Search results for 'app:weblogs' matching tag 'Software / Operating Systems'

Multi-Touch Comes to Dell's Studio 17

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:00:00 GMT

As some may have seen in blog posts from sites like Electronista or SlashGear, Yesterday, we added a really cool option to the Studio 17—a multi-touch display. This is the first Dell laptop to offer a multi-touch display option. Some of you may not get excited at the thought of running your fingers all over your laptop’s screen (this is one of my husband’s pet peeves – Do.Not.Touch.My.Display), but I am here to tell you, once you start using multi-touch, it becomes second nature in how you interact with your PC.

For most people, the first introduction to touch was your neighborhood ATM machine. Today’s touch screens are much more sophisticated, able to handle multiple simultaneous touches (the Studio 17 is a true four-touch solution) and gestures, like pinch, drag, rotate and flick. I think you will be surprised at how quickly you will adapt to using touch when the opportunity presents its self. And as Ed Baig at USA Today discussed in a recent column, the arrival of Windows 7 with support for multi-touch in its DNA should accelerate the use of touch in PCs going forward

To help ensure using touch becomes second nature, we pre-install a suite of touch software applications on the Studio 17 with multi-touch display. For example the Dell Touch Zone lets your fingers do the walking to quickly locate touch applications and media content. You can edit photos or create slide shows or even flick favorite photos to Flickr.com, create music playlists, select, start and stop videos, and leave virtual sticky notes for family members. Note: Click on any of the images in my post to see a larger view, or to see more pictures click over to the Studio 17 Multi-touch set on Flickr.

Youngsters and the young at heart will enjoy doodling and finger painting with YouPaint by Cyberlink. This nifty program will get your creative juices going, with fun activities like coloring, stamping, or modifying favorite photos (It was amazing fun taking a favorite picture of my two dogs, outfitting them with stylish hats and introspective thought bubbles.)

For the truly imaginative, there is the TouchCam application also from Cyberlink, which allows you to add in all kinds of amazing video effects things while you are using your webcam. For example, add a hat to your image (reminds me of the day in the park in Mary Poppins), or celebrate with an animated confetti parade, frame your image in roses, or go incognito and use an avatar. And, you can capture and upload these Oscar-deserving efforts to YouTube for posterity.

As you’ll recall we unveiled the new and improved Studio 17 in conjunction with the launch of Intel’s mobile Core i7 quad core processors. It has an impressive 17.3-inch HD display and an excellent array of entertainment features, like JBL branded audio solution, which makes it an ideal choice for a desktop replacement. For those who don’t require the four-on-the-floor power of Core i7, we have expanded the processor selection to include Intel Pentium Dual Core and Core 2 Duo processors, and adjusted the starting price to $699.

For those of you who are interested in how the watch is made, yes, GottaBeMobile.com, we teamed with N-trig to add the multi-touch display option on the Studio 17. Their DuoSense dual-mode digitizer solution uses a highly accurate capacitive sensing system that delivers quick and responsive multi-touch capability – true hands on computing as they call it.

You may have gathered from this blog post that I might be a fan of multi-touch capability on the PC. I am. I anticipate that sooner rather than later one of my morning rituals will be scrolling through my local paper on a PC with a multi touch screen in my kitchen versus racing my husband for the sports section. For those of you who are interested in getting your hands on* a unique laptop, check out the Studio 17 with a multi-touch display, starting at $899. (Note: the multi-touch display will be available with Core i7 systems in a few weeks).

*Pun Intended

Dell, DPC Latency, and You

DELL-John B — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:00:00 GMT

You may have seen some chatter recently about an audio issue on the Alienware M17x on Engadget, NotebookReview and Dell’s Community site. The discussions revolve around deferred procedure call (DPC) latency, and its affect on audio performance. We are aware of the issues customers are reporting, and are currently working to address them.

Some folks are using tools to measure DPC latency, and while measuring it is one thing, it may not actually cause performance issues. The few customers who have symptoms are reporting the following:

Audio stutters, clicks, pops, and drops
Frame drops while watching videos
Audio/Video desync during video playback

DPC latency is not an issue that is specific to Alienware or Dell. This is a complex problem to address, and there are no simple solutions. DPC latency can be caused by numerous issues including the system BIOS, a sound card or audio chipset, drivers, the operating system itself or a combination of those things.

We will continue to dig deeper into this. As we make progress on this issue, I'll report it here.

Dell Linux Engineering to participate in UDS-L (Dec 16-20)

DELL-Amit B — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:00:00 GMT

I'd like to announce that Dell Linux Engineers will hit the road to Dallas, TX to participate in the upcoming Ubuntu Developers Summit for Lucid Lynx (UDS-L) from December 16 - 20. Lucid Lynx is the code name for the upcoming release of Ubuntu, versioned 10.04. This is a significant release for Canonical and Dell as this it will be an LTS (Long Term Support) meaning it will be supported by Canonical for three years on the Desktop and five years on the Servers. UDS is the forum where the Ubuntu Linux Community Developers and System Integrators (like Dell) come together to discuss and hash out the feature roadmap for the next release of Ubuntu Linux. Issues that need fixing, features that need developing are all spec'd out, prioritized and based in this week-long marathon of discussions and brainstorms. At the end of the summit, the final Blueprints are published. These Blueprints are reflective of what to expect in the next release of Ubuntu Linux. This sort of "transparent" planning is what differentiates the open-source projects such as Ubuntu Linux from their "closed-source" counterparts.

Mario Limonciello will be hitting the road with me. We both work in the core Ubuntu Linux engineering team at Dell responsible for delivering Ubuntu Linux on various desktops, notebooks and netbooks globally. Making guest appearances on random days of the summit will be Doug Anson who works for the Office of the CTO responsible for architecture of Client Linux across Dell as well as John Hull who is the Engineering Manager for the Linux team at Dell.

I will be leading a plenary on "Preloading Ubuntu" on the second day of the summit right after lunch hour. In addition, we will all be participating in many different sessions that span across several different tracks such as Desktop, Kernel, QA, Community etc. So, come out and join us or remotely participate.

Dell's Inspiron Zino HD: The Little Box That Could

Lionel_Menchaca — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Those of you who read Direct2Dell pretty regularly know that I love to use PCs for their multimedia capabilities. Advancements in hardware performance and on the OS side have made it possible to enjoy HD-quality stuff throughout the house. Now, we're bringing that capability to customers worldwide into a small form factor with the Inspiron Zino HD. Next to the Studio Hybrid, it's the smallest PC form factor we've introduced in our history. It also brings a lot of the power efficiency of the Studio Hybrid and offers better performance.

Small form factors themselves are nothing new. But with the Inspiron Zino HD, we've worked to make a desktop that balances performance, size and price. In my view, this is the closest we've come to balancing all three in my 15 years here at Dell.

We offer a slew of color and design options: Flamingo Pink, Formula Red, Tangerine Orange, Plum Purple, True Blue, and Spring Green and Piano Black. Beyond that, we'll also offer Dell Design Studio-inspired designs as well. Take a look at this set on Dell's Flickr page if you want to see more.

The Inspiron Zino HD kicks things into high gear by adding more powerful processor and graphic card options. It comes standard with an integrated version of AMD's Radeon HD 3200 solution, but customers who want the best HD experience should opt for upgrading to the discrete version of the ATI Mobility Radeon 4330.

The Zino HD also offers more expandability options--including DDR3 RAM up to 8GB, an internal hard drive options up to 1TB. It also adds more external expandability through two E-SATA ports. Inspiron Zino HD customers can opt for an internal Blu-ray drive and can output it directly to an HDTV in the living room or elsewhere through HDMI. The Zinio HD can be ordered with two internal Wi-Fi network card options: the Dell 1397 card for 802.11b/g or the Dell 1520 card for 802.11b/g, and dual-band 802.11n. A 4-in-1 media card reader and integrated Gigabit Ethernet are both standard. Click on the image below to see a better view on the ports on the Inspiron Zino HD.

When outfitted with an upgraded processor the discrete graphics card option. the Zino HD is built for HD streaming. Streaming Netflix? Check. Watching Blu-ray movies in 1080p? Check. Besides that, this little box makes an awesome Windows 7 Media Center hub. We offer the Inspiron Zino HD with Vista Home Basic as the base operating system. But for anyone looking to use it as a Media Center Hub, I highly recommend upgrading to Windows 7 Home Premium or Ultimate. If you watched video of Microsoft's Windows 7 launch event in New York might have caught the demo. Windows 7 is a media streaming beast.

Bottom line, if you're needing a small PC that can handle everything from the basics up through some pretty sophisticated HTPC kind of stuff, the I think the Inspiron Zino and the Zino HD are definitely worth a look.

Dell Recovery Tool Enhancements

DELL-Mario L — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Hi Everyone,

Today I'd like to announce some new features that have been introduced to the dell-recovery tool that we are shipping with Ubuntu machines. As you might have been aware, the dell-recovery tool takes the content of a Linux Dell recovery partition and builds it into a bootable ISO image that can be burned using usb-creator or CD image burning software. When booted up, this image emulates a run through the open source portions of the Dell factory process.

This new enhancement is an optional image builder mode. The image builder mode allows you to build recovery media with these same customizations, but with content that is not necessarilly shipping from Dell factories.
This means that even if you didn't purchase a machine with Ubuntu, you can still build an image that is representative of the (open source) content you get from a Dell factory install of such a machine.

Of course due to the nature of the tool and Ubuntu variants being so similar, you can even generate media for other remixes or derivatives of Ubuntu such as Kubuntu with a few small modifications.

I've set up a wiki page on the Dell Community wiki that explains the current usage of the tool. Feel free to add comments to the comments section or make modifications to the page if you can improve to it.
The updated tool can be found at the dell-recovery product page on launchpad. Feel free to raise any questions about the tool on the dell-recovery mailing list on launchpad.

What You Need to Know About the Windows 7 Upgrade Process

Lionel_Menchaca — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

It’s been a busy time since Windows 7 launched last week. Many customers who bought systems after June 26 have registered for upgrade kits to move from Vista to the of Windows 7. So many, in fact that we've had to address performance issues on the Windows 7 upgrade site. We've also recently corrected an issue that was causing incorrect ship date information in some cases.

Each upgrade kit will consist of two things: the Windows 7 operating system disc and an Upgrade Assistant DVD, which contains Windows 7 drivers and more. In this post, I want to take a few minutes to explain the process of getting your Windows 7 upgrade kit for eligible systems. First, I’ll outline the core steps of the process, then will explain each one further from there.

Determine system eligibility
Register your eligible system for the upgrade at https://win7.dell.com.
Place your order for the version and language of Windows 7 that you want
Once you successfully place your order, you can check the order status from the Windows 7 upgrade site at https://win7.dell.com

Checking system eligibility: You can buy a qualifying machine from June 26 - December 31, 2009. Check the system eligibility link (see image below):

Registering your system:

To register your system, start at https://win7.dell.com. You'll be prompted to enter some information like your name, emal address, the date of your purchase, the system type and service tag. In the Tell Us about the OS purchased section (see below), be sure you choose the right OS version and details like 32 pr 64-bit. One common issue here is that customers are not choosing an OS language at this point in the registration process. If you do not specify an OS language, Arabic is the default language.

Some customers are running into an issue where either ther system is not being recognized or that their system is not eligible for the upgrade even though they meet te eligibility requirements. If this is happening to you, feel free to let me know in the comments of this post or contact me (see the details in the last paragraph below).

Once you get through these details in regstration, you'll be asked to create an account user name and password. You shoud see a screen like this one when you finish the registration process:

Soon after, you will receive an e-mail that confirms that you've registered. Form there, you will need to place your order.

Placing your order:

First step is to log back into the Windows 7 upgrade site, From there, you will see all the systems you registered in the top row. Assuming your OS language is available (see schedule here), you will be able to place a check in that box, the click the Add Kits to Cart button. Once it is moved down from the Registered section into your Upgrade Cart section, click the Complete Your Order button:

From there, you will be asked to complete details like your shipping address and credit card details (if shipping & handling fees apply). You will then be asked to confirm the order, review the terms and conditions, and complete your order. Soon after you complete your order, you will receive an e-mail that confirms your order details.

Checking Order Status:

At this point, once you log into the upgrade site, you will see an Order Status link . The time it takes to ship the upgrade kit will vary based on lots of factors like volume and where we're shipping to. In some cases, it may take up to 2 - 4 weeks.

If you encounter issues in any of the steps above, you can comment on this post or contact me directly through sending me a private message or you can e-mail me here. If you go that route, please share your service tag or order number, and let me know some details about your specific situation and I will try to help.

Many of the resources are found at the Dell Windows 7 Upgrade Site. That’s where you’ll find things like the FAQ, the System Eligibility List, the Release Schedule. Here’s the main Windows 7 Forum Page. Another main technical support resource is Dell’s Windows 7 Support Center (click on the image below to check it out).

We know there are many customers out there who are looking forward to getting your Windows 7 upgrade kit. We'll be doing everything we can to get them out to you as soon as possible.

Windows 7 Migration and IT Expert Voice Site

Lionel_Menchaca — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Recently on Direct2Dell, we’ve hit you over the head with several consumer-focused Windows 7 blog posts, but the fact is that Windows 7 has a lot of implications for businesses as well.

It’s no secret that many companies are still running Windows XP on client PCs. In a survey we recently with Federal IT decision-makers, 72 percent said they did not adopt Vista. That said, I think Windows 7 will reverse this trend and many businesses will be migrating to the new OS.Take a look at Bruce Eric Anderson’s post on Inside Enterprise IT where he dives into the details and asks about migration plans.

That’s the backdrop for a new information portal we’re launching called IT Expert Voice. It’s a project we’re undertaking with Federated Media. While Dell is sponsoring this site and some of our folks will provide input on topics of interest, editor-in-chief Esther Schindler is responsible both for assigning the insight cases and for selecting what content goes on the site.

From the About section of the site: “IT Expert Voice is a resource for IT professionals who are concerned primarily with making technology work in their organizations, and in particular with deploying Windows 7 in a sane and trouble-free manner.”

Esther's primary areas of focus will include virtualization, mobility, storage, cloud services, and automated management - but you'll also find plenty of other technical overviews (tuned for an enterprise audience, obviously). If you've got other areas you'd like to see them write about, shoot an e-mail to Esther with your suggestion.

If this sounds of interest to you, I’d welcome you to check it out at www.itexpertvoice.com. You can also follow them on Twitter @ExpertVoice.

Dell & Windows 7: A Winning Combination for Customers

Alex_Gruzen — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The whole Dell team is thrilled to help bring Windows 7 to our customers! I am in New York today where there is great excitement and anticipation over the launch of Win 7...happening here and in many other parts of the world including London, Paris, Tokyo, Beijing to name a few global hot spots. We know we have the coolest products on the planet (and as fans of Alienware would say, in the universe) and today people all over the world usher in a new era with an operating system that makes the most out of our gear...

Simple: Windows 7 is a very stable operating system, which is fast and we believe going to deliver a remarkable customer experience. I have been using Win 7 for a few months and it has changed my life with my laptop. Windows 7 allows you to do more with fewer steps and with many cool features such as Location Aware Printing, Jump Lists to organize and speed up file and application access, file content previews on hover, and ways to get right to the windows you want with Snap/Shake/Peek.

Expressive: Windows 7 brings collaboration and multimedia together with exciting features like Windows Live Essentials, heterogeneous content integration into Media Center, Play To features that will present content stored on your PC to your designated home entertainment device, and HomeGroups that make networking other Windows 7 PCs easy and help people share files and printers among all the PCs in the network. We listen to our customers to understand and provide technology that meets their needs.

Secure: (without the hassle): Windows 7 provides security and user control without interruptions by moving pop up messages to the User Account Control center... so no more pop-ups to interrupt you (or tempt you to ignore them all).

Responsive: Faster boot times: Boot to desktop times are cut in half with Win 7. Applications launch very quickly. You can put your system to sleep and wake it up faster than before and there are fewer crashes and freezes. Windows 7 has proven to be a much more stable code base (even in beta) so expect to be delighted when you boot-up your Dell laptop or desktop loaded with Win 7.

Powerful: No fear and no limits! At Dell we "fly our own jetfighters." Ask the Alienware engineers who have been using Windows 7 on their own machines. Games launch quicker and in-game performance rocks with the combination of DirectX 11 and Windows 7. Trust us on this: if it's good enough for Area-51, it's good enough for anything!

So go ahead, discover the power of simplicity... we believe Windows 7 nails the fundamentals. When you couple the benefits of Windows 7 with the award-winning hardware and breadth of products from Dell, we believe our customers are the clear winners.

Windows 7 in Our DNA

DELL-Dan C — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Almost go time for Windows 7. Planning and Development of the OS began immediately after the release of Windows Vista. We took a broad view on upcoming technology trends, customer pain points, realistic development schedules, etc. We took advantage of our direct relationship with our customers and developed a list of items that needed to be addressed such as speed, hardware resource requirements, and reducing interruptions like the frequent security prompts.

A fundamental change was made in the way we approached the development and launch of Windows 7 with Microsoft. Traditionally the hardware vendors were responsible for their piece of development, Microsoft had responsibility for the operating system and end users were responsible for applications. We partnered together and changed the way we approached Windows 7 and together overhauled the entire experience from bare metal (the system) all the way through to applications. I personally have been using Windows 7 on both my work and home PCs for nine months.

Sharing information was critical and Dell and Microsoft met regularly to address end user input. Out of those meetings Microsoft created a set of powerful tools to analyze all components in our computers and isolate any problem areas. We ran the traces and had the data analyzed to identify and improve performance ranging from system boot time, to stand-by and resume time, to driver loading. We took final code, ran it through a battery of tests and those results were sent through analysis at Microsoft. We caught and corrected several "little issues" that could stack up to become a big issue for our customers.

Dell also worked with all our vendors to deliver highly optimized code that wouldn't cause negative effects like slow boot times or poor performance. Much of that knowledge was put to good use when designing how Windows 7 would operate.

You might say that Windows 7 has all the good parts of Vista plus some, and that those that needed improvement were sent to daily 5am Boot Camp work outs until they could "fly right." Windows 7 is a much leaner operating system than its predecessor. Microsoft did an outstanding job of optimizing Windows 7 to boot faster, go into and resume from Suspend faster, and to Shutdown faster.

Microsoft has optimized the boot process, by taking out unnecessary Services and drivers from automatically loading but instead moving them to a new On-Demand startup category. Services like Bluetooth will not automatically load unless there is demand for it. This is brilliant. Reducing the number of Services that need to load on each boot reduces the Boot time and the OS footprint occupied in memory, leaving more room for applications. Many of the improvements came out of the collaborative effort between Dell and Microsoft, and we're justifiably proud of our contribution in optimizing the user experience with Windows 7.

Dell was very passionate about certain features because we knew they were critical to the overall experience of Windows 7:

XP Mode - there are several business customers that need a way to deal with legacy applications that aren't compatible with Vista or Windows 7. We pushed this as critical functionality.
Wireless performance - Dell and Microsoft teams worked closely to improve the performance of mobility features in Windows 7, like wireless connectivity, like reducing the time to locate and connect to a network. The wireless user experience is also much more streamlined and easier to use.
Integrated touch functionality - We knew that Windows 7 would have integrated touch, opening up an entirely different way to approach input. Microsoft used the Latitude XT2 and Studio One 19 during the development of multi-touch functionality in Windows 7 and the functionality was given as much attention as other input devices (keyboard, mouse, etc). The integrated functionality creates a common API - or programming language - so that application providers now have a standard way to tweak their applications to take advantage of multi-touch for activities such as photo editing, digital content creation, etc. Paul Thurrot posted an in-depth review (scroll down) on Windows Touch on his Supersite for Windows

A final observation - now that Windows 7 has been optimized to use as little memory as possible and to operate as efficiently as possible it is even possible to run it on a netbook like our Mini 10. Previously, the best choice for a Mini 10 might have been XP. Win7 starter absolutely flies on a netbook. Now, users can confidently expect great results from Windows 7 up and down our entire product line from the most powerful desktop to the most convenient netbook. That just goes to show the amount of optimization made in this OS, and how much more you'll enjoy our products with Windows 7 on them.

The Area-51 and Area-51 ALX : Now Available for Gaming Domination

DELL-John B — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve probably heard the hype surrounding the latest Alienware releases, the M15x and the Aurora. But not much has been circulated about their big brother, the Area-51 and the Area-51 ALX.

Gizmodo recently did an Area-51 ALX Alienware Autopsy (read: photo shoot), their intro paragraph summing up the machine fairly nicely:

It takes two people to lift. The Predator fins flare up as soon you mash the silver diamond on its head. Alienware's Area 51 ALX is a monster, and we've dissected it…

CNet UK also did a fairly complete write up on this beautiful machine, albeit without benchmarks, though they did a good job of listing out the specs and features available… save one.

Not only can you order this beast today, you can order it with Windows 7 factory installed… and as I noted in my last blog, Windows 7 is a must-have for gamers who want to squeeze every drop of performance from a high-end gaming system.

If you DO order it today, feel free to drop me a line. I’ll try to come out for a spontaneous LAN party. Heck… I’ll even bring the snacks.