Bear's Tech Page

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Apple MacBook Pro Summer 2009 (Core 2 Duo 2.26GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Nvidia GeForce 9400M, 13-inch)

Editors' Note (April 13, 2010): Apple has updated its line of MacBook Pros with new Intel processors and improved Nvidia graphics. See CNET's coverage of the Spring 2010 MacBook Pros for more information.

Radically overhauled last year, Apple's MacBook line of laptops moved to aluminum construction, edge-to-edge glass over LED displays, and oversize multitouch trackpads (with the exception of the lone $999 white plastic model). The latest round of updates is more of a refinement than another revolution, but it adds some much-sought-after features, while lowering prices on many configurations.

Most notable, the 13-inch aluminum unibody MacBook has ... Expand full review

Most notable, the 13-inch aluminum unibody MacBook has been promoted to join the MacBook Pro family. It's a move that makes sense, as the differences between the two lines were becoming increasingly blurred. To complete the transformation, the 13-inch Pro regains its missing FireWire port, making it even more useful for creative professionals on the go.

New to the Pro line is something we never thought we'd see on a MacBook: an SD card slot. Standard on the 13- and 15-inch Pro laptops, this corrects one of our main MacBook annoyances. We're also pleased to see the backlit keyboard--previously found in only the more expensive 13-inch versions--filter down to even the $1,149 base model (which is a nice discount from the previous $1,299 entry price).

Some have strong feelings about the nonremovable battery--similar to those already found on the MacBook Air and 17-inch Pro. It's a legitimate concern, but we think the promise of better battery life (Apple claims up to a 40 percent improvement), and three times as many recharge cycles as older batteries is just as important.

There are still a few items on our 13-inch wish list--matte screens, mobile broadband options, Blu-ray--but Apple has done an admirable job filling in some of the major missing pieces. By offering more features for less money, the 13-inch MacBook Pro remains one of the most universally useful laptops available.

Price as reviewed / Starting priceNvidia GeForce 9400M (integrated)System weight / Weight with AC adapter

The design and construction of the system remain largely the same as last year's model, with a solid block of aluminum carved down, rather than a thin outer shell that has had support struts added to it. It's both lighter and sturdier than the older plastic versions of the 13-inch MacBook.

The new Pro also retains the same oversize trackpad, where the entire surface depresses like a button--although a simple tapping (as on a PC laptop) will also work once you turn that option on in the settings menu. We've become accustomed to the two-, three-, and four-finger multitouch gestures, which let you hide all your apps by sweeping four fingers up on the pad, or bring up the application switcher by sweeping four fingers left or right. Once you get used to that, going back to a regular touch pad is difficult.

According to Apple, the new display offers a wider color gamut, and the screen certainly looks bright and colorful, but we wish the same matte-screen option offered on the 17-inch MacBook Pro was available across the line. The 13.3-inch wide-screen LCD offers a 1,280x800-pixel native resolution, which is standard for screens this size, but we'd love to see Apple try its hand at a 16:9 laptop display.

While the LED screen means a thinner lid and some battery life benefits, the edge-to-edge glass covering the entire display panel grabs stray light rays with ease, making the glossy screen hard to see in some lighting conditions.

Average for category [thin-and-light]Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacksStereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks2 USB 2.0, Mini-FireWire 800, SD card reader3 USB 2.0, Mini-FireWire, SD card readerEthernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth,Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional WWAN

By bringing back the FireWire port (now FireWire 800) and adding an SD card slot, Apple has addressed most of our most pressing issues with the previous 13-inch model. Pro photographers will point out that they usually use CompactFlash cards, but the rest of us won't have to always remember to pack a USB card reader or cable to directly connect our cameras. Connecting to another video display, however, will require a sold-separately dongle for the Mini-DisplayPort video output.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro performed as expected in our benchmark tests, with the 2.26GHz GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU roughly on par with the 2.4GHz processor in the late-2008 version of the 13-inch MacBook. Trading up to the faster 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo available in the 15-inch MacBook Pro yields a marked improvement on paper, but for most anecdotal use--Web surfing, working on office documents, multimedia playback--any of the current MacBooks will be more than adequate. An even faster 3.08GHz CPU is available on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, but the 13-inch model tops out at 2.53GHz.

Hide Review Next page

We found the same Nvidia GeForce 9400 graphics as last time--a GPU that redefined the meaning of integrated graphics. The previous 13-inch MacBook gave us almost 60 frames per second in Quake IV (admittedly not the most hardware-intensive game) at 1,024x768-pixel resolution. Only the 15- and 17-inch versions offer the second, discrete GeForce 9600 GPU. But being able to play new games, even at lower resolutions, on this system is a major plus for nonhardcore gamers.

The new battery in the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros is nonremovable, but Apple claims the system can last up to 7 hours while surfing the Web, and about half that for DVD playback. To assuage concerns about the sealed battery, according to Apple, the new models are good for at least 1,000 full recharge cycles--which it estimate to be about five years of use. We were able to run the system for 5 hours and 42 minutes on our video playback battery drain test, which is about 40 minutes longer than the current 15-inch MacBook and more than an hour longer than the basic white MacBook--the only model Apple still offers with the older removable battery.

Unfortunately, we haven't seen any changes to the basics of Apple's warranty and support plans. New MacBooks still include a standard one-year, parts-and-labor warranty, but only 90 days of toll-free telephone support. This, along with the proprietary nature of Apple's products, makes purchasing an extended Apple Care warranty almost a necessity, but a necessity that will cost $249 for three total years of coverage for 13-inch systems and $349 for 15- and 17-inch models.

Annual operating cost (@$0.1135/kWh)Multimedia Multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 15.4 inch - 2.8GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT)
Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 15.4 inch - 2.8GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9400M)
Apple MacBook - 2008 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.4GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9400M)
Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.26GHz
Apple MacBook - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.13GHz
Adobe Photoshop CS3 image-processing test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 15.4 inch - 2.8GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT)
Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 15.4 inch - 2.8GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9400M)
Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.26GHz
Apple MacBook - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.13GHz
Apple MacBook - 2008 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.4GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9400M)
Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 15.4 inch - 2.8GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9400M)
Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 15.4 inch - 2.8GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT)
Apple MacBook - 2008 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.4GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9400M)
Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.26GHz
Apple MacBook - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.13GHz
Video playback battery drain test (in minutes)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.26GHz
Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 15.4 inch - 2.8GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT)
Apple MacBook - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.13GHz
Apple MacBook - 2008 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.4GHz (Nvidia GeForce 9400M)

Find out more about how we test laptops.

System configurations:
Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.26GHz
OS X 10.5.7 Leopard; Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26GHz; 2048MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 9400M; 160GB Hitachi 5,400rpm

Apple MacBook Pro - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 15.4 inch - 2.8GHz
OS X 10.5.7 Leopard; Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 9400M / 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT; 500GB Hitachi 5,400rpm Apple MacBook - 2008 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.4GHz OS X 10.5.5 Leopard; Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz; 2048MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 9400M; 250GB Toshiba 5,400rpm

Dell Adamo
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U9300; 2048MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 779MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 4500MHD; 128GB Samsung SSD

Apple MacBook - Summer 2009 - Core 2 Duo 13.3 inch - 2.13GHz
OS X 10.5.7 Leopard; Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13GHz; 2048MB DDR3 SDRAM 800MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 9400M; 160GB Hitachi 5,400rpm

View the original article here

MoreVisibility’s Tenured Team Surpasses Rigorous Google AdWords...

Boca Raton, FL (PRWEB) January 18, 2011

MoreVisibility, one of the world's largest and most experienced search engine marketing and optimization (SEM/SEO) agencies, today announced that ten of its team members have been recognized as being Google AdWords Certified.

This newly overhauled certification is only granted to individuals meeting specific qualifications set by Google. The rigorous process was revamped in 2010 to require individuals to pass two strenuous exams instead of one, dramatically increasing its difficulty. MoreVisibility is pleased that ten team members have taken and passed the Google AdWords Fundamentals exam as well as one of the challenging Advanced exams. The assessments pinpoint the individuals’ knowledge of Analytics, AdWords policies, Paid Search Advertising, and Google platform. MoreVisibility is one of the first companies to have its team recognized under the new certification program.

Also worth noting is MoreVisibility’s current Google Analytics Certified Partner (GACP) status. The agency is honored to be among only a handful of companies awarded this partnership.

“Google continues to lead the way in terms of stringent credentials for certification. We are very proud of the fact that so many of our team members have taken and passed these new tests as it represents their commitment to continuing education and best serving the needs of our clients,” noted company CEO Dennis Pushkin.

MoreVisibility’s tenured team coupled with their knowledge, dedication, and enthusiasm continue to help their clients make meaningful improvements in the profitability of their online marketing efforts.

About MoreVisibility

Founded in 1999, MoreVisibility is one of the world's leading Search Engine Marketing, Optimization and Design firms, having helped hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies and small businesses increase qualified traffic to their Web sites. In 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 MoreVisibility was named to the Inc 500/Inc 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing privately owned firms. MoreVisibility is a Google AdWords Certified Partner, Google Analytics Certified Partner and a member of the MSN Search Council.

MoreVisibility boasts high client retention through a team of 30 senior professionals who deliver superior performance and measurable results. Notable clients served include Direct Marketing Association (DMA), Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dairy Council of California, RSM McGladrey, The Mayo Clinic, Travel Nevada, Ritz Carlton Residential Suites and Clemson University. The company is based in Boca Raton, Fla., and can be found on the web at http://www.MoreVisibility.com.

# # #

View the original article here

The Long Awaited Pocket I.T. Application Is Now Available In The...

Gilbert, AZ (PRWEB) January 18, 2011

Arizona App Design LLC has released Pocket I.T., a “mobile helpdesk application” that allows users to search and find answers on how to resolve technical issues they are experiencing with several devices. It gives I.T. organizations a tool to help them maximize on productivity by putting a self-help app in the hands of their staff. The new Android application will feature a number of key devices to search and troubleshoot technical issues from basic to more advanced levels.

“The popularity of the Pocket I.T. application is quickly spreading across multiple geographies,” said Eric Tampellini, owner of Arizona App Design LLC. “As an I.T. professional for a very large law firm, I have found my attorneys serve their clients with greater productivity when technology works.” There are two components or markets for this app and the first is that any user has to deal with less than perfect technology. This app will provide them with a tool to not only keep them on track but more importantly on task. The second component is that doctors, lawyers, smaller companies that have an I.T. professional on call can’t always get the response time they need. For example, a smaller law firm’s attorney uses and relies on their smartphone. John Daniels III Esq. of Fennemore Craig Law Firm located in Phoenix, Arizona had this to share - “Our phones are a place of business for many and Pocket I.T. provides professionals with a tool to help us overcome a non-working asset.” As we seek to reduce friction in the user experience with laptops, HTC and smartphones, air cards and, in the future, basic software applications, we are taking advantage of the unique features of each mobile platform. In the case of our Android app, we’re leveraging the Android’s voice search capabilities to make searching technical problems easier and faster.”

The Pocket I.T. application for Android includes features such as:

•Multiple Devices – An app screen will present the user with the opportunity to select a device to troubleshoot, Laptops, Andriod Phones, iPhone, Blackberry, air cards, and soon the WIN7 phones.

•Ease of search – Once the device is selected the user will be able to search by keywords, “my email is not syncing.” The app will then present the user with a narrow list of specific questions related to Email and syncing issues on the device they selected earlier.

•Multiple solutions – There are many possible solutions to fix any given problem. If the first solution does not work for the user they will have the ability to pull up a secondary and third solution.

•Feedback – User ability to leave feedback and post solutions that worked for them.

•Social Network Access – Users can share the solution that worked for them with their friends and family on Facebook and Twitter.

•Voice search – In addition to type search, the Pocket I.T. application will provide updates at a later time with speech-to-text voice search.

# # #

View the original article here

VKernel Releases Upgraded Capacity Management Suite Version 2.2

(Vocus/PRWEB) January 18, 2011

VKernel, the number one provider of capacity management products for virtualized data centers and cloud environments, today announced the general availability of VKernel Capacity Management Suite 2.2 (CMS 2.2), an upgrade to the 2010 VMworld Virtualization Management Best of Show winner. This release is designed to meet ever growing demand for larger virtualization initiatives. To enable this scale up, CMS 2.2 supports new Active Directory integration, vCenter integration, business unit views and reporting, high performance storage configurations, enhanced capacity planning, and advanced chargeback capabilities.

Virtualization Growth Increases Environment Complexity
As organizations shift from phase I virtualization projects that involved basic IT functions to more advanced mission critical applications, both the scale and complexity of virtual machine deployments grows significantly. Data center staff in expanding environments must manage a vastly increased volume of virtual machines and the complex resource allocations that support them. This allocation problem only worsens with scale causing performance bottlenecks, poor ROI and unhappy customers. Tapping into capacity management experience with over 600 customers, CMS 2.2 delivers scale-enabling improvements to efficiently manage shared resources in environments ranging from hundreds to thousands of virtual machines. This solution is provided in a simple to download, easy to deploy, fast time to results application suite.

Integration into Active Directory and vCenter
Virtualization administrators managing a growing environment soon find their time constrained as the complexity of the virtualized environment intensifies. Thus, any automated administrative action saves time that can then be committed to tasks requiring manual involvement. CMS 2.2 introduces out-of-the-box integration with VMware vCenter and Microsoft Active Directory where a large number of system maintenance actions originate:
Automated User Management Through Active Directory – User creation, deletion, and management is now completely automated through integration into Microsoft Active Directory. CMS respects the same permissions already specified for vCenter. CMS Launches from Within vCenter – CMS 2.2 eliminates the need to open a separate browser session, authenticate, and locate a virtual object to examine by launching from within VMware vCenter with a virtual object already selected. CMS 2.2 also automatically synchronizes with the vCenter folder structure created used to subdivide an environment.

Environment Management at the Business Unit Level
CMS 2.2’s vCenter folder synchronizing integration supplies the basic structure to subdivide an environment into manageable segments based on infrastructure. However, capacity management may involve additional groupings at both a business unit and functional level. CMS delivers the ability to flexibly organize the virtual infrastructure above and beyond the vCenter infrastructure view. These groupings can be used to manage and report on only the virtual machines, hosts, and clusters that relate to particular business needs. Additionally, groupings can be nested to allow for detailed drill-downs of sub-groups or sub-functions, virtual objects can be included in multiple views and chargeback rates can be set at these different levels.

High Performance Storage Configuration Support
CMS 2.2 introduces capacity management visibility into RDMs and now includes IOPS in capacity calculations. Visibility into RDMs supports storage configurations that are becoming increasingly common as organizations strive to deliver top performance to a select group of applications. Factoring IOPS into capacity calculations aids data centers in matching the disk I/O demands of virtual machines to the storage hardware they draw on. Monitoring this performance metric further ensures that capacity bottlenecks based around the server/SAN connection can be quickly resolved or avoided all together.

Enhanced Capacity Planning
Virtualized environments are dynamic and can change substantially in a matter of days. Planning for the future with a snapshot of the present environment may lead to obsolete results for when the capacity will be allocated days or weeks later. CMS 2.2 adds support to make this information more accurate by allowing a user to access predicted capacity availability for the exact day in the future when capacity will be allocated. This “future state” of the environment is derived from mathematical extrapolation of resource load usage patterns and resource usage trending. CMS will also show the number of VMs that were added or deleted from a host or cluster over a 30 day period to show much change has recently occurred within each host.
“I look forward to taking advantage of the new features in VKernel’s CMS 2.2, especially being able to get a precise measure of how much capacity I have for the point in time when I actually need it, to being able to assess capacity availability based on the predicted future state of our environment,” said Tony Marando, Associate Director of Network Services for inVentivHealth. “As our network environment has grown, we’ve seen the demands of managing our infrastructure increase tremendously. VKernel helps in keeping the workloads of our hardware and staff under control, and this new release will help us streamline further.”

Enhanced Chargeback Capabilities
Finally, CMS 2.2 introduces VKernel Chargeback 3.0 which features functionality that streamlines chargeback report and bill creation, and allows for tiered billing. Chargeback is now fully integrated into the Capacity Management Suite, further reducing vCenter overhead and making it quick and easy to view usage and allocation costs associated with virtual objects selected in vCenter. Chargeback 3.0 allows organizations to customize chargeback reports that can double as bills for resource usage by adding logos. Additionally, specific ESX hosts and datastores can be associated with pricing tiers to more accurately reflect the way that many data centers that chargeback or cloud providers .

“We’ve continued seeing capacity management grow in importance as virtualization projects scale up and implement new high performance configurations,” said Alex Bakman, Chief Technology Officer for VKernel. “VKernel’s CMS 2.2 release will meet the needs we’ve identified with our largest, fastest growing and most cutting edge customers so that organizations can scale their environments effectively and confidently.”

General Availability
VKernel Capacity Management Suite 2.2 is available immediately for purchase or a free 30 day trial at http://bit.ly/VKernel-CMS. Products integrated into the suite include Capacity Analyzer 5.1, Optimization Pack 2.1, Chargeback 3.0, and Inventory 1.0. Pricing starts at $299 per socket per application.

About VKernel
VKernel is the number one provider of virtualization capacity management solutions for VMware and Microsoft virtualized infrastructures and cloud environments. Our powerful, easy to use and affordable products simplify the complex and critical tasks of planning, monitoring and predicting capacity utilization and bottlenecks. Used by over 45,000 system administrators, the products have proven their ability to maximize capacity utilization, reduce virtualization costs and improve application performance.

Media Contact:
Lisa Williams
+1 (781) 924-1171
lwilliams(at)vkernel(dot)com

###

View the original article here

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700

AMD, you've had a good run.

Intel announced its line of Core 2 Duo desktop CPUs today. If you're buying a new computer or building one of your own, you would be wise to see that it has one of Intel's new dual-core chips in it. The Core 2 Duo chips are not only the fastest desktop chips on the market, but also the most cost effective and among the most power efficient. About the only people these new chips aren't good for are the folks at AMD, who can claim the desktop CPU crown no

... Expand full review AMD, you've had a good run.

We've given the full review treatment to two of the five Core 2 Duo chips. You can read about the flagship $999 Core 2 Extreme X6800 here and the entire Core 2 Duo series here. In this review, we examine the next chip down, the $530 2.67GHz Core 2 Duo E6700. While the Extreme X6800 chip might be the fastest in the new lineup, we find the E6700 the most compelling for its price-performance ratio. For just about half the cost of AMD's flagship, the $1,031 Athlon 64 FX-62, the Core 2 Duo E6700 gives you nearly identical, if not faster performance, depending on the application.

As we outlined in a blog post a month ago, the Core 2 Duo represents a new era for Intel. It's the first desktop chip family that doesn't use the NetBurst architecture, which has been the template for every design since the Pentium 4. Instead, the Core 2 Duo uses what's called the Core architecture (not to be confused with Intel's Core Duo and Core Solo laptop chips, released this past January). The advances in the Core architecture explain why even though the Core 2 Duo chips have lower clock speeds, they're faster than the older dual-core Pentium D 900 series chips. The Core 2 Extreme X6800 chip, the Core 2 Duo E6700, and the $316 Core 2 E6600 represent the top tier of Intel's new line, and in addition to the broader Core architecture similarities, they all have 4MB of unified L2 cache. The lower end of the Core 2 Duo line, composed of the $224 E6400 and the $183 E6300, have a 2MB unified L2 cache.

We won't belabor each point here, since the blog post already spells them out, but the key is that it's not simply one feature that gives the Core 2 Duo chips their strength, but rather it's a host of design improvements across the chip and the way it transports data that improves performance. And out test results bear this out.

On our gaming, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Photoshop tests, the E6700 was second only to the Extreme X6800 chip. Compared to the 2.6GHz Athlon 64 FX-62, the E6700 was a full 60 frames per second faster on Half-Life 2, it finished our Microsoft Office test 20 seconds ahead, and it won on the Photoshop test by 39 seconds. On our iTunes and multitasking tests, the E6700 trailed the FX-62 by only 2 and 3 seconds, respectively. In other words, with the Core 2 Duo E6700 in your system, you'll play games more smoothly, get work done faster, and in general enjoy a better computing experience than with the best from AMD--and for less dough.

CPU Limited custom Half-Life 2: Lost Coast demo (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast 1,024x768 no AA, no AFOffice productivity test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Microsoft Office productivity test (Word, Excel, and Powerpoint)Photoshop CS2 image-processing test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Adobe Photoshop CS2 image-processing testiTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Hide Review Next page Multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
DivX 6.1 and McAfee VirusScan 2006 multitasking test

But there's even more to the Core 2 Duo story than performance. One of the key elements of the new chips is their power efficiency. We base our findings on a number called the thermal design power (TDP), which is the number that AMD and Intel each provide to system vendors and various PC hardware makers for determining how much power each chip will require, and thus the amount of heat they'll need to dissipate. In Intel's last generation of dual-core desktop chips, the Pentium D 900s, the TDP rating fell between 95 and 130 watts. But because the Core 2 Duo design incorporates power management techniques from Intel's notebook chips, its power requirements are much more forgiving. All but the Core 2 Extreme X6800 have a TDP of 65 watts, while the Extreme chip itself is only 75 watts.

For its own dual-core Athlon 64 X2 chips, AMD tells its hardware partners to prepare for a TDP of between 89 and 110 watts (although its Energy Efficient and Small Form Factor Althon 64 X2 products, which have yet to hit the market in any quantity, go to 65 and 35 watts, respectively). Intel has caught flak in the past for providing fan makers with inadequate TDP ratings, which resulted in overly noisy fans for the Pentium D chips that had to spin exceedingly fast to cool the chips properly. But the Falcon Northwest Mach V desktop we reviewed alongside this launch came with stock cooling parts. It will be hard to tell exactly how well Intel's provided specs live up to their real-world requirements until the hardware has been disseminated widely, but the fact that a performance stickler like Falcon sent the standard-issue cooling hardware suggests that Intel took note of the problems it had in the past.

So what does all this really mean? It means that Core 2 Duo makes it easier for PC vendors to design smaller PCs that are just as powerful as their full-size counterparts because they don't have to deal with as much heat, nor provide massive power supplies and towering heat sinks. Such a PC should also run more quietly, since the cooler parts don't need as much work from the system fans. It also means less thermal wear and tear. As parts run hotter, the likelihood of their failure increases. The lower the TDP, the happier the PC and its surrounding components.

And as to the surrounding parts, if you already have an Intel-based PC and would like to upgrade, Intel has made it easy. The Core 2 Duo chips use the same Socket LGA775 interface as the Pentium D 900 series. If you have an Intel motherboard using a 965 chipset, you're ready to go with Core 2 Duo and a single graphics card. If you want to run Intel and a dual graphics configuration, you have two options: Intel's 975 chipsets support ATI's CrossFire tech only, and if you want to run SLI, you'll need a motherboard in Nvidia's NForce 500 for Intel series.

For AMD, the outlook isn't great. Its so-called 4x4 design, which will let you run two Athlon 64 FX-62s in a single PC, might overtake a single Core 2 Extreme X6800 on raw performance. Details are scant about 4x4's particulars, but if a single Athlon 64 FX-62 costs about $1,031, two will have you crossing the $2,000 mark on chips alone, not to mention the motherboard, the size of the case, as well as the cooling hardware required to operate it. AMD says it will drop prices this month to compete on the price-performance ratio. That might make for some compelling desktop deals, but for now, Intel has the superior technology.

Test bed configurations:

AMD test bed
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard; Nvidia Nforce 590 SLI chipset; Corsair 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 1,066MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX (PCIe); WDC WD740GD-00FLA2 74GB 10,000rpm SATA; Windows XP Professional SP2; PC Power & Cooling 1Kw power supply

Intel test bed
Intel Desktop Board D975XBX; Intel 975X chipset; Corsair 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX (PCIe); WDC WD740GD-00FLA2 74GB 10,000rpm SATA; Windows XP Professional SP2; PC Power & Cooling 1Kw power supply

View the original article here

Drag&Tag Joins Bullhorn Marketplace

Boston, MA (Vocus/PRWEB) January 18, 2011

Bullhorn®, a global leader in online staffing and recruiting agency software, announced today the complete integration with Drag&Tag, a recruiting software company providing collaborative research technology that integrates browsers, professional networks, and user tearsheets (hotlists). Available through the Bullhorn Marketplace, Drag&Tag enables users to import client and candidate information from the web directly into Bullhorn, while seamlessly integrating web-based and social media tools with users’ existing workflows.

“Recruiters typically use the internet to search for information about clients, prospects and candidates, then manually create or update records in Bullhorn. If a consultant is busy, the records may not be completed accurately, or worse, not added at all,” explained Guy Rubin, Managing Director of Drag&Tag. “Drag&Tag is a ‘must have’ toolbar for Bullhorn customers that provides a slicker business process - capturing and storing critical information within the CRM in seconds.”

In addition, the integration enables customers to categorize, make notes on web pages (such as client job posting pages) and de-duplicate client and candidate records before entering the data into Bullhorn. With detailed activity reports, business owners benefit from real-time management, giving them more control and visibility into consultants’ activities and enabling them to drive best practices.

Drag&Tag is available via the Bullhorn Marketplace, a destination that gives staffing and recruiting agencies access to an extensive range of software applications and services, all of which are fully integrated with Bullhorn. All Marketplace partner applications are accessible online and help recruiters streamline every aspect of their business – from background checks and payroll to accounting system integration and sourcing – to drive bottom-line results.

“We are very excited to introduce Drag&Tag’s powerful technology to our growing roster of Bullhorn Marketplace apps and services,” said David Beaver, Director of Alliances and Business Development at Bullhorn. “With so much of today’s recruiting and sales activity on the web, our clients will greatly benefit from capturing this data and utilizing it to better drive their businesses.”

Drag&Tag can be purchased and installed immediately online by visiting http://marketplace.bullhorn.com/dragandtag.

About Bullhorn
Bullhorn is the global leader in online staffing and recruiting agency software, providing the only completely integrated solution for staffing and recruiting firms. By enabling recruiting, sales and management to experience the power of working together with 360° visibility into every activity, from job order to placement, at any time and from any place, Bullhorn clients achieve the highest placement rates in the industry. Delivered through software as a service, Bullhorn's applicant tracking software continually meets the evolving business needs of its clients. Thousands of users worldwide, including some of the largest global staffing firms, utilize Bullhorn to meet the employment demands of the global economy.

About Drag&Tag
Drag&Tag is a collaborative research tool which was developed to make useful information found online searchable across a business and speed up the process of getting this data into existing CRM systems. Launched in April 2010, Drag&Tag has fast become a ‘must-have’ toolbar for recruiters that use the internet and professional networks to research clients and candidates. To find out more information visit http://www.dragandtag.com

###

View the original article here

Toovio Shakes up Real-Time Marketing With Launch of New Cloud-Based,...

Tampa Bay, FL (Vocus/PRWEB) January 18, 2011

Toovio, a SaaS-based real-time marketing (RTM) solution provider, today announced the launch of the Toovio Interaction Manager, a patent-pending tool that orchestrates real-time customer offers for acquisition, cross-sell, and retention opportunities.

Interaction Manager boasts features and functionality unlike anything currently on the market, and is ideal for businesses looking to identify high potential customers for every product or service provided by the organization. As an affordable and easy-to-implement Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, Interaction Manager enables businesses to strategically engage in personalized interactions with current and prospective customers.

“The Interaction Manager solution was developed to deliver a usable and consumable approach to real-time marketing, gathering information in real-time from both customer conversations and available external data,” said Joshua Smith, Co-founder and CEO of Toovio. “It’s financially accessible and can be effectively utilized regardless of user skillset.”

How Interaction Manager Works

The Toovio Interaction Manager, a fully-hosted and real-time customer interaction tool, couples cloud technology with proprietary templates for offers, segments, eligibilities, investments, Q&A scenarios, and more. Whether it be a dynamic Q&A that leads to relevant offers, or a dialogue to retain a customer by generating a best-fit bundle of incentives, Interaction Manager effectively recognizes a customer’s interests and provides this actionable intelligence in real-time to any customer channel. By enabling this type of RTM relationship, organizations can increase sales and create more loyal customers.

A business can get up-and-running with a free trial or proof-of-concept of the Toovio Interaction Manager within a matter of days, making it convenient to test and just as easy to fully implement.

The Prominence of Real-Time Marketing

Over the past decade, Toovio executives had observed an emerging demand for simple but effective RTM solutions. Forrester Research has also made this distinction, reporting that real-time decisioning is the fastest-growing segment of all enterprise marketing segments and predicting a 26% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2013.

With senior-level management consisting of RTM consultants with extensive experience in enterprise marketing and decision management platforms, Toovio found that existing RTM options were often limited to highly complex and expensive software platforms. These failings led the company to develop a RTM tool that was affordable, easy to implement, and offered more widespread application across industries.

“Only the largest companies could afford real-time marketing and analytics solutions in the past,” added Smith. “Toovio is helping to change that by providing the marketplace with a multi-channel, cloud-based interactive decision tool that equips enterprises with the capability to focus on acquisition, cross-selling and customer retention efforts in real-time – all while avoiding the costly software licensing and implementations.”

Currently, Toovio is primarily targeting small-to-medium-sized companies, though larger companies can also take advantage of Toovio solutions to fill a niche in their current multi-channel marketing initiatives. While Toovio’s Interaction Manager can be applied to various sectors in the marketplace, the company is currently working with partners and clients exploring specific functionality in the following industries: telecommunications and wireless providers; banking & financial services; retail; and customer service.

To learn more about Toovio’s Interaction Manager, sign up for a free trial on http://www.toovio.com.

About Toovio

Toovio, a SaaS-based marketing solution provider focused on enabling multi-channel offer orchestration, was founded to fill a void in real-time marketing and customer interaction tools. Focusing primarily on cross-sell and customer retention scenarios, Toovio assists a range of industries in driving profitable business between the organization and its customers. For more information about real-time customer engagement solutions driven by Toovio’s proprietary Interaction Manager, visit http://www.toovio.com.

###

View the original article here