Mobile |
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by Chuck Horowitz |
For all you road warriors out there that travel with expensive notebook computers, Absolute Software Corporation (Vancouver, BC) has a product called "CompuTrace" that automatically locates a stolen laptop or notebook computer, and it can even nab the thief. The program is compatible with MS-DOS and the Windows Systems. CompuTrace secretly places prescheduled phone calls to the company's Monitoring Center (when it's on line). When a system is reported stolen, the Center traces the next scheduled call and contacts the local police. The software is supposed to be undetectable by anti-virus software. It is fully automated and requires less than 4 K of RAM. The software first determines if the system's modem is in use. If the modem is free, the software turns off the modem speaker and dials the toll-free tracking line (to the Monitoring Center). If the modem is in use the software keeps retrying every few seconds. The software is free; the company charges for its monitoring service ($60.00). You can contact Absolute Software at 800/220-0733.
COMSAT (Clarksburg, MD) is uniting cellular telephone and Inmarsat3 (satellite) technologies to give us a personal satellite communications system. COMSAT's system will have a notebook sized terrestrial terminal. Called PLANET-1, the terminal will give you single-number global roaming, voice/fax mail notification, paging and call-in absence indicators. The system will also give mobile users E-Mail, Internet access and short messaging services. The system is due out later this year.
Liberty Systems (San Jose, CA) makes the Series 50 S hard drive. It comes in 1.08 Gigabyte and 2.1 Gigabyte sizes. The drive connects to your parallel port and contains a printer pass through and a SCSI port that will let you chain up to five SCSI devices. The drive works with DOS, OS/2, MACDOS, Windows and UNIX based operating environments. Check out this company; they also make a Series 70 S drive with a 4.2 Gigabyte hard drive, or a 2 - 4 Gigabyte and 4 - 6 Gigabyte tape backup, or Portable Raid (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives) 0 or 1 with a 8.4 Gigabyte capacity. You can combine any two Series 70 drives in one case. Their Series 115 S is a CD-ROM, 4 speed or 6.7 speed reader, or a 680 MB read/write optical and 4 speed CD-ROM, or a recordable CD 2 speed write and 4 speed read. The Series 225 S is a 9.1 Gigabyte hard drive. Liberty can be reached at 408/983-1127.
Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, Toshiba America Information Systems and AST Research are releasing notebooks based on the Intel 133 MHz Pentium processor which was designed specifically for notebook computers. Here are some of the statistics:
Hewlett-Packard (Palo Alto, CA) makes the OmniBook 5500 with a quad-speed CD-ROM drive, a 12.1 inch active-matrix screen, a 1.35 Gigabyte hard drive, 16 MB of RAM and a 4 Mbps infrared port for wireless connectivity.
Texas Instruments (Dallas, TX) makes the TravelMate 5300 with enhanced graphic capabilities and a longer battery life. The notebook has an 11.3 inch active-matrix screen, a 1.2 Gigabyte hard drive and 8 MB of RAM.
Toshiba America Information Systems (Irvine, CA) makes Tecra 720 CDT with 16 MB of RAM, a 1.2 Gigabyte hard drive and a 12.1 inch, 1024 X 768 pixel color screen.
AST Research (Irvine, CA) has the Ascentia line and will add two models to their P series and one model in their J series.
There's talk that IBM and Dell will also add 133 MHz Pentium models, IBM to their ThinkPad 760 line and Dell to their Latitude line of notebooks.
Pantronix Corporation (San Jose, CA) has a family of PC Card products. Their FlashLink Card is a parallel port device with EPP, ECP, 16550 serial port, game/ joystick port and FDD port. It provides up to 32 MB of flash memory. The manufacturer's suggested list price is $269.00.
Fujitsu Personal Systems, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) now has the Stylistic 1000 pen pad, a hand-held computer that weighs 3.4 pounds and was designed for Windows 95. It has two Type II PC Card slots; serial, parallel, keyboard, infrared, floppy drive and VGA ports along with a lithium-ion battery that delivers 4 to 6 hours of continuous power. Three screen types are available: monochrome, reflective monochrome and dual-scan color. It's a 486DX4/100, with 8 MB to 24 MB of RAM and can accommodate a Type III ATA PC Card hard drive. Options include a desk stand, a port replicator, low voltage lightweight keyboard and a carrying case.
Chuck Horowitz is a HAL-PC member.
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