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I've changed the template for the blog because it kept scaring me. Too much black background is bad for the eyes...

The slow death of RIM

Today Research in Motion (RIM) announced that it had hired bankers to give its finances a health check and to look at pairing it up with other businesses.

It's the latest in an exceptionally long line of death knells for a company that once revolutionised mobile communications.

The new version of their OS is playing catch-up with the lowly windows phone, let alone market leaders iOS and Android and their new handset prototypes look like budget android phones. The much hyped playbook tablet is a heavy, clunky mess even with the 2.0 software. with

Financially, RIM is making almost no money and unless they can pull off a miracle then there will be no turning back. Unfortunately, most of the key players who built the company are now operating in reduced roles or have jumped ship, leaving the problems to new generation of management. The consequences of a RIM collapse today would be devastating to many businesses because the BlackBerry system relies heavily on "phoning home" to the mothership for many key services, including BBM and enterprise activation. This could cause companies on budgets who rely heavily on mobile comms to "go dark" if things were shut down. If parts of RIM were sold off, the company could possibly survive. Their hardware build quality is very high, It's the software that deserves to be put out of its misery...could you imagine a BlackBerry running the Windows phone OS or Android? Is this the future or has research lost the last of its motion?

Bye Bye DVDs - Microsoft strips DVD playback from Windows 8

Today, Microsoft announced in a blog post that they will be dropping support for DVD playback from Windows 8. The only way new systems will ship with this ability is if the hardware manufacturers (OEMs) take on the cost, otherwise the end user takes on the cost.

WTF!?! was my initial reaction, as whilst we are slowly but surely moving toward an all-digital cloud-driven future, dropping support for a still popular and basic medium seems short sighted and cheap.

For a company which is floundering without much direction, this seems like yet another blow for Windows 8, which will henceforth be referred to as Vista II: This time It's personal.

By passing the option and cost onto OEMs, the consumer will see prices shoot up unnecessarily on kit that features an optical drive. I could see this decision making sense if it was only for the tablet version of Win8 or if the consumer would see any kind of benefit from this at all.

And what of Mr DIY PC who buys an OEM copy of Windows for his custom PC? Will Windows be cheaper to offset this extra cost? Oh hell no....

What of 3rd party programs/apps that rely on the OS to be able to play DVDs? Will VLC player function as a DVD player in spite of this? Or will it be the next in a long line of casualties of Microsoft ignorance?

If Windows 8 was exclusively for tablets, netbooks and ultrabooks, this would be a OK decision, but everyone will suffer from this ignorant choice.

Review - HP dm1-4004sa laptop

The HP dm1 is described by some as a netbook, which is an unfair label. The laptop provides enough power and battery life to do almost anything and has a good graphics core so that some gaming is also possible, all whilst maintaining a small footprint, making it ideal for my commutes to and from work.
My model is the dm1-4004sa, which was bought direct from HP, I can't see any difference between it and the other dm1 available from other retailers (dm1-4125ea).

HP DM1-4004SA

Review Conditions
In the interest of "journalistic integrity", I will state here that I always format and reinstall on a new laptop to kill the bloat of the OEM software.
Unfortunately as HP wants circa £30 for a restore DVD, my laptop is running Windows 7 professional rather than the Home Premium available out of the box.
Specification
AMD Fusion E-450 APU 1.65 GHz with Radeon 6320M graphics
4GB DDR3 RAM
500GB Hard drive @ 5400rpm
11.6" Screen (1280x800px)


Physical and Hardware
This laptop is all shiny black and silver plastic, which looks fantastic. In practice it attracts dust and fingerprints like nothing on earth. The touchpad design is a series of bumps across the bottom bezel, but it is very responsive and beats the terrible all in one clickpad things that HP had in most of their laptops last year.

The keyboard uses the now-defacto "island" design, which keeps each key seperate from the others. The key size is slightly smaller than I would like, but this is down to the choice to use the island design.

The vents are located on the left side and unlike many other laptops, don't lend themselves to being easily covered up in use so overheating is not a large issue.

The display is excellent, even when brightness is turned down to minimum levels I could still use it fine. Some people with poorer eyesight may find this more of a challenge.

The sound quality of the system is phenomenal, the beats audio speakers put those in my larger laptop to shame. Using appropriate headphones only enhances the experience.

It is very lightweight and can be comfortably held in one hand.

Operating System and Software
The laptop comes with Windows 7 Home Premium preinstalled (as mentioned above) along with the usual OEM "goodies", including an Office 2010 home and student trial, Antivirus trial and lots of unnecessary bloatware.

One very good bit of software included is the AMD Fusion Catalyst control centre (or center, depending on which side of the pond you are reading this from) which enhances the power management and has allowed me to get over eight hours of battery life from the dm1, when doing basic office apps and watching some video.

Gaming has been pleasantly surprising on the machine. It's not going to run the latest Call of Duty/Battlefield at high framerate, but it ran The Sims 3 and Tropico 4 on standard settings without issue for me.

Overall
HP has scored a huge goal with this laptop, its ideal for those who want a portable Windows 7 device with the power of larger counterparts.


The laptop is lightweight, can hold a battery charge for a long time and (if you're OK with dust and fingerprints) looks very flashy too.

Buy one, buy one now!

IT GUY SCORE: 10/10