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jueves, 25 de febrero de 2016
Free Tax Preparation Service
miércoles, 24 de febrero de 2016
The World's Worst Airline... (BusinessWeek)
Air Koryo flight attendants at Pyongyang Airport.
Change is in the air in North Korea. After years of being ranked by Skytrax as the world's worst airline, national carrier Air Koryo is undergoing a revolution, according to interviews with passengers and travel agents.
New planes, new in-flight entertainment options, smart new uniforms for the cabin attendants, even business class. It's all part of supreme leader Kim Jong Un's effort to boost tourist numbers 20-fold to 2 million by 2020 and supplement the nation's meager foreign exchange.
Here are five reasons to book your ticket now, before the thrill of flying the world's only one-star airline vanishes forever. (And as long as you don't mind helping fund Kim's nuclear-weapons program.)
The Hermit Kingdom
The Arirang Mass Games at the May Day Stadium in Pyongyang
Besides the joy of experiencing Air Koryo, the main draw for most travelers is to have a peek inside the world's most isolated country. As Singaporean Mindy Tan put it after visiting last year: "I'm sick of all the same footage of marching, pictures of Kim. I just had to witness it for myself.''
Don't worry about the odd nuclear test or missile launch, here you can run a marathon down Pyongyang's totalitarian streets or watch 100,000 kids doing synchronized dancing. The country is trying to open up attractions like the Masikryong Ski Resort and the Lake Taesong golf club. And where else can you still get stopped from taking a selfie in the wrong place?
The in-flight entertainment
A security demonstration video on an in-flight screen
The communal screens that drop down from the ceiling will keep you entertained with propaganda broadcasts and concerts by supreme leader Kim Jong Un's favorite all-female band, Moranbong, who sing patriotic songs about, well, Kim Jong Un. Bring noise-cancelling earphones. There's no volume control.
The planes
An Air Koryo Russian-made Tupolev Tu-204 jet plane in Pyongyang.
You don't often get tour agents who will arrange a trip to a country just to fly in its planes, but in North Korea this is possible. London-based Juche Travel Services offers an aviation-themed tour. Air Koryo recently acquired two Russian-built Tupolev Tu-204s for international routes, with an economy ticket costing about 900 yuan ($137) for the two-hour journey from Beijing. Once in Pyongyang, you can hop into Soviet-era aircraft such as a Mil Mi-17 transport helicopter for a buzz over the capital, or a view of the mountains.
"It’s a very different experience, traveling back 20, 30 years,'' says Sam Chui, an aviation enthusiast who's flown Air Koryo about 20 times.
Airport queues
The new international airport terminal building at Pyongyang airport.
While you may suffer the inconvenience of long queues and immigration hassles at your point of departure on your way to North Korea, once you arrive in the Democratic People's Republic, it should be a breeze.
No longer do you have to shuffle through the strange temporary shed that has been masquerading as an airport terminal for the past five years: now the capital has a sleek, brand-new building. And with fewer than half a dozen international flights a day, and little chance of delays due to strikes, the airport bus may deliver you on time to an almost deserted building.
The burger
While the food, especially in the new business-class lounge, has improved, the most-photographed component of an Air Koryo trip remains the famous "mystery-meat" burger.
"The burger has been going on for so many years, everyone’s making fun of it," says Chui, who has eaten at least 10 of them. To put to rest the long-running dispute over the source of the protein, we contacted Air Koryo's office in Beijing for clarification. The airline's representatives didn't respond.
martes, 23 de febrero de 2016
La FTC y ASUS
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lunes, 22 de febrero de 2016
jueves, 18 de febrero de 2016
Five free tools for managing partitions
You can simplify various partition tasks, such as rebuilding the MBR, copying a disk, and doing a disk surface test, by relying on a handy third-party app...free, by the way...
Most modern operating systems contain built-in tools for creating, deleting, or resizing partitions. But many users find that third-party tools make these types of tasks easier, since such tools might not have the same limitations as a native partition management utility. Here are several good partition managers, which won't cost you a dime.
Note: This article is also available as an image gallery and a video hosted by TechRepublic columnist Tom Merritt.
1: MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition
As its name suggests, MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition (Figure A) is a free tool for creating and managing partitions. It has a clean interface and does a nice job of providing access to the most common partition-related tasks without being overly complex.
For example, this tool offers options for rebuilding the MBR, copying a disk, and even doing a disk surface test.
2: EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition
EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition (Figure B) is another free tool for creating and managing partitions. At first glance, it appears to be somewhat lightweight. Upon closer inspection, however, you'll discover that it includes some nice features, such as a disk cloning wizard and a wizard that lets you migrate an OS to an alternate location.
3: AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition
AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition (Figure C) is a free partition management tool. Its interface isn't exactly original. In fact, I had to do a double take to see whether this application was just a reskinned version of one of the other applications discussed in this article. But the application is indeed unique. It has all the basics covered and offers lots of wizards to help with common tasks. Some of the more useful wizards include a partition recovery wizard, an NTFS to FAT32 converter, and even a tool to migrate your computer's operating system to SSD.
AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition is free; an upgrade to the professional edition is available for $36.
4: Paragon Partition Manager Free Edition (64-bit)
Paragon Partition Manager Free Edition (Figure D) is a lightweight tool for creating and managing partitions. It appears to be designed for beginners. The application contains a series of colorful tiles with options for things like creating, resizing, and deleting partitions. When you make a selection, the application launches a wizard that guides you through the tasks. These wizards are largely automated and provide few options for controlling the selected operation.
This application might do a good job of preventing someone who doesn't know much about partitions from making any critical mistakes, but it probably isn't the best option for IT professionals.
5: Macrorit Disk Partition Expert Free
Macrorit Disk Partition Expert Free (Figure E) reminds me a lot of MiniTool Partition Wizard, but it allows for a greater variety of operations.
Macrorit offers plenty of nice extras, including a disk defragmenter, a volume checker, and a disk surface test. It also includes some volume-level tools that allow you to do things such as explore or wipe a volume.
martes, 16 de febrero de 2016
Business Development Mission to China and Taiwan from April 11-23, 2016
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viernes, 12 de febrero de 2016
How to See Which Applications Are Draining Your Battery on Windows 10
Windows 10 includes a new “Battery Use” screen that shows you what’s draining your laptop’s juice. That means it’ll tell you exactly what apps–both desktop and Windows 10 “universal” apps–are using too much power.
This feature is part of the “Battery saver” screen in the new Settings app. Like some of Windows 10’s other new features, it was originally part of Windows Phone, but came to the desktop when Windows 10 was released. It’ll break down how much battery power your display and other hardware uses, too.
Find the Battery Use Screen
This feature is new to Windows 10, so you won’t find it anywhere in the old Control Panel. It’s located in the new Settings app, which you can launch by clicking or tapping the “Settings” option in the Start menu.
In the Settings app, select “System” and then select “Battery saver.” You can also just type “Battery saver” into the Cortana search box and select the “Battery saver” option to go directly to this screen.
On the right side of the screen, you’ll see an overview that displays how much battery life you have remaining, and how much time Windows estimates you’ll get from that. Click or tap the “Battery use” link under this heading to see more details.
Analyze Your Power Usage
By default, the Battery Use screen will show information from the last 24 hours. However, you can also have it show information from the last 48 hours, or from the last week.
To change this setting, click or tap the dropdown box under “Showing battery use across all apps from the last” at the top of the screen and select “24 Hours,” “48 Hours,” or “1 Week.”
Below this box, you’ll see “System,” “Display,” and “Wi-Fi” percentages. This shows how much battery power has been used by system processes, the display, and your Wi-Fi radio.
You’ll probably see that the display is using quite a bit of power. To alleviate that, try lowering your screen’s brightness, or tell your display go to sleep more often in Settings > System > Power & Sleep.
The “In use” and “Background” options show how much power is used by applications while you’re using them, compared to applications running in the background.
If apps are using power in the background, you can click or tap the “Change background app settings” link and configure apps to not run in the background. This only works for universal Windows 10 apps. They won’t automatically receive notifications, fetch new data for live tiles, or perform other background tasks. This can help you save battery power, especially if you don’t actually use those new Windows 10 apps.
Scroll down further and you’ll see a list of applications. This is the most useful part of the list, as it lists your desktop applications as well as universal apps. It’ll display a list of the apps have have used battery power in that period, and show you what percentage of your battery power each app has used.
If an app doesn’t appear in the list here, you never used it while you were on battery, so it never consumed any battery power.
You can view more information about a specific application’s energy usage by clicking or tapping it and then selecting the “Details” button. You’ll be able to see how what percentage of power the app used for system processes, the display, and Wi-Fi. You’ll also be able to see how much power the app used while you were actively using it, and how much it used when running in the background.
As with the overview of all apps on the main screen, you can choose to view details for the last 24 hours, 48 hours, or one week. For example, here’s how much battery Google Chrome used on my laptop in the past 48 hours:
You may see the word “Allowed” beneath some Windows 10 universal apps in the list. This indicates they’re allowed to run in the background. You can select an app and then select the “Details” button to see more details. From here, you can disable the “Allow this app to run in the background” option and prevent the app from using power in the background.
How to Increase Your Laptop or Tablet’s Battery Life
There’s no way around it: All applications you use will drain battery, and whatever applications you use the most will likely rank high in the list. Demanding applications–for example, demanding PC games or video compression programs–will also use a lot of energy.
The Battery usage screen provides options for controlling whether Windows 10 apps can run in the background, which should help you if you’re using that type of app. But there’s no way to control Windows desktop apps from the Settings screen.
If a desktop application is sucking down a lot of power while running in the background, you may be able to save power by closing it when you’re not using it. If an application is using a lot of power while you’re using it, there’s not necessarily much you can do. You could try looking for an alternative application that isn’t as power hungry, or try to make the application more lightweight–for example, by uninstalling browser extensions, enabling click-to-play plug-ins, and having fewer tabs open at once in your web browser.
It’s not just apps, either–plenty of other settings can affect your battery life. The display backlight uses quite a bit of power, so lowering your display brightness will help. Having your PC automatically sleep more quickly can also help if you’re not in the habit of putting it to sleep when you step away. Check out our guide to Windows battery life for more details on getting the most out of your laptop or tablet.
The Battery usage screen isn’t a one-stop shop for making applications use less power. However, it is a convenient way–and the only way in Windows–to see which apps are using the most power. This information doesn’t even appear in the slick new Task Manager.
With this information, you can get an idea of where your power is going and make informed decisions to help stretch your battery life.
jueves, 11 de febrero de 2016
Why Bombardier Is Struggling to Build Bigger Planes (BusinessWeek)
The Canadian jet maker is going through growing pains.
Pierre Beaudoin was just 40 days into his job as head of Bombardier Inc. in 2008 when he signed off on the biggest undertaking in the company’s history—a family of transcontinental jets that would compete directly with giants Boeing Co. and Airbus Group SE.
What he lacked in engineering experience, the third-generation scion of Bombardier made up for in certainty. He was so convinced his fuel-efficient, 108- to 160-seat C Series would be a hit that he refused to offer bulk discounts to anchor carriers like American Airlines or United Airlines. It was a premium product that demanded a premium price.
“Yes, it costs more money but we have an exceptional aircraft,” Beaudoin said on a conference call last year after he stepped down as chief executive officer amid ongoing troubles with the program.
Nearly a decade in, the C Series program has yet to gain traction and the company is in tatters. Bombardier is a penny stock, it’s burning cash and has gone cap in hand to the Canadian government for as much as $1 billion in aid to stay afloat. At stake is the survival of a 73-year-old plane and train maker that employs 24,000 people in Canada and contributes C$6.5 billion ($4.7 billion) to the Quebec economy alone.
How the grand strategy of one of Canada’s most storied manufacturers lost so much altitude is a tale of misreading the determination of its competitors, falling in love with its own product and failing to grasp the way sales momentum is built in introducing a new plane. Bad timing hurt, too.
A series of interviews with former Bombardier executives reveals that the planemaker found itself completely unprepared for how swiftly its larger rivals Airbus and Boeing would be able to launch their own re-engined narrow-body aircraft and how aggressively they would use those planes to defend their turf.
Biggest Bet
With an initial budget of $3.3 billion, the C Series was Montreal-based Bombardier’s biggest bet since it got into the plane business with the 1986 purchase of Canadair from the federal government. The state-of-the-art C Series, with composite parts, promised to burn 20 percent less fuel than competing models and cut cash operating costs by 15 percent.
The new jet also put the Canadian company, founded by Beaudoin’s grandfather as a snowmobile maker in 1942, in direct competition with Airbus and Boeing for the first time.
Until the C Series came along, Bombardier’s commercial aircraft primarily competed in the regional jet space with Brazil’s Embraer SA.
From the outset, the Bombardier sales team became aware they weren’t being given the same tools as their larger rivals, according to a group of former executives.
It was crucial in the aircraft’s infancy to get some big-name airlines and low-cost carriers on its order book to show momentum, said Gary Scott, the former Boeing and Bombardier executive who oversaw the launch of the C Series until he left in 2011. He likens it to taking “rifle shots” at the big airline targets.
Premium Jet
Yet when the sales team would come back and say Bombardier needed to be more competitive on price and service, upper management, including Beaudoin, would insist the C Series was worth the premium. One executive said the price gap was often just $2 million to $4 million on a plane that lists for as much as $82 million.
Beaudoin, 53, now the executive chairman of Bombardier, declined to comment through spokeswoman Isabelle Rondeau.
“Those key customers you needed to land to really solidify the program—I don’t know that it was a high enough priority,” Scott said in an interview. “When we looked at what it was going to take to make a few more rifle shots, the company wasn’t willing at that point, and apparently since.”
Bombardier also lacked experience in selling this kind of jet. Beaudoin had run the recreational products side of the business before moving on to run the business jet and aerospace divisions. Guy Hachey, the former head of the aerospace division, and Mike Arcamone, who headed the commercial aerospace division, had automotive backgrounds. While they both had excellent pedigrees in lean manufacturing practices, they had little experience with aircraft sales. They were both unavailable for comment.
Volume Game
Bombardier underestimated the volume game Boeing and Airbus would play, charging less for their aircraft because they knew selling 200 planes at half the margin Bombardier wanted for 100 planes produced the same amount of profit, the people said. The discounts created a full order book and assembly line.
“Bombardier had never launched an all-new major commercial aircraft,” Scott said. “They just didn’t have the experience.”
Another misstep was creating a global order book—sometimes at the expense of large orders from established mainline carriers. In a January 2012 interview, Chet Fuller, then Bombardier’s chief commercial salesman, vowed to secure 40 different customers on all continents.
“That initial strategy of building a geographically dispersed customer base excluded them going after a massive customer with a large order that would have given them the credibility they needed,” Ernie Arvai, partner of the AirInsight consulting firm based in Windham, New Hampshire, said in an interview. “To me, that was their big failure.”
Resources Stretched
Bombardier fell victim to its own ambitions when it launched two business aircraft programs—the Learjet 85 and the Global 7000/8000—alongside the C Series, stretching resources. One executive said when the new Global family was announced, he knew that the C Series was doomed because the company couldn’t handle the programs at once.
Timing was not in Bombardier’s favor either. The C Series was launched at the start of the financial crisis, and just as the planes are ready to be delivered this year, oil prices are tumbling, negating some of the fuel-efficient benefits.
Bombardier has won 243 firm orders for the new jet—none in the last 16 months—as most of the big global carriers have taken a pass so far. As of late January, Bombardier’s order book included 14 airline and leasing customers—only two of which, Germany’s Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Korean Air Lines, rank among the world’s biggest.
The orders are 57 short of a goal to have 300 firm commitments by the time the C Series enters service for Swiss International Air Lines in the first half of this year. By contrast, Airbus had 4,471 orders at the end of December for its re-engined A320neo family, which competes with the C Series and was launched two years later.
Over Budget
The C Series program is more than two years late and about $2 billion over budget. Development costs have led to five years of net cash burn, and shares are trading below C$1 for the first time in 25 years. The stock plunge has erased about C$33 billion in market value since 2000, lowering it to about C$2 billion.
Bombardier can expect a receptive ear from the federal government. The company employs 17,750 people in Quebec, which has already pledged $1 billion. Bombardier represents the kind of value-added manufacturing the new government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to promote as the country tries to diversify its resource-based economy.
“Bombardier is viewed like a big American bank: For Quebec, it’s too big to fail,” Arvai said.
The fresh cash injection would buy some time while several carriers, including Delta and United, consider orders.
Bombardier’s new CEO Alain Bellemare has shown more willingness to be flexible. Fred Cromer, Bombardier’s president of commercial aircraft, signaled in December the company would become more aggressive on price to win big orders.
“At the right price, it is quite a competitive airplane,” Delta CEO Richard Anderson said on a Jan. 19 conference call. “We are taking a very serious look at it.”
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