Besides using it for school, he also is a photographer and works with his pictures. He takes video of his Parkour and edits them. Being so far from home he also uses the computer to keep in touch with family and friends home in Russia.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z Series comes in three screen sizes, 13.3″, 14″ and 15.6″. They are designed as multimedia notebooks with multiple colors that are attractive but not flashy. They come with the Lenovo Enhanced Experience with fast booting technology as an option. This feature was demonstrated at CES as our own Xavier Lanier put his MacBook Air up against a Lenovo being operated by race car driver Danica Patrick.

The Z Series also comes with Intel Core iX Sandy Bridge processors and NVIDIA Optimus graphics. Blu-ray is an option on some of these. They start at $669 for the 13″ model, $899 for the 14″ model and $699 for the 15″ model. Below is a video from Lenovo about the series:

Lenovo IdeaPad Z Helps Student & Parkour Fan with Work & Play (video) is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

Forgoing the sometimes expensive docking route, I’ve found a simple solution to this problem that works well and is completely free! All you have to do is make a little knot-loop in one of your cables and run the other ones through it. I’ve found that when bundled together, cables tend to fall behind the desk much less frequently. Now when I get home from class my cables are waiting there to greet me rather than hanging out on the floor!

Quick Tip: Use A Knot In Your Cables To Prevent Them From Falling Behind Your Desk is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

Who is this monitor for?

Given it’s price and performance, the P2350 is perfect for anyone from officeworker to student. Thanks to a fast response time and several easy to flip settings the screen can quickly be tweaked to tackle anything from spreadsheets to movies and games. Webworkers who spend their day inside the browser will especially appreciate the ability to instantly switch to an “Internet” mode that lowers the brightness and makes text and webwork easier on the eyes.

Samsung P2350 Video Review:

Samsung P2350 Quick Specs:

The Samsung P2350 is a TN monitor, supports both DVI and VGA connections, Full 1920 x 1080 HD resolution, 300cd/m2 brightness, a 50.0000:1 contrast ratio and a 2ms response time.

Samsung P2350 Design:

The P2350 is a snap too put together and get connected since it comes with a VGA and DVI cable. The base comes in two pieces which screw together and then snap into the monitor. Teh base does not adjust up or down like some monitors do, but it does tilt forward and back to allow users to locate a comfortable viewing angle. We should also note that the monitor does not swivel as some do, but the stand is sturdy enough that it is easy to turn the entire display if need be. This monitor is part of the Touch of Color line from Samsung which also gives it good looks thanks to a Rose Black finish that allows red to bleed through in certain lighting conditions for a classy finish. The small glass beveled edge adds to the beauty of this budget display. The Power, VGA and DVI connections are easy to access but a HDMI port is noticeably missing. While you can get a HDMI to DVI adapter for notebook connections it would have been a big plus to find a HDMI connection on the P2350.

Features of note:

Monitor settings are primarily changed using a touch panel on the lower right corner of the monitor which pulls up an on-screen display of settings. These settings allow you to change individual monitor settings to achieve a better image and calibrate the monitor if your work requires a fine tuned color palette. Just as most consumers won’t touch the settings on their HDTV, many don’t know where to begin when making adjustments to their monitor which is why the inclusion of 6 MagicBright settings are very helpful. With a few taps, you can tweak the monitor to offer the best settings for , Text, Internet, Game, Sport, Movie and Dynamic Contrast as well as customize all of the settings yourself.

Performance for Work:

For the first several weeks of our review the P2350 replaced a 17″ monitor in my office which is commonly used for 9 hours a day at a minimum working with spreadsheets, database programs, outlook and reading on the web. The upgrade in size alone was a major benefit to productivity allowing me to bring several documents on the same screen and work between them much easier than I could previously even though I was already using two monitors. With Windows 7 Snap I could keep the database I manage on one side and the student database on the other without sacrificing readability in either app. The ability to tweak the display to offer a less bright backlit instantly was a relief for the long time spent in front of the monitor. While the Internet or Text setting dimmed the display it was still brighter and nicer to use than the standard display I had at work. Since the settings are easy to change I could swap between a work optimized mode and a more Hulu friendly movie mode when lunch time rolled around.

Performance for Play:

As mentioned, a few taps on the menu options and you can change from work to play. To see how well the SyncMaster P2350 handles entertaining you, we watched movies, played games and caught up on a TV show with Hulu. For movies and TV shows the P2350 was great. Watching The Dark Knight proved a wonderful experience with black blacks and vibrant explosions. The only thing that detracted from the experience if you got too close to the monitor was a bit of backlight bleeding along the bottom of the monitor. That said, if you leaned back and watched the movie from a relaxing position it was less noticable. Given the price, and the rest of the features it didn’t detract from the overall quality of the monitor for me, but for those of you who are picky about your video you should keep that in mind. For gaming I loaded up a Far Cry 2 Demo and blasted my way through the beach without noticing any ghosting or issues to note.

Conclusion:

For the price the Samsung P2350 monitor is an incredible value. The large display, easy to configure settings and good looks combined with the low-cost when compared to other 23″ monitors makes the P2350 a standout display. Even with the few shortcomings we found, the SyncMaster P2350 is a good display and one worth considering for any setting from home, to work to a dorm room.

Pros:

• Price
• Fast Response
• Touch of Color looks
• Quick Switch between settings

Cons:

• Limited stand adjustments
• No HDMI connection
• Backlight bleeding along base

Samsung SyncMaster P2350 Specs:

Samsung SyncMaster P2350 Review: Big Screen on a Budget is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

Before I found EMD PTE, I never thought I heard myself say the words awesome” and periodic table” in the same sentence, but here you go: EMD PTE makes the periodic table awesome.

If you are on your iDevice, click here to go straight to the app in the App Store. The same link will take you to to an iTunes preview page to learn more about the app if you are on a plain old computer.

EMD PTE is a free periodic table app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad and was developed by Merck. What’s so awesome about it? Well first of all, its extremely simple to use. Easy? Yes. Basic? No. EMD PTE puts a wealth of element information at your fingertips and in your pocket. It’s highly visual (which is probably why I think it’s so great I’m a visual learner) and thus, I’m going to demonstrate it rather than try to describe it to you:

You can also find a similar periodic table on the web from Merck.

EMD Free Periodic Table app for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad Could Be a Student’s Best Friend is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

That’s right, Amazon is now offering any college student with a valid email address a one-year Amazon Prime membership valued at $79 for free. The free membership in Amazon Prime is part of a new program called Amazon Student.

With an Amazon Prime account students can receive free 2-day shipping on any order, without any minimums; Prime members also enjoy next day shipping for $3.99.

Want a new highlighter? Click, click two days later it’s in the campus mailroom. Need to save cash on your  textbooks but your professor has already assigned a reading due for the next course? $4 will get those books delivered in time to read and finish your assignment and you don’t need to set foot inside your college’s bookstore.

To sign up for the free Amazon Prime for students offer you need to provide Amazon with your .edu email address, class year and major.

The best part about this free Prime membership is that students will no longer need to waste money on filler items to get free 5-7 “Super Saver Shipping” from Amazon. While students in most cities can head to Walmart or another retailer for a last-minute item there are plenty of small town colleges where the closest store with audio, computer or other items is 30 miles away. With a free Prime account students can order textbooks, supplies, snacks — almost anything Amazon sells and have it delivered free in just 2 days.

While the standard version of Amazon Prime autorenews it appears that the free Amazon Prime offer for students will not autorenew when the year completes. As part of the offer you are agreeing to let Amazon send you email offers but you can disable that in your account settings after you sign up. For more info check out the Amazon Student FAQ page.

Free Amazon Prime Membership for College Students is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

There has been changes and updates to class schedules in nearly every class that I’ve had this semester, and keeping track of it all is quite complicated. Most instructors aren’t about to hand out revised syllabi to a myriad of students — so at best the student gets a shout-out in class that something has been changed, and perhaps the schedule uploaded as a word file somewhere on the web. But regardless of how they try to notify students, schedules get confusing when there are multiple iterations, and if a student is absent that day how are they to know that they schedule has been modified? What’s more, the schedule can only be viewed by downloading a word file and searching through it to find the change.

So here’s a suggestion for instructors. Use a shared Google Calendar to keep your class schedule. What is a shared Google Calendar? In simple terms, it is a free, online calendar that can be viewed by multiple people (ie: all of your students). This has many benefits over the traditional way of doing things (explained above). What are they?

• Push schedule changes to students instantly: The real beauty of a shared Google Calendar is that you can update it whenever you need to, and the change will be seen instantly as students access the calendar. No more arduous altering and uploading of word documents. The calendar, of course, would be set to read-only so that only the instructor can make changes.
• Multi-platform: A word document is… a word document, and can only be read on a device that supports whatever format you choose. A Google calendar can be access in a vast number of ways. Students could access the calendar from a simple website URL. They could subscribe to the calendar with their own favorite calendar application. Students can even see changes to the calendar through RSS. If your students are really savvy, they’ll easily be able to get the calendar onto their phone or a device like the iPod Touch, and it will function as a handy pocket schedule for their class. The great thing about this is that if done properly, they’ll get instant schedule updates directly to their device if the professor makes a change to the master calendar (ah… the beauty of technology).
• Save the environment: Instead of printing hundreds of papers at the beginning of a semester (and maybe even again in order to update the schedule) just write the URL of the calendar on the board at the beginning of the semester. From this one URL, students can view the calendar, and advanced students can access the calendar from wherever they want (RSS, through a mobile device, etc.) A tip about the URL: Writing a long shared calendar URL can be annoying for you and for your students who need to copy it down. Try using a service like www.tinyurl.com which will shorten the URL to just a few characters and make it easier for everyone to copy down the address.

So consider using a more efficient, practical, and environmentally friendly approach to class schedules next semester. Not only will this make things easier on the instructor’s end, but students stand to benefit as well. Have a quick look at how easy it is to work with a Google calendar, and how students see the updates immediately:

Students: feel free to point your instructors in the direction of this article if you think that it’d be useful to you or them, maybe they’ll be willing to give it a try for their next semester of classes!

Professors and Teachers — Use Free Tools to Help the Environment and Keep Your Class on Schedule with Ease is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.