The company I work for, Z-TECH Associates (located in Lexington, MA), is currently looking for a Network Engineer to attend to it’s growing client base. Z-TECH is a great company to work for and we are growing. You can forward your resume to me at geoff@geoffmanning.com or to the address listed in the Job Description.
Category Archives: Tech
Laptop Sales to Surpass Desktops in ’08?
I just finished reading this article: “2008 could be the year laptop sales eclipse desktops in US” over on Arstechnica. I have sensed this coming on from personal experiences and at work, but the evidence was only anecdotal. Here are some interesting numbers from the article:
The US notebook market boomed in 2007, with laptop shipments rising 21 percent to a total of 31.6 million units. Desktops still outsold laptops in 2007, but the gap between the two has shrunk as desktop sales continue to decline. With US tower sales down four percent last year at a total of 35 million units, industry analysts predict that notebooks sales will exceed desktop sales for the first time in 2008.
While I don’t think the market is shrinking for desktops in the corporate arena (with the exception being an increasing mobile work force), it is definitely declining in the consumer arena. There is a need for the consumer to have flexibility in where they can use their computer and this is driving the trend towards laptops. For companies, the cost is far greater to purchase laptops+docking station+monitor than it is to purchase just the desktop+monitor.
One Laptop Per Child Giveaway
I am collecting contributions from my readers in order to send a laptop to a child in a developing country. For those not familiar with the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Program, you can read about it here.
If you are interested, please use the widget below to donate or by using this link. All donation will be sent to my PayPal account. When I reach my goal, I will donate all the funds collected to the OLPC program. Any contribution at all is appreciated.
Let the News Come to You
To stay up to date with all the news I read and the Blogs that I follow, I use a news aggregator called Google Reader. This allows me to subscribe to many news sources and have all the information I am interested in available in one interface. It’s a great time saver.
Here is a great video describing the concept to get you started.
The 10 best downloads of 2007 from Download.com
Download.com has released the Top 10 Best Downloads for 2007. You will find a lot of useful applications in the list from web browsers geared towards social networking to an free and open source alternative to the MS Office Suite.
One application in particular from that list that deserves mention is CrossLoop. Currently still in beta, CrossLoop allows you to provide remote support to a friend, colleague, etc over the internet without needing to configure ports on your firewall. There are several applications that allow you to do this, but CrossLoop is (currently) free and very easy to install and use for the supporter and especially for the person in need of computer help.
The Crunchies – Voting is Open
Here is a brief intro:
82,000 nominations were made for thousands of individual startups. The top startups in each of twenty categories have made it to the final vote. Starting now, you can vote for the startups you think are most worthy in each of twenty categories – from “best technology achievement” to “best overall startup.”
For more info check here, or go vote!