Alt-Tab Thingy

I found this program while searching for something to replace the default alt-tab program that comes with windows. The power toy you can download from Microsoft is nice but it is a memory hog and it doesn't do a whole lot. I found this from http://www.download.com. I'm very please with it. What do you think? CNet.com gave it a 4 out of 5 stars and other users gave it 4.5 out of 5.

I would like to know your opinion. Please post comments on this program or others that you find useful.


Screenshot of Alt-Tab Thingy

Download Alt-Tab Thingy 3.3.1 Beta from FileHippo.com

Dell's New Aquisitions

I learned some interesting news related to Dell again. I received an email from one of my previous co-workers and he was telling me that Dell had purchased Alienware, a company well known for their computers that are geared towards the pc gaming community. I thought, “that can’t be true. That was really Dell’s only main competition against the new Dell XPS line of computers.” I did a little bit of research online after that email and sure enough, they purchased Alienware. I personally think that was a great move by the leading computer giant. Buy out your competition. According to what I have read, Alienware will continue to act like a separate entity of Dell, keeping their name, tech support, management, etc all as it is now. Dell will be getting their products out their without actually having their name on it.

This also adds another interesting bit of info to the mix. With acquiring Alienware, they also acquired a company that uses AMD processors in their systems. Dell has always gone exclusively with Intel in every system they sell: Desktops, Laptops, and Servers. AMD processors might end of being the way of the future with Dell. That would provide them with greater flexibility with the systems that they currently sell. According to an article from Forbes, Dell is going to start putting AMD processors in some of their high-end servers. If that is the case, it will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of years. Will Dell start offering AMD processors in every line of systems they offer? What do you think? Feel free to add some comments and let me now your opinion. I would be interested to know.

More articles related to AMD, Dell, & Alienware:

Dell to acquire Alienware – CNET News.com

Exclusive: Dell close to adopting AMD chips – InfoWorld.com

SPECIAL EDITION: MISSING CHILD

This post is going to be a little different then the usual tech stuff. There is sometimes an issue in the news that needs special attention and I believe this is one of those times.

MISSING CHILD
Destiny Norton
Age: 5 Yrs | Height: 3'6" | Weight: 45-50 lbs | Hair: Blond w/ green streaks
Destiny's bottom row of teeth are COMPLETELY SILVER-CAPPED

This little 5 year old girl went missing from her home at 8:30 PM on Sunday, July 16, 2006. She is from Salt Lake City, Utah and at this point, no one has any idea what happened to her. These two pictures are the most recent. All the information that you need to find out about this little girl is on http://www.finddestiny.net.

If you would like to help in the search for Destiny, please volunteer your time to search for her or provide donations in the way of bottled water, easy-to-carry food, and street maps of the Salt Lake City area. If you have time to search for Destiny, go to the church building at 445 East Harvard Avenue, Salt Lake City, UT 84111. Donations are also accepted at any Washington Mutual branch under Destiny Norton's name.

Firefox 2 beta 1

The Mozilla Organization is at it again. They have just released Firefox 2 beta 1 to the public. From the screen shots, it look promising.


(click on the image for more screen shots)

According to CNET Reviews, users are giving Firefox 2 beta 1, 8 out of 10, although there is only 7 users that have rated this product so far. =) I'm a big fan of Firefox myself. In fact, I use it almost exclusively. There are occasions where Firefox will not display something correctly so I have to use Internet Explorer. I usually try to use the IE Tab extension for Firefox. It works great! By the way, what it everybody's thoughts on IE 7 Beta 3? The last time I tried out IE 7, it was still in the beta 2 stage. I liked the look and the new features but every system I ran it on caused the system to run slower then usual.

NOTE: If you would like to read more about Firefox 2 beta 1, go here.

Google is at it again

It seems like everytime I turn around, there is new information out about new Google services or products. Have you ever seen that animated tv series called "Animanics" with a show called "Pinky and the Brain"? During that show, Pinky would always ask Brain what he wanted to do today (as if they could do much, as they were laboratory rats). Brain would always answer the same, which was to say, "The same thing we do everyday, Pinky. Try to take over the world." Sometimes I feel that Google is trying to do that. I don't necessarily have a problem with that because Google has a lot good products and services that we could use. Here is a list of all the services that I'm come across just recently:

• Google Calendar
  
• Google Base
• Google Writely
• Google Analytics
• Google Calendar
• Google Checkout
• Google Sketchup
• Google Pack
• Picasa Web Albums
  

We also have the 'oldies but goodies' list of products and services:

• Google Desktop
• Gmail
• Google Search
• Google Maps
• Google Toolbar
• Google Earth
• Picasa Photo Organizer
  
• Google Talk

Google also owns Blogger.com (which is who is hosting this blog) =) I really quite appreciate all these free services. It helps me in my work, my school, and my home life.

Google Checkout is the one service that I just read about from an article off the New York Times website. This could become a very useful service as more and more merchants start using it. It stores everybody's financial information in a database and allows consumers to use that information when checking out at any website that uses the Google Checkout service. The competes with PayPal and Bill Me Later, which both offer a very similar service. The one thing that seems to me would be enticing to merchants is the cost. According the article, "Google charges merchants 20 cents, plus 2 percent of the purchase price for each transaction; credit card companies typically charge about 30 cents and 1.95 percent of the purchase price. Google will make up the difference when it sends each purchase through the credit card systems. For every $1 a merchant spends on Google advertising, Google will also waive transaction fees on $10 worth of purchases."

It will be interesting to see how many more companies sign on to Google Checkout. As of last week there were 100 merchants signed up with more on the way, including RitzCamera.com.

New Products from Dell

Being a previous employee of Dell, I enjoy keeping up to date on the new products that they come out with every so often. The XPS series of systems really interests me because I was one of the original phone techs for the 1st generation of Dimension XPS systems. Here is some information and pics about these two systems.

Dell XPS 700

XPS 700

18.13" x 13.6"; 300 DPI; JPG ( 4.7M)

Dell XPS M2010

XPS M2010

12.77" x 11.87"; 300 DPI; JPG (3.90M)

If I could afford anything in the world (that would mean I would have to have money) I would purchase these computers in heartbeat just to test out the latest and greatest technologies.

Something else that I have recently found out about in regards to Dell is they are changing their rebates and promotions. For as long as I can remember, Dell has used a lot of mail-in rebates but they are going to change that over the next 12-18 months. They are now going to cut the prices on their products without using the mail-in rebates and make the process of buying a system a much simpler process.

To read the full article, go to CNET News.

I think that is a great idea. I worked for Dell for 3 1/2 years and knew their website quite well and it was still difficult to know exactly what price I was going to end up paying.

The HyTech Network

Welcome to my blog. This will be a blog about tech stuff (if you couldn't guess by the name). I'm a computer tech with a wide variety of knowledge about different things and I like to learn different areas of the tech industry. In that process of learning and finding things out there on web, I decided a blog that combines that and allows other the opportunity to participate we all learn something. This is also a test to see how well I can keep a blog updated. =)

Anyways, enjoy it and please comment. If there is anything that you would like to see on this blog just let me know.