HP Mini Desktops and Chromeboxs

HP Pavilion Mini Desktop

The latest devices to hit the HP Store are the Pavilion Mini Desktop and the Stream Mini Desktop.

The HP Pavilion Mini Desktop is just 52 mm (2 inches) high and only weighs 725 grams (1.6 lbs). Yet processors options include an Intel Core i3, it runs Windows 8.1 plus expansion options include 8 GB of expandable memory and 1 TB of storage.

Video or casual gaming is supported by the dual display support with DisplayPort and HDMI compatible ports. So it's capable of streaming content across multiple screens, including TV with Quad HD support.

The HP Pavilion Mini Desktop also draws a maximum power of 45 watts, far lower than the 250 watts of a typical tower desktop.

A HP Pavilion Mini Desktop with Intel Pentium 3558U processor, 4 GB RAM and a 500 GB Hard Disk Drive (HDD) costs $319.99.

HP Stream Mini Desktop

Meanwhile the HP Stream Mini Desktop has the same small format as the Pavilion Mini Desktop but comes with value-added options and services.

These include a 32 GB solid-state drive (SSD) for speed and reliability, 200 GB of Microsoft OneDrive Storage for two years plus a $25 gift card for the Windows Store to purchase apps, Xbox games, music and so on.

An HP Stream Mini Desktop with Intel Celeron 2957U processor, 2 GB RAM and a 32 GB SSD costs $179.99.

HP Chromebox

These Mini Desktops supplement HP's 2014 launch of its equally diminutive Chromebox range. These desktop boxes are less than 126mm (under 5 inches) square and just 39mm (1.5 inches). And even the separate AC power brick is small; around the size of a typical laptop one.

HP Chromebox's square form is softened by rounded edges with subtle design flourishes. And there's a number of case colours to choose from; Smoke Silver, Snow White and Ocean Turquoise.

HP's low-end CB1 model has an Intel Haswell Celeron 2955U 64-bit 1.4GHz dual-core processor plus 2GB of RAM and 16GB of solid-state drive storage. In addition to the local storage owners receive 100GB of space on Google's Drive Cloud.

Despite the small dimensions a Chromebox isn't short of ports. There's four USB 3.0 ports (two front, two back), both HDMI and DisplayPort out for video (including dual monitor support), analogue audio out, an SD card slot, Ethernet port and a security lock slot. Wireless communication options include 802.11b/g/n wi-fi and Bluetooth 4.0.

Read more Analysis posts.

Minetest - Free Open Source Minecraft

Minetest is a construction game inspired by Infiniminer, Minecraft and similar games where players can create and destroy various types of blocks in a LEGO-like three-dimensional world.

Here's a few key Minetest facts:

• open source - GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)
• download for on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Android
• play a single player game
• explore the collection of blocks and items
• have fun crafting and smelting
• beware of the hostile mobs
• apply texture packs for blocks, items and mobs
• join a multi-player game on a Minetest server
• experiment with downloadable mods
• host your own server
• create your own texture packs
• create your own mods in in C++ or Lua
• compile Minetest from source

See more Minecraft posts.

Raspberry Pi Model B+ HATs

HAT stands for Hardware Attached on Top.

It's an optional set of hardware and software rules for add-on boards.

The guidelines, provided by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, illustrate how the extra 14 pins on the Model B+ can be used to improve the user experience by delivering a 'plug-and-play' capability.

HAT-compliant expansion boards will be recognised by the host Raspberry Pi's operating system. This means the board can be automatically configured, for instance by transparently installing the necessary drivers. A great solution for anyone with limited Linux experience.

In overview a HAT is a rectangular (65mm x 56mm) board which has four corner-positioned mounting holes that align with the Model B+ mounting holes.

Two GPIO pins, namely ID_SD and ID_SC, are reserved for an I2C compliant Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM) chip. This EEPROM stores the board manufacturer's information, GPIO setup and a 'device-free' fragment - which describes the attached hardware and so enables Linux to load the required drivers.

As you'd expect the HAT specification is open source and available on GitHub. So anyone can design a HAT add-on boards for the Model B+.

While it's entirely optional, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is encouraging everyone to commit to the HAT standard and make life easier for Pi owners.

It's too early to know how successful the HATs initiative will be. Yet I'd be surprised if it wasn't embraced by the majority of bigger players in the Raspberry Pi add-ons and accessories marketplace.

Visit my Raspberry Pi page for news, reviews, advice and tutorials.

Micro Mart Hat Trick

I managed a hat trick of publications in this week's Micro Mart issue 1183.

Firstly there's part two of my Coding Challenges series.

Then there's a journalistic style article about the future of Adobe Flash - highly topical as this BBC story broke the day before publication. And finally a product review on Mozilla's Firefox 7 browser.

Here's an extract from the Adobe Flash article:

Is Adobe about to abandoned Flash? Adobe's MAX conference, in October 2011, certainly included plenty Flash content. Flash Player 11 offers game developers a 3D hardware-accelerated programming interface. It's a specialist task, yet one that can generate impressive performance gains. And the new Adobe AIR 3 can bundle Flash code plus the Flash Player into a native code executable.

But web-standards were much in evidence at MAX 2011 too. HTML sessions were not only much more numerous than in previous years, but also among the most popular. Another indication of a sea-change in developer focus. And as HTML5 and CSS3 grow ever richer, they'll be less and less need to use proprietary, plug-in based solutions and tools.

Web browsers based on web-standards are a win-win scenario. Users will be able to display any Internet page using the operating system's default browser as is. No plug-in installation to perform, and no nagging plug-in version update reminders. Designers and developers can reach a much wider range of platforms and work with a more diverse range of tools, while experimenting with a rich palette of CSS functionality and powerful JavaScript libraries.

All indications point to a growing acceptance on the part of Adobe, and its band of loyal product advocates, that the Flash party is coming to an end. In the meantime Adobe will continue to hedge its bets, and provide ever more accomplished products and tools based around web-standards technology.

I've posted a PDF of the Adobe Flash article on my sample PDF page.

Zend Server CE review

Today's Micro Mart magazine, issue 1160, published my product review of the Zend Server Community Edition development tools and web server environment.

This comprehensive, professional-grade, zero-cost product has PHP 5.3, Apache, MySQL and the Zend Framework, all installed in a single integrated process.

Emergency Undelete review

Today's Micro Mart magazine, issue 1150, published my product review for Emergency Undelete from Diskeeper.

Due to it's small footprint and self-contained installation, it could be a useful addition to other, USB drive located, system maintenance and recovery tools.

Have a look for yourself at the product page.

Abobe Acrobat X Pro review

Today Micro Mart magazine published my Adobe Acrobat X Pro product review in issue 1131.

It's been well over two years since Acrobat 9 appeared, so I was interested to see what had changed in the new version. I certainly found plenty of new and enhanced Acrobat X Pro features to write about, but unfortunately the price still remains pretty steep.

Difficult to justify for personal use, I feel, in the light of products like Nitro PDF.