Hardware

Demo is trying to green itself and is even considering a green-only event for start-ups in the future. This time, though, there are two companies that hope to use tech to evoke environmental change.

Green Plug makes universal plugs for consumer electronics. Taking a duffel bag full of tangled cords and power adapters and dumping them on the Demo presentation stage, founder and Chief Executive Frank Paniagua declared, "The power model is broken, and we have to fix it." (See CNET's First Look video.)

His solution is Green Plug, a three-port DC hub that will recognize any … Read more

Tag is a new gadget for children that does all the work of a teacher: it gives phonics lessons, sounds out works, sings songs, and most importantly, keeps track of the student's progress.

The pen-like device is from the same company that made the LeapPad, San Francisco Bay Area-based LeapFrog.

The demo of the Tag Reading System garnered the most buzz in the morning session here at Demo 08 in Palm Desert, Calif. Using the same technology found in its current product FlyFusion, which is aimed at 8- to 13-year-olds, the Tag gadget is aimed at teaching reading to … Read more

At Demo 2008 (more stories) tomorrow morning, Toktumi's CEO, Peter Sisson, will take the stage and pitch his company's first product, a hosted small business phone system that turns PCs into virtual PBX extensions.

This is not just another consumer VoIP start-up. The whole service is designed around setting up a workgroup of phones, with a programmable auto-attendant, a touchtone directory for callers, and other business-friendly features. The service requires software on PCs (no Macs, yet) to run, but most of the heavy lifting is done on Toktumi's servers, so if a PC is offline a call … Read more

The Macalope knows the MacBook Air isn't perfect, but the amount of silly punditry it's attracting is seriously out of control.

First, did you know that the MacBook Air Lacks Features, Analysts Say (tip o' the antlers to the Rat Boy)?

It's true! And, according to squirrels, it lacks delicious nuts!

Well, pardon the Macalope for saying so, but dur-hey. He'd have to scroll through keynote again, but he's pretty sure that you don't need analysts to tell you that it "lacks features" because Steve Jobs actually said so. That "lack … Read more

The new MacBook Air laptop has one killer feature, the non-removable battery. Killer as in deal-killer. As in why would anybody use a laptop that has to be shipped back to the vendor to replace the battery? It boggles the mind. Here's why.

Have any sensitive files on your computer? Files you'd rather other people not see. Many of us do. Do you like the idea of your sensitive files sitting in a package on a UPS truck? Or being in the hands of a company Apple sub-contracted repairs to? Of course not.

Remembering to remove all the … Read more

There's a lesson to be learned from my recent attempt at replacing the hard disk on an old laptop computer.

The computer in question had originally shipped in 2001 with Windows ME, but was now running Windows XP. I suspect the RAM had also been upgraded over time, it now had 512MB. Obviously the owner wanted the machine to last as long as possible. They weren't even deterred by the fact that the lettering had worn off some of the keys on the keyboard.

In line with this, I suggested that the hard disk be replaced, not because … Read more

The Macalope's encouraged to see that Apple has enough to announce at the keynote that they can announce new Mac Pros a week before.

Well, either that or someone screwed up.

Here's an interesting question: should I turn off my external hard drive when not in use? Leo Notenboom, who I mentioned back in July, addressed this issue a few days ago on his Ask-Leo.com Web site.

In short, there is no one clear answer, a number of issues have to be considered. What surprised me, though, about Leo's answer, was that he didn't mention my reason for turning off my external hard disk.

Being a pessimist is necessary for defensive computing. The main reason I turn off my external hard disk is to protect it from … Read more

We answer questions on The Personal Computer Show and I thought a recent one would be of interest. A listener wrote (paraphrasing):

I want to buy a new monitor, to be used mostly for Office type work (spreadsheets and Word documents, etc). At present, I am using a small old CRT. Can you make a recommendation for the "sweet spot" as far as best value.

Our monitor/TV expert, Alfred Poor responded:

"A 19" monitor is probably the sweet spot these days. Keep in mind that a 19" wide format monitor is actually much smaller … Read more