First look: Lenovo ThinkPad S430

Monday, January 9th, 2012

We laid our hands on a hand-built Lenovo ThinkPad S430 at the first CES press event of 2012, CES Unveiled. Packing in a treasure trove of up-and-coming technology, there’s much to like.

First up is this:

(more…)

The best free books to read on an Amazon Kindle

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

There are so many free books available for the Kindle that you never need spend anything more once you’ve bought the device. You have the entire canons of out-of-copyright writers such as Oscar Wilde, all the Sherlock Holmes adventures you’ll ever want to read, plus a myriad of other freebies. And in a way, those other freebies are the more interesting.

Some of the books are honeypots from professional authors, hoping to lure you into their 23-part series that tells the life story of an amazing spy/explorer/dancer/footballer. There’s nothing wrong with this, just go into it with your eyes open.

Some are only briefly reduced to free as a promotion, before being shoved up to full price. You can keep an eye out for such promotions by entering your email address at www.ereaderiq.co.uk (this site also provides a slightly clumsy search mechanism for finding free books).

Then there are some that barely qualify for the terms “books” at all. O’Reilly, for instance, produces a number of very short publications about technology that feel more like extended articles. (more…)

How to earn money from your own tech A-List

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Chances are that people constantly ask you what phone to buy, what laptop, even what TV. Well now there’s a way to make money from your recommendations.

It’s the brainchild of Brian Trevaskiss and team at the MoreFrom Group, and the idea is that you rebadge morefrom.co.uk as your own site. If people order from you, you’ll get 1% commission (or more if you manually increase the price), which appears as credit in your MoreFrom account. So you don’t get cash, but you can put that money towards future purchases.

The other clever thing is that you can order from it yourself. So let’s say you’re about to buy a £1,000 laptop. By ordering it from your version of the site, you get £10 credit applied to your account. This could be of particular appeal to small businesses that rack up purchases over the course of a year.

And if your business would benefit from an online shop, MoreFrom is offering a way to rebadge its site to do precisely that. Head to www.morefrom.biz.

So how easy is it to set up your own site? Shockingly so. Allow me to demonstrate: (more…)

Join PC Pro at Byte Night 2011

Friday, July 29th, 2011

“You’ll enjoy it!” said Eleanor, in her bouncy, enthusiastic way. I had, and still have, my doubts. The idea of sleeping under the London sky on an October night isn’t my normal recipe for a fun evening, which generally involves good company, even better beer and a nice warm bed to collapse into afterwards.

But Eleanor, the London rep for Byte Night, has her way of winning arguments. The concept of the night, she explained, was to raise awareness of the thousands of young people who sleep rough each night.

Click on this link to sponsor PC Pro at Byte Night 2011

(more…)

Dell claims its customer support has improved by 90% – do you agree?

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Customer support is about as sexy as cauliflower cheese, but anyone who’s suffered a bad experience will know just how infuriating it can be. What’s even worse is when it appears that companies just don’t care, which is why my hellishly early interview with Tim Griffin this morning – who has overall responsibility for Dell’s global customer support – was so welcome.

For a start, it’s refreshing that Dell is so open to the fact that its support hasn’t always been great. “We’ve obviously not fared too well in your own surveys over the past couple of years,” Griffin said, referring to PC Pro’s annual reliability and service survey, “and it’s something we’re very cognisant of.”

(I’ll interrupt myself here to say that if you haven’t already taken part – and we do rely on a huge number of responses to make our results significant – then you have just over a week to do so. And you’ll be in with a chance of winning one of our £4,500-worth of prizes too.) (more…)

So, what was in the web host’s cupboard?

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

So you want to know what’s really in 1&1’s cupboard? Sadly nothing nearly as funny as many of the answers posted as comments to my original blog.

The real answer is the equipment that used to uphold the German directive “Gesetz zur Neuregelung der Telekommunikationsüberwachung und anderer verdeckter Ermittlungsmaßnahmen sowie zur Umsetzung der Richtlinie 2006/24/EG”.

What’s that, you’re not familiar with “Gesetz zur Neuregelung der Telekommunikationsüberwachung und anderer verdeckter Ermittlungsmaßnahmen sowie zur Umsetzung der Richtlinie 2006/24/EG”?

You really need to get out more. (more…)

What’s in the cupboard?

Friday, June 10th, 2011

Germany. It’s a curious place, with far more pretzels per head than is strictly necessary, and some of the world’s biggest datacenters – some of which are owned by web host 1&1. And I was visiting just such a datacenter (you want to be me, right?) when I spotted this:

Now, if you manage to guess what’s in the cupboard, I’ll send you a free copy of our rather fantastic Pocket Guide to Digital Photography – although you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks because it isn’t actually out yet. (If you want something sooner, you can choose any current book from our MagBooks range.)

The wittiest answer may also get a prize. We’ll see.

UPDATE: I’ve now revealed the contents of the cupboard…

If Micro Mart is building a shed at LITS, what should PC Pro build?

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

As anyone who listened to this week’s podcast will know by now, PC Pro’s sister title Micro Mart is building a shed at LITS.

For those shamefully unaware, LITS (London International Technology Show) is being organised by Dennis Publishing from  21 to 23 October. While much of the floor will be filled with exhibitors, and dedicated to particular subjects such as gaming, photography and tablets, all the Dennis titles have a chance to create their own area.

(more…)

Test

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

When a Windows 7 boot disk goes wrong

Friday, February 4th, 2011

PC Pro can be as guilty as anyone else when it comes to putting the boot into companies when they do something wrong, so just for a change let’s celebrate a company doing something good. That company: Microsoft. The something good: sorting out a tricky problem with a Windows 7 system. Well, almost.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

(more…)