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Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

Dell Brings Dock, Color to New Laptops

dell_dock_sm.jpg

Dell is launching a new mid-range line of portable computers called Studio Laptops with a Mac-like “Dock” designed to give Vista users an illusion of the OS X experience.

Studio Laptops’ desktop GUI takes Windows’ traditional application icon layout and organizes it into a “Dock” similar to the one familiar to Mac users, though questions remain as to whether users will be able to customize the Dock layout and place it on either side or at the bottom of the desktop.

In an additional concession to the proposition that Apple may be winning the OS war, Dell will offer cases in seven colors, a significant change to the company’s predominantly industrial look.

Gizmodo has nice before and after screenshots of the desktop.

About the author

Lonnie Lazar

Lonnie Lazar is a writer, musician, web designer attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

Email the author | Read more posts by Lonnie Lazar.

9 comments

    Yuck. Looks disgusting!

    What do they plan to call this line? The InspironXPSGLX-83589XXXL? If there’s one thing that irks me about PC marketing is that they never think of the consumer’s experience (For example, I doubt many consumers could even think of the name of their PC model).

    Haven’t they tried selling cases in different colors recently? I guess they keep forgetting that color is just one element of overall design.

    As for the dock feature, I’m not surprised. It only took them like 7 years to get it.

    can’t polish a turd.

    Dell is calling the line “Studio” and they come in 15″ and 17″ flavors.

    Lonnie:

    Thanks for blogging about it. We’ve been shipping colors on Consumer laptops for about a year. We’re adding more color options with the Studio Line.

    The dock.. no question it was a good idea. Kudos to Apple for that.

    Thanks,

    Lionel Menchaca
    http://www.direct2dell.com

    It looks like someone at Dell saw RocketDock (a free software program) and is using a similar idea for their computers. I am a Mac, but whenever I have to setup a PC, I usually include RocketDock. It makes things more intuitive (like a Mac).

    already done: http://rocketdock.com/

    free download of the “best software ever written” apparently.

    Yeah – I’m gonna go with the folks who see the uncanny parallel between this and RocketDock. Frankly, since RocketDock is free, its likely that Dell just snagged a copy and started adding it to its OEM images.

    Actually, it’s similar to Stardock’s Objectdock (which is free), because Stardock developed the software for Dell.

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