Dispatches from the Reviews Editor
Charles has been in tech publishing since the late 1980s, starting with Reed's Practical Computing, then moving to Ziff-Davis to help launch the UK version of PC Magazine in 1992. ZDNet came looking for a Reviews Editor in 2000, and he's been here ever since.
When we saw the press release announcing Kingston's 256GB Data Traveler 300 USB Flash drive, we had to get one — if only to verify that this thing really does deliver a quarter of a terabyte of solid-state storage in a (chunky) USB stick format.Well, after a courier-related hiccup, the Data Traveler 300 duly arrived, and it does indeed deliver pretty much the full 0.
It's not big and it's not clever, but we couldn't help snickering over the web site from Korean manufacturer Mintpass, whose Mintpad mobile internet device plus associated accessories and services the company promises will "provide every customer with amazements and relentless fun". And so it proves.
Our parent company CBS has put out some web video of Paul McCartney's post-Letterman Show gig outside the Broadway theatre where the Beatles first performed back in 1964. Of course, Macca is no stranger to rooftop gigs, having played The Beatles' last live performance on top of Abbey Road Studios in January 1969.
After a teaser campaign that mentioned integrated Zoho web-based services and a 'popular Microsoft product', Zoho has unveiled Zoho Projects 2.0, which brings together Microsoft Project and a collection of Zoho's online collaboration services.
To Battersea last night for Samsung's much-teased 'Unpacked' launch. I was hoping for the company's still-upcoming Android-based i7500, but the main event was the unveiling (with much fancy holographic projection, but thankfully no Wings soundtrack) of the Jet.
A week or so ago, Phil Wood, marketing director of UK start-up Interead, handed us a shiny new ('vivid violet' coloured) e-book reader called the COOL-ER. It launches officially today, at £189 (inc.
Firefox 3.5, which reached the Beta 4 milestone at the end of April, is now full steam ahead for Release Candidate (RC) status.
In troubled economic times the attractions of free software become increasingly obvious, and even for die-hard users of Microsoft Office, the prospect of upgrading to Office 2010 in Q1 next year may prove too much to contemplate. After all, Office 2007 essentially rearranged the deckchairs with the ribbon interface didn't it?
Our friends at Computer Aid, the charity that supplies refurbished PCs to developing countries, have published their follow-up to the low-power computer testing that ZDNet UK carried out last year.A year ago, ZDNet produced a five-strong shortlist (ASUS Eee, OLPC XO, Intel Classmate, Inveneo Computing Station and NComputing X300) based on performance and power consumption measurements.
Drobo's original USB 'data robot' combined an attractive chassis with the company's BeyondRAID technology to deliver a well-received and user-friendly storage device, mainly aimed at creative professionals requiring large amounts of direct-attached storage. Subsequently the company has added a second-generation device with FireWire support and a networking module (DroboShare) to broaden its appeal.