scores for the likelihood of recommending in overall, business, and home systems. HP also scores SBAs in those three areas for likelihood of being recommended. We call that the power of the brand name.

When it comes to desktop systems that are less than one year old, the scores are always higher—after all, newer computers (hopefully) require less tech support or repair than a system with a few years and a few relocations under its skin. Apple (still the only vendor to get an SBA score) and Dell both had slight drops in their overall scores; Gateway and HP went up slightly, but are all just in the average range. Gateway and HP remain in the average range for overall scores.

Dell’s newer systems had some other issues. Last year for reliability the company scored better than the average (8.2); this year’s 8.1 doesn’t seem like much of a drop, but that score is suddenly worse than the average. It also had an SBA score of 8.2 last year for likelihood to be recommended, which fell to 8.1—merely in the average range this year.

Source of Information : PC Magazine 2009 11

AMD is set to have something great for entry-level computer buyers with the launch of their Pisces platform from Taiwan. Pisces is said to incorporate AMD’s Athlon II processors ; Propus, Rana and Regor - and a new 55nm-based 780G+ IGP chipset, together with the ATI Radeon HD 4200 GPU.

That 780G+ chipset is set to go into design validation this month, according to the sources. Motherboards using the design will then be showcased at Computex Taipei 2009 in June; AMD has only committed to launching Pisces in the second-half of 2009, as part of the AMD Live! range. While Pisces is an entry-level solution, it’s nonetheless expected to support above-1080p resolutions, 7.1-channel surround sound and 3D visuals.

Considering the vast array of desktop options that techies are looking for in the market today, this new AMD technology is a great desktop alternate for the usual Intel processors that everyone prefers. For sure though, price will vary and chances are this is a great desktop that start-up technology investing people should really consider getting especially during the hard times we are in right now.

While the launch is leaving everyone clueless on when to make further reviews and decisions, once this platform hits the market, expect a fair share of demands for it. AMD has proven it can stand in line with Intel based processors and apparently this is one desktop platform people will be looking out for.

Source

• [ Kill the Process, Use Killbox if your Access Denied ]

[In Windows Vista Run As Administrator, After Execution System Will Restart]

• %Windows\System\frmwrk32.exe
  If you have any of these files in running process from task manger, end the process before removal.
  Note: if task manager is disabled, Download the following file, Click to Download - Enable Registry.reg [ Right Click - Save Target As/Linked Content As ]
  Open it with Regedit.exe [%system32\regedit.exe], then it Confirms Add to registry Yes or No, Confirm Yes, then click Ok.