PC and Components: Features

I'm sitting in my breakfast nook, my Samsung Series 9 sitting on the countertop. I check the news, and then look at how the markets are doing. After that, I fire up IE 10 to check my morning blogs, which kills another 15 minutes or so. At that point, I swipe the home page to the list of apps and open Word. It's a little disconcerting to be in the Metro-style interface--in what Microsoft calls the "Windows Home Page"--and then suddenly be in the desktop as Word launches. But cognitive dissonance is likely to be a common phenomenon among experienced Windows users.

These days, Android is more than just a platform: It's a club, a culture, a way of life. Android fans are into it, man, and they're itching to show off their mobile-minded pride.

High-end desktop publishing programs, such as Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress, feature lots of tools to help designers produce stunning pages. But these programs are expensive, and novices require training to use them, factors that render their acquisition difficult to justify for most small businesses.

Intel is a household name and one of the most recognisable brands in the world, but there was a time when neither the company nor its products were seen as very exciting.

It's been more than three years since HP acquired IT services provider EDS, and the long-term direction of its bigger - if not better - outsourcing business is no more clear than it was on the day the deal closed.

There's been much attention focused lately on Canonical's recently released Ubuntu Linux 12.04 "Precise Pangolin," but it's by no means the only popular Linux distribution out there with a major update in the offing.

A growing number of smartphones have near field communication (NFC) capabilities to make mobile payments, but accessories and ultrabooks also now increasingly have the same technology.

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is less than one month away, and speculation is high about whether Apple will announce new iCloud features, refreshed MacBook Pros, overhauled versions of iOS and OS X and maybe even a new smartphone during the conference.

Big data is an IT buzzword nowadays, but what does it really mean? When does data become big?

ARN asks printing vendors what they are doing to inform customers of good printing practices.

Out went 42 aging black and white copiers with interface boxes that let them serve as printers. In went 42 new networked multi-function printers (MFPs) that could do color printing and copying and scan directly to e-mail, fax or files. And the owner, the Park Hill School District in Kansas City, MO, saves $19,000 yearly.

Laptop manufacturers are hard at work updating their laptop lines and making new models using Intel's latest Ivy Bridge processors. If you're in the market for a new laptop, however, it may make more sense for you to buy a slightly older laptop running second-generation Sandy Bridge and save a few hundred bucks. Here's how to decide which purchase is your best option.

We all make mistakes. But when you work in IT, those errors can quickly go public.

I remember when I bought my first new Mac. The label on the box read something like "Assembled for Apple in California." Famously, that has now changed: Apple computers (and iPhones, and iPads) are assembled in China, and the conditions of the workers there came under scrutiny when Mike Daisey's one-man show about his trip to Foxconn factories there was featured on NPR's This American Life -- scrutiny that continued despite revelations that Daisey fabricated some of the incidents he described.

There is a paradox in the technology that IT employs and deploys. As it becomes easier to use and simpler to manage, it is actually increasing in complexity. And there is a paradox within this paradox concerning how IT relates to the business. More on that in a bit.

PC owners know that every computer has a unique assortment of components, applications and peripherals. Nevertheless, certain things - including a host of common PC problems and mysteries - are part of the shared experience of computer ownership.

What the Web offers consumers and technophiles evolves quickly, so keeping up with the latest and greatest sites can be a full-time job. Eye candy, slick utility, and superb shopping are a few themes designers and developers are getting better at serving up.

In recent years, consultants Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton kept hearing the same lament from corporate clients: "It we can't get our culture right, nothing works."

Spending $150 to $200 on a tablet won't get you much these days: In most cases, you're looking at an off-brand Android product with a single-core processor, barely any RAM and a low-resolution, low-quality display. Depending on the device, you might not even have access to Google's app market or other basic services -- and while that approach may work with retailer-backed, limited-use products like Amazon's Kindle Fire, when it comes to more traditional Androidtablets, it doesn't usually lead to the best user experience.

The 10.1-inch Asus Transformer Pad TF300 aims to reshape the tablet market by delivering top-tier performance at a value price. It largely succeeds in this mission, delivering performance that's on a par with its pricier Transformer Prime sibling.