lxlau.com

If that date comes to pass, Apple will have officially missed the back-to-school shopping season, which is generally one of the best-selling quarters for the Mac. Even if it launched the new notebooks tomorrow it would have missed most of the college students who were looking to upgrade before heading back to campus, but delays with the launch of Intel’s Centrino 2 mobile chips probably didn’t help.

By all appearances the Mac is still selling pretty well, but new notebooks never hurt, especially heading into the holiday season. I’ve also heard a few rumblings about new iMacs–perhaps just a speed bump–around the same time, but Gruber’s report didn’t elaborate on the iMac.

With new iPods out of the way, the next priority for Apple is the
Mac.

(Credit:
Apple)

A mid-October MacBook launch misses the back-to-school rush, but has Apple in the right place for the holidays.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball is reporting that Apple will roll out new MacBooks on October 14, which fits the usual Apple profile of launching new products on a Tuesday. We’ve expected that new Apple notebooks are coming for some time, with reports of a redesigned exterior for the MacBook to go along with Intel’s latest mobile chips.

There’s nothing earth-shattering here but Samsung launched a new cell phone for T-Mobile today. The SGH-T819 sports a thin slider design we’ve seen many times before, but the SGH-T819 offers a redesigned navigation array and a chocolate brown color. The feature set is fairly standard. Inside you’ll find a 1.3-megapixel camera, a digital music player, stereo Bluetooth, text and multimedia messaging, a speakerphone, a 262,000-color display, personal organizer applications, a microSD card slot, instant messaging, polyphonic ringtones, and a vibrate mode. The quadband GSM 850/900/1800/1900 handset is available for $99.99 with a two-year contract, or $219.99 if you pay full price.

(Credit:
Samsung)

Samsung SGH-T819

Red Hat likes Linux on the desktop, but it also likes making money.

The company’s desktop software unit on Wednesday released an update on its plans, saying it will focus its efforts on specific markets but not face off against Microsoft in the consumer market.

The Linux Desktop team explained:

An explanation: as a public, for-profit company, Red Hat must create products and technologies with an eye on the bottom line, and with desktops, this is much harder to do than with servers. The desktop market suffers from having one dominant vendor, and some people still perceive that today’s Linux desktops simply don’t provide a practical alternative.

Instead, Red Hat is focusing on desktop software that works with its server products aimed at businesses and developers.

A product called Red Hat Global Desktop that is targeted specifically at resellers, which focus on emerging markets, has been delayed for almost a year because of business issues. The company hopes to release it “soon,” according to its corporate blog.

commentary

Apparently, only Charlie Babcock at InformationWeek really listened to the music selected for the Open Source Business Conference earlier this week. In an excellent article, Charlie walks through Microsoft’s troubled patent claims on open source, and notes its dissonance with the open-source harmony:

There’s a lot of open source code running on Windows now, so much that Microsoft wants to forget about those claimed infractions and work more closely with open source developers. Smith said Microsoft believes in the patent system and won’t back off its patent portfolio. But at the same time he acknowledged Microsoft has a lot to lose if it doesn’t achieve greater harmony with open source communities….

[But at OSBC]…[i]f you listened carefully, you could hear this refrain on the public address system above the pre-keynote hubbub, “When we want something, We don’t want to pay for it.” The name of the song: “Been Caught Stealing” by the rock & rollers, Jane’s Addiction.

Every song I play at OSBC has a purpose. I’m one of those people that really does listen to the lyrics. I’m glad Charlie was paying attention. Was Microsoft?

Setting up a network-attached storage device (or NAS) is oftentimes a pain. Usually the most frustrating part is getting Windows to identify it and map it as a drive. This way, you can actually use it as it was intended, as a network storage device. In CNET Labs, I’ve come across many types of NAS management interfaces, be they Web-based or desktop applications. All have one thing in common in my experience: they are not the easiest devices to set up. For this reason, I was very impressed by a demonstration from Synology of its new, soon-to-be released Disk Station Manager 2.0 NAS Management Software (DSM). If you think this is a long-winded, hard-to-remember name, well, it is, but that’s probably the only thing you’ll have difficulty with.

Synology's new AJAX-based UI for its NAS devices.

(Credit:
Synology)

First of all, DSM is a Linux-based application preloaded within the NAS device as a operating system that you can access and control via Internet Explorer 7 or
Firefox. As the front-end user interface (UI) supports AJAX, unlike most Web-based UIs, allows for Windows-like functionality within the browser, including the ability to drag and drop as well as helpful Wizards that simplify the NAS management tasks. The interface is intuitive and very self-explanatory. Novice users guess fairly accurately what each button does, and after a few mouse clicks should have no problem understanding how things work. All this makes mapping a network drive to a Synology NAS device a no-brainer. While with most other NAS devices, the list of features stops here; with the DSM, it’s just the beginning.

By supporting IP cameras, the DSM can also turn the NAS device into a surveillance station, which can automatically record video either by timer or by motion detection. This is an elaborate surveillance system that supports up to five cameras, and the recorded videos’ quality is actually better than most tape-based surveillance systems. During the demonstration, the DSM showed multiple real-time monitoring screens using IE7 as its interface. With Firefox, it was only able to show a single monitoring screen. Synology says it is working on this browser inconsistency, and the company hopes it will be worked out by the time the software releases in April.

Another very interesting and useful feature of Synology’s DSM is the Photo Station 3. With this feature, users can easily upload a folder of digital photos that Photo Station 3 organizes into a Web album. The album engine automatically creates the album interface and thumbnails. All you have to do is put photos in the designated folders on the NAS. You can then caption each photo and allow others of your choosing to view the photos online.

And that’s not all, the Disk Station Manager 2.0 NAS Management Software also supports the following equally useful features:

-
Sony PlayStation and
Xbox 360 support: turning the NAS device into a digital media adapter

- Expandable RAID 5 volume: Allowing new hard drive to be added and expanded in RAID5 format on the fly.

- MySQL Support: Supporting MySQL version 5.0.51.

- HTTPs and FTP with SSL/TLS: Accessing the NAS drive from the Web is made more secure, even on the entry-level NAS models.

- Audio Station: Allows user to play audio files directly from the NAS or an iPod to USB speakers, with remote control.

Synology's comsumer-grade NAS: Disk Stationi DS107+

(Credit:
Synology)

From what I’ve seen so far, Synology’s NAS device coupled with its DSM 2.0 software, by far offers the most features and best UI I’ve come across. At the time of writing this blog, I am also expecting an upgraded Disk Station DS107+–Synolgoy’s consumer-grade NAS device–that supports most of the above features. So be on the lookout for our in-depth review on CNET.com.

All of Synology’s NAS devices that ship in April or later will have this new interface preinstalled. Existing Synology devices can be upgraded to this new interface for free during this time too. The DSM software does not work with NAS devices from other vendors.

Some broadband users are considering going back to dial-up as the tough economic climate forces them to cut their household budgets, according to a story published Friday in the Chicago Tribune.

While it’s unlikely Americans will ditch broadband for dial-up en masse, there are likely to be some people who find the $20 to $50 monthly fees for DSL or cable modem broadband service to be too high, when dial-up providers such as NetZero are offering new $9.95 service plans.

One Florida man, Arnold Zimmerman, 66, said that after his work hours got reduced and his stock portfolio tanked he was looking to make cuts.

“I didn’t think I would ever go back,” the Tribune article quoted Zimmerman as saying. “It was terrible. But with this economy, you got to look to cut wherever you can.”

For several years, Internet users have been ditching dial-up Internet service for broadband service. But executives from United Online, which owns dial-up providers NetZero and Juno, said they saw the percentage of people dropping the company’s Internet service hit a new low of 4.3 percent during the fourth quarter of 2008.

Still, broadband services have been growing strong for cable and phone companies. And even though some higher-speed services are pricey, consumers can still find cheaper alternatives, especially if they are able to get DSL service.

For example, Verizon Communications offers a 1 megabit per second service for $17.99 with a one-year contract. Subscribers must also have a Verizon phone line. But if they don’t they can get the service for $19.99.

AT&T is offering a special promotion for its 768 kilobits per second service for $9.99 a month. The special offer applies only to new AT&T DSL customers. And subscribers must also have an AT&T phone line, sign up for the service online, and agree to a one- year contract. Current AT&T customers can get the service with the same restrictions for $19.95 per month.

But I’m not entirely convinced people will cut back at all on their broadband even as the recession worsens. As CNET News has reported previously, some consumers are actually increasing the speed of their broadband connections to access more entertainment at home. Instead of cutting broadband services, these consumers are cutting their cable or satellite services and are using their fast broadband connections to watch free TV from the Net. They’re also watching some TV for free from over-the-air broadcast stations.

If you’ve got tips for saving costs by cutting back on technology, I’d love to hear from you. Please send me an e-mail at maggie.reardon@cbs.com.

Two weeks after announcing two new high-speed solid-state drives (SSD), Super Talent Technology on Tuesday announced it will release the MasterDrive LX as a budget solid-state drive later this week.

(Credit:
Super Talent Technology)

The MasterDrive LX comes in 64GB and 128GB versions and will cost about $179 and $300, respectively. Both drives are SATA-II and use NAND flash technology. They will be compatible with computers that support the ever-popular 2.5-inch SATA hard drive.

The low prices do come with a shortcoming: the throughput speed. The new MasterDrive LX drives are significantly slower than other SSDs; it’s even slower than some regular SATA hard drives. They support sequential read speeds of up to 100MB per second and sequential write speeds of up to 40MB per second. To put this in perspective, regular SATA hard drives can offer about 100MB per second, while the new Intel SSDs reportedly offer up to 240MB per second throughput speed.

However, the MasterDrive LX is still more desirable than regular hard drives in terms of battery life and durability. I hope this is just the beginning and soon you’ll be able to buy SSDs for the same prices you currently pay for regular SATA hard drives.

It’s Friday night and still no word from the Microsoft or Yahoo bunkers. The headlines for today tell the story (see Techmeme).

The Wall Street Journal, which appears to be a conduit for the negotiations, has a story, “Microsoft, Yahoo Talks Intensify In Push to Reach a Friendly Deal,” and another one, “Yahoo-Google Pact May Be Close.” It doesn’t seem that a Yahoo-Google mating on advertising would lead to a friendly Microsoft-Yahoo discussion this weekend. It’s an interesting game of chicken, with many issues, such as regulatory approval, up in the air for any permutation of a deal with the triangle.

It’s clear that Yahoo and Google are trying to check Microsoft by hooking up, but it would only be strategic for Yahoo if Microsoft ends up paying a higher price, meaning it has to motivate Steve Ballmer into coming up with more cash.

Of course, Ballmer has other options. He could take the hostile takeover route, or walk away for now and perhaps come back later if Yahoo goes into freefall, even with Google filling its coffers.

Whatever the outcome, it doesn’t alter the reality that Microsoft senior management strongly believes that it has to do something dramatic to compete with Google. The fact that Google has inserted itself into the process has to be galling to Microsoft, which could lead to the hostile route.

For a reminder, here is the cast of characters and social graph.

Too busy getting stock-market-induced whiplash this week to stay up on Crave? No worries, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a look back at some of the truly interesting, strange, and wonderfully silly stories we Craved.

• The big Storm finally made landfall, and CNET’s Bonnie Cha braved the elements to file a detailed report (see video above).

• HDTV prices: how low can they go?

• Asus’ Eee PC went premium and got touchy.

Antec's open-air case lets you breathe easy.

(Credit:
Antec)

• If you’re into world domination, you may want one of these.

• Renting Blu-ray on Netflix? It’ll cost you.

• Antec’s open-air PC case let the sun shine in.

• Don’t forget: we’ll be on hand to cover every word of Apple’s October 14 event–even if the invite gave us a pretty clear idea of what Jobs and Co. will be talking about.

See anything we missed? Got a gadget tip we should know about? Drop us a line at crave dot cnet dot com. And have a great weekend!

Twittervision for the
iPhone put out a great update over the weekend that does something even the desktop version cannot do. You can now double-tap any foreign-language tweet, and it will convert it into your native language.

Why is this important? If you ever used the previous iteration of the application, you know that it simply jumps around the globe, showing you random Twitter status updates. Many cannot be read unless you’re fluent in that language, making it cute but fairly useless for most folks.

The translation takes about 10 seconds to work its magic, and you’ve got to be quick to touch, considering that the application hovers on a tweet only for half that amount of time. You can also single-tap any tweet with a link, and it will open it up in a minibrowser that includes a small plus button to bookmark the page for later reading.

Twittervision for the iPhone lets you translate foreign tweets on the fly. Just double-tap something you don't understand, and it will do its best.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)