UK

What is everyone saying about new vPro Core?

marc@ambasnajones.com — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:31:20 GMT

A quick look at some comments and stories about the new vPro core family of processors…

Brad Anderson, Microsoft

Anderson claims vPro is key to helping Windows 7 fulfil its potential of helping businesses improve energy efficiency, security and virtualisation. “vPro has enhanced Intel’s reputation as an innovator,” he said.

Steve Morton, Symantec

Symantec has built its new Client Management Suite 7.1 based on the knowledge of vPro. Morton said that vPro has enabled Symantec to “support things like KVM and the idea of a fast call for help.”

The Register http://bit.ly/dizsiZ

“The vPro management capabilities will no doubt appeal to harassed sysadmins…”

ZDNet UK http://bit.ly/cvBz90

“The new KVM functions will let engineers control a PC remotely while seeing what is on the screen, irrespective of which — if any — operating system or application software is running.”

The Inquirer http://bit.ly/ccelih

“Security is further bolstered by Intel's inclusion of six new instructions to speed up AES hardware based encryption and decryption, while remote encryption management allows IT personnel to remotely manage PCs with encrypted hard drives.”

Ken Chan, Toshiba UK http://bit.ly/ambujb

Talking at the launch of Toshiba’s new laptop range, Chan said that the difference in the new machines is the new remote management capabilities provided by Intel's Core vPro update, on which the new Tecras are based, and which "offer up a whole new proposition to the market,” he said, according to news site V3.co.uk . "Suppose I'm a business, and I'm concerned about supporting my laptop users, and I don't want to have to keep them up to date with patches and anti-virus. I can pay some service provider to take care of that for, say, £20 per month."

IDF 2009 - A Proc for The Hoff?

alistair.kemp@intel.com — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:22:42 GMT

Clarksfield Mobile Nehalem Intel® Core™i7 mobile: a proper piece of Kitt.

Mobility is one of things that Intel does best. It’s shameless self-congratulation for me to say it but it is a revolution that Intel has really had a large hand in delivering. I am so insanely grateful that I have a work laptop that is less than an inch thick, weighs very little (even with an extra battery) and is packed with good connectivity and other features such as vPro for manageability. It’s cool and I love it – when I’m given cause to think about it.

When I’m not made to think about it, I do what most of us do: take it for granted. No real shame in that at all, but it presents a problem of sorts when it comes to events like IDF where people come with expectations of the next big thing in mobile computing. Improvement is taken for granted, and the weight of expectation now hangs in the auditorium – what will Intel bring to the mobility party this year?

Well hopefully we did not disappoint with the announcement of a new mobile CPU and platform, even if in the space of a few slides it seemed to be referred to by three different monikers: mobile Nehalem, Clarksfield and Core i7 mobile. All three are correct of course, and whoever wrote those slides please take note: Core i7 mobile would have been fine and consistent. But let that not detract from a great proc, and one that packs a punch: 8 threads and turbo boost capability of 9 clock speed bins: over 1GHz - yes, 1GHz - to you and me.

But how to use such computing power? Well, the keynote that followed the mobility session was software and one of the first demonstrations of the power of threaded software was a demo of Cakewalk, an application that will take all the threads you can give it. And then some. Intel has been talking up its rock stars recently in case you missed it, but Cakewalk was able to boast actual rock stars. Can’t argue with that. My description here will not do the demo, the software, or the end product justice, but to think that on a notebook (or desktop for that matter) you can layer 140 different tracks for one song, and do it all real time on a Core i7-based machine. That is rock and roll; end of.

So Core™i7 mobile is here and I can’t wait to get my hands on one. A laptop with a quad-core processor that has over a gigahertz of turbo clock speed is compelling stuff and its 32nm cousins promise even more goodness when they take their bow next year. But for now, I’m happy that this thing is finally here – this is the downside of knowing these thin s in advance, you get to wanting one way before it’s possible. When the time comes I’ll be using it for photography rather than playing at being Brian Eno, but that’s the beauty of personal computing: choose what you want to go and do, go and do it. On a laptop.

Why I love my Solid State Drive! - By David Byrne

catsoup2002@hotmail.com — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:22:57 GMT

My corporate IT department upgraded my Notebook PC’s hard drive to a Solid State Drive six months ago. Since then I've never looked back, I am one really happy user. Why I hear you ask? What follows are few of the things that come to mind.

I love the fact that my Backup program can start up and it doesn't affect what I'm doing. Or seize the computer up entirely.

It's great that I don't have to switch the anti-virus program off when it starts up unexpectedly and I am in the middle of working on something urgent.

Hibernate and standby work on my notebook in an instant. So I can take notes in a meeting right up to the end, put the PC into standby in the time it takes me to stand up. Or come out of standby at the beginning of a meeting in the time it takes me to sit down. No more "wait a minute for my PC to come back to life.. Sorry for the delay...It's definitely doing something the Hard drive light is flashing."

I don't have to worry about when I did my last backup when I'm using my laptop on a plane and we hit turbulence or on a train and we hit the points. When I am walking around the office with the PC switched on I don't get accosted by the IT technicians demanding I put the thing into standby before I move it. Head Crashes are a thing of the past.

There's no more Defragging. No more losing an hour every month on this tedious maintenance task.

There's no more noise. I can work at home and my wife can listen to the TV and not my laptop.

Then there’s the performance. I can't believe I haven't mentioned the performance. You click on an Icon and a program opens. Just like that. No delay in loading the pst file in outlook all 1GB of it. Bang it's just there on the screen. That 17MB marketing presentation, no problem. Opens in an instant.

If an SSD is this good, and believe me it is, why haven't you upgraded yet?

Solid State is the future of storage and the future is here today