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November 14, 1998
News
- The upcoming week marks the annual COMDEX computer convention
in Las Vegas, the industry’s and, in fact, one of the world’s largest trade
shows. Approximately 250,000 people are expected to descend on Vegas for the week-long
event and I’ll be one of them, fighting my way through the crowds and ridiculous taxi
lines to find out what’s new and what’s cool. Apparently some of the bigger name
computer companies, including Sun, IBM, Dell and Intel, won’t have booths this year,
or will have a much more limited presence than in previous years, but there’s still
bound to be a lot of stuff. Some of the things I’m expecting to see are lots of new,
thinner portables as well as lots more handheld devices and hybrid notebook/information
appliances, such as the new Windows CE-based "Jupiter" machines. In addition,
lots of companies are expected to debut more low-cost PC systems in a variety of different
shapes and sizes. Home networking-related products are also expected to be a major trend
at the show, with developments in phoneline and wireless products. HDTV will make an
impact too, primarily with displays of HDTV tuner cards for PCs that will bring you the
benefits of the new digital television standard for a fraction of the cost of an HDTV TV
set. USB and FireWire, or IEEE 1394, peripherals of all types are also expected to make a
big splash. Finally, Microsoft’s Office 2000, which went into a more public beta this
past week, will also be on display. I’ll give you details on whatever cool stuff I
can find next week.
- So, are you one of those types that keeps running out of room
on your hard drive? Well, how does a 25 GB drive for your desktop machine sound?
That’s right, 25 GB. IBM this week announced their DeskStar 25GP, the largest hard
drive available for a desktop computer (and frankly, one of the bigger drives you can get
for almost any kind of computer). The new drive is expected to start appearing in systems
from IBM, Dell, Gateway and other major vendors in the first part of 1999. A slightly
smaller 22 GB model expected around the same time that’s called the 22GXP rotates at
7,200 rpm—versus the 5,400 rpm rate of the 25 GB model—and therefore offers
better performance according to IBM. Both drives take advantage of the ATA-4, or
UltraATA/66 spec, which theoretically offers transfers up to 66 Mbytes/sec, although you
need a chipset that supports the spec to get those rates and I’m not aware of any
that are available yet.
- Intel this week owned up to a motherboard glitch that affects
a small number of new Pentium II-based systems. The problem is due to a conflict between
certain SE440BX-2 motherboard—apparently just some motherboards that were built in
October—and certain types of power supplies. If you have a new machine with an Intel
motherboard, there’s an easy way to check for the problem. Just unplug the machine
from the wall after you shut it down. If, after you plug it back in (of course), it
won’t start up, then you may have the problematic motherboard. If so, Intel has said
they will replace the boards for free, but it will do so through computer vendors. So, if
you come across this problem, bring it to the attention of the company from whom you
bought the computer.
- Macromedia has introduced version 2.0 of Dreamweaver, their
HTML editing program. Like the initial version, Dreamweaver 2.0 is primarily defined for
serious web developers who want complete control over all aspects of their site, and
prefer editing in HTML. New to this version are some enhanced page layout and design
features, better support for tables and absolute positioning of objects on a web page,
site management tools, support for XML, the ability to preview your content without having
to first publish it to a web server and more. A 30-day trial version of the $299 product
will be available in December.
- After introducing some of them a while back, this week
Hitachi finally announced that they are shipping some of their new desktop and portable PC
systems. In the desktop arena, Hitachi is trying to go after the high-end, offering fast
systems that include integrated flat-panel displays. The VisionDesk 1330, for example,
includes a 333 MHz Pentium II and a 13.3" display and retails for around $2,500. In
the notebook arena, Hitachi has updated their existing VisionBook line, including their
new $1,999 VisionBook Traveller 600, which is expected to ship in January of next year.
The Traveller 600 is just over 1" thick and weighs around three pounds, which puts it
in the rapidly growing mini-subnotebook arena. Inside the Traveller 600 you’ll find a
266 MHz Pentium MMX, 32 MB of RAM, 4.3 GB drive and a 10.4" active matrix screen.
- #1 computer maker Compaq this week announced that they are
planning to try and emulate the direct sales model of Dell, Gateway, Micron and others by
offering to sell certain PC systems to consumers and businesses. Recognizing the success
that those companies have had with the direct sales method—not to mention how quickly
they’re approaching the #1 spot—Compaq debuted a new, more extensive online
store called Compaq DirectPlus that apparently includes much more aggressive prices than
the company has offered in the past. Previously, to avoid upsetting their dealers,
Compaq’s online prices were not very competitive, but now the company claims it wants
to meet or beat the prices offered by Dell, Gateway and the like.
- As I mentioned at the beginning of the show, I’m
expecting to see a lot of USB-based products at COMDEX, but one company who got the word
out on new USB products before the show is Entrega. This week Entrega debuted a bunch of
new USB products that let you create simple Ethernet networks, and that let you use older
serial and parallel port-based peripherals through USB. For $129, the USB Hub with
Built-In Ethernet Adapter lets you attach up to three devices with either an RJ45 Ethernet
port or USB connector into a simple network. An even more interesting product is the $199
4U2S1P hub, which incorporates 4 USB ports, 2 serial ports and 1 parallel port into a
single USB hub. By attaching that to a computer’s USB port you could use both older
serial and parallel port-based peripherals alongside USB ones, all while only using a
single IRQ. Pretty cool.
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