Laptops versus Netbooks. What I think of the two.

If consumers can't decide between a netbook and a low-priced laptop this holiday season, manufacturers certainly aren't helping matters.

When I see the season's top netbook, the 12-inch Acer Aspire Timeline, has dimensions, memory (3 gigabytes) and pricing (around $600) that's similar to a 14-inch Toshiba Satellite dual-core laptop, it's little wonder that buyers are having an increasingly difficult time telling the two apart. In fact, according to a NPD Group report issued earlier this year, almost 60% of consumers who bought a netbook instead of a notebook thought they would have the same capabilities. Roughly the same percentage was satisfied with its netbooks, compared to 70% of those who planned on buying a netbook all along.

The notion of the netbook was that it was small, cheap and light, but because of profit margins, they started to creep into the 12-inch category without beefing up the internal components I say

I agree Netbooks were once featherweight, Linux-equipped toys with puny Atom processors and sub-$300 price tags. Even as bigger manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard and Samsung Electronics entered the market and Microsoft's Windows operating systems became prevalent, netbooks still remained small, affordable and long on battery life.

Samsung's N120, for example, has Windows XP, but it's only 10 inches wide, costs as little as $320 and maintains a charge for six hours. Toshiba's Satellite U505 is small and only has 1 gigabyte of memory, but its $400 price tag nets consumers Windows 7 and 9.5 hours of battery time. Though the battery on Acer's Timeline holds a charge for 10 hours, and its Pentium processor offers 3 gigabytes of memory, its size and $550 price tag delete its benefits.

"You want a small netbook that's a little underpowered, which is the tradeoff for price and size and weight," Fox says. "If you're getting up around $500, there's little value in getting an oversized netbook if you're losing the advantages of a netbook. It's the worst of both worlds."

Pasta myths--debunked

I'm blown away that people don't know this. It doesn't get any better than a bowl of pasta, right? But too often cooks ruin a great dish by following one (or more) of these myths. Avoid them, and you'll be licking your plate clean in no time.

Myth: Breaking long pasta into shorter pieces makes it easier to eat.
If spaghetti were better short, it would have been made that way! Plus, broken strands are hard to eat since they’re not long enough to twirl onto a fork.
More: 12 pasta shapes and their best sauce matches »

Myth: Add olive oil to the cooking water to keep the pasta from sticking.
Pasta shouldn’t stick when properly cooked. If it’s cooked with olive oil, it will actually coat the noodles and prevent sauce from sticking.
More: 3 golden rules for cooking pasta »
Myth: Throw the pasta against the wall—if it sticks, it’s done.
The only way to know if it’s done is to taste it! It should be al dente, or firm to the bite. The more pasta cooks, the gummier it gets, so if it sticks to the wall it’s probably overdone.
More: 4 tricks to time it just right, from Marcella Hazan »

Myth: Rinse pasta after cooking and draining.
This will make the pasta cold and rinse away the starch that helps bind the sauce to it.
More: 15 easy sauce-shape pairings and recipes »

Myth: It’s all about the sauce.
Italians will tell you it’s pasta with sauce—not sauce with pasta! Too much sauce buries the flavor of the pasta and overwhelms it.
More: 5 every day pasta sauce recipes »

Vator Splash Event

On the evening of February 4, 2010, 10 seed- to early-stage companies selected by their peers, and vetted by judges will have the opportunity to present onstage to a high-profile group of entrepreneurs, investors and media.

In addition, Mark Pincus, CEO and Founder of Zynga, will talk about how he built the hottest social gaming company in just a few years, and Jeff Smith, CEO and co-founder of Smule, will talk about how he built some of the most popular and highest-grossing iPhone apps. Both executives have founded and taken companies public in the past. We expect more than 300 attendees, including industry peers, investors and media. Investors from August Capital, Google Ventures, Greycroft Partners and Norwest Venture Partners have committed to attending.

Vator members only can reserve a 50% discounted ticket or a demo table: Click here and enter "splash50” as the discount code to buy your ticket for 50% off. Only a few discount tickets are available. Get the tickets now before the offer expires on Monday, December 7th. Submit or nominate an early-stage company to pitch and don't forget to cast your vote: Vator Splash Competition.

mark mahaney - skiti

Top Ten Tips for 2009 Hurricane Season Planning from SunGard Availability Services

Top Ten Tips for 2009 Hurricane Season Planning from SunGard Availability Services

Steps Outline How to Stay on Top of Disaster Recovery Plans WAYNE, Pa., June 3 /PRNewswire/ -- With the onset of the 2009 hurricane season, SunGard Availability Serviceshas outlined its top ten tips for disaster preparedness. By following these steps, organizations will be better prepared to keep their systems, processes and people up and running during and after a major storm. "Today, many organizations are focused on short-term pressures to reduce spending, and because of this, may not be properly testing their recovery plans," said Robert DiLossi, director of crisis management at SunGard Availability Services. "We have seen all too often organizations neglect key elements of their information availability programs only to realize the grave consequences when it's too late. As hurricane season approaches, it is imperative that companies reexamine and re-test existing plans, making sure they align with the current state of the business - from both IT and business process perspectives - in case a major storm should occur. For those organizations facing travel restrictions due to budget constraints, new modes of testing - such as remote or virtualized testing - provide cost-effective alternatives to more traditional methods." SunGard Availability Services recommends companies follow these proactive steps to help ensure readiness for the 2009 hurricane season: Regularly test your disaster recovery plan. Simply having a plan in place is not enough. Develop andregularly test your crisis communication plan so that the first time it is executed is not during an emergency. Remember to test under realistic conditions and make the plan robust enough to address extended recovery that may require utilization of new facilities, relocation of staff and involvement of outside personnel. Revisit and reassign responsibilities. Factor in changes to your organization caused by recent layoffs and restructurings. Assign new responsibilities to employees based on the current organizational structure and available resources. Test this updated plan to ensure all tools and protocols are in place to operate during a disaster, reaching out to all parts of the organization and employee family members as well as vendors, government agencies and emergency responders. Make sure your notification system is up-to-date. Critical during any potential interruption, notification should be an integral part of an organization's disaster recovery plan. Make sure all contact numbers are up-to-date, allowing the organization to get in touch with key personnel in the event of an emergency. This will also help prioritize methods of communication and track which employees have received messages. Put your people first. Employees are the heart of an organization; however, many human resources aspects are frequently overlooked in disaster recovery planning. Businesses must identify alternate locations where employees can go in the event a primary work location is unavailable and address the physical safety and psychological well-being of employees. Assign backup roles for the inevitable times when key players are not available or missing, and time-sensitive actions need to be taken. Employ cross training to have alternative contacts ready to go. Don't wait to relocate. If an organization has access to hot or cold back-up sites, a common mistake is to wait too long before declaring an emergency and relocating personnel. If an organization is located in an area for which a government evacuation order has been issued, it should declare and relocate immediately. Don't forget about your technology. Develop procedures for technical recovery scripts that will be deployed to help get your IT infrastructure up and running. Make the scripts comprehensive and easy to understand so people who are not familiar with them can easily follow along. Keep your vendor list current. Strictly enforce change management and control processes to help ensure vendor contacts are current so vital services will be quickly available when needed. Consider the impact outside of your organization. In the event of a disaster, will your vendors be able to perform their roles in supporting your critical technical infrastructure and business processes? Consider looking at secondary providers as a precaution. Take time to evaluate whether support or maintenance contracts need to be extended or have levels of support modified. Evaluate readiness and completeness of offsite data storage. Paper records and backup tapes may be totally lost, destroyed or unavailable. Develop contingencies in the event delivery of offsite-stored data is delayed. Investigate using electronic media - through disk to disk backup - to help safeguard and provide backup information. Take the guesswork out of server recovery. Should a disaster occur, re-building servers from the ground up consumes time and stretches internal IT resources. Consider working with a third-party provider that can simplify these processes by rebuilding your operating systems on its own servers - enabling a speedy and more cost-effective recovery. "Just because hurricane season has begun does not mean there isn't time to prepare," said Mr. DiLossi. "Organizations often get overwhelmed by disaster recovery planning but in the short-term they can take the first steps of updating notification systems, coordinating with outside vendors/agencies and testing current plans. It cannot be said enough times - test the way you recover, recover the way you test." SunGard Availability Services provides disaster recovery process expertise and automation combined with an enterprise-class IT infrastructure - a protocol-independent network, hardened facilities and redundant power systems. In addition, the company has a 100 percent success rate helping customers to recover in its 30-year history.

Very sexy pictures

Very Tech Brings You Technology with and Edge - Sexy Pictures

Japanese manga series "Death Note" has been acquired for an English language film adaptation. Warner Bros. is developing the series into a live-action movie.

One in 5 teenagers say they've electronically sent or posted online nude or semi-nude images of themselves, which may be fueling a more casual attitude toward sex, according to a "Sex and Tech" survey released this week by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com.

Playboy Bunnies