upgrades

S&P backtracks on Google downgrade

A week after downgrading Google's stock, Standard & Poor's reversed course, saying the stock price had fallen so much that it was now a more attractive buy.

Scott Kessler, head of technology sector equity research at S&P, wrote in a research note released today and cited by the Associated Press that he was upgrading the Web search giant's rating to "hold" from the "sell" rating he bestowed on the company's shares last week following Google's gutsy move to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The acquisition will give … Read more

Intel letting customers upgrade underpowered chips

Intel is once again offering an upgrade on underpowered processors.

Dubbed the Intel Upgrade Service, the chipmaker's program allows customers who are running the low-end Core i3-2312M, Core i3-2102, and Pentium G622 to pay a fee to upgrade the performance of their processors.

According to the company, the upgrade will deliver better application, video, and photo performance, along with improved "responsiveness for everyday PC activities." In benchmark testing, the Core i3-2513 delivered performance that was 11 percent faster on applications and 15 percent faster on digital-media creation, Intel said.

Related stories: Would you buy an Intel chip hobbled by design? … Read more

Petition to revive Oscar the Grouch trash-can utility in OS X Lion

Mac OS X Lion has plenty of features that make it worth the upgrade for all Intel Mac users, but it's still missing one of my favorite extensions from the Mac OS legacy: Oscar the Grouch.

Oscar was a trash-bin animation utility that originally came bundled with OS 7.1 (later updated in 7.5) and featured everyone's favorite grumpy sanitation officer singing "Oh I love trash" and "I love it because it's trash" whenever you emptied the bin.

The character cameo quietly disappeared soon after, although Henson and Kermit the Frog himself … Read more

Get a 4GB desktop RAM module for $19.95

Thought I'd take a reader request today. Cheapskate fan Tom told me that he's looking to upgrade the RAM in his desktop, and wanted to know if I could steer him to a good deal on 4GB modules.

Your wish is granted, Tom! Buy.com has the Kingston HyperX Genesis 4GB DDR3 memory module for $29.95 shipped. A $10 mail-in rebate (PDF) drops the price to $19.95, which makes this one of the best deals on a 4GB stick (with these specs, anyway) I've ever seen.

The HyperX is a 240-pin DDR3 module with a … Read more

How to install RAM in an iMac (video)

With the arrival of Mac OS X Lion, a lot of folks are going to discover that Apple's latest operating system is more of a memory hog than Snow Leopard and that a little RAM boost may be required.

Regardless of whether you're upgrading to Lion or not, upgrading your RAM is good idea because it's one of the most affordable--and easiest--ways to speed up your machine. Also, for anybody looking to buy a new iMac, we strongly recommend upgrading the RAM yourself, because you can save a good bit of money by not ordering extra RAM … Read more

Extending MacBook Pro speed and capacity with dual drive upgrades

There is no doubt that when compared to a mechanical hard drive, the new solid state drive (SSD) technology is by far superior in terms of speed. Data access and throughput can be well above 4x faster than a contemporary mechanical drive, and using it as your main boot drive widens a major bottleneck, resulting in exceptionally quick boot-ups, application launches, sleep and wake events, and shutdowns. Beyond speed, the drives also have a number of additional perks, including cooler operation than most mechanical drives, power efficiency resulting in longer battery life for laptops, silent operation, and higher tolerance for … Read more

Will Mac OS upgrades eventually be free?

Apple's pricing of Lion at $30 this week represents a new standard for the company, which is cutting $100 off the typical price of its OS. Apple did the same thing with Snow Leopard back in 2009, though that upgrade was pitched as more of a housekeeping update as opposed to a full-blown release.

There's another component at work here. For the first time that single price is good for all five of a user's authorized Mac computers, effectively replacing Apple's "family pack" multi-user license.

The question now is whether Apple plans to go … Read more

Race to the death!

Death Rally is an iOS adaptation of (and homage to) the classic, much-loved top-down PC racer of the same name. Much like its predecessor, Death Rally has a gritty feel (although much more PG than on the PC) and some of the best racing gameplay and graphics on its platform.

At its most basic, Death Rally is a 2D arcade racer in which you duke it out for pole position in short, brutal races against multiple opponents, with some help from your guns. You control your car with a virtual left joystick (the lack of fancy controls means you need … Read more

A driver update cures slow Windows 7 shutdowns

This week I cleared Vista out of my home office by upgrading a 6-year-old PC to Windows 7. The machine was in dire need of a tune-up. I figured the money spent on a Win 7 upgrade would extend the desktop PC's life span and save me hours of system maintenance time.

When I ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, the program warned me that the machine's ATI Radeon Xpress 200 display driver and Realtek Audio Manager utility were out-of-date. The PC was otherwise good to go, which was a pleasant surprise considering it shipped in 2005 with … Read more

Looking to upgrade your Mac's RAM? Don't look to Apple.

There are a couple of reasons why you might consider installing more RAM on your Mac. These can include needing more for current tasks or purchasing more in anticipation of future use with OS and application upgrades; however, regardless of your reasons for upgrading, if you consider purchasing your upgrade from Apple then you will likely and unnecessarily pay nearly five times as much for your RAM.

The components in Apple's computers are for the most part the exact same as other PCs (same CPU, same video card, hard drive, and chipset), meaning that as with other PC systems … Read more