Matt’s Desk: Editor’s Blog

When Windows 8 was released late last year, one of the novel aspects of the new operating system was its availability as an online download; even more impressive was the low price for this online version – $39 for an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro, a version of the OS normally priced $199.

But that promotion ends today.  If you want to snag up to five upgrade copies of Windows 8 Pro for $39 each, you’ll have to do so before the end of the day today. 

Tomorrow they’ll be an extra $160.

I was happy to see Amazon’s new Kindle Fire tablets at the company’s press event yesterday, as I’m sure they’ll inject much needed competition in the tablet space. But as an avid reader, what I was most looking forward to was news on the eInk Kindle updates, since intriguing details had been leaking for weeks.

I didn’t get the news I had hoped for, though.

Amazon announced two new Kindle eReaders yesterday, the Kindle Paperwite and a 5th Gen Kindle.  The Paperwhite model (which was the topic of all of those leaks, as it turns out) is the replacement for last year’s Kindle Touch, but with a new, crisper touchscreen display and front-lighting technology for reading in the dark or low-light conditions.  The new base-model Kindle with buttons, though, was the model I was most interested in.  Sadly, this new Kindle doesn’t offer the lighted screen, just a modest performance bump and new font choices.

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While USB 3.0 has been around since early 2010, only this year has the newest, fastest universal port come into widespread use. USB 3.0 ports are now common on Windows 7 desktops and laptops (usually marked with a blue connector), and are even on the latest-generation MacBook Pros and Airs.

Faster USB peripherals aren’t nearly as plentiful, however, with only thumb drives and external hard drives getting widespread USB 3.0 treatment – and the latter far more than the former; in fact, while USB 2.0 remains the connection method of choice for USB thumb drive makers, USB 3.0 now dominates external hard drives.

Which is great.  After all, USB 3.0 drives can transfer data far faster than their 2.0 predecessors – up to 10X faster, in fact – which makes them more useful and and less time consuming. 

But there’s a problem:

USB 3.0 and the drivers that make the I/O technology possible are still new enough to have bugs, which can create some headaches for users.

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For reasons too esoteric and boring to list, last week I decided to add a Mac desktop to my office setup. 

This week I set about figuring out exactly how that could work.

I didn’t have an extra limb to hawk, so Apple’s Mac Pro was out.  A Mac Mini could work, but would require either an additional monitor alongside my existing PC’s display, or connecting both the Mac Mini and PC to my monitor and work out the wiring, adapter and configuration nightmare that monitor sharing can be, particularly between a Mac and PC.

The iMac, on the other hand, seemed perfect.  With it, I would get not only a Mac, but a monitor upgrade for my PC as well.  This was a beautiful solution: I could leave most everything as-is, simply removing the old PC monitor and replacing it with the iMac. I’d connect my PC’s video-out to the iMac, use it as a display for both, and without so much as an extra inch of desk space used, I’d be ready to rock and roll with two OSes in a nice, neat package.  I could even sell my 22-inch monitor to help fund the iMac. 

You could almost call it elegant.  I’d found the ideal dual-OS setup. 

And then my “brilliant” plan fell apart.

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