So when is a chicken not a chicken? When it ducks!

You might be wondering how in the world that pathetic old joke is relevant to those spinning little (or big) fans in your computer case. If you’re a custom PC builder, be it for the sweet sound of silence, or for some rage against the machine overclocking, if there’s one thing that you know, it’s fans. Electronics don’t like to be hot, and whether it’s moving air over a heatsink or moving air over a liquid cooling radiator, at some point you just have to transfer the heat that computer parts generate into the air. That means you need Ye Olde Whirling Dervish, AKA a fan.

But fans are tricky. You’re often limited to the size of the fan that you can use, which reduces their efficiency. The speed that they run at and the design of the fan blades determine all sorts of factors from the amount of air moved, to the pressure of the air, to the focus cone of how the air moves, to the amount of power the fans consume, to the noise that they make as the blades spin around going whir whir whir. And then there’s the bearing design. How long will the fan really last? When it comes to PCs, fans are a tricky business!

But what if your fan … wasn’t a fan?

General Electric has developed an interesting novel approach to moving air in consumer electronics, which they based not on Ye Olde Whirling Dervish, but on a bellows. Taking a concept from their commercial jet engines, GE used tiny ceramic piezoelectronics and two 40mm x 40mm metal plates to make what they call a Dual Piezo Cooling Jet (DCJ).

The little buggers are smaller than fans, move more air, use less electricity, and make so little noise as to be virtually inaudible. And with no bearings to grind, in theory they’ll last longer too! Allegedly they don’t even gather dust. In theory they’re better all-around than any fan.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “Sounds great! Where can I get a DCJ?” that’s where problems start to come in. Because GE isn’t really interested in manufacturing and selling the DCJs themselves. They’re only promoting the intellectual property. GE is presently demonstrating DCJs to manufacturers and so far have licensed the design to only one company: Fujikura LTD of Japan. So it may be some time yet before you can buy one.

There’s also another problem: the way that they work. As you watch their video, you realize one really important thing, DCJs are thin. Like really really thin. Sure, they create a jet of air, but how often in a big PC case do you need a really tiny Jetstream? If you want a big fan, or need to cover a lot of area, the DCJ may not be for you. They look to create a very concentrated little jetstream. Sure, it moves air, but how many of the little buggers do you need to cover as much area as you want? And in the case of an exhaust fan, what’ll it feel like to be the person who dares to walk behind the computer? So there may be a few features that need tweaking for PC use. It’s a design that’ll work great in super-thin devices, like smartphones, tablets, and ultrabooks. I’m not so convinced about larger consumer electronics though. Not without a serious rethink of how air moves in the device. I don’t see someone fitting a DCJ into any traditional fan slot. They just work too differently, moving air along a completely different axis.

I’m also not sure that I like the idea of my cellphone having a fan.

Still, it’s interesting, isn’t it? We could find that five years from now the Dual Piezo Cooling Jet may just have completely revolutionized consumer electronics airflow designs. I can already see a few of my old theoretical computer case designs that I’d been thinking about for silence that didn’t work well with traditional spinning fans would work quite the treat with DCJs. They’d finally become reasonable designs. Makes me wish I had the money to patent a few case designs and manufacture them.

It also makes me wonder, if they can move air so much more efficiently, and air is just a fluid (as far as the physics of fluid dynamics are concerned) how about an adaptation to water? And if that works, what about other liquids? From better water cooling rigs in PCs to fuel injection in cars, just how many things could DCJs actually revolutionize? Has anyone at GE even thought through all of the potential implications and applications?

And just how big can these be made and still work right?

Beats me! But I can’t wait to find out.

Microsoft would like to remind us that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 support has ended, and if you’d like support on Vista, you really should upgrade (for free) from SP1 to SP2. It’s easy. Just run Windows Update.

Or, better yet, upgrade to Windows 7. (Microsoft’s suggestion, not mine. See?)

As self-serving as Microsoft’s suggestion of upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 may be, I find myself in the rare position of actually agreeing with them on that. Yes, it costs money, but let’s face it, Windows Vista is a joke. It’s Windows ME2. Do you really want to be stuck on it?

Well, your choice. Either way, Microsoft’s point is that Windows Vista SP1 is officially dead to them.

No surprises there, as Microsoft probably wishes everyone would just forget that Windows Vista ever existed. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if support of Windows Vista ended with Service Pack 2 and Windows XP actually outlived it!

Speaking of, if you’re one of those people holding on to dear life to Windows XP (and I even fall into that category to some extent) the Windows XP support will end… One day… Maybe… If it isn’t extended again. I guess over in MS World, now that Windows 7 has finally given people something stable and usable to upgrade to (since Windows Vista failed miserably on that front) we’re all supposed to upgrade to Windows 7. (Except for those of us who can’t, of course.)

Here’s the really odd thing though. Microsoft claims that Windows XP will indeed die. It has less than 1000 days less of its extended support. Officially, on the 8th of April, 2014, Microsoft will no longer provide security patches, hotfixes, etc. for any version of Windows XP. I get that. It’s something of a bummer for those of us using it on low-powered low-memory laptops and netbooks where Windows 7 is a less-than-convincing “upgrade”, leaving us … well, SoL. Not to mention those of us just keeping old PCs alive! It’d be one thing if Windows 7 could actually run as well as Windows XP on an old or budget system, but it’s another thing entirely when it can’t, and in even more cases where Windows 7 can’t be installed on the box at all!

But things take an even stranger turn, because along come the rumors and innuendo of Windows 8. Microsoft exec Tami Reller just told folks at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 that if a PC could run Windows 7, it could also run Windows 8. It’s an assurance to PC makers (and consumers) that anyone who is running Windows 7 now will be able to upgrade easily to Windows 8. You won’t have to worry about memory or processor speed at all. (Which could be a Microsoft first since it left the concept of Windows as a DOS shell behind!)

However, that raises an odd question in my mind: What about the army of folks still on Windows XP? Can they upgrade to Windows 8?

Why do I ask that?

Why do I think that they even could if they can’t upgrade to Windows 7?

Simple!

Windows 8, supposedly, will not just be available for your PC, but also for your ARM-based tablet! And let’s face it, Android tablets are not running Windows 7 for a reason. (Well, a couple of them.) It’s not just a matter of ARM vs. x86, but also of resources. Linux and Linux-based OSes such as Meego, sure. Windows 7? Nuh-uh!

And Intel is still pushing hard for Atom to replace ARM in Android tablet manufacturer’s minds. Will it? I doubt it. It’s like swatting a fly with a … hardcover book. But a Windows 7 tablet, that’d be spiffy … if it could run faster than molasses in January. Which it can’t. (I would know, as I have an Atom-based tablet. I technically can install, but if I thought it was already slow running Windows XP…)

But if Windows 8 could run well on low resources like on a tablet?

Because let’s face it, Windows is a resource hog compared to Android or iOS as an operating system goes. We’re even seeing some grumbling from WebOS tablet users that the OS itself is sluggish. The performance of the OS on a dinky little tablet processor makes a world of difference. One that Windows 7 just can’t even try to compete. So if Microsoft wants people to actually bother putting Windows 8 on tablets, it’s going to have to trim up that kernel. Will Windows 8 be split into two worlds: PC running kernel-heavy like Windows always is and tablet running kernel-lite like Windows CE or Windows PHONE 7? Or will Windows 8 actually be lean by design and work for anyone and everyone equally well with the same kernel for all?

If the latter then it would be a Microsoft first! Which makes me very doubtful.

But it would be an extremely welcome change, especially as a lightweight kernel from Microsoft that still ran PC software might even just give all of those aging computers running Windows XP an actual upgrade path! If Microsoft were interested in listening to what customers want (instead of just telling us what we need) Windows 8 could possibly be the savior of Windows XP users who would like to upgrade, if only Microsoft would make an OS that they could actually upgrade to.

I wouldn’t hold my breath on it though. Because that just isn’t the Microsoft way of doing things. Even if it would make sense. And sales. Lots and lots of sales.

Solid State Drives (SSDs), they’re the best thing since sliced bread … at least for mobile computing.  With no moving parts, they’re supposed to be longer lasting and impervious to being banged around and dropped, ideally suited for portable computing devices like laptops, notebooks, netbooks, tablets, UMPCs, and even smartphones.

But are they really better than g-force damage-prone traditional Hard Drives (HDs)?

According to an article from the Mac Observer, using information gleaned from a French source, the answer is: no.

Of course that’s the quick and easy answer.  Keep in mind, the source is hardly a broad industry-wide examination of SSD vs. HD, so it’s not really so definitive.  It does however offer a basis for the beginning of an examination, and the results are actually quite surprising.  The traditional hard drive in their study had a failure rate of 1.94%, where as the solid state drive had a higher failure rate of 2.05%.  The difference is not staggering, but it is surprising.

Traditional hard drives spin platters around at high speeds, much like record players (or for you young folk, CD players) using heads to read and write information magnetically.  All of this movement, the spinning platters and more often, the moving heads, needs to be incredibly precise.  Movement can disrupt the process, especially high g-force impacts such as dropping the hard drive.  (Or the device containing the hard drive.)  Errors happen, as do failures.  Even though the technology in hard drives has improved dramatically over the years, in an ever increasing effort to mitigate errors and damage from g-forces as hard drives are moved or dropped, nothing is ever 100% fool proof.  So the use of these highly mechanical hard drives in a laptop or netbook that is going to be jostled around, tossed, dropped, etc. has been seen as something less than desirable with the advent of solid state drives.

Because SSDs do not operate on the same principle.  Instead of spinning platters and moving heads, SSDs just have memory chips, lots and lots of memory chips.  Like USB flash drives on steroids, SSDs are just one big electronic memory storage device with no moving parts.  They can be juggled, tossed, dropped, without affecting them or the data stored in memory.  So this would make them perfect for portable computing, right?

Well, maybe not!

They may not have mechanical failures, but apparently they still have failures all their own regardless of g-forces.  In at least this one data mining study, SSDs have more failures in fact than all of those laptops with HDs being tossed about and dropped.

Granted, SSDs are still rather in their infancy, compared to the long-in-the-tooth HD.  So hopefully SSD technology will continue to improve, becoming far more reliable.  The idea, theoretically, holds a lot of merit for portable computing.

But is it worth the considerable cost to replace your netbook’s traditional HD with a SSD?  The numbers, so far, don’t really suggest doing this.  You’d likely be better off saving money and investing in a traditional hard drive that you can be sure of the quality of, should the one that came in your device fail.  At least for now, while SSD technology is still so new.  That seems to be what the numbers show.

One day though, when solid state drives are sufficiently iteratively improved, I’d be surprised if anyone still used hard drives in laptops.  I can see their merit in stationary computers like desktops and servers, but for portable computing SSDs are the way to go.

Eventually.

Just not, apparently, today.

It’s Apple’s latest and greatest, the iPad.  It’s a large touchscreen handheld device, shown here held by none other than Apple’s Steve Jobs:

The Apple iPad

But notice that I fail to call it a portable computer, or a tablet PC, or anything of the likes.  Why not?  Is Apple too awesome to use that same tired old mold?

Well, yes and no.  Mostly … no.

You see, when push comes to shove, all that the iPad really is is an iPod Touch, just really really not pocket-sized.  Like the oversized buttons on the Jitterbug cellphone targeted at senior citizens, so is the iPad just an oversized iPod Touch.

The Jitterbug cellphone, was this Apple's inspiration for the iPad?

I don’t get it.  On a number of levels.

Okay, one thing I do get.  And I’m sure Apple fanatics the world over will be happy to rip me a new one for pointing out this trite fact, but Apple does not innovate.  Apple is always late to the party with whatever they do.  The only reason they succeed where others fail?  They have the Apple brand name.  Some would try to claim that the reason is because Apple has style, but let’s face it, that’s not even really often the case.  Gaudy multicolored computers?  “Trendy” metallic techy cases?  iBricks?  Apple has a long standing history of making some pretty horrendous aesthetic decisions, and the ones that aren’t so bad are almost always a copy of something else that someone else has done earlier.  Just like the ideas of the products themselves.  Oh, sure, Apple tends to get it right when they copy someone, fixing all of those niggling little details that weren’t perfect in the original.  But then, when you’re always second (or later) to market, shouldn’t that really be expected?  Someone else has done the prototyping of your product for you.  Mostly the Asian markets.  So with this bold lack of innovation, it comes as no surprise that Apple now pretends to have invented the tablet PC.

Only … all they’ve actually invented is a tablet PDA.

Because, you see, the internals really are lacking in processing power.  It really is just an overgrown iPod.  With the same lack of processing prowess, and an equal shortcoming in software compatibility.

Oh, Apple will try to fool you on this.  Oh look at the glorious iPad and all of its apps.  Yes.  Right.  Apps. As in short for “applications”, and a really apt abbreviation as these apps are really aptly abbreviated in functionality.  You won’t find Adobe Photoshop in app form.  You won’t find Microsoft Office in app form.  Those are real applications, with substance, with meat, with purpose, with pride, and most importantly with use.  The iPad will not run those.  Oh no.  It cannot.  It supposedly can’t even run Adobe’s Flash.  And multitasking?  Nope.  It really is just an oversized iPod Touch folks.  A tablet PC without the actual computer part.  It’s just a gimmicky toy.

In fact, it’s not even an iPhone.  You won’t find calling features here.

I can do infinitely more with my Viliv S5 than I can ever do with an iPad.  And more and better UMPCs, tablets, netbooks, and the likes of the new face of portable computing are all on their way, boldly forward, all doing far more for their owners than the Apple iPad.

So then, what is the point?  I just don’t get it.  To sell more apps?  To gimmick us to death?

Or is Steve Jobs simply growing too old to lead Apple forward in innovation?

Is Steve Jobs so aged that he sees the Jitterbug as inspiration for the iPad?

It just seems rather odd to me that a company renowned for its computers would be selling something that so clearly should be a computer, but isn’t.  And it rather makes me wonder, just what exactly was the inspiration behind the iPad then?  Well, I guess it Depends…

Now I’m no great expert on developing operating systems, but over the years I’ve used plenty, and have been quite the computer programmer, so I think it’s fair to say that I’ve got some notions worth more than the common layman.  And I’ve got to say, I’m really not sure this Google Chrome OS is the right direction to take.

Don’t get me wrong.  It was a brilliant idea … a decade ago.  Or more.

Once upon a time computers were, well, really not so powerful.  So I could see where to make a halfway decent ultra-portable system, you’d have to come up with some neat mechanism for saving these devices from their limited storage capacity and processing power.  Say my old old old Palm PDA.  (Actually a Sony Clie.)  It was fine in theory, but really lacked the storage capacity to be useful in practice.  And the processing power was, well, anything but impressive.  To have made it truly useful to the Office Warrior (or to the common user at home for that matter) it needed something more drastic than what it had.  And Google’s idea to have a web-based system where the internet provides you with what your portable PC is missing, it could very well have filled in that gap.

At that time.

Had there been affordable always-on unlimited-use 3G networks available then.

Do you begin to see how this starts to break down?  How Google’s answer is a solution to an old problem?  A problem which no longer actually exists?

I mean let’s face it.  We have more memory than we know what to do with these days.  Just an SD card alone turns any smartphone into a portable god.  Correction: Micro SD card.  The little buggers are so small.  And there’s certainly room in a smartphone (not to mention a netbook) for something as large as a full-sized SD card.  Heck, a netbook could easily house a USB stick!  Not to mention the obvious: solid state hard drives.  Storage capacity on a small device is by no means a problem in these modern times.

And processing power is equally impressive today.  Intel’s Atom processors are likewise quite capable little power-misers.  I’ve got a fully-fledged Windows XP netbook with touchscreen that’s barely larger than my camera.  It easily fits into a pocket.  And the Viliv S5 is just the beginning of this wonderful new world of usable and affordable Ultra Mobile PCs.

So why then would anyone need an operating system dependent upon constant use of the internet to overcome its now non-existent processing and storage limitations?

It just doesn’t make sense.

Not anymore.

Other than a platform for selling unlimited-usage 3G/4G/whatever network access, I don’t see where the direction of Google’s Chrome OS makes any sense whatsoever.  It’s either a marketing platform that’s a technical limitation instead of a solution, or it’s a technical solution to a problem that’s stopped being a problem in today’s world.

Either way, I just don’t see where Google’s Chrome OS is in any way advantageous to you, the consumer.

It’s either a brilliant solution to an out-of-date problem, or an ingenious solution to the purveyors of a sagging market.  But it’s not something that actually benefits you.

At least as far as I can tell.

You never know.  I could be wrong.  Maybe, somewhere in there lies a benefit to it that I’m just not seeing.  But at the end of the day, I’d rather have a fully functional UMPC, thanks.  And I suspect, if you really get down to it, you would too.  Why would anyone want a technology with such limitations as to force you to be online and to take away your local hard drive?  In a world where storage is becoming King, why would anyone want to abandon local storage entirely?  It just doesn’t add up to brilliance if you ask me.  Even a wristwatch smartphone has plenty of room for a Micro SD card.