Mobile Computing
Chuck Horowitz

Check out What’s Running (www.whatsrunning.net). This utility lets you know what’s running on your computer (notebook or desktop). Using the service screen, you can find out the products that have launched the service, where it’s located on the hard drive, its name, type, process ID, and what process it’s associated with, and a whole lot more. I found out about this free product in Bill Machrone’s column in the February 2007 issue of PC Magazine.
They call it a desktop computer but, the AcerPower 2000 is 8 inches tall, less than 2.5 inches wide, with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, up to 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, a DVD burner, and Microsoft Windows Vista Business it sounds very portable to me. The price is $649 and you can get the 1000 model for $549. Check it out at Acer America at www.acer.com/us.
Speaking of Vista, my new Toshiba laptop has Vista Home and I’m not sure just how I feel about it. One minute I hate it, and the next minute I feel lukewarm about it. I have not reached the point of liking it (I’m not sure I ever will). It’s so different from previous Windows interfaces that I’m having a hard time getting used to it. There have been times when I’ve been ready to take it off the machine and put Linux on. To complicate matters even more, the Microsoft Office 2007 loaded on the machine when I bought it is a trial version that needs a key to register. The key is printed on a label on the bottom of the computer and when I go to register the trial, it will not accept the key. I have called Toshiba to get a corrected key and they send me to a website that I can’t get any information from. The least expensive version of Microsoft Office is $147.00. I may just switch to Linux and Open Office.
Have you heard about the OGO Model 02? Believe it or not it’s a full-Fledged Microsoft Windows XP computer that fits in the palm of your hand. It has a full 59-key QWERTY keyboard, EV-DO service, and mouse buttons to run the same programs that you run on a regular laptop. The retail price is $2,100.00 which is a little too pricy for me. It may be a good deal for executive travelers though.
While it has nothing to do with mobile computing, it certainly is mobile. I’m talking about the C-Quester, a commercial recreational submarine made by a Dutch company called Uboatworx. The pressurized cabin has a filtration system that recycles air and adds oxygen to maintain the air quality. The boat is powered by three electric motors that can plug in to charge. It comes as a one and two seater. I haven’t found out who to contact or how much it sells for, so I suggest that you put the company name or the product name into your browser and see what you get. Who knows, it might not cost any more than that runabout you were thinking of buying.
The July issue of PC World has a review that they call “Top 5 All Purpose Laptops.” Only one of the machines is more than 7 pounds so, I guess you can call them laptops. Included in the review are:

For more info on these machines, go to find.pcworld.com/47739.
How about the PC World “Top 5 Hard Drives,” (external):

The 1 Terabyte hard drive has arrived (no, it’s not for notebooks-yet). The Deskstar 7K1000 from Hitachi is here. With 1 terabyte of space you can load 33,000 high- resolution digital photos (3MB each) or 150 high-definition movies (encoded at 9 MBps using MPEG-4). Selling for 399.00 it sounds like a bargain.
Chuck Horowitz, a HAL-PC member, can be reached at chuckh@hal-pc.org for questions or comments.

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Chuck Horowitz, a HAL-PC member, can be reached at chuckh@hal-pc.org for questions or comments.