When Windows 7 launched last year, they offered a special “Family Pack” that allowed 3 computers to share the same copy of Windows. It was only $149 USD but sold in limited quantities. This October this pack is coming back.

An important thing to know as a photographer is some basic color theory. This article on Lifehacker goes into quite a bit of detail and even offers some great Photoshop tutorials at the end. Recommended reading for anyone with an SLR.

HardOCP just reported that BFG is liquidating it’s business. I’m disappointed because I really liked the company, it’s products, and it’s excellent customer support. They offered factory overclocked graphics card for PC’s and stood by them with a lifetime warranty. Recent margin pressure on the graphics card industry must’ve just been too much to handle.

Laptop Magazine just released comparisons of laptop technical support across many companies. The highest grade went to Apple followed by HP and Lenovo. Last place went to Acer and the other companies landed in between.

Despite what Google’s Blog says:

A little over a year ago, we released an early preview of Google Voice, our web-based platform for managing your communications. We introduced one number to ring all your phones, voicemail that works like email, free calls and text messages to the U.S. and Canada, low-priced international calls and more—the only catch was you had to request and receive an invite to try it out. Today, after lots of testing and tweaking, we’re excited to open up Google Voice to the public, no invitation required.

It is still not available in Canada:

It was there for such a brief time. A special iPad data plan for $20 if you were an existing Rogers data customer. It was on Apple’s site for the international iPad announcement, but was removed by the time Rogers made their official announcement. The current data plans are now:

• $15 a month for 250 megabytes of data
• $35 a month for five gigabytes of data

Both are contract-free and include Rogers Wi-Fi spots.

Feel like Rogers should bring back their original plan? I do. Be heard on Roger’s own Redboard site.

The official news is out, the iPad arrives on May 28th. Start saving your pennies.

It’s been a while since I built a new desktop PC, but while doing some research I stumbled on Corair’s tool to determine power supply requirements. In addition to asking about processor and graphics cards being used, it factors in overclocking and number of hard drives. Very handy. A 650W unit seems to be fine for my research build – Core i5, single nVidia GTX 470, 2 HDD and overclocked CPU/GPU.

I’m loving Dell’s new V13 series laptop. It’s a Vostro series, which is aimed at the small business market, but it’s great price point and incredible thinness are two big draws. It’s as thin as the Macbook Air (albeit not as beveled) and can be purchased for $549 (yes, that’s in Canadian).

A lot of it’s thinness comes from using the new ultra-low voltage (ULV) processors from Intel. However even with the ULV processor the battery they sized it with is smaller than the competitors. If you’re like me and use it plugged in most of the time, it should be fine. It still lasts almost 3 hours on battery however it’s competition have larger batteries that run 4-5 hours.

Some buyers have upgraded the drives to SSD in order to get faster performance, more battery life and decrease weight. Dell should offer an SSD option.

Even though it’s very thin, it offers plenty of expansion options including an eSATA port, ExpressCard and media card slots.

Check out the full review at Engadget.

So the details are gradually coming out regarding Microsoft’s iPhone Windows Phone 7. So far it has:

• no very limited multitasking capabilities
• all installed apps must be purchased through the App Store Phone Marketplace
• cut and paste

I already have an Apple iPhone, why would I buy a Microsoft iPhone? It’s 2010, the iPhone came out 3 years ago, can’t Microsoft come up with something better instead of copying a formula that has probably reached it’s zenith? I love my iPhone, but it’s really time for the next-generation of phone and phone OS’s to start coming.