Now That’s Magic: 13-Month Old Demos HP TouchSmart

Dennis Hodge, the winner of Notebooks.com's HP Magic Giveaway contest agreed to give two of the four PCs in the package to Oakland Children's Hospital and Research Center in memory of his stepfather and my nephew, both of whom lost their battles with blood cancers recently. Today my cousin, wife and I drove over to Oakland to setup the computers in the playroom reserved for patients under 11 that are undergoing chemotherapy and other cancer treatments.
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Data Recovery Service: Your Lost Data Is Almost Always Recoverable

We recently ran a contest on Notebooks.com asking readers to tell us their data loss horror stories. It can be absolutely devestating to lose precious photos or important documents due to hard drive failure or corruption, but the good news is that your data is almost always recoverable. I talked to Jim Reinert of Ontrack Data Recovery about what's possible and how much it'll cost to recover your data.

Dell Inspiron 1545 Coming Soon

Dell will formally introduce the Inspiron 1545 at CES 2009. The Inspiron 1545 will replace the 1525/1526 as Dell's mainstream consumer notebook. The biggest change is that the new Inspiron will use Intel's Montevina platform, which has dramatically better graphics performance.

Fresh Graphics Drivers Available Direct from NVIDIA

nvidia_logo_08NVIDIA's making it easier for its customers to get the most out of their notebooks by providing updated notebook graphics drivers at NVIDIA.com. If your notebooks' GPU has outdated drivers you won't be able to play video games at full throttle or take advantage of the latest software that uses GPU acceleration.
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Panasonic Toughbook Overview (video)

Kyp Walls, Panasonic's director of product management, gave an overview of the Toughbook brand and products. I've seen ToughBooks at trade shows and in use before, but it was great getting the full rundown from an expert.

Win a Lenovo S10 Netbook

We're partnering with Brad Linder of Liliputing.com to give away another Lenovo IdeaPad S10 netbook as part of our holiday giveaway. If you want to win your own netbook, head over to Liliputing for contest details.
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Top 10 Data Disasters and Recoveries for 2008

Knoll Ontrack's put together a list of the top 10 data disasters and recoveries of 2008. The company's Ontrack Data Recovery service is able to recover data from just about any hard drive or memory card, even when they're physically damaged. The good news is that services like Ontrack's can recover your precious memories even if it's been through a hurricane or roasted in an oven. Of course there's a steep price for this kind of service, but it's probably worth it for many users considering their data can easily be worth more than their notebooks.
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10 Ways You Can Get More Out of Your Notebook in the Bad Economy

As daily reports confirm, we're now officially in a recession. Consumer spending is down for the first time since 1991. Whether you're one of the many people that want (or need) to continue using their old notebook or you just managed to buy that dreamt-of newest model, the good news is you can follow these 10 easy steps to make your notebook - old or new - go a long way in the bad economy.
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How to Upgrade a Unibody MacBook Pro’s Memory

The new aluminum MacBook and MacBook Pro sure look sharp, but it's a pain to upgrade their RAM. Nate from Gearlive put together a great tutorial on how to upgrade to the maximum 4GB of RAM.
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Apple’s Last Macworld Minus Steve Jobs

Apple's cutting back on trade shows and sent out a terse email saying Macworld 2009 would be its last and that Philip Schiller, an Apple senior VP, will stand in for Steve Jobs to deliver the keynote. Apple announced the MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air at recent MacWorlds, but the company says it's reaching customers enough with its retail stores and Web site.

Notebooks.com Holiday Gift Guide: Home Gadgets

Here are five digital gift ideas that can please the entire family at home and help you get more out of the digital content that you've already paid for or created. I'm only recommending items that I've owned or used extensively in my own home for this portion of our Holiday Gift Guide.
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Still More HP Magic Giveaways to Enter

If you haven't won an HP Magic Giveaway contest there's still time to enter. Dennis Hodge won Notebooks.com's contest just by agreeing to share the magic with some people in need. Other contest are even easier to enter. Here's a full list of sites that haven't announced their winners yet:
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And the Winner is………

Thank you to everyone that participated in the HP Magic Giveaway here at Notebooks.com. We asked our readers to earn entry points by spreading the word about the contest and telling us how they'd share the magic with others. More points were awarded to those who agreed to share their prize package and especially to those who agreed to share the package with a school or non-profit.
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Top 10 tips for Maintaining a Windows Vista computer

As a new Windows Vista PC/notebook user you will need to be prepared to deal with the amount of memory Windows Vista uses up. It is critical for you to know how to keep your PC in good shape and optimize your computer so it can run fast. I will share some tips in this article which I've been using on my Vista computer. I hope this article is useful for someone new to the Windows Vista operating system.
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HP MIni 1000: How to Upgrade RAM in Less Than 20 Seconds (video)

Today I upgraded my Mini 1000's memory from 1GB to 2GB in less than 20 seconds and I didn't even need to use a screw driver. Upgrading RAM on a notebook is usually a pretty simple task for experienced computer users, but I don't see how HP could've made this any easier on the Mini 1000. Check out this video to see what I mean.

Review: B-Flex 2 Hi-Fi Stereo USB Speaker for Laptops

Have you ever used your laptop as a portable media player or hooked it up to a projector for a presentation at the office? If you have, chances are you also strained your ears to listen to the weak sound trickling out from the underpowered speakers. Want an affordable and portable solution? Then try the B-Flex 2 USB speakers from Jlabs.

Wishing for a MacBook Pro Dock…

I'm enjoying my new unibody MacBook Pro, but not having a docking solution is a real pain. Things are really crowded since all of the ports are on the left side of the new MacBook Pro and while this notebook is uber stylish on its own, things can get ugly once you plug in your peripherals.

Gift Idea: Rosetta Stone Language Learning Software

RosettaStone can help you or your student learn 31 languages and dialects using a computer instead of books, CDs or lectures. RosettaStone’s software would make a great gift for anyone who wants to learn a language, but doesn’t want to sit through tortuous lectures. RosettaStone has it’s flaws, but I prefer it to learning languages in a classroom.