Dr. Blip's PC-Doctor Blog

The family PC undergoes a lot of use and stresses. Parents and children often use their PC for work and school, surfing the Internet, gaming, watching videos and movies, etc. Yet sustained and continual use of a PC by multiple users can often tax a computer to the point where it can slow down and even fail long before its lifespan is supposed to end.

Keeping your PC running at its best is no easy task. Yet new diagnostic software products can help users identify and help users fix issues that may slow or hinder a PC.

If you like to delve deep into the inner workings of your PC and maximize its performance, then you can benefit from having a PC Doctor on hand.

The October 22nd Win 7 launch also was a first for the Lenovo ThinkVantage Toolbox, a new unified support and messaging application that ships on Think-branded systems. We've been the provider of diagnostics and other system health tools for Think systems since 1997.

PCWorld - Got a four-year-old Mac? Forget the newest version of OS X; Apple’s Snow Leopard will only be supported on Intel CPUs. Got a PC from 2001? Windows 7 just might run on it. I tested a below-spec PC with the latest version of Windows and saw surprising results.

PCWorld - Paid content is the best hope of saving "the media" as we know it. The problem is killing all the free content first, or alternatively, breeding a new generation that understands content is often worth precisely what it costs you.

PCWorld - Macs are often criticized for the high price of their hardware. This so-called Apple tax is the premium that Apple computers usually cost over comparably equipped PCs. But since the company dropped prices on its laptop line yesterday, that difference is now smaller than ever.

PCWorld - Who should know more about PC threats than the company whose software makes most of them possible? Is Microsoft's upcoming, free anti-malware app the company's way of apologizing to customers?

Cnet - Years ago I proclaimed open source would never be relevant in the application market. Now I work for an open-source applications company.

Engadget - Know someone who talks with their hands so expressively that you have to step back or risk catching a wayward exclamation point in the face? The video after the break will make their day. Students at Duke University have come up with a way to use phone accelerometers to capture gestures with surprising precision, allowing them to pipe those motions through a character recognition algorithm and, hey presto, turn flapping hands into letters and numbers. The prototype app is called PhonePoint Pen, and while right now the process looks painfully slow, with large, precise motions required, with a few months or years of refinements you might just be able to jot down a quick text to a friend while running between terminals, all without putting down the double latte that just cost you $8 at the airport food court. The future, dear readers, it's closer than you think.

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