Posted 11/20/09 at 08:04:13 AM by Paul Lilly

In what's turning out to be a game of cat and mouse, Apple last week disabled support for Intel's Atom processor through a Snow Leopard update, a tactic the Hackintosh community insisted would present only a temporary setback. They were right, thanks to a Russian hacker known as "teateam," who says he has restored support for Atom-based Hackintoshes running Snow Leopard 10.6.2.

"The problem originates in a revision to the kernel in 10.6.2. The changes Apple made to the latest mach_kernel removes support for [Atom] processors, leaving updated netbooks in a useless state," InsanelyMac member "blkhockypro19" explained in a forum post.

TeaTeam's hack appears to address the issue, though Jeff Porten of MacWorld warned that performing the crack is not something to be taken lightly.

"You'll need to roll up your Terminal sleeves for a few simple steps here," said Porten. "And, of course, replace the kernel of your operating system -- the fundamental code that underlies everything else in Mac OS X -- with a file you've downloaded from the Internet."

Not only that, but it's only a matter of time until Apple releases another update that, in all likelihood, breaks support again. Apple hasn't been sympathetic to the Hackinstosh community, and even went so far as to serve Wired.com a cease and desist order after the tech site posted a video with instructions on how to hack a netbook to run Mac OS X.

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Posted 11/20/09 at 07:41:01 AM by Paul Lilly

Asus said it was switching to Nvidia's Ion platform for future netbooks, and making good on that promise, the Eee PC maker on Thursday announced the Eee PC 1201N Multimedia Netbook.

Up until now, a multimedia netbook could be considered an oxymoron, if not a cruel joke, but that certainly isn't the case here. Pushing the boundaries between a netbook and notebook, the 1201N sports a 12.1-inch LED display and comes built around Nvidia's pixel-pushing Ion platform. That's great for graphics, but it doesn't stop there. Instead of the ubiquitous Atom N270 processor found in most netbooks, Asus equipped the 1201N with Intel's Atom 330 dual-core processor.

On the storage front, the new netbook comes with a 250GB hard drive and 500GB of online Asus WebStorage. The online storage space is provided for free for the first year, and after that, you'll have to pony up for a subscription plan.

Other specs include 2GB of DDR2 memory, Wi-Fi, three USB2.0 ports, a 6-cell battery good for up to 5 hours of run time, and Windows 7.

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 11/19/09 at 07:06:21 AM by Paul Lilly

Netbooks have been selling exceptionally well without much support in the enterprise sector, but they won't stay relegated to the consumer side forever, and that's something IT managers should be preparing for, some observers say.

Maulik Pandya, Dell's senior planning manager for commercial notebooks, says netbooks could conceivably ease into 5 percent of enterprise sales, but there's potential for much more. Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst for the Enderle Group, says that if end-users had any say in the matter, netbooks would blaze past the 5 percent mark.

"Small portable computers for less than $400 is where the market should be," Enderle said. "Portability and the price point really tear up the laptop. Many vendors don't wan to build a strong corporate netbook model because they don't want to pirate their laptop lines."

The obvious downside for enterprise applications is the lack of power inherent in most netbooks. However, this might not be as big an issue as some believe. According to Allen Gwinn, senior director and chief technologist for the Edwin L. Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, there are workarounds. He cites an example of one faculty member who works with demanding SAS models.

"We couldn't find a laptop powerful enough for him to do his work at home," said Gwinn. "So we gave him a netbook. He uses the remote desktop feature to connect to his desktop machine in the office."

Scenarios like this are what IT professionals would be wise to prepare for.

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Posted 11/17/09 at 12:00:18 PM by Nathan Edwards

Toshiba waited a long time to enter the netbook market, but as the NB205 proves, taking some time to learn from your competitors can be a good thing. The NB205 offers everything we expect from a netbook, as well as some unexpected bonus features, and does so for less than $400. We liked the NB205 when we used it in our netbook upgrading feature (October); here we give it a full review.

The NB205 has a matte-silver plastic chassis and a textured matte lid, available in blue, pink, black, white, or brown. We appreciate that Toshiba has bucked the glossy fingerprint-magnet trend here. The netbook is solidly constructed, with a color-matched glossy bezel and hinge. The included six-cell battery protrudes about a half an inch beyond the back of the netbook, and is slightly wobbly to the touch, but given the 6:45 (hr:min) battery life, a little wobble doesn’t bother us.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

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Posted 11/13/09 at 08:30:07 AM by Paul Lilly

Right from the very beginning, Windows XP has dominated the netbook scene. Vista is just too demanding for a low-power PC, and Linux hasn't been able to win over the mainstream. But even though Windows XP played an important role in the popularizing ultraportable netbooks, Microsoft appears ready to move on.

"We will continue to make Windows XP available for those devices [netbooks], but it doesn't make sense to put marketing effort behind those devices. As much as we make Windows XP available for a year, we won't see it last in the market that long. We will get through the holidays. My gut is we will walk away from the holidays and see that it's not worth keeping on the market," said Don Paterson, director of netbook PCs in Microsoft's Windows client group.

Moving on is something Microsoft probably would have liked to have done with Vista, but it just sucked up too many resources to be a viable alternative to XP. That changes with Windows 7, which looks to become the new standard.

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Posted 11/10/09 at 12:32:49 PM by Paul Lilly

Rumors of an Atom ban turned out to be true, as the Hackintosh community found out with the latest update to Apple's Snow Leopard OS.

"Well, looks like I was right, again,"  Hackintosh guru StellaRola wrote in a blog post. "The netbook forums are now blowing up with problems of [Snow Leopard] 10.6.2 instant rebooting their Atom-based netbooks. My sources tell me that every time a netbook users installs 10.6.2 an Apple employee gets their wings."

While the ban presents a temporary setback, StellaRola  reiterated that "this is OSx86 after all," and predicted that a modded kernel is likely just around the kernel.

In the meantime, a user on the MyDellMini forum claims to have found a workaround that entails running 10.6.2 with a 10.6.1 kernel. The process involved booting from a backup, mounting the 10.6.2 partition, and punching in a few commands, all of which you can read here.

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Posted 11/09/09 at 04:55:50 PM by Pulkit Chandna

AT&T plans to deploy HSPA 7.2 in six US cities by the end of the year. Today, it took a small step towards that launch by announcing a new 3G LaptopConnect device from Sierra Wireless. Compatible with HSPA 7.2 and called the AT&T USBConnect Lightning, the USB stick will become available on November 22. It will be available for free with a data plan of at least $35 a month. AT&T will be upgrading its existing 3G network to HSPA 7.2 in Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami before the end of this year, with further plans "to reach about 90 percent of its existing 3G network footprint with HSPA 7.2 by the end of 2011."

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Posted 11/09/09 at 10:45:45 AM by Paul Lilly

Expect to see quite a few netbook and nettop deals this holiday shopping season, especially if Intel forges ahead with plans to fast track the introduction of its upcoming Pine Trail platform.

"Intel is planning for a fast transition to Pine Trail. To generate excitement for the platform ahead of launch, Intel is planning a press release in late December publicly disclosing the details of the platform," X-bit Labs claims to have read in an Intel document.

Should Intel aggressively push Pine Trail ahead of its launch, consumers could see a fair number of pre- and post-Christmas day sales on older Atom platform-based netbooks and nettops. And look for plenty of coverage at next year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Intel's Pine Trail platform will include a bunch of next-gen Atom Pineview processors, which will come with an integrated graphics core, a built-in DDR2 memory controller, a new core-logic set, and other goodies.

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