Daily Archives: June 16, 2011

The new Samsung Series 5 ChromeBook laptop running Google’s Chrome operating system has gone on sale in the United States.

The Samsung Series 5 is a 12.1-inch netbook powered by an Intel Atom N570 dual-core CPU, and has 2GB of RAM and a 16GB solid-state drive.

The Chromebook is available in WiFi only and WiFi and 3G models for $429 (£266) and $499 (£310) respectively.

It is expected to sell for between £349 and £399 when launched in the UK in August.

Ruper Goodwins from ZDNet said: “For all the things that are on the web browser, this works really well – better than anything else. But for all the stuff you do on the desktop, it doesn’t do very well at all.

“The idea that this doesn’t matter – that you’re always connected and always online – isn’t quite true yet. The idea is very good but it’s a little premature.”

A second Chromebook, made by Acer is due to start shipping soon

FRONTLINESMS ALLOWS YOU TO TEXT MESSAGE WITH LARGE GROUPS OF PEOPLE ANYWHERE THERE IS A MOBILE SIGNAL

FrontlineSMS is award-winning free, open source software that turns a laptop and a mobile phone into a central communications hub. Once installed, the program enables users to send and receive text messages with groups of people through mobile phones. What you communicate is up to you, making FrontlineSMS useful in many different ways.

It does not require an Internet connection.

Attach a phone and SIM card, and pay your local operator per SMS as usual.

It stores all phone numbers and records all incoming and outgoing messages.

All data lives on your computer, not on servers controlled by someone else.
You can send messages to individuals or large groups, and reply individually – useful for fieldwork or during surveys.

It is easy to install and requires little or no training to use.

Developers can freely take the source code and add their own features.

It can be used anywhere in the world simply by switching the SIM card.

The current version of FrontlineSMS (1.6) comes with on-screen language support for English, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bengali, German, Spanish, Finnish, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Khmer, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili and Chinese

www.frontlinesms.com