Apple Shares Higher Then Ever Before After iPad Shipping Announcement

Today, Apple’s stock price hit a record high of $218.95 which in an increase of about 4%. What triggered the sudden increase was the long awaited announcement that the iPad would begin shipping on April 3rd. But if I were Apple I would not start celebrating yet considering the 9% drop of their stock price when the iPad was announced. Are you planning to buy an iPad, or are you avoiding it completely. Leave your comments below.

Technorati Tags: Apple,Stock,Shares,iPad

Videos and Photos of Microsoft’s Courier Tablet Leak

Since  September, when the first details about Microsoft tablet/  e-book reader were leaked, there has not been much more news about the Courier. That has changed. Engadget has received details about Microsoft’s tablet/e-book reader from a “extremely trusted source”.

Here is the breakdown. The Courier will basically be a extremely portable digital journal. It will be about the size of a 5x7 photo in a closed state, and will weigh less then a pound. You can get an idea about how small the device is from the photo below. The Courier is built on Nvidia’s Terga 2 processor and will run on Windows CE 6, which is the same OS that the Zune HD, Pink, and Windows Mobile 7 Series run on.

The interface looks like it will be pen based and will primarily be used for writing and drawing. The interface also appears to support handwriting and drawing recognition. The Courier also looks like it will be Microsoft’s e-book and tablet platform.

Check out a photo gallery and two videos of the Courier below.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Tablet,e-book,Courier,Leak,Breaking News,Rumours

86% of Windows PC’s Maxing Out on Memory

Citing data from Devil Mountain Software’s community-based XPnet, Craig Barth, the company’s chief technology officer, said that new metrics reveal an unsettling trend. On average, 86% of PC’s running Windows 7 are using 90-95% of their ram, as a  result there is bottlenecks and decreased performance as systems are forced to turn to disk-based virtual memory to handle tasks.

While Vista was known for using a lot of RAM while it was idle, Windows 7 hasn’t been plagued with the same issues. However according to the pool of  XPnet computers, the number of  Windows 7 PCs using 90-95% of RAM is double that of the number of XP computers that run at memory “saturation” point. XPnet have more than 23,000 PCs in their pool and a recent snapshot shows that only a mere 40% of XP machines were using high amounts of RAM.

The vast majority of Windows 7 machines over the last several months are very heavily-memory saturated,” “From a performance standpoint, that has an immediate impact on the machine.”

said Barth today. What is also more worrying is that Windows 7 PCs generally have more RAM than XP Machines. The average Windows 7 Machine sports 3.3GB while Windows XP machines have approx 1.7GB on average.

“Windows 7 machines have almost twice as much memory to work with, but the numbers show just how much larger and more complex Windows 7 is than XP.”

However, there is another side to this data collected by XPnet.

Barth acknowledged that XPnet’s data couldn’t determine whether the memory usage was by the operating system itself, or an increased number ofapplications, but said that Devil Mountain would start working on finding which is the dominant factor in increased memory use.

It may just be that the Windows 7 machines running at the time were using more RAM because of the number of applications they were running etc…. Also if your machine has 1GB or 20GB of ram, I think you will find that there is a good chunk of it being used. No it’s not because the Operating System is a resource hog, it’s just being sensible.

You see RAM is “Random Access Memory” which means it’s used for “Random” tasks. Your computer doesn’t know that you are about to open up your browser or that you want to open up a photo editing program. So instead it stores information in the RAM which can be quickly accessed once you call for that program. Allowing your PC to load up a application quicker than it would straight from a hard drive.

So basically just because your system happens to be using a lot of RAM doesn’t mean it your PC is a resource hog, it’s just being sensible, any unused RAM is just going to waste. It’s when your RAM is maxed out that you get system bottlenecks and crashes, which has never happened to me to date on my laptop. I’m running Windows 7 64 bit with 4GB ram, and I do plenty of multitasking. Right now I have a browser with 10 tabs open, iTunes, Messanger, Microsoft Word and a Photo Editing program and my RAM is just at 50%.

I rarely notice any slowdown with my system since upgrading to Windows 7, and I when my system is idle I generally use about 35% of my RAM. Only on rare occasions like when playing Call Of Duty do I see it spike up to about 75-80%.

So to wrap it up, I wouldn’t be worried in the slightest if your PC is using anything up to 70% of your RAM, Windows will automatically reallocate RAM to where it’s need as you approach 100% and it’s only on systems with very low amounts of RAM that you will get system crashesand freezing if it fails to do this.

I would take this data from XPnet with a pinch of salt, unless I hear different from you guys. What is your current RAM usage at and how much available memory do you have installed? What is it at Idle and do you ever max it out?

Let us know in the comments

New York Times To Change Online Access Fees, One Week Before Possible Apple Tablet Announcement

The New York Magazine is reporting that the New York Times will  soon be changing the way they charge readers for online content. Incase you have been living in cave for the past two months, the New York Times has leaked a number of details about the Apple Tablet (or iSlate), which is rumored to be announced on January 27th. This is interesting because it means that A) the New York Times is preparing for a possible tablet announcement from Apple on the 27th or B) that Apple has cut a deal with The New York Times to publish content on the tablet. We are pretty sure that Apple has talked with content providers (including  the New York Times) about publishing content on the Apple Tablet, so it is a big possibility. Could we soon be reading the New York Times on our iSlate’s. We will just have to wait and see.

Germany Recommends it’s Citizens Flush Internet Explorer Down the Toilet

Due to the recent attacks on Google.cn, which exploited flaws in  Internet Explorer, Germany has recommended all of its citizens abandon Internet Explorer for any other browser. The German government specifically cited Internet Explorer 8,7 and 6, but that does not mean you should start using IE 5. Perhaps Germany should go a step

further and ban Internet Explorer completely.

Sun Gets Caught Eating A Comet:

Earlier today the SOHO observatory caught the sun murdering then eating a comet. You can watch this senseless act of violence occur in the video below. Our prayers are with the Comet family.

What’s The Best Website To Find Free Electronics

There are several websites that claim to be the best place to get free products; but which one is really the best. After a few weeks of careful consideration, I believe the best service is Lockerz. And yes that is the correct spelling.

It’s really easy to get free products like laptops and gaming consoles on Lockerz. What's better is that you can get these relatively fast without any referrals. For example, a Lockerz user can get a PSP 3000 or an iPod Nano absolutely free in about 26 days if they visit the website each day.

So, you are most likely wondering how this works. To get your free product you need to collect PTZ. The good news is that PTZ can be collected in 3 ways.

The first way to collect PTZ is simply by logging in each day. Each time you log in you will get 2 PTZ. If you are on the Z-list you will get 4 PTZ. So, if you want to get your free product quickly, I suggest you log in each day.

The second way to collect PTZ is by answering dailies. Dailies are basically survey questions. These questions are not at all personal. They are mostly something like “What is you favorite color”. As you can tell by the name, there is one of these survey questions every day. Each time you answer one you’ll get another 2 PTZ. If you are on the Z-list you will get 4 PTZ.

The final way to collect PTZ is a one time deal. Just after you sign up, you’ll get an opportunity to play a game, which is sort of like Pong. The objective is to hit as many coins as you can with your mouse. In this game you can get anywhere from 1 to 1,000 PTZ, depending on how good you are. The bad news about this game is that you can only play once, so you must do your best.

How do I sign up?

The bad news is that Lockerz is invitation only. The good news is that I’ll send you an invitation if you follow my following instructions.

1. Point your browser to YouTube.

2. If you don’t have an YouTube account create one. If you do have an account skip this step.

3. Click the mail icon in the upper right hand corner of the webpage.

4. Click “compose”, which is located on the left side of the webpage.

5. In the To box address the message to “vistarox”, without the quotes.

6. In the subject box type in Lockerz

7. In the message box type in your email address.

8. Click send message.

As soon as I get the message I’ll email you a Lockerz invitation. Please give me at least two days to send the invitation.