Hardware

Toshiba Launches World’s First Touchscreen Laptop

Posted by Anna on Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

Toshiba has this week revealed its Libretto W100 – the world’s first dual touchscreen laptop.

With two 7-inch 1024 x 600-resolution touchscreens, this dinky keyboard-free device measures just 202mm wide x 123mm deep. It is powered by a 1.2GHz Intel Pentium U5400 processor, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 64GB SSD – some serious power for such a petite piece of equipment.

The Libretto W100 runs full Windows 7 Home Premium (and really tests the OS to its limit) and combines both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.

It offers a number of different types of virtual keyboards including a full QWERTY for desktop use and a toggle button and keyboard built for thumbs for typing on the go.

A built in accelerometer means that you can also use the W100 vertically, enabling the machine to be used as an e-reader

Toshiba is planning to bring the Libretto W100 to market within the next few months on a limited basis only for $1,099 – so get your name on the list now for your real glimpse into the future!

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How to upgrade or restore the ASUS P5Q Deluxe Motherboard BIOS

Posted by Mark on Thursday, April 1st, 2010

After working on the upgrade of my home PC recently, it was necessary for me to upgrade the BIOS of my ASUS P5Q Deluxe Motherboard. Here is my step-by-step guide on how to perform the upgrade….

WARNING! Only upgrade the BIOS if there are technical issues with the motherboard and all other attempts to resolve these issues have failed. A power failure during the BIOS upgrade will cause a system failure. Do not use the Windows ASUS Update application to upgrade, there have been reported instability issues with the software resulting in upgrade failures.

There are various ways to upgrade the BIOS, I found the ‘ASUS EZFlash2’ utility the easiest.

  • Download the latest BIOS upgrade from the ASUS website. Un-zip and copy the file to a USB stick, then rename the file using up to 8 characters. The USB stick must be formatted with a single FAT32 partition.
  • Restart the machine and press the ‘DEL’ key to access the ‘BIOS Setup Utility’.
  • Important! – If enabled, turn off CPU over-clocking, go to the ‘Exit’ menu and select ‘Load Setup Defaults’. Select ‘Exit and Save Changes’ to restart the machine.
  • Press the ‘DEL’ key to access the ‘BIOS Setup Utility’ again.
  • Insert the USB stick into the machine.
  • Go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘ASUS EZFlash2’ to open the BIOS upgrade program.
  • Use ‘Tab’ to select the USB stick, press ‘B’ to backup the old BIOS and then enter a name for the backup. This backup is important as it will be used to restore the old working BIOS in the event of corruption or power failure during the upgrade.
  • After the backup, select the new BIOS file on the USB stick and press ‘Enter’ to start the upgrade.
  • Remove the USB stick and reboot the machine.

If the upgrade fails and there is a BIOS error at boot-up, the system can be recovered using the original backup on the USB stick.

  • Insert the USB stick when the message ‘USB device not found’ appears.
  • The message ‘File xxxxxxxx.rom not found on USB device’ then appears.
  • Remove the USB stick and insert it into another machine. Rename the original BIOS backup to the same file name displayed in error. Unfortunately, the file name will only be displayed when the BIOS fails.
  • Place the USB stick back into the machine with the BIOS error.
  • The message ‘Reading file xxxxxxxx.rom’ appears. The original BIOS will then be restored.
  • Reboot the machine. Press the ‘DEL’ key to access the ‘BIOS Setup Utility’ again.
  • Go to the ‘Exit’ menu and select ‘Load Setup Defaults’. Select ‘Exit and Save Changes’ to restart the machine for the last time.

Disclaimer: axon IT will not be held responsible for any damage to technical equipment as a result of this upgrade.

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Cannot turn on Bitlocker on Dell Vostro 1510 with TPM chip.

Posted by Richard on Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Have you been BitLockered!!?

Axon recently had an issue enabling Bitlocker encryption on a Dell Vostro 1510 with a TPM chip and Vista Ultimate. The laptop came with the TPM Infineon software and driver installed.

However with the TPM support enabled and the chip activated in the BIOS and having completed the Infineon setup wizard which initialised the TPM chip, Bitlocker could not be turned on. The following error message was displayed:

A TPM was not found. A TPM is required to turn Bitlocker on. If your computer has a TPM, then contact the computer manufacturer for Bitlocker-compatible BIOS.

 This issue was resolved by the following steps:

 1. Uninstall the Infineon TPM Professional Package via the control panel.
2. The uninstall wizard will recommend that you disable the TPM chip. Select ‘yes’. This will take you to the Infineon Security Platform Security Settings tool. Select the advanced tab and disable the TPM chip under the Security Platform Feature.
3. Reboot the laptop and enter the BIOS. Enable and activate the TPM chip, save the configuration and let the laptop restart.
4. Confirm the Enable and Activation of the TPM chip and then continue.
5. Once logged on with local administrator rights go to Device Manager, System Devices and ensure that the Infineon driver is not listed. If it is right click and uninstall it selecting the delete driver checkbox.
6. In Device Manager scan for hardware changes. This should detect the TPM chip and load the Microsoft TPM 1.2 driver. This should appear under a Security category. If the system does not detect the TPM chip manually install it selecting security devices.
7. Go to the Bitlocker section of control panel under security. You should now see the TPM administration tab and be able to turn Bitlocker on.

Dell Vostro 1510

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PAT Testing – Electrical Safety Testing

Posted by Andrea on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

Health and Safety at work I think is on most people’s minds these days, making sure we hold on to the handrail as we go the downstairs, having a second person to hold a ladder  but what about all the electrical devices we constantly have around us, who checks these out to make sure we are working in a safe environment at work.

Plug with no fuseI had to take this photo of some plugs that had been taken out of a public building recently.  You instantly can see that the plugs tops are smaller than normal but the worst is,  they do not have any fuses in them. 34 of these leads had escaped the attention of the people who work there and it wasn’t until their annual PAT testing (which they saw as a chore) that they were discovered.

Once they realised the consequences these leads could have had PAT testing suddenly wasn’t a chore anymore.  It has also been reported recently that insurance companies are voiding claims if claimants PAT testing are not up to date.

My question is to you can any company afford to take these risks?

Don’t be fooled by the adverts you see offering testing for pence per item.  Remember a single desktop PC tested properly is 4 separate tests (the tower, the monitor, and the two IEC leads).  These companies also tend to charge extra for repairs to plug tops and fitting correct size fuses etc. Suddenly your cheap quote is much more expensive than you were led to believe.

If you have any queries or would like to talk in more detail about PAT Testing,  please call the office and talk to Andrea.

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UltraCloud Virtual Dedicated Servers launched

Posted by Andrea on Monday, February 2nd, 2009

The-Five-Dangers-of-Virtual-Servers

Following Melbourne successful beta-testing, we’re pleased to announce the launch of UltraCloud™ Virtual Dedicated Servers to their existing customers.

Priced from just £35 a month, you get all the benefits of a dedicated server; but UltraCloud™ has a number of additional benefits too:

- Is not reliant on any specific server hardware and has a “self-healing” architecture.
- Can be instantly scaled up or down, as demand dictates.
- Is greener than a dedicated server, using much less power.
- Has 99.99% uptime guarantee.
- Costs less than a dedicated server, from just £35 per month.

The minimum contract is just one month, so your risk level is very low. Please note that they can put UltraCloud™ servers on your security zone (VLAN) so it can be behind the same firewall, and on the same IP range as your existing services, meaning you can mix virtual servers, dedicated servers and colocated machines on the same subnet.

I’ve also attached the report, “The five dangers of virtual servers” which explains the potential shortcomings of virtual servers fall down, and how Melbourne have addressed and overcome them.

If you’d like to try out an UltraCloud™ server or would like any further information about UltraCloud™, please speak to axon-it.com 0845 313 0025.

Daniel Foster
Technical Director – Melbourne
www.melbourne.co.uk

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