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Irrespective of the technological development and of the battle between all sorts of gadgets manufacturers from all over the world, people should stay with a good head on their shoulders, because there are many bad things happening out there that must be solved as soon as possible.



Conflicts of all sorts, wars, poverty, diseases that scientists haven’t found a cure for (at least not yet), natural disasters, they all should be on our list of priorities, because whether we like it or not, they’re everyone’s concern. The only thing I, for one, am afraid of is that the human beings became so damn selfish and individualistic, that it’s possible for all of those problems to never come to an end.

The good example major companies give to the society when teaming up with non-governmental organizations must be closely followed by each and every one of us, because the future of the world consists of solidarity and civic sense.

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Dell, for example, has just announced a brand new partnership with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s largest breast cancer organization. The partnership has a very noble purpose, which is raising money for the fight against breast cancer, a disease that is of vast proportions, as you all know very well.

The money will be raised through Promise Pink laptops and Minis, both designed by Dell. To give you more details, you should know that every purchase of one of the two Dell laptops will bring Susan G. Komen for the Cure $5, “with a minimum donation of $250,000 in 2009”. If this sounds like a deja-vu, then you should know that this isn’t the first time you’ve heard about such a partnership, as some time ago LG, another cell phones manufacturer, decided to raise funds for the same organization, through LG Flare.

Laptops in pink are the greatest symbol of them all, because pink is the international color for those who fight against this disease. Promise Pink is available in several laptop models, such as Inspiron Mini 9, Mini 12, Inspiron 1525, Studio 15, Studio 17, Studio Hybrid, XPS M1330, XPS M1530 and Latitude E4200.

“Many of us at Dell and in our communities have been touched by breast cancer and we feel privileged to join the fight with such an impactful organization”, said Michael Tatelman, the vice president of consumer sales and marketing at Dell. In addition, he said that “Dell’s partnership with Susan G. Komen for the Cure is another opportunity to make choices in personal technology that reflect passion areas and self-expression”.

(Source: coolest-gadgets.com)

Sometimes (if not always) mornings can be very annoying and frustrating, because this is when we have to open our eyes and welcome a bright new day (at least for the most of us). It’s annoying because you never have the chance to sleep enough (not as much as you like, ‘cause you might never make such a dream come true, but… enough), and frustrating because you most surely have a device, standing on your bedside, to tell you that “It’s late, you lazy human being! Get up!”.



Whenever something like this happens you feel like shouting it out loud, at the top of your lungs, and breaking something into pieces. Your alarm clock, maybe. And the first thing to cross your mind is a question that seems quite logical, in the given context: “Who invented the alarm clock? Who in earth did that?”. Those fits of bad tamper take control over you and you become some sort of a monster that has to revenge itself on something. Anything.

The Smash Alarm Clock is a conceptual device designed by Matthias Lange and it helps you get rid of the frustration you have to deal with every single morning of your life. And guess what? You can punch the superior part of the alarm as much as you want, if you want to shut it off. But you’ll have to smash as hard as possible.

This way you will never be interested in who invented the alarm clock again, because having it wake you up every morning won’t be such a headache anymore. The only issue is that the Smash Alarm Clock is in its concept phase, for the moment.

(Source: coolest-gadgets.com)

A friend of mine once told me that the brain of a man is somehow limited to recognize less colors than the one of a woman, this being the reason why us, girls, we talk about weird hues, such as turquoise or cyclamen, causing wry faces to our loved ones. They claim they don’t understand what in earth we’re trying to say while we can’t conceive the fact that a human being is not able to tell colors.

The truth is that individuals see the world outside in a very personal way, being influenced by all sorts of factors that aren’t similar to those of another person. Therefore, in the given context, what would you say about this bright new idea, an ink pen that is so smart that it is actually able to read the color of any object that is placed in front of it? Good God, this makes it smarter than the bearer himself, if I may say so.

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And I didn’t tell you everything yet: when recognizing the color, the Color Picker (‘cause that’s how it’s called this concept) does even more than just figuring out what color a certain object is. The pen automatically mixes red, green and blue (three additive primary colors) inks in order to create the color it has just scanned. The inks are stored in a cartridge placed inside the pen.

This is a pretty impressive idea, you have to admit, but, unfortunately, Color Picker, the smart pen that “reads” colors, is still in the concept phase. And there’s no word about ever becoming reality.

(Source: gizmodo.com)

Razer launched a new gaming mouse called Mamba and featuring the same design characteristics of the other black Razer Gaming Mice from the same line.



On the new gaming mouse’s official page is is explained why Razer didn’t adopt the wireless 2.4GHz technology as the primary connection option for its latest model introduced, stating that gamers are used with wired computer mice and that “wireless mice suck for gaming”. According to Razer, gamers will continue to avoid wireless mice because of the delay in responsiveness, a big disadvantage that could produce unexpected results especially during first-person-shooter gameplay.
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As the wireless technology for computer mice is not enough improved over the traditional wired connectivity, a mouse model like Mamba would be the best choice of the moment for gamers and for productivity applications because it comes with a hybrid system that allows you to switch between wired and wireless capability instantly.

Specifications of the new gaming mouse include 1ms polling rate, on-board memory, ergonomic design, wireless/wired switching, and lag-free speed.

IMPORTANT!
A message regarding Driver Detective:

Since 1996, Drivers HeadQuarters has worked to provide the highest level of service to each of our customers. If you have any questions about Driver Detective or opportunities for us to improve our service, please contact me directly or visit our website at http://www.drivershq.com.

Mike Hurd
President, Drivers HeadQuarters
mikehurd [at] drivershq.com

Welcome on our page dedicated to the full review of Driver Detective! We made this review especially for those who complained about being cheated by this software, so we included all the screenshots made along the installation and upgrading processes to show you exactly how we tested it, step by step. We invite you to click and enlarge every screenshot and follow all the details in the images, and then decide who’s right and who’s wrong, as well as if all this big disappointment from our readers is right or it’s all about a denigration campaign against Driver Detective’s team.

Starting with the comment posted by Dan M on January 1st 2009 that states:
“On further review of mailed receipts from safecart, I see this web page is part of the problem with DD. The link on this page automatically adds the 2 year extension for $9.95, which raises the "discounted" price of $29.95 to $39.90!!
Just another ripoff.
Both sites should have Fraud Alerts and brought to justice!”

all we can tell you is to click and enlarge the first screenshot called Fig. DD1 and look closer to see the section where it displays the license purchasing options and prices. As you can see, you have several options there, one of which is to buy the license for 1 year at a price of $29.95, while the second is to leave the box checked and go for the 2-year license paying $9.95 more, totalizing $.39.90.
We unchecked that and got the 1-year license of the Driver Detective 6.3 for $29.95. Normally it costs $39.95 but they have a special offer in this period.









We received the registration key via email and downloaded the software. It has a standard installation interface (Fig. DD2) that we all are used with when dealing with any application (Fig. DD3, DD4, DD5).
Then we ran the program and we’re asked to select the manufacturer and model of the computer we installed it (Fig. DD6). We checked Not Listed and pressed Ok. In Fig. DD7 you can see how the welcome screen looks like.




The next thing we did was to press the Scan Now button and get right into the scanning process (Fig. DD8) without spending more time. The scanning lasted a few seconds until we got the results shown in Fig. DD9, where it says “(8) Out of date drivers”.




There’s also a long list displaying all the drivers that we have in the computer, marked either as Out of date drivers, System drivers and Up to date drivers. From the right menu we chose to see only the Out of date drivers (Fig. DD10).
Immediately after clicking on the first update required from the list we received the message stating that in order to download updates we need to register the software, which we did (Fig. DD11) using the information we received previously via email.




In Fig. DD12 you see the information for the first driver that needs update – the version we have in the computer and the version we are advised to update with.
We closed the windows and clicked on the first mini icon near the first driver on the list to begin the updating process (Fig. DD13).





The installation steps are shown in Fig. DD14, DD15 and DD16.

After about one minute we had to restart the computer for the driver’s update to have effect.
Then we opened Driver Detective again to scan and see if everything’s up to date with the graphic drivers and we had a nice surprise to find out that from 8 out of date drivers only 7 had left. Great (Fig. DD17) ! We went further with checking the second driver that needed to be updated, which in our case was the NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller. It downloaded very fast (Fig. DD18). You may spot the speed in the screenshot.





Leaving all the available updates checked we went further with the installation process (Fig. DD19). And then again we were asked to restart the computer which we did.

We have to mention that after each installation Driver Detective asked us if the installed driver works properly but instead of pressing the Yes button we chose to let it scan the computer for finding issues. There was no problem encountered.





At the next scan we were again pleasantly surprised to find out that there were only 4 out of date drivers (Fig. DD20), instead of 6 as we were expecting, taking into account the fact that we chose only the first 2 updates until this moment. This would mean that Driver Detective takes care not only of the major drives but delivers the whole package found on the official drivers’ websites.
The next step was to download the top missing driver – Realtek RTL8139/810x – the network adapter (Fig. DD21, DD22).
In the next screenshot you can see that there were only 3 out of date drivers left in the computer (Fig. DD23). We needed to update the High Definition Audio Device, the USB Audio Device and the USB Composite USB Device.





After installing the sound driver (Fig. DD24, DD25) and restarting the computer we started the USB Audio Device driver update (Fig. DD26, DD27), which was actually a Logitech web camera .
At the end we did a final scan and saw that all the drivers were finally up to date (Fig. DD28).





After this long story with happy ending we have to conclude by saying that Driver Detective is a great software that detects all your drivers and really finds and downloads the required updates with no problem. In addition it downloads Windows Vista updates and can perform driver backup when needed.
And besides these, it is very affordable, not to say cheap, at $29.95, while the system requirements are basic. You’d need to have at least Windows Vista/XP Pro/XP Home/2003 Server/2000 in 32 bit or 64 bit Editions, 300MHz or higher processor, 256 MB of RAM, 22 MB of hard disk space, Internet Explorer 5.5/Firefox 1.2/Opera 8, and NET Framework 2.0, the latter being automatically installed during the Driver Detective installation process if missing.
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We’ll end the review by citing our colleague who wrote the popular Driver Detective 6 Review:
“If you're one of those who hate looking for drivers in the strangest places, you won't have to leave any web site untouched until finding the latest ones your computer needs. All you have to do is grab Driver Detective and let it do this job for you, so if you have the money, go ahead and make a smart buy!”