Kindle DX now available in UK

To celebrate the sudden outbreak of crystalline precipitation currently falling on Britain, Amazon.com has announced it'll now ship an international version of its massive, designed-for-newspapers-and-textbooks Kindle to the UK -- the Kindle DX.

In principle it's the same as the standard Kindle (which we reviewed late last year), but features a larger 246mm (9.7-inch) E-Ink screen. "Kindle DX is great for personal and professional documents, cookbooks and textbooks -- anything that is highly formatted," Amazon says.

It also now supports Adobe PDF files natively (Kindles previously needed to have these converted to a format it liked), so pre-formatted pages of text, images and diagrams involve significantly less messing about. Up to 3,500 books can be stored in memory, Amazon claims, and the battery should let you read for a full week without charging.

The Kindle DX for UK features the same built-in wireless bookstore as the standard Kindle, including free wireless downloads via the device's integrated 3G modem. Its screen -- which only requires power to turn pages, not to keep displaying them -- can generate 16 shades of grey. Sony's Readers, by contrast (ha), use just eight. This means images look far better on Kindles.

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TomTom Go Live 1000: Apps and mobile phone tracking hit the road

TomTom is meeting the challenge of location-aware smart phones and free navigation software with a new souped-up sat-nav platform. The Go Live 1000 will be the first to add apps and real-time routes.

The Go Live 1000 packs a 500MHz ARM processor and capacitive touchscreen, boasting a WebKit-based user interface. It includes a SIM-card slot, 4GB of internal storage and 128MB of RAM. It'll be the first in a slew of devices to support third-party apps, downloaded via the Web or over the air via mobile partner Vodafone.

Maps have been updated, with improved graphics to cover more roads and addresses in 45 European countries. The driving interface includes a traffic bar on the right, showing how heavy traffic is ahead of you. A parking-assist feature points out car parks nearby. Real-time petrol prices, services and weather will also be updated by the unit. All this will be free for a year with the Go Live 1000, and less than €50 (£43) a year after that.

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How to upgrade Win7 From 32bit to 64bit using your original license key

The reason I am doing this post is because some OEM Vendors still install Windows 7 32bit on Retail Systems, however you can get more performance on your system if you used a 64bit OS instead, it is unfair to users to bear the system limitations.

What this guide is good for?

• You want a bloatware free Windows 7 Install at the same time you don't want to purchase another Windows 7 License.
• You want to upgrade your original 32bit Windows 7 to 64bit Windows 7
• You lost the original recovery partition and do not have the recovery cd and yet you don't want to buy the recovery cd or a new Windows 7 License.

NOTE: This will only work for Laptops or OEM Desktops preloaded with OEM Windows 7 as these Systems has a special SLIC 2.1 BIOS which enables OEM Activation.

Do not message me HERE on how to make this work on Systems that do not have OEM Windows 7 preloaded with it.

Lets take for example the Acer Aspire 4530 Laptop (Tested).

Special Treat for Acer Aspire 4530 owners only update to my custom BIOS containing SLIC2.1 here to get the upgrade at no cost.

If you want to get the DOS Bootable Thumbdrive Creator package to flash the BIOS from DOS here it is.

For laptops preloaded with Windows 7 you don't need to do any of the above.

On a Windows 7 Client 32bit OS it can only utilise up to 2.8GB of RAM regardless of the Total RAM available.

(Maximium usable RAM is 3GB in all 32bit Windows 7 Editions)

However on a Windows 7 Client 64bit OS it can support up to 3.8GB of RAM

(Assuming you have the maximum 4GB installed)

The performance difference is significant 1.0GB difference.(the missing 0.2 is due to 9100MG Integrated Graphics).

Start Here for Windows 7 Preloaded Laptop

Backup All Your Important Data Before Proceding !

1. Firstly google and prepare all the 64bit Windows 7 Drivers you need.
2. Next take any retail copy of Windows 7 64bit (or download an uncracked version from Bittorrent. There is no need to get a retail CD-Key as we will be using OEM CD-Key) and install the type you own.

Example if you have a Windows 7 Home Premium License Sticker, install the Windows 7 Home Premium Version.

• Uncheck Automatically Activate When Online, and Do Not type in any Product Key.

After installing and setting up the OS, download the Acer 2.1 OEM Certificate and put it inside :

C:\Windows\system32\OEM

If you don't have the folder, create it.

Then open up a Command Windows with Windows 7 Administrative Permission and Enter the Commands below(Make sure the filename of the xrm-ms is correct).

slmgr.vbs -ilc C:\Windows\System32\OEM\Acer.xrm-ms

Next, choose one of the Acer OEM Keys shown below the version you have installed in your system:

Note the OEM Keys are NOT UNIQUE meaning EVERY Acer Laptop which has Windows 7 Preloaded is using one of the following CD-Keys, depending on the version of Windows 7.

Then Activate

Then install the 64bit drivers (Very Important, No computer is usable without the correct drivers!).

You are done.

Note: The Activation is done offline, you do not need any internet connection to do this.

Use this keyfinder to check your current OEM License Key and match it to the appropriate OEM Certificate, for Acer you will find that it is one of the keys I listed above.

The Correct Way to install Wireless Adapter Drivers

The question is how do you actually install a Wireless Adapter Driver with the maximum feature possible?

This blog entry will show you the way to install Wireless Adapter Driver in Windows to utilise the maximum feature possible.

1)After you reformated the Harddisk and clean installed Windows, do not be in a hurry to install the Wireless Adapter Driver's "Setup.exe". If you execute Setup.exe immediately before Windows has the chance to detect it and install the Windows Driver from Microsoft Updates, the virtual miniport adapter will not be pushed into the system.

By defaults Windows will autodetect the Wireless Adapter just go into Device Manager and Click "Detect Hardware"

Why do we do this?
This is because if you follow this method Windows will create a Virtual Device WiFi Miniport Adapter.
It is a new Windows 7 feature that allows your laptop to act as a Wireless Access Point (AP).
It will create a New Virtual Adapter Connection as shown below.

If you get a extra "2 or 3" behind your default Wireless Network Connection (which means your Virtual Miniport Adapter shows up as 3 or 4), that means the last time you removed the Wireless Adapter Driver it wasn't cleaned up properly, resulting in  "Wireless Network Connection 1" occupied by a Non-Existent Device in the Windows Registry.
Do a search in Regedit.exe and remove it if you find it irritating.

After that to update the Device Driver to the latest version do the following:

Extract the Latest Wireless Adapter Driver to a location.

Make sure the inf file exist.

Update the driver through device manager.

Point the update location to the driver location.

Android Claims 38,000 Apps But What of Quality?

Google's Android Market is getting crowded, with 38,000 apps in total according to the company's latest earnings call

Considering that Android gained roughly 8000 apps since last month, the mobile OS is on pace to top 100,000 apps by the end of the year. But like any app store, the Android Market has a quantity vs. quality issue, and it's getting harder to ignore as Google beats its chest over app counts.

Wallpapers, ringtones, and glorified RSS feeds all boost the Android Market's numbers, but offer little value compared to, say, a great utility app such as Locale. As with the iPhone, which hit the 100,000 app mark last November, it's worth questioning how many Android apps are actually useful.

Android's situation differs from the iPhone because Apple restricts developers, but Google does not. So while Apple cuts down on apps built from templates that merely pull content from the Web and purges "overtly sexual apps," the Android Market can grow in any way it pleases, for better or worse. That's not to say the iPhone doesn't have its share of junk, and with OS 4 adding wallpaper support this summer, you're bound to see worthless wallpaper apps spring up in droves, as they have for the iPad.

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Macworld Pundit Showdown VI

It's been far too long since we took off the gloves, threw out the rule book, and indulged in a little no-holds barred punditry. With iPads, iPhone SDKs, and misplaced iPhone prototypes in the news, what better time to turn our podcast over to another Macworld Pundit Showdown?

We've got a stellar panel of Mac industry heavyweights slugging it out for your amusement. Champion of champions Jason Snell puts his unbeaten record on the line against senior editor Christopher Breen, Macworld Lab director James Galbraith, and PCWorld reviews editor Tim Moynihan in a contest that awards points for bold opinions and punishes reticence.

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SLRs soon obsolete, replaced with mobiles

According to Reuters, Anssi Vanjoki, the executive vice president at Nokia, said that mobile phone cameras will replace conventional cameras. "They will in the very near future revolutionise the market for system cameras," he said. Vanjoki then pointed to a professional SLR camera used by a photographer nearby and said "there will be no need to carry around those heavy lenses."

HD video recording on mobile phones was another feature that Vanjoki touted, with the technology set to appear on Nokia's phones over the next year. Other manufacturers with phones currently on the market with HD video capabilities include Samsung's HD Icon and Sony Ericsson's Vivaz, both recording at 720p.

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