I began researching netbooks–small laptops aimed mostly at Web browsing–several months ago. I do a fair bit of traveling, and while I love my current machine, lugging the 17″ beast through airports has never been what I would call a treat. Not to mention the fact that a large notebook is completely useless on a coach airliner. Thus, I used practicality as justification for spending some cash on a truly portable machine.

What follows is a non-scientific recap of what drove my purchase decision and how I ended up with the Alienware M11x. Continue Reading »

It was a war that never should have happened: two competing standards for the high definition media crown. In one corner, HD DVD, the format backed largely by Toshiba which could have won based solely on its logical name (people know what HD is, and they know what a DVD is… a no-brainer). In the other corner, Blu-ray Disc, the oddly named format championed by Sony.

For a while there, it looked like the VHS vs. Betamax battle all over again. Stores were stocking both formats, confusing customers and causing most of them to stick with the familiar DVD. Add in the fact that you needed an HDTV to even care, as well as the introduction of “upconverting” players which made regular DVDs look great on high-def TVs for far less money than either of the new formats, and you had a recipe for a technology meltdown. Continue Reading »