I often look at one of my Vista PC’s chugging away and think I know what its doing I just don’t know why its doing it.

So hopefully this video based round table discussion with Mark and others on the topic of Windows Vista Performance can educate me.

Link: https://ms.istreamplanet.com/springboard/

The guys over at Notebook review have a Dell Inspiron 9 in for review with lots of pictures and commentary.

Something these guys do in their reviews is measure the heat temperature of laptops. They report that the Inspiron mini runs hot so the heat maps are really useful.

Overall the review is positive and worth a read for those interested in the mini.

Also on the link is a 4 minute video review

Link: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4578

They come off slightly worse.

Baiting Mac users isn’t the smartest approach.

This video is a good starter for anyone considering one of the new breed of mini laptops.

The video covers models from Acer, HP, Asus and MSI.

I was initially getting interested in these small form factor sub notebooks but the screen resolution is too much of a compromise for me.

I am waiting for Dell to release their 12 inch Dell Latitude e4200.

Someone asked me the other day what I thought about Google’s new Chrome web browser and I replied I has just rebuilt my computer and installing software is how it got all crudded up in the first place.

However curiosity got the better of me so I installed it on my non work machine.

When it comes to Internet browsers I use Internet Explorer as my main browser and have Firefox installed with the Google tool bar so I can quickly check web site Google PR ratings, in all honesty I actually dislike both browsers.

So what do I think of Google Chrome?

Easily and by far a better and more fluid user experience. It feels evolved and well thought out.

I need to play with it a little more but my instinct tells me I’m going to be a Google Chrome user very shortly. I don’t care its still in beta.

A good intro into Google Chrome is this 10 features video.

Link: http://www.google.com/chrome/index.html

Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld.

This campaign is only going to make sense when run in a series.

It’s not with a touch of irony that Jerry’s character on Seinfeld was a Apple Mac user.

Microsoft couldn’t market themselves out of a paper bag but can Jerry save them?

Over at the Windows Vista Blog they have started doing screencast like demo’s of Windows Vista features.

So far they have

Restoring Previous Files

Instant Search

Adding MSN Video Fees to Zune (Limited Appeal)

Windows Live OneCare 2.0

The microsoftie in charge of the Windows Vista Blog is Brandon LeBlanc who has done a great job of defending Vista on the site. A thankless job at times I Imagine.

So if you want to check out some Windows Vista Demo’s check the link below.

Link: http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsexperience/archive/tags/Demo/default.aspx

Michael Arrington over at Techcrunch has a video showing some new experimental Google features.

It allows people to vote and comment on search results.

This works very much like the Social News website Digg where people can vote, promote and comment on stories.

This could just be a sandbox experiment for Google or an early peak at the future of user driven Internet search.

User created input/content is at the heart of popular web sites like Wikipedia and Digg so the concept is well established.

At the core this turns Google into a popularity contest. It will turn Google search results into a Ebay style rating system where “98% of people think the link is good”.

There is nothing better than a personal recommendation, so would user input on search results make for better search?

Overall I would say yes.

Check the video fascinating stuff.

Link: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/16/is-this-the-future-of-search/

So I was very disappointed watch the these videos of how multi-touch has been implemented on the Dell Latitude XT.

The best way for you to judge is to watch the videos.

First up we have one from Dell about installing it and using it.

Next up we have hands on review from Gottabemobile

Finally another video review here (sorry no video embed).

Link: http://blog.laptopmag.com/exclusive-hands-on-with-dells-xt-tablet-now-with-multi-touch

What I get up from watching these:

1) Using multi-touch while the laptop is in the traditional clam shell configuration is really counter intuitive. This only makes sense to me in Tablet mode.

2) Multi-touch sensitivity and accuracy of response seems to be an issue.

3) The lack of CPU power on the Latitude XT is a problem (watch the lag on opening photo gallery or clicking and manipulating images, not fluid).

4) Only having 3 gestures sounds very limiting.

The Laptop screens of the future are going to get very smudged up with all this pointing going on.

On a more positive note this is a good free upgrade for an existing XT owner and Dell should be commended for trying.

However its fairly obvious that Dell’s implementation of multi-touch is very 1.0 and pretty clunky.

He goes into this topic around 2:20 of the clip below.

Now you can imagine the problems having a phone with a non removable battery that doesn’t last a full day. You end up with no form of communication.

All that GPS, 3g, Google Maps, Visual Voicemail go out the window if the device doesn’t have the juice to turn on.

In the keynote for the iPhone 3g Steve Jobs took great pleasure in announcing “better battery life”.

Can you imagine a keynote where the claims were a bit more realistic.

Hi, I’m Steve Jobs

This is the iPhone 3g, we think its cool, we think you going to love it, isn’t this just amazing, look at that screen its gorgeous, but if you plan on using it all day the battery probably wont last. 

Anyway watch Walt’s review which is generally positive but he does point out the fact its more expensive to own than 1st generation iPhone.

Link: http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20080708/newer-faster-cheaper-iphone-3g/