Archive for August, 2009
HP dx9000 hands on… Verdict simply awesome! TouchSmart PC’s are the way of the future.
Aug 26th
I have had a dx9000 TouchSmart business PC for a few weeks now and it is simply awesome. Some of the current uses for this bad boy are in luxury boxes at sports arenas allowing you to go online, see related information on the event you are watching and even order refreshments. We are going to be seeing these devices in more and more environments. Think waiting rooms, clubs, swanky restaurants and kiosk type situations.
My 21 month old daughter has mastered the Sesame Street site on it so I don’t think people have to worry about a learning curve. The machine is a 21 wide screen display that is touch activated and the computer is built into it. I have stopped using my normal desktop and laptop because I enjoy using the TouchSmart. But it will not be mine much longer… Maybe it will be yours? Are you up for developing an application for the platform?
If you are send them over to HPContest@AskTheAdmin.com and this unit might wind up in your home! Let me throw some ideas at you…
- Modeling Agency Waiting Room Machine to Show Comp Cards and History of the agency.
- Computer repair shop display unit to show prices, common problems and fixes as well as check your machine in and tell the shop about the issues.
- Club match maker. Let’s imagine a few of these guys sitting on a bar. Each user can enter information into the device and it can well um match them up…
Do these sound like something you could develop? Well them enter our fricking contest already! There isn’t much competition yet! Let’s see what you got!
I need a FREE solution to recover deleted files!
Aug 11th
We have used many different retail programs to recover accidentally or maliciously deleted files off of our PC, Digital Camera or Mobile device. We have tried a few free ones and they bring us back to the old saying… You get whatcha pay for! As such we never really covered the topic here on Ata, But we came across a post on TechiePortal reviewing not one but TWO FREE apps that can get your crap precious data back! We tried both of them just like Alfred did and got pretty much the same results. Restoration (the second app) has found a new home on my memory stick! Check out this post and check out their website for more AtA approved geeky goodness!
Glary Undelete is a freeware program that can retrieve data deleted from the recycle bin, files deleted with the Shift key pressed down or those deleted from command prompt. It can also recover files from memory cards of digital cameras. NTFS and FAT files systems are supported and works fine on XP and Vista.
Restoration is a portable recovery software, so you can run it even from a USB stick. At 229KB, I am amazed at how much this software can do. Restoration also does the same functions as Glary Undelete. Even though its so small, it actually managed to find more files that Glary.
Results
Software Glary Undelete Restoration Files Found 328 files 719 files How to recover deleted files
Run program, choose location of deleted files and search. Once the files are found, use the restore option to try copying them back. Note that once the space used by a deleted file is overwritten, recovery software cannot retrieve the files. So, if you lost any data, make you you do not use that drive till you manage to restore the files [TechPortal]
We will continue to highlight some lesser known blogs/websites to help promote quality content! If you want to be featured on AtA - send in a tip or trick to tips at askTheAdmin dot Com. Thanks TechiePortal and keep up the great work.
Win a free dx9000 TouchSmart PC from HP and AskTheAdmin! (Developer Contest)
Aug 10th
Hey there loyal AtA readers! I know the posts title caught your interest and now you are reading more to find out how you can win yourself one of these innovative new systems that you can see pictured above. I have been going back and forth with HP trying to figure out the best way to open up this contest to our readers. And here is the proposed contest:
I have two of my best clients that are on the lookout for custom TouchSmart applications. By creating an application for one of these two companies which we will detail below you can be chosen to win one of these TouchSmart’s for yourself. And after all isn’t that all we want… Nice shinny uber cool gadgets? Oh is that only me??
To participate in the contest you will create an application for the TouchSmart. It can either match one of our two scenarios or you can submit your own ideas for the application. Once we finalize the ideas that you guys will be creating we will start accepting applications.
We will then demo them and show them to the company they relate to. Once we select the winning application we will send you your very own dx9000 TouchSmart.
- The first company is a high end clothing manufacturer in New York City that wants an application to show off their beautiful completed garments as well as concept designs.
- The second company is a Computer repair shop that wants to allow customers to use the TouchSmart to enter their information when dropping off their computer for repairs.
There are already a bunch of apps for the TouchSmart that people have developed—TIME and Adobe made one for the TIME 100 which is free to download—and a few businesses that already used custom-built apps, which we’ll talk more about when there’s a dx9000 here for me to play with!
So do you want to know more about this contest? Maybe you want to know more about the TouchSmart platform or even how to create applications for the TouchSmart… Then drop us a line at info at askTheAdmin dot com or leave a comment. We will be posting more details as they become available to us and as always we are open to your tips, ideas or death threats…
The dx9000 TouchSmart starts at around $1400 usd so if you think you can come up with the winning application…
THEN GO GET STARTED! You can also read the full press release after the break…
A nifty little demo of the TouchSmart can be found here and
Check out the TouchSmart developer guidelines for some good how-to info!
Hey Cheapskate, Burn ISOs for free on any Windows Platform!
Aug 4th
So you don’t want to dole out the big bucks for some fancy smancy cd/dvd authoring suite just to burn cd’s and disk images? Or how about you don’t want the bloat from said suite?
No it’s probably that you are just like me and a big cheapskate when it comes to buying software!
Either which way this little free solution should float your boat. Check it out!
Reader NotBurntYet wrote in:
I need to burn an ISO on Windows Vista. Long story short I uninstalled the 7gb cd burning suite that came with the machine. I have been able to burn cd’s from Explorer with Windows built in capability. BUT (you knew that was coming) I can not burn ISO’s! I have a older copy of Nero but it is not compatible with Vista! HELP ME! I need to burn my game and can we make it free??
NotBurntYet, Ohio
Hey NotBurntYet, we have a solution for you – real simple like and best of all FREE! It is called ISORECORDER. ISO Recorder is a Window’s power tool that’s installer is around 1.2 mb. It seems to work for all the newer operating systems – XP or better. After you install it you can now automagically “burn CD and DVD images (DVD support is only available on Windows Vista), copy disks, make images of the existing data CDs and DVDs and create ISO images from a content of a disk folder” And all this from the context menu (Right Clicking). Lets check it out:
Download the appropriate package for your Operating System:
XP SP1 or No Service Pack
XP SP2, XP SP2 64 bit, and 2003
VISTA 32
VISTA 64
Next right click on the image you want to burn:
From there the steps are self explanatory – asking you where and how you want to burn from a simple little interface that looks like this:
You can also use ISORecorder as I said to make images dumb quick from cd’s or dvd’s in explorer as well like so:
Cool free stuff with a tiny little foot print! Add this to the how to get Windows XP running on an older machine and yourself a powerful older machine (with burner!) that does not need a huge amount of memory to run!
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