TheAcerGuy moves

I have mentioned before on numerous occasions that I wanted to move this blog over to its own domain.

Well the time has come to make the change so I would invite you to visit TheAcerGuy's new home at www.theacerguy.com.

Like all things new, this change came with its own, unique set of problems. In switching over to Wordpress, I have lost all the comments and some of the images are still stored on Blogger's servers so this blog will remain open as long as they'll let me.

I have imported the Swicki but it no longer offers images. At least the file is the same! And I still have to get the RSS subscription options up.

Apart from that, it's running fine. See you there.

Acer ranked 46!!

Another sports announcement: Acer has now teamed up with Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd., becoming Official Sponsor of Yamaha Factory Racing Team.

Rumours of Valentino Rossi's association with Ferrari have been circulating throughout his global fan base for years.

Acer, already Official Sponsor to Scuderia Ferrari, has just given them another direct link as can be seen in the photo kindly "borrowed" from Derapate.

Joking aside, this announcement, published here, is yet another step forward in Acer's aggressive sponsorship campaigns announced this year and, according to the press release, will see the Acer brand placed on both the motorbikes and on the race suits of Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards, all pit crew member uniforms working in the box and on all transport vehicles of the team.

If the excitement over Valentino's riding skills this season are anything like his performance last year (check out this French commentator at the 2006 Donington GP), Acer's popularity will be catapulted through the roof!

Good idea kicks up a Storm

In a case of "credit where credit is due", I gotta hand it to the guys at Dell for bringing the world IdeaStorm.

Without going over the where's and the why's, and leaving aside the how's and who's for a minute, have you seen the what's?

If anyone's unfamiliar with IdeaStorm, it takes the Web 2.0 voting system made famous by Digg and applies it in a kind of online suggestion box. Shel Holtz gives a pretty good review on his blog.

The results must be making some people very very nervous indeed.

At time of writing, the suggestion "Offer the 3 top free Linux versions for free pre-installation on all Dell PCs" had received 92,806 votes (in 12 days) while "Provide OpenOffice.org for free pre-installation alongside Microsoft Works and Microsoft Office. OpenOffice.org is more capable than Microsoft Works, and a serious competitor to Microsoft Office, at a fraction of the cost (it's free!)" had clocked up 60,300 votes (in 11 days).

Given the "weight" of bundled MS software on the final price of all Windows PCs, and the fact that a huge percentage of calls to customer support are software-related issues as opposed to hardware failures, it'll be interesting to see where this goes. After all if the public is ready, who's to blame Dell for putting pressure on MS?

I wonder how closely the boys from Redmond are following this.

Acer gets into a Ferrari Challenge

Who said computers were boring?

Die-hard gamers know they’re not and anyone who’s earned 8 Linden dollars an hour gyrating somewhere meaningless in SecondLife knows there’s plenty of room for a giggle online.

Yesterday I received another mail from Ferrari World which I like to keep track of but never ventured into as I’m a little fussy about my paid memberships and have trouble thinking what Ferrari could possibly offer me under a paid subscription that I can’t get free somewhere else online. But that’s another story.

I was intrigued by the words “X-Challenge” on one of the stories and clicked to see what it was.

Turns out Ferrari World has launched a free racing simulation game called Ferrari X-Challenge where you can whiz round Fiorano or Mugello in an F430 Challenge. Club Ferrari members get to race each other online which is where that subscription fee enters the equation. Without it you’re on your own which, if you’re like me and your virtual driving skills would get you arrested in real life, is much better as I did more damage to my car than I’d care to admit publicly.


What’s this got to do with Acer? Well, as Official Sponsors to Scuderia Ferrari, Acer gets its own car!


Personally I think looking at a Ferrari F430 in “Acer Green” is more of a challenge than getting to grips with the car itself but hey, nobody’s perfect!

c530 up and running straight out of the box

I know this might sound a bit of an oxymoron but here's an interesting video I found over on YouTube of a guy unpacking his Acer c530 Pocket PC.

Why's this interesting? Apart from the sheer quantity of connection cables that come out of the box, I like the way the guy is able to unpack it, fit the battery and have it working in less that 150 seconds.

I'm not sure if that's a record but it sure is impressive to see something working so fast straight out of the box. Certainly never happens to me...

Acer build quality

Here's an interesting forum I ran into today.

NotebookReviews is a site dedicatd to open (sometimes very open) discussions on the quality of products and services from IT manufacturers.

I was looking at the "Acer build quality" forum and thought I'd share this poll with you.

Alexa's take on the world of IT

As many of you know, I've been getting really interested in Acer's online performance.

No, I'm not talking about SignalUp technology or wireless connectivity.

I'm referring to its sites.

I am a regular visitor to Alexa, which although mind-bogglingly geeky, does give a pretty good view of the world's top websites.

TheAcerGuy isn't there of course, but Acer is, along with its local satellite sites and, more importantly, its competitors.

If you throw in enough addresses, and plot the differences in Word, Excel or whatever, comparing the results can make fascinating reading (if you're in to that sort of thing).

But there's one feature I'm particularly fond of and right now it's showing a major shift. Alexa traffic Rankings gives you the possibility to compare site performance with competitors on the same graph (up to 5 at a time).

Now Acer's at the bottom of my 5 brand list (Dell, HP, Lenovo and Asus) but rather than drawing your attenytion to the bottom (the only way is up!), have a look at what's going on up at the top. All but 1 is stable.

Daily Reach (20/02/2007)



Daily Page Views (20/02/2007)

What on earth is happening to Dell??

OK Page Reach is different to Page Views (can anyone explain this in plain English?) but either way there's a worrying haemorrhage there.

Are you seeing this Richard?

Acer C510 at Crave

There's something spooky about Acer at the moment.

Don't get alarmed, this is not a warning, complaint or anything like that. Just the opposite.

For years Acer has been the underdog, living silently with this "budget PC" name tag. I personally always championed Acer's notebooks because I literally penned (typed) my entire career on them. How's that for an endorsement?

But now things are different for Acer. Call it expanded product range, call it technical expertise, but lately Acer just keeps getting it right.

First of all you can see it in the way it's rapidly becoming one of the top brands.

Then you can see it in the way it's now compared with the big-boys in the home entertainment sector, how it's learning the rules and making its own particular mark with innovative convergence products like the Aspire iDea.

And now there are reviews like this one for the Acer C510 Pocket PC over on Crave.

As a general rule, Acer picks uphill battles with some of its products, combining two (or more) products in one and upsetting one or the other parties. Witness the 37" LCD TV with built-in media gateway, the MP340 portable hard-disk-cum-MP3 player. And then there are the hand-held devices.

By combining a pocket PC with a GPS navigator, Acer has carved a whole new challeng for its designers and technicians but, judging by the review, seems to have pulled it off.

"There are some ropey examples out there, but Acer seems to be getting the hang of combining a Pocket PC with GPS. The key thing it's got right with the C510 is the integrated antenna -- some rivals have flip-out aerials, which make them a bit unwieldy. It's also small and pocketable, weighing just 122g."

Sounds like Acer's pretty much figured out this convergence thing.

Italian Press Conference photos

As promised, here are some photos taken at yesterday's Italian press conference.

Apologies for the quality but do have a look at the past models. It's fascinating to see how just how much notebooks have changed in such a short period of time.