The Desktop is Dead, Long Live the Laptop

Recent market statistics are suggesting that laptops are now outselling desktops. The main reason for this trend is price. Never in the history of computing has laptop computing been so cheap, with hardware available can to purchased for as little as £300.

Apart from costs there are other factors to consider, the hardware itself is better than it was, longer battery life, faster processors, bigger hard drives and better displays and graphics.

People's lifestyles are different; they have a more mobile lifestyle, working from home, the office and clients' offices.

The third main point is connectivity. It has never been so good or as economical. WIFI is widespread and mobile phone companies are offering better data cost deals and hardware for connecting laptops to the mobile phone networks.

I have one word of caution before you jump on the laptop wagon. Although these devices are now outselling desktops please consider that desktops are still the power house of computing if power is what you need, the larger form factor lends itself better to cooling and more power delivery to components. Desktops by thier nature do not move around and are less likely to incur accidents such as being dropped, normally fatal to a laptop. Security should also be considered, very rarely is a desktop left in the back of a taxi or stolen from the seat of your car.

As computing for most of us consists of browsing the Internet, reading email and running a few office applications the laptop is now king, and can do all this almost anywhere but if you want that little more and are happy that your computers stays put, don't forget the good old desktop.

By Grant Peck

Small is wonderful

OQO has released their second-generation portable PC, model 02, that the company promises is four times faster and has a display six times brighter than the previous model.

It's been redesigned from the previous model with TouchScrollers for easy input and navigation, and now boasts EV-DO Wireless WAN, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.

The standard model comes with 1.5GHz processor, 60GH hard disk drive, and 1GB of RAM. It weighs a featherlight 1lb, and measures 5.6 x 3.3 x 1in.

To make it easier to use the model 02, which is powered by VIA's recently released C7M ultra mobile processor, OQO has also provided a docking station, which allows easy connection to a display, keyboard, mouse, wired networking, and a slot-loading optical drive.

Other features include a battery life of up to 6 hours, an integrated microphone, and an HDMI socket for output connectivity.

And of course, it's Windows Vista-capable, and costs £1108.91, including VAT.

Web users are being warned about a widely spammed e-mail teaser promising a trailer of the film ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End’, and the chance of free tickets.

The e-mail, which contains the familiar skull-and-crossbones logo of the film franchise, has been targeted at movie-goers in Europe and North America, said internet security software firm Sophos.

Rather than a trailer, the e-mail has a copy of the Troj/Yar-A Trojan horse attached. If cinema fans run the attached file they are shown a fake error message and the Trojan horse downloads malicious code from the internet while disabling anti-virus software.

"There is no film preview and there are no free tickets," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"The only thing that this e-mail is trailing is an attack wave of malicious code against your PC.

More ...

Online sales to hit £28bn by 2011

Access to cheap broadband is driving online sales, which were up by 34% to £10.9bn in 2006, according to Verdict Research.

More than one pound in three of sales growth went to an online shop, it said. This was 13 times faster than the retail sector as a whole.

Verdict expects food and value retailers to stay out of the race to build online sales because of logistics or business model requirements. However it predicts online sales in the UK to reach £28.1bn, 8.9% of all retail spending, by 2011.

“By then the typical spend of an online shopper will grow to £1,056 per year,” it said.

More ...

SMEs ‘failing to keep up with web developments’

SMEs are failing with their web marketing and are not aware of new interactive web applications, according to a report by Mediasurface.

The web content management firm surveyed 179 small to medium-sized enterprises, and found that 61% did not believe their website reflected their company’s brand.

Of those questioned, 52% were unaware how often their sites were updated, and 11% did not even have a web presence.

The survey found that 37% of companies updated their websites weekly and 11% monthly.

Despite the wide-ranging publicity helping to promote Web 2.0 interactive apps, 41% of respondents were still unaware of Web 2.0.

Of the companies that were aware of Web 2.0, only 37% believed that such technology would impact on their business.

Andy Peart, chief marketing officer at Mediasurface, said the results implied that the message about Web 2.0 and its opportunities may be getting through to large firms, but not smaller ones.

More ...