Interesting article on the new version of Microsoft Office – 2010 due out in a couple of weeks. Note the prices referred to in the article are US dollars and the Australian prices are likely more than just an exchange rate swap dearer as for some reason we always get slugged more downunder. If you are buying then wait a bit - the prices always come down after the launch.
Seems like not much in the way of new features for us average users. Most of us are happy with what we have already – be it an older version of MS Office or a free alternative like desktop software Open Office or internet-based Google Docs. If the programs you are using are doing the job for you already why pay for an upgrade – I won’t be
Link to original article - As Certain as Taxes: New Version of Office - Pogue @ NYTimes
Social media – Facebook, Twitter, Instant Messaging and even SMS– all the cool kids are doing it and the rest of us are following along. Some services like Twitter and SMS limit the size of each message so you need to be short and sweet. This has led to a whole new ‘language’ of phrases, acronyms and abbreviations that are commonly used all over the internet which are becoming more common in everyday life. Here is a list of 10 of the more common ones:
- LOL: Laugh out loud: something you or someone else said that you find funny
- ROFL: Rolling on floor laughing or LMAO: Laugh my arse off; Something you or someone else said is really funny. There are countless variations of this Tip: if there is an F included somewhere, it doesn’t stand for fridge.
- FTW: For the win, use in praise of something. e.g., Belly Beyond FTW!
- IMO: In my opinion or IMHO: in my honest/humble opinion
- IYKWIM: If you know what I mean
- OMG: Oh my god/goodness or OMFG
- WTF: What the f-word
- BTW: By the way
- RT or PRT: Retweet or please retweet
- Also worthy of a mention is the Twitter hashtag #fail – it’s not an acronym but represents the writers opinion of failure about something or someone. “Latest Hanover deal #fail” or “#epicfail (a failure of epic proportions)
The list is copied from here
Hi all
At last week’s Mullies meeting we discussed the new range of Intel processors – specifically the i3, i5 & i7 CPU’s
This discussion then flowed on to the merits of the Laptop which will be available from Aldi this week
Here is an article at PC Authority I read discussing the merits of the i3 processors. It seems that the benefit of these new CPU’s is not that they are faster but that they may be more power efficient especially as the graphics processing is built into the CPU chip. So one chip performs both functions rather than 2 separate ones which reflects well on battery life in portable devices.
You can see a review at PC Authority for the Sony Vaio EB series laptops which is interesting in light of the above. The Sony’s are good performing machines but the battery life isn’t great – but they are using a separate GPU.
When we compare the Medion laptop available at Aldi this week you can see it has the same i3 CPU but is using the Intel graphics and not a separate GPU. Depending on all other factors this could mean better battery life than the Sony. In fact given that the Medion has an 8-cell battery I would expect battery life would be quite good. With a decent size screen of average resolution, a large 500GB harddrive and 4gb of ram the machine seems quite reasonable for average use. Windows® 7 Home Premium 32 bit comes preinstalled & 64 bit can be installed instead from Recovery DVD included. The only downside I can see is that there is little software of value (which is typical) and that the machine is probably not as attractive as others available (at higher cost). There’s a review of the actual laptop available here at PCworld.
So if you are in the market for a laptop this would seem to be very good value at only $799. Plus of course Aldi offer a 60 day simple return policy so you can buy the machine and try it for 2 months with no risk. I suggest you line up early if you want to get one – and make sure to bring it in to give us all a look
