In April 2006, Dell released the predecessor to the D610 aptly called the Latitude D620. But as the case of sophomore albums with musicians, owners of the D620 are not satisfied with the machine's performance. Maybe to help others who are also in the same predicament, they have dedicated themselves to covering as much issues as they can regarding the laptop and offering some helpful hints and tips to solve these problems.

One of the problems was that the D620 hangs after the McAfee Virusscan Enterprise 8.0 is installed. What they did is they manually installed the antivirus using the CFI program and rebooted in Safe mode. After that they can then boot the D620 in normal mode and apply hot fix 11 for Virusscan Enterprise 8.0.

Second on their list is the Citrix ICA client version 9.20, would hang when trying to find an application set. What they did was uninstalled the Embassy Suite Wave software and after that they were able to configure the application set portion of the Citrix client.

They only have two so far, and let's hope it stays that way for the benefit of everyone. If you want a more detailed procedure on how to go about these two problems, then just head on to their website via the link below this article.

Several weeks ago a family experienced hell when their 11-year old kid's iBook burst into flames. It's not really the laptop but the battery packs that are to blame. As many as 43 laptop fires in the the US were reported in 2001 based on U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission records. No fatalities yet, however, there were severe injuries.

"A burning laptop is a burning laptop, and it can pretty much happen anywhere," said Carmi Levy, an Info-Tech research group analyst. And it did. This month in Osaka, Japan, a Dell laptop set on a table exploded in the middle of a boardroom meeting.

What's causing the battery packs to turn into fireballs? As laptops become faster and acquire more features, their batteries have to work harder. As the machines become slimmer, there's less room for ventilation. This combination increases the risk of a battery meltdown and a fire. "On an airplane, I would be very concerned about this kind of thing happening," Levy said.

Most laptop lithium ion batteries produce electricity through a chemical reaction that releases oxygen. When the oxygen reacts with one of the battery's components, it produces heat hot enough to melt the battery's membrane. That's when things turn ugly. Laptop companies have recalled more than 150,000 batteries since New Year's Day, 2005. Hewlett-Packard recalled 15,700 of them in April alone. Dell recalled 22,000 batteries in December and Apple recalled about 120,000 batteries in 2005.

Dell is looking into the matter but believes the Osaka incident was an isolated case. But George Bulat, director of hardware research at the research group IDC Canada, suggested that laptop vendors educate customers about the potential dangers.
"If you're going to be on a long-distance flight, be cognizant of the heat," he said. "If it's heating up, don't just put a pillow under it."

A survey conducted by TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence shows a big jump in consumer interest in Macintosh computers, particularly the desktop models. According to the survey, Apple tied with Hewlett-Packard for the No. 2 brand overall among likely PC buyers in the next six months. Although Dell has started to lose ground, it maintained its No. 1 position with 41% down from 48% in May and 55% in April.

Among those saying it's likely they'll buy a new desktop PC in the next six months, 16% said Apple was the No. 2 preferred brand - the highest number for the company since TechnoMetrica started the survey more than two years ago. Apple's rising popularity has been attributed partly  to the so-called Halo Effect from its iPod music players. "The Apple brand -- thanks to the iPod -- has gotten far more exposure among average consumers, who are thus more likely to consider other Apple products," said the market research agency. Positive word of mouth has also boosted Apple's Macs as well.

Matthew Ritter of Yanko design has designed what seems to be the no fuss, cool looking PC concept. Codenamed the XCS (Extensible Computer System) this is a simple unit where the circuitry has been hidden from the user's prying view, and all upgradable units are in the shape of external cartridges.

The idea behind this concept is that buyers are not intimidated by the complex views of the PC's internals. By this method, it makes it easier and less intimidating to upgrade their systems. If you view the thumbnailed image, you'll see each cartridge has a manufacturers name and logo embossed on it, which shows how individual parts such as the graphics card, RAM, and hard drive can be easily upgraded.

Baring in mind that this is a concept, it would be very cool to see this unusual beauty on the market in the future, and following technological trend, it would make sense to make systems that are easier to upgrade. Another argument for this movement is the way new technology is constantly being updated, and nowadays we get the impression that as soon as we purchase a unit, almost immediately it is out of date.

Dell is the first manufacturer to release a version of the Novatel XV620 express EV-DO wireless card for laptops. Verizon and Sprint are currently the only two service providers capable of providing EV-DO coverage, via their extensive EV-DO capable networks.

The card is listed on the Dell site for $161, without service of any kind of course. Based on the 34mm form factor, this card will fit both the 34 and 54mm sizes of the express card slots currently available.

Verizon and Sprint both plan to offer a branded version of this same card to their own customers in the near future. This is good news for those who own notebooks that only have express card slots and no others. I am using EV-DO right now and I can expect real world speeds between 400 and 900KBps in the down direction and a maximum of around 300KBps uploading.

While currently EV-DO service is expensive and the results are not always perfect, EV-DO brings us one step closer to having wireless broadband everywhere we go! Hopefully the industry can find a balance between profits for providers and customer satisfaction that will keep everyone happy.

Whereas desktop computers lead sedentary, uneventful lives, laptops are the "Indiana Joneses" and "Lara Crofts" of the computer world. They get dropped, spilled on, left in hot cars, frozen, rained on, stepped on, and more.

Durabook, Itronix and Panasonic have special "armored" laptops for National Geographic writers, scientists studying global warming in the Antarctic and war correspondents in the world's "hot spots." Unless you work in one of these fields, chances are you won't need anything this overbuilt. On the other hand, if a laptop is your primary machine, you'll definitely want something sturdy.

Recently, four of the top PC-compatible laptop manufacturers submitted their latest models to a series of "torture tests." Models tested were Dell's Latitude D620, Gateway's NX560X, Hewlett-Packard Compaq NC6420 and Toshiba's Tecra M5-s433, all using Intel Core Duo processors running between 1.66 and 2 GHz. 

All four models demonstrated durability under a variety of abuses. The ultimate test, however, involved a 36-inch drop (about a meter) onto a piece of plywood atop a slab of concrete. While all four models continued to boot up and retain their data after "The Drop," only one model - the Toshiba - remained fully functional.

Conclusion? While the Toshiba is definitely the durability champ, all four models have points in their favor, with Gateway's having the lowest price tag and Dell's having the most features. HP's had a nice array of "goodies" as well, but is more expensive than the others.

Even though Microsoft has stated that they will not be having a price drop for the Xbox 360 that hasn't stopped Dell from selling it at a cheaper price. Dell is offering the Xbox 360 Premium System for $40 cheaper with free ground shipping and a $10 off coupon if you use the code C99$273GQ1L4W8 (via Xboxic) brings the total for a shiny new 360 down to $350.

Those gamers out there that have been waiting for a price drop before getting a Xbox 30 now is your chance as 50 bucks off  the usual $400 is a pretty good bargain. Dell is also offering small discounts on games and accessories for the system as well.

This long awaited release is finally one week away. Many people were surprised when they realized that their new laptop was sporting a new format of PCMCIA wireless slot that would not have a compatible wireless card to go with it for months to come.

However, if tests of the pre-release version of the device, tentatively named Novatel XV620, give an accurate indication of the abilities of the release model; the new device will have appeal, as it performs at an equal or higher level than competitive devices (like the Kyocera KR1).

The new release from Novatel just recently received approval from the FCC and PCMCIA and is en route to retail locations with a release scheduled for the first week of July.

With more and more products leaving factories configured to take advantage of the EV-DO networks set up by firms like Sprint and Verizon; EV-DO is becoming an increasingly viable option for those seeking mobile access to the Internet with a decent amount of throughput in each direction.

Even though I already bought a wireless EV-DO router that converts EV-DO into wifi, I will probably still buy a Novatel XV620 because it's small and would make for one less thing for me to carry when I'm out. Dell, the first major manufacturer to adopt the express card standard on a large scale, has announced that it will also sell a re-branded version of the Novatel XV620 called the Dell Wireless 5700 Mobile Broadband Express Card starting at the end of this week.

The card is in 34mm format which fits both 54mm and 34mm slots and is the smallest of the current express card formats. Drivers and compatibility for Mac users are currently merely an afterthought for most mobile EV-DO solutions, but with the expected increase in popularity in store, the format should become more universally accepted in the near future.

We have earlier reported about the wonders of using Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper. It's good and all that but those tiny fonts are going to take a toll in your eyesight. So to prevent future optometrist bills from sky-rocketing, here's what you can do to take advantage of Ubuntu and at the same time keeping your eyes healthy. Sayanchal, most likely an Ubuntu user, has shared some tips on how to take care of your eyesight.

The first thing you could do is login to your GNOME session and click on the System > Preferences > Font menu. Then under Font Rendering select Subpixel Smoothing, afterwards you should click on Details so you could set Smoothing to subpixel and Hinting to Full. After all that, get ready to jot down some numbers on your calculator since it's time to set the dreaded DPI, which if you get wrong will not only change the font size but will also change everything displayed on the screen.

Sayanchal gives a concrete example of how you can come up with your correct DPI for your laptop, he says, "on my Dell Inspiron 640M laptop, I have a 14.1 inch widescreen display running at 1440 x 900. Now, what is 14.1 inches? Its the length of the diagonal of the screen. Now, using good old pythagoras theorem it turn out to be worth sqrt(1440^2+900^2) or approx 1698 pixels. To get the DPI, divide this by 14.1 inches to get 120.1 DPI, round to the nearest integer to set the DPI of your screen at 120. You'll have to do the above calculations for your own laptop."

If in case Firefox still doesn't display the just-right text size, click on Edit then Preferences, after which select Content then click on the Advanced button to see the Fonts and Colors section. After all that, set Display Resolutions to System settings.

I have been using Ubuntu since Breezy Badger 5.10 without any problems at all. I have a Dell desktop and I dual boot between Windows XP and Ubuntu. I recently updated from Breezy to Dapper without a hitch and from my experience Ubuntu is actually simpler to install, upgrade and use than Windows XP.

When migrating from XP or setting up a dual boot system on your hard drive there a few things you need to keep in mind before you start. Most Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, use the ext file system. Windows XP uses the NTFS file system and cannot use ext.


For a full rundown of Ubuntu-fying your laptop, read the Full Article!