Technology Ramblings

Yesterday I loaded the latest build of Windows 10 Tech Preview - 9926 onto both a traditional desktop and a Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet. The desktop is an HP Pavilion E9280t with Core i7, 8GB RAM and 256Gb SSD.  It was configured for dual-boot Win 8.1 / Win 10 and had the previous 9879 build. The install was easy and painless via the Update & Recovery section of Settings and took about 30 minutes.  So nothing exciting here - I'll combine general comments after my comments on the tablet install. The Venue 8 Pro is a 5300 series model with Atom 7730, 2Gb RAM and 64GB onboard storage + a 64GB SD card running Win 8.1.  I had to do a bit of storage cleanup prior to upgrading.  I downloaded the ISO to the SD card and made sure there was at least 16GB of primary storage available prior to upgrading.    One nice feature was the ability to simple mount the ISO as a DVD and then run setup in Administrator Mode.  This was a nice option versus having to...

The numbers are in for 2014 and Windows Phone has not fared very well.   In all but two major markets (Germany & Australia) Windows Phone lost market share. According to Kantar World Panel - in the US Windows Phone share dropped from 4.6% to 3.0% an over 30% drop.  The big gainer in Q3 and Q4 was Apple with a 4.3% increase from 43.1 to 46.4%.  The iPhone 6/6Plus was a huge hit (in fact I bought one).   I blame this drop purely on MS's poor execution and fractional release of their fall product line up.  In the US only 1 of their new phones - the 830 was made available and on only 1 carrier AT&T.  Additionally the phone was way overpriced @ $499.   The one device that seemed very promising - the 735 - did not even make the market as it was delayed by Verizon and not available on any other US carrier.   I was able to purchase an unlocked NA LTE version that works fine on TMO or AT&T for $299.    According to AdDulpex...

In my last post I discussed my predictions for 2015 in the end user computing and mobile spaces.   Now let's switch to the corporate side.... On the server side of things, two big changes... First is the introduction of the newest generation of Intel Processors with DDR4 RAM and Haswell architecture.  This continues the evolution of the server to be a virtualization platform.  You see much higher CPU Core density - moving from 12 - 14 to 18 - 20 / CPU and much higher memory capacity.   Start thinking 1.5TB of RAM in a 2U server.   But at much higher cost.  DDR4 ram is impressive with it's improved speed and capacity but is very expensive - so are the high core count processors.  So while you can certainly support more VMs per server - the servers will be more expensive.   This trend will continue through 2015 and in to 2016.   You'll buy fewer server, but pay more for them. Second is the dramatic change in server storage in both capacit...

Being Jan 1 - I'll try my hand at some technology predictions for 2015. Let start with end-user computing - desktop, laptop and tablet.   On the hardware front, I see three trends...    First is the expansion of ultra-low cost devices.  There continues to be a huge push downwards on the price of devices driven by Chromebooks.  There appears to be a target price of $199 for a entry laptop in the 11 - 12" range.    These are by no means powerful devices, but with the expansion of cloud based services from Google and MS, the number of these good enough devices will explode in 2015.   Second will be the opposite end of the spectrum - more ultrabook style devices for the corporate world.  They come in all sorts of traditional clamshell or hybrid designs and 4K will start to show up more and more in displays.  Almost all of these will come with M.2 SSD drives, and 8 - 12 hour battery.  And will fit into that $800 - $1200 range. Fi...

One of the gifts I bought this year for my granddaughter was a GoPro Hero 3+ Silver Edition camera.  Best Buy had an excellent bundle that included an LCD Touchback and 16GB SD Card that saved me over $100 versus purchasing separately.   In addition, I also bought the 3 way arm/tripod combination.  This is one of the cooler little mounts I've ever seen and extremely light and versatile. The Hero 3+ is actually an amazing little piece of technology - and I emphasize the little.   Weighing in at only 74g and maybe 3" wide by 2" high and about an inch thick the main camera almost feels like a toy.  Even with the housing - the whole unit weights in at 134g - so about the same as my Nokia 735 smart phone.  My 8 year old granddaughter ran around with it no problem.  Combined with the 3 way arm/tripod - she can easily use it to record all sorts of activities and can easily manage the device at 8 years old. Many years ago I was one of...

So after some soul searching I decided that instead of getting my wife the same Nokia 735 RM-1039 that I recently purchased that I'd go ahead and get her the new iPhone 6. My primary reasons were 1. My wife is very familiar with iOS UI - she's had an iPad mini for a couple of years and is very comfortable the UI 2. With some of her activities - she uses apps that simply aren't available for Windows Phone.  Just the reality of the Windows Phone market share. 3. She needed a better camera than her 5Mp Lumia 635 - my wife really documents my granddaughters life via her phone - so having something that was easy - good flash etc... Again TMO made it easy and I purchased her a 16Gb model.   I think its kind of odd that Apple sizes go 16, 64 and 128GB.   Honestly for the hefty price of $649 I would like to have seen at least 32GB as a entry size.  TMOs iPhone comes with the nano-SIM installed - but just as with my 735 it was real...

I recently purchased an unlocked Latin American Nokia Lumia 735 RM-1039.  It was the first of the new  735s I have seen that supported US LTE Bands and also came loaded with Denim Firmware and WP 8.1 update 1. In my previous post I noted my initial impression and now have been running it for over a week including making my normal weekly road trip into Southern California. Here is what I experienced and so far with the 735.   Data and Voice connectivity has not been a problem.  But signal strength is consistently showing about 1 bar lower. I did loose an occasional call in an elevator - but that was hit or miss with the 635 as well.    Calls were clear and speed tests around SoCal where about in the same 20 - 30Mbps down and 10 - 14Mbps up range I experience here at home.  I did experience some step downs in connection to HSPA+ and even 3G - but never lost connectivity. Also - when I do a manual network search I can see both...