Laptop skins
Tuesday, July 25, 2006

One of our Cary, NC customers just came in with a laptop with a schticker on it. No, not a sticker but a schticker! It covered the whole top of their laptop. Nice looking, unique product. Check it out!

www.schtickers.com

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 7:11 AM, ,


A Laptop Orchestra?

Haha! Neat! One of our NJ customers that just had his laptop repaired here was just telling us about Princeton's Laptop Orchestra.

It is true. Check it out here:
http://plork.cs.princeton.edu/.

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 6:55 AM, ,


Intel pulls ATI's license
Monday, July 24, 2006


A romour is floating around the net that Intel will pull ATI's chipset license. This wouldn't surprise us; Intel doesn't play very nicely. If Intel didn't fight, slash pricing and dedicate so much time and money into keeping people from buying AMD's products, AMD just might run them right over.

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 7:08 PM, ,


AMD buys ATI

It is officical.

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 6:59 PM, ,


Dell starts a blog with a bang

Dell finally started blogging this month. One of their first posts is of one of their laptops blowing up and burning.

It is true: Flaming Laptop.

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 12:31 AM, ,


A laptop with a 20in LCD, the Dell XPS M2010
Sunday, July 23, 2006

Finally, a 20" LCD laptop. A High-Definition BrightView Widescreen at that.

The machine is heavy, starts at $3,500 and only has a 1yr warranty, but it is a step in the right direction. Our customers have informed us there is a market for these- not at that price or even a quarter of it, but it exists. A lot of people just want to replace their desktop with a laptop but the screen is too small. A desktop PC w/ a 19" LCD monitor is only around $600, so until these laptops are available under $1000 they're going to be rarely seen.

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 10:21 PM, ,


AMD to buy ATI?

Now this would be interesting.

I have hope for AMD. They make good products, and they keep Intel's pricing (almost) reasonable.

A lot of home users are skeptical of AMD. It is a fact that in the mid 90s many AMD based desktops had compatibility/reliability issues. This was simply due to people making computers with cheap motherboards. The chipsets used created software problems. The AMD CPUs were cheaper and they were paired with cheaper motherboards. Inadequate fans killed processors. Intel markets a lot, AMD, very little.

Ya know, one of these days a chip manufacturer is going to hit the nail on the head and start making cheap 1.5Ghz CPUs, capable of running many home based apps. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for faster CPUs. And while many people can't, I can see exactly why we need 4, 8, 16Ghz (speed) CPUs.

Anyways... AMD announced today that there will be a "significant corporate announcement" on Monday. If so, watch out! It could get interesting.

Len
Absolute Computers

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 8:57 PM, ,


Noelle Moore writes bad checks

The title says it all, Noelle Moore writes a bad check.

*** UPDATE *** 7/25, 48hrs after this post, we were informed that "Noelle Seacrest" has been arrested for several criminal incident in the area and is in jail.

Pretending to be normal, she strolled in here one day to purchase something. We normally only take cheks for small repairs. However, w/ NC's new check laws we decided to give checks a shot again. That is until, Noelle Moore came in. She pretended to be normal although she was really in our shop to scam a laptop. Beleive it or not this actually happens to us a lot, especially dealing products online, scammers test us daily.

NCs new laws making passing a worthless check a crime. We followed Wake County's Worthless Check Deferred Prosecution Program, but she was nowhere to be found. Now there is (another) warrant out for her arrest.

She is about 5'8", 260lbs nd has dark hair, although in a recent mugshot it was blonde with dark roots.

The online scammers are fairly easy to deal with- normally we simply do not sell to them. Extra safety precautions help ensure safe transactions online, although there is always some risk involved. Simply keeping customers happy goes a long way, and we've never been scammed online.

Locally we've even been broken into before, although the people that did that went to jail.

Anyhow, if you live in Cary, NC and run into Noelle Moore, go ahead and turn her in to Cary PD. She has been ripping off people in our great community and she thinks she's a con artist. Her last known address was in Morrisville. We thought about offering a reward but we know she is going to get busted without one. Even if you were a criminal, wouldn't you steal from a large chain store that can afford it? Not her- she walked into a small business and picked out the most expensive thing she could find.

NOTE: We did a thorough search online and her name does not show up anywhere. There are other innocent people that share her name that live in other states. We beleive our local criminal to be named Noelle Martin Moore.

To Noelle: If you happen to read this and need some kind of assistance we'll be happy to assist.

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 8:14 PM, ,


Hacked Ad Seen on MySpace Served Spyware to a Million
Thursday, July 20, 2006

"An online banner advertisement that ran on MySpace.com and other sites over the past week used a Windows security flaw to infect more than a million users with spyware when people merely browsed the sites with unpatched versions of Windows, according to data collected by iDefense, a Verisign company."

read more | digg story

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 9:35 PM, ,


Google's unknown artist has huge following

The 28-year-old webmaster designs the whimsical logos that decorate Google.com's otherwise Spartan Web site on special occasions.

read more | digg story

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 9:34 PM, ,


Details of AOL customer retention manual revealed!
Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Find out how AOL trains its customer service reps to NEVER let you unsubscribe...

read more | digg story

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 10:19 PM, ,


Google Launches Free WiFi For "Trusted Testers" in Mountain View, CA

BREAKING NEWS: Google lights up their free wifi for the first time! The link is a Google map of access points and dead spots in the Mountain View area. Expect to see this officially launch later this summer.

read more | digg story

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 10:17 PM, ,


Laptop Bag Sale $10
Monday, July 17, 2006

Until further notice, we have over 1000 laptop bags for sale. They start @ $10 and go up to $20. Most of the bags are Targus, Dell, IBM and Port. Some are cloth, some are leather, some are new, most are used, they're all in nice condition and the price in unbeatable! ALL bags are between 10 and 20 bucks!

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 9:40 PM, ,


AC Adapter for an A30
Sunday, July 16, 2006

For the 10042nd time, a battery isn't required to run your laptop!

We recommend it is left in the machine. Some machines won't run at full performance without a battery of some sort installed. But they'll run with no battery.

A desperate customer called in the other day. He had been to Int*x, B*st Buy, T*ger Direct and a few other stores looking for a laptop battery for his ThinkPad A30. The machine wouldn't boot. It owuld turn on fr about 2 seconds and shut off. This is a classic sign of a machine to do when it is trying to boot from an uncharged battery. We told him to come in for an exact replacement AC adapter. This contradicted the information he had heard all day while driving around Raleigh. We assured him that this was the most likely cause of his issues and that we could test it for him when he stoped in. A quick trip in and $29 later, our thrilled customer left with a happy A30!

The original AC Adapter had quit working properly and was an insufficient wattge to begin with.

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 9:56 PM, ,


Copaq N600c memory amount changed


A Compaq N600c laptop came in citing misc boot errors.

After sitting powered off for a few hours, when the machine was powered on an error would appear stating that the amount of memory had changed. Then, the machine would work fine. On occasion, the system would bluescreen during boot.

We determined that there was a problem with the memory, or a memory slot or the memory controller. Upon checking the memory bays, we noticed an aftermarket Kingston memory chip and decided that was the most likely cause of the problems. We installed one of our chips and tested the system a couple of days with no problems.

The system is happy again. The offending memory chip was a Kingston 256MB PC133 SODIMM chip. Replacement chips are currently around $49.

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 9:46 PM, ,


Compare shipping rates

Finally, an easy way to compare shipping rates! Redroller.com.

Compare DHL, FedEx, UPS, USPS, etc.

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 1:04 PM, ,


Inspiron 600m issues
Friday, July 14, 2006

The Dell 600m laptops are almost 2 years old now and they're just pouring in left and right.

Some have a broken (occasionally repairable) power jack. Some will no longer see the battery. Some have bad memory. Some have bad CPUs. Some have bad hard drives. Many have bad motherboards.

They seem to be a nice little machines until they break. A good replacement motherboard is typically around $349 - $399 installed. We also end up buying a lot of these for parts.

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 11:26 PM, ,


Compaq 1800 issues


A local customer brought in a Compaq 1800 laptop. It had loose hinges, so the LCD would flop back and forth. Also, the DVD/CDRW combo drive was broken.

Compaq doesn't sell just the LCD hinges, but the entire lid assembly, LCD and all. But, we were able to locate the hinges for under $50.

As for the combo drive, it was an LG. Using parts in stock, we reived the combo drive. We do not normally repair optical drives but this was an easy fix.

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 11:03 PM, ,


Blogs in outer space

Our blog is now sent into outer space via a powerful deep space transmission dish!

Why not?!


http://www.bloginspace.com

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 10:43 PM, ,


Digital Cameras- Reviewed

A lot of people ask us which digital camera they should buy. The truth is, there are a lot of variables you should look at before buying.

Here is a helpful review site:
http://www.digitalcamerareview.com

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 10:34 PM, ,


LED Backlights?
Thursday, July 13, 2006

Wow, this is neat.

This guy not only replaced his backlight, he replaced the CCFL tube with 14 LEDs.

A must read for the techy.
http://sprite.student.utwente.nl/%7Ejeroen/projects/ledbl/

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 9:23 PM, ,


WiMAX gets high dollar infusion from Intel
Friday, July 07, 2006

Intel moves to expand mobile WiMAX into Centrino Mobile Technology and invests $600 million in Clearwire to promote WiMAX availability across North America. Motorola acquires Clearwire subsidiary NextNet Wireless and will provide equipment for Clearwire's global networks.

read more | digg story

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 6:45 AM, ,


Terabyte laptop drive!!
Thursday, July 06, 2006

Make way for the terabyte laptop drive
New technology from Seagate could increase disk capacity 10 times

read more | digg story

posted by AbsoluteRaleigh @ 8:33 PM, ,