Andrew Garcia

“Kid, let’s talk.”I’d been dreading this moment. My father, in town for my wedding, was surely going to try gleefully to embarrass me with a birds-and-bees talk delivered a quarter-century too late.”Do your mother and I need MiFi?”MiFi? My mind raced, baffled as to what he was talking about. Surprisingly, this was going to be […]

There’s a bunch of little tidbits that came out of my week with the Pre that didn’t make it into the main Palm Pre review and slide show. Here are a few items of note: Not a formal coverage test by any means, but I was able to listen to Pandora on the Pre with […]

This month marks my 10th anniversary with the cell phone, as I acquired my first Nokia to help while away the hours spent sitting in traffic on my way to and from my then-new job at PC Magazine. In the years since, I’ve been a dutiful little consumer (sheep?), obligingly updating my phone every two […]

This month, Palm at long last and amid much hype released the Pre–the first smartphone based on the company’s brand-new WebOS mobile operating system. Viewed by many as the last gasp for the once-influential mobile computing company, the Pre and WebOS put a good foot forward with exceptional design, aesthetics and usability. However, there are […]

Palm Pre Is a Standout in eWEEK Labs Tests by Andrew Garcia Front 1 The Pre is small and sleek. The front panel, which features a beautiful 320-by-480 HVGA screen, is marred only by the Center button. Front 2 Slid open, the Pre presents a compact QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard may be difficult for those […]

T-Mobile in May started rolling out an update for the Android-based G1 with Google smartphone. Dubbed “Cupcake,” the update provides an appealing but modest mix of fixes and feature enhancements to the already feature-packed smartphone, with some previously glaring shortcomings remaining unaddressed. Overall, I would classify Cupcake’s enhancements as nice to have, but not enough […]

Android 1.5 Gives G1 with Google a Feature Boost Update to Cupcake After much waiting, I was able to pull down the update from the System Update tool. The download of Version 1.5 took about 15 minutes over the air, while the update itself took another 10 minutes. I did experience one scary lockup during […]

In a down economy, video conferencing makes a lot of sense economically. Companies can slash their travel budgets, redirecting some of that money to the acquisition of room-based or desktop conferencing solutions that allow parties to “meet” and share presentations while still being able to read participants’ body language and facial expressions (video quality permitting). […]

A couple months ago, I pondered the security of mobile application transmissions when used over insecure networks, specifically over unencrypted Wi-Fi hot spots. Whereas a mobile device browser shows the little lock so users know SSL is being employed to protect certain data, mobile applications typically provide no such reassurance, unless such a proviso was […]

Licensing Sadly following in Vistas footsteps, Windows 7 will come in a lot of flavors. Everything interesting about Windows 7 will be in the Software Assurance-backed Enterprise iteration. (Available in volume licenses as small as five-pack!) Little of what is interesting about Windows 7 will be in the Professional version. Application Compatibility With Windows 7, […]

With the Room 200, LifeSize delivers an impressive high-definition video conferencing experience that provides added value with its ability to natively host multiparty conferences. Priced at $17,000, a Room 200 system includes the primary appliance (called a codec), an HD PTZ LifeSize Camera 200 and a conference phone that acts as a microphone for the […]

Polycom’s QDX 6000 video conferencing units are easy to set up and configure, allowing customers to get up and running quickly. Although not HD-capable, the units provide adequate video in well-lit rooms and excellent audio, as well as a plethora of options for adding content to the conference from peripheral devices. With a list price […]