TECH YARD » NoteBooks

Lock and Unlock Your PC Using Mobile Phone’s BlueTooth

Avinash — Wed, 06 May 2009 07:16:51 +0000

Laptop Locks feature a combination lock, and can’t be easily pulled out or cut, and works with most PC and Mac laptops, but this only stops your laptop from being stolen.But the next danger is the danger of data theft while you are not around your system and forget locking your session.

If you feel you need a more secure method, Here’s how you can use your mobile phone to lock your PC using Blue Lock.Incase you have mobile phone with Bluetooth and your your laptap has bluetooth capability aswell you can pair up both the devices ie., you mobile phone and laptop.

Blue Lock can lock you PC in 2 ways :

Windows API Call : Incase you move away from your desk, the program will detect your phone is out of range and automatically lock your system using the Standard Windows API call which is similar to locking your pc using CTRL-ALT-DEL, requiring the password to be entered to reactivate the system.
The custom locking mechanism works by disabling all the system keys, the Task Manager and completely takes over the screen – and this will automatically be unlocked if your Bluetooth device is found within the range.

Notes :

If you are a Windows Vista user you need to run Blue Lock as an Administrator.
You can configure Blue Lock to define the locking mechanism to be used by set the property “useWindowsLock” in “bluelock.conf” file to either true or false.
The custom locking method can cause problems like freezing of taskbar after force shutdown, to unlock your pc.To reset your taskbar just do a perform (custom) lock, followed by an unlock keeping your Bluetooth device in range.

Download Blue Lock

IBM ThinkPad W700 NoteBook With Secondary Display

Avinash — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 16:59:05 +0000

The new IBM ThinkPad W700 notebook has not 1 Screen but 2, You read it right it’s a dualscreen notebook with a foldable, 10.6 inch secondary display, with 768 x 1,280 pixels with white LED backlight and High-capacity RAID HDDs,Integrated color calibration and Onboard digitizer and pen and comes with Microsoft Windows Vista.

Features :

• Intel® Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme, and Core 2 Quad Core Q9100 processors
• Main 17-inch 1,920 x 1,200 display, CCFL backlight
• NVIDIA Quadro Express graphics technology
• Intel Turbo Memory 4GB module support
• 4 GB memory DIMM
• Integrated color calibration
• Wacom onboard palmrest digitizer and pen
• Integrated 10.6-inch 768 x 1,280 secondary display, LED backlight
• 64 GB solid state drive
• DisplayPort
• Dual Link DVI
• Integrated camera
• Dual RAID HDD high-speed storage (250GB max, one could be 64GB SSD)
• Wireless LAN Intel WiFi Link 5300
• ThinkVantage® technologies
• Trusted ThinkPad layered security.

Check out this Overview Of W700 By NoteBooks.com

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I think soon or later we may be seeing notebooks with 2 foldable screens making the viewing area even bigger.

Source : NoteBook Review

Update : Now You could also buy the IBM Thinkpad W700 From Lenovo with Free shipping with a Sale Price of $2,459.00 and $2,689.00 for the Elite version.

Turn iPhone into Eee PC-style netbook with OLO Computer

Avinash — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:49:43 +0000

OLO Computer is the mix of a computer and iPhone, Its a computer that powered by the iPhone, Simply slot your iPhone into the space where the trackpad normally sits, and then enjoy all your applications with a full mechanical keyboard and 8.9″ screen.Such a device can be useful in places like public cyber cafes, where users can come and just plug in their device and access internet or work more conveniently, and store data straight back into the iPhone.Then the iPhone become the storage device, a trackpad, a phone which can make the iPhone a complete multi-functional device.

There’s no launch date for the OLO Computer, any technical specifications, pricing or other info besides this image.

If the image is true, it looks like the OS is a MAC OSX ,and the iphone could be used a trackpad as it already has a touch screen.Only time will tell if the image is how the real OLO Computer will look like, though there are

Source : ITWire

DELL Releases Inspiron Mini With XP and Ubuntu For $399 & $499 Respectively

Avinash — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:53:03 +0000

Dell released a new mini notebook called Dell Inspiron Mini, with a starting price range of $399 for Windows XP version and Ubuntu version is priced at $349.

Tech Specifications :

Processors : Intel^® Atom^TM Processor (1.6GHz, 512KB L2 Cache, 533MHz FSB)

Operating System :

Genuine Windows^® XP Home Edition SP3
Ubuntu Linux 8.04 with custom Dell interface

Memory : Up to 1GB² 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM.

Chipset : Intel^® 965PM / GM Express Chipset

Graphics : Intel^® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator 950

LCD Display : Glossy 8.9 inch LED display (1024X600)

Audio and Speakers : One external speaker

Hard Drives : Up to 16GB configured with a Solid State drive.

Optical Drives : None

Ports :

USB 2.0 (3)

Integrated 10/100 LAN (RJ45)

15-pin VGA video connector

Audio jacks (1-line out, 1 mic-in)

3-in-1 Media Card Reader

AC adapter connector

Power : 4-cell 32WHr Li-Ion Battery

Camera : Optional 0.3MP or 1.3MP webcams

Wireless :

Wi-Fi Options: 802.11g mini-card

Bluetooth Options: Bluetooth^® Internal (2.0) mini-card

Check out Dell Inspiron Mini @ Dell

Lenovo’s Answer To Apple’s MacBook Air

Avinash — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:37:02 +0000

The competition for the world’s slimmest notebook and also for a power packed slimmest notebook is heating up.Apple introduced the MacBook Air at the recently held MacWorld Expo 2008. Apple claims it to be the most light weight and thinnest notebook laptop in the world. But it still lacks some of the features that many might want to have on their notebook like a DVD Drive, Ethernet Port, more USB ports.

Lenovo has come up with a superslim ThinkPad X300, which has more features than the MacBook Air, leaving aside the looks of an Lenovo notebook, whereas the MacBook Air is definitely has good looks. I feel one would definitely give more importance to features than to looks. What good is a notebook that looks good but does not deliver with its specifications.

Here a look at a comparison of both the notebooks

Image : BusinessWeek

ThinkPad X300 also ports with GPS and and your choice of Windows XP or Vista.

Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300 will be announced on Feb 26th 2008.

Via – TecFre