Hardware

Sun Microsystems is a pioneering tech company that is having trouble getting any respect.

A Forbes article on Thursday notes that the company's market cap has dropped below $3 billion: "The company has become so toxic that no one dares to swallow it."

As Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz likes to say, the Forbes writers "over-rotate." But Sun has fallen further and harder on Wall Street than its main competitors over the last few years and months. Schwartz has bravely pushed Sun down the path of open source and created demand for its hardware and service … Read more

For a while now I've been ribbing the folks over at Sonos, the leader in affordable multiroom audio, that I wished their products came in black rather than light gray/off-white. The fact is, if you have a lot of black components, you ideally want everything to match. That's why you see the XBox 360 in black--I mean, people want the choice, right?

Well, my dreams of black Sonos were realized when an anonymous donor (who wishes to remain that way) let us take some shots of a customized ZonePlayer ZP100. It's a fairly expensive proposition--companies like … Read more

On this week's EIC Squared podcast, ZDNet's Larry Dignan and I talk about the tanking economy, the challenges facing an Obama administration CTO, and Microsoft's search quests with Verizon Wireless and Yahoo.

The holiday shopping season is looking grim as Circuit City files for bankruptcy and Best Buy lowers its forecast for its fiscal year. When will it ever end?

President-elect Obama has called for a national CTO. Given the complexity of technology infrastructure, the abundance of projects, the squeeze on budgets, and policy controversies, this will be an extremely challenging position.

We also discuss Microsoft's … Read more

The MSI Wind has been around a long time by Netbook computer standards and generally gets good reviews. Laptop magazine, for example, loved it. Back in July, CNET gave it 3.5 stars out of 5.

The model CNET reviewed was, at the time, $479. It ran Windows XP, came with an 80GB hard disk and included Bluetooth networking. If you can live without Bluetooth, you can now buy a very similar model, the Wind U100-420US, with a 120GB hard disk for only $349. For that price you get a gigabyte of RAM, an Intel Atom processor, a 10-inch matte … Read more

Netbook computers are small and underpowered, making them a turn-off for many. But consider the Honda Fit, which was raved about in The Wall Street Journal on Saturday.

The Fit is a small, cheap, underpowered 5 door hatchback. Yet, Jeff Sabatini in the Journal said, "The Fit truly offers everything you need in a car, and nothing you don't." This is exactly the niche that Netbooks seek to occupy in the laptop computer world.

Compared with other cars in its class (the Chevrolet Aveo 5, the Nissan Versa and the Scion xD), Sabatini argues that a lot … Read more

There is a common defensive computing thread in two recent stories.

In the first story, Newsweek reports that both presidential candidates had their campaign computers hacked from afar. As they put it:

The computer systems of both the Obama and McCain campaigns were victims of a sophisticated cyberattack by an unknown "foreign entity," prompting a federal investigation, both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand," an agent told Obama's team. "You have been compromised, and a serious … Read more

Dell on Wednesday began offering bundles of songs on new computers ordered through its Web site.

Just like you can add a copy of Microsoft Office or an extra hard drive, you can pick a bundle of 50 MP3 files for an extra $25 or 100 MP3s for an extra $45--that's about half the price of most download stores. The deal's limited to songs owned by Universal Music Group, one of the big four record labels.

When I first read about this, it seemed an afterthought for newbies too clueless to know how to rip CDs to their … Read more

If you are in the market for a Netbook computer there are many decisions to be made. The pictures here may help with a couple of them. Shown below are an Acer Aspire One and an Asus Eee PC 1000.

The machines are as different as any two Netbooks can be. The Acer runs Windows XP, the Asus runs Linux. The Asus has an SSD, the Acer a traditional hard disk. The Asus supports Wi-Fi N, the Acer doesn't. The smaller Acer machine has a weaker battery and was significantly cheaper.

But the picture above points out other differences (see a larger version of the picture).

The smaller Acer has a 9-inch screen, the larger Asus is 10 inches (approximately). Measuring the other sides of the triangle, the Acer screen is (approximately) 7.5 by 4.5 inches, whereas the Asus screen is 8.5 by 5 inches. Both screens have the all-but standard Netbook resolution of 1024 x 600, which means that everything is just a bit bigger and easier to see on the Asus machine. … Read more

I previously pointed out a couple of Asus Netbooks selling for less than $300. Now, one of the HP Mini-Note series has joined the elite group of really cheap Netbooks.

Liliputing, a Web site dedicated to Netbooks, reported Saturday that the HP 2133 Mini-Note just fell in price to $299 at Amazon.com.

This the bottom-of-line machine from HP's initial Netbook foray back in April.

Originally, HP sold it for $500. On September 24, it was $432, after a rebate. On October 20, it sold for $380. A couple of days later, it was $330. Now, October 25, it'… Read more