Nokia E90

At A Glance

The Nokia E90 was at it’s time the ultimate smartphone and now, two years after it’s announcement, it still holds it’s own against the seemingly neverending flow of gadgeds top-filled with features as a full fledged business solution. Despite it’s hefty size and weight, this amazing brick of a smartphone is all about convergence and a bullet-proof spec sheet.

PROS: Convergent QWERTY device, huge internal display (4-inch with a 800×352 resolution), full 5-row QWERTY keyboard with convenient key layout and decent size, high-speed HSDPA 3.6Mbps connection, WLAN support, integrated GPS, 3.2MP camera with autofocus (poor to mediocre picture quality, but a plus on the multimedia side for the Nokia Communicator line), Symbian S60 v3.2 (Feature Pack 1) operating system running on a speedy 330MHz ARM processor, hardware graphics acceleration, huge battery.

CONS: Huge size (132 x 57 x 20mm) and hefty weight (210g), insufficent key feedback on internal keyboard, slow GPS signal acquisition, poor use of internal display real estate in some situations, no smart dialling. Continue reading…

Dell Precision M6400

At A Glance

The Dell Precision M6400 is a true powerhorse of a laptop. It is the ultimate performance machine in the notebook world unmatched save perhaps for the  Lenovo w700. As the lucky owner of one of there beauties, I thought it would be appropriate to write a short review describing my experience with this device. First of all, I know this notebook’s target include people working with graphically-intensive modeling and CAD applications, including AutoCAD, 3dsmax or Maya for example. So even though I’m not within this device’s main target, the cutting-edge performance it provides is just as useful in my field of work, the only component that is overpriced relative to what I need being the graphics adapter.

PROS: Powerful, loads of processing power, mind boggling 16GB RAM limit (DDR3 that is), two internal hard-disk bays and hardware RAID-0/RAID-1 support (no more replacing your optical drive for that all-so-practical RAID configuration or extra disk space), full-size backlit keyboard, very confortable touch pad, myriad of connectors and connectity options, slot-load DVD-RW drive (optional), exceptional 17″ 1920×1200 RGB LED display (optional, CCFL LCD standard) capable of rendering a full 100% of the Adobe’s sRGB color space for true 36-bit color display, huge 9-cell battery offering 2 hours of uptime (on Internet browsing, and it’s quite a long life keeping in mind the included hardware), solid construction with a anodized aluminum case.

CONS: Huge power adapter (it is literally enormous and heavy), grill below the display which covers the speakers feels a bit flimsy at times and catches lots of dust and debris, light keyboard flex. Continue reading…

I am posting this tutorial because it seems there are very few articles on the net that actually present you with a practical way of retrieving SharePoint user information in C#, for example to display in a WebPart. Most of these articles describe the method of programatically achieving this for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS), but in Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) this bit is more tricky. Mainly because WSS keep only limited user info and also because it uses a hidden list to store that information. Continue reading…