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Blackberry now happy with Outlook 2003. Ludwig explains why the sync problems with Outlook 2003 have been happening to me. Need to download

I’ve been looking through the conflicting reviews again on X-bit and Tom’s Hardware. Here’s my short list of displays to look at:

• Acer AL1911 or Benq FP992. These are the same displays really. Decent quality. Now just $550 at Newegg. The Benq is slightly ahead as it has DVI and analog inputs. Unfortunately, it is lousy for games and watching videos because of response time issues but just awesome in terms of pretty good color. BTW, both Tom’s and Xbit give you ICMs that let you tune the displays so they are true colors.
• Samsung 191T or 191V (if you don’t play games). This has digital inputs and is decent quality. Samsung is one of the largest makers of LCDs now, so a good bet. Need to set at 56% brightness and 40% contrast to get best quality. Unlike the Acer/Benq family, it is OK for video, but not great for games. The 191T has been replaced by the 191T+ btw and I’m not sure if they are same panel underneath.

There are some other panels out there that are selling well on Pricegrabber but which I don’t have reviews for including:

• Samsung 191T+. Replaces the 191T, but with Samsung, that can mean an entirely different monitor. Caveat Emptor. Its about $25 more.
• Benq 951. I’m not sure what the difference is with the 991. I think it is the same panel, but without the pivot to portrait. In which case, it’s a good deal. But I’ll keep looking for reviews.

This must be one of the most hidden features in XP. Right now I’m on an incredibly slow laptop. But, there is a utility inside Windows called Remoted Desktop Connection, so I’m on a terminal session to my fast desktop in the other room. An amazing security hole, but also an incredibly cool feature. Another example of how the PC is getting turned inside out.

Here is what you need to do. The documentation inside XP is incredibly obscure:

1. Choose Start/Control Panel.
2. Click on the Performance and Maintenance
3. Click on System
4. Click on the Remote tab
5. Select the item “Allow users to connect remotely to this computer
6. Jot down the name of the machine under “Full Computer Name:
7. Now anyone who is an administrator can get into your machine. Note that this is a gigantic security loophole. If you have administrator set with a null password or any admin is easy to guess, you are toast!!!!
8. Assuming you are an internal LAN, you can now go to the machine that will access it.

On the machine that will access the remote one:

1. Choose Start/All Programs/Accessories/Communications (is that buried or what?)
2. Choose Remote Desktop Connection
3. Type in the name of the computer from above
4. Press enter and you are done!

Wow, that’s amazing. On my internal 100Mbps Ethernet (all switched BTW, so there is no interference from other machines on the network, the actual througput on el cheapo Ethernet switch tops 3Gbps!), there is no perceptable delay with just office tasks. I’m going to try this with a game shortly and see what happens. I can see that on gigabit Ethernet, things will just fly.

This kind of mechanism when combined with a better security scheme (hardware key) makes it really easy to have remote terminals, etc). Computing is really just a resource.

Tom’s hardware. It’s here. February 2, brings the next salvo in the processor wars, the new 90nm Prescott from Intel. The amazing result is that it isn’t faster than the current Northwood Pentium IVs. That’s interesting given they have twice the cache (1MB) and also are 90nm vs. 130nm chips.

They’ll be much cheaper to produce, but not faster. They are going to be called “E”s BTW. So you’ll be able to get a Pentium IV 2.8GHz E. Wow, what a mouthful. The Northwoods were C’s BTW.