How to Use Windows

We’re not the least bit surprised that OCZ has come out with yet another solid state drive (SSD), but here’s something you probably weren’t expecting: It costs less than $100. OCZ’s new Onyx SATA II 2.5-inch SSD series looks to tackle the mainstream market by putting more focus on price than it does with raw performance or high capacity. Available initially only in 32GB form, the Onxy drive offers up to 125MB/s read and up to 70MB/s write speeds, so it’s not going to knock out the competition. But it will make a solid argument for a netbook or boot drive.

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

Last month, I talked about the growing need for radio-frequency (RF) spectrum to support Internet services on smartphones and other mobile computing devices. Some experts say we’ll need 700–800MHz of additional spectrum—none of which is available now. We can’t manufacture RF spectrum. It’s a finite resource, and only some of it has the range and penetration required to blanket a region. Data compression conserves spectrum, but there’s a mathematical limit (Shannon’s law) that prevents further compression without losing data integrity

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

The FCC has formally issued their draft net neutrality rules, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is calling foul. The document contains language covering so-called “reasonable network management”. According to the EFF , this creates a loophole that would allow ISPs to block BitTorrent. The net neutrality debate really took off when in 2007, Comcast began blocking BitTorrent connections

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

Rumors are hit-and-miss, but this one from AndroidGuys has potential because of its underlying logic. Sprint plans to roll out a new WiMax handset. Neat, except you need a WiMax network, which Sprint, at present, doesn’t really have.

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

Who crashed?  Who. I’m asking you, who crashed?  Yes, Who, that guy over there on first base… Only the best downloads get their own warm-up comics. And WhoCrashed is one of the best downloads you’ll want to have on your system if you want to figure out the source behind your occasional Blue Screens of Fatal Windows Unhappiness

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

Congestion problems on AT&T’s network, particularly in New York and San Francisco are no secret, but the solution they are choosing to help alleviate the strain is a tad unorthodox. It appears as though AT&T may be voluntarily restricting sales of the iPhone to New York residents on its website. Considering that New Yorkers can still march over on foot to any AT&T store, I doubt this will accomplish much, but what makes this story particularly interesting is the answer consumerist.com received when talking with an AT&T customer service representative about the issue.

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

At the climate summit in Copenhagen, Boris Johnson pledged allegiance to the electric car and promised that by 2015, London will be the electric vehicle capital of Europe. In his speech to the summit, Johnson announced that Londoners would be no more than a mile away from an electric charging point, which would mean 15,000 charging points in and around the city. Hair-shirt abstinence In all there would be 500 charge points in the streets and 22,500 in workplaces, with the remaining 2,000 to be found in public car parks.

The full story can be found on Tech Radar

Everyone’s favorite computational knowledge engine, Wolfram|Alpha, has rolled out a new feature. Now, when entering an equation for Wolfram|Alpha to solve, users can press the “Show steps” link . It does just what it sounds like; it provides a step-by-step method for obtaining the solution. The Wolfram|Alpha blog post says, ““Show steps” feature allows you to learn basic mathematics on your own, or it can simply be a nice way to check your work!” This effectively makes it the machine we all wished we had while learning algebra in junior high school. The option works for equations of many difficulty levels from simple algebra, all the way to complex integrals and derivatives

For the full story, go to Maximum PC

Is your ultraportable overheating while surfing the web? As odd as it sounds, the culprit could be Firefox rather than a hardware issue. No, really, check out what one of Mozilla’s support pages has to say on the matter.

For the full story, go to Maximum PC