 |
|
Call us now (877) 266-7725
|
March 2010 Trade Shows Spring ForthFebruary 9th, 2010
Nothing pulls people to your booth like the impressive plasma rentals for Game Developers Conference, offering up to 65 inches of high-definition pizazz. You can use one (or more) to display promotions, animations, Flash and PowerPoint presentations, or the biggest, brightest version of your company logo. Since you can connect most any digital device to the monitor, you can show DVDs or even use the screen as a huge browser window to show off your Web site. With upwards of 17,000 attendees expected at Game Developers Conference, you can try any number of approaches to reach the widest possible audience. Game Developers Conference is the primary annual grazing ground for artists, game designers, programmers, producers, audio/video pros, business owners and others in the game industry. If you want to capture as much contact information as possible, and multiply your effectiveness (whether you’re short-staffed or not), interactive kiosk rentals can be a great help. If you have more than a few people going, you might consider standardizing on CRE’s wireless MacBook laptop rentals to stay in touch throughout the five-day extravaganza. - – -
Whether you’re a multinational corporation or an independent consultant, if you’re one of the 450+ exhibitors at this year’s event you need to stand out from the crowd. Holding a breakout session or tutorial? You’ll want to check out CRE’s Westec plasma rentals and Audience Response System rentals. They constitute a powerful one-two punch for showing off the goods, then getting usable feedback. WESTEC puts you face to face and right in the midst of all the experts, vital suppliers and industry innovators. If you’re bringing a convention team, you may want to have some of your staff check out the speakers, panel participants and other exhibitors while you hold down the fort. With CRE’s digital recorder rentals and digital note-taking tablet PC rentals, they’ll get all the important info that you need. Whether you’re planning to exhibit, attend or both, as one of the leading convention and computer rental firms CRE can help you maximize your presence while minimizing the cost and complexity. Our Account Executives are experienced professionals, and good listeners, which means you will get first-rate help, often in ways you don’t even anticipate. Let them help you make the most of your trade show time by calling, sending an e-mail or filling out a Quick Rental Quote form today. Apple’s iPad: New Boom or Big Bust?February 4th, 2010The rumors met reality on January 27th as Apple unveiled its iPad tablet. As opposed to the iPhone launch, however, this one was not met with 100% support from the Apple/Mac fan community. In fact, some folks were downright displeased, predicting failure with a capital “F.” Of course, only time will tell, but right now we know all the specs and can at least tell you the pluses and minuses of the device.
Ups and downs The first thing you need to know is that the iPad is not a small MacBook in tablet form. It’s a big iPhone, except that the only kind of calling you can do is VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) with WiFi and a tool like Skype. Lacking a webcam, of course, means voice only, no cool video chats. The unit will run all the iPhone Apps, although it will have its own Apple store. It’s not a Kindle-killer, either. Amazon’s one-trick pony is perfect for the one trick it does – let you read, even in direct sunlight, with its e-ink technology. When Amazon did its research, it discovered that having color, WiFi, a browser and lots of other doohickeys interrupted people’s concentration on reading. Plus, the iPad has perhaps 8-10 hours of battery time, whereas the Kindle and the Sony e-book readers go 150-200 hours on a charge. The specs The specifications are at least as interesting for what is missing as what is there. Powered by a special, Apple-designed, 1GHz A4 chip built by PA Semiconductor, the iPad comes with 16, 32 or 64GB of solid state flash storage, but there is no separate graphics chip, so no multitasking – you can do one thing at a time. The color screen is 9.7 inches, but it won’t display most of the video on the Web (except YouTube) because there is no Flash support. With all the Flash on the Internet, this is a total head-scratcher. Neither is there a USB port, just the single Dock Connector, which accommodate special (and, ahem, separately priced) adapters for a USB connection or an SD card reader. What it does have is: WiFi in the latest 802.11b/g/n variety; Bluetooth, so you can use a wireless keyboard, at least if you’re at a table, instead of the on-screen iPhone-y keyboard; and a 3G version coming out a month after the base model. There’s also a microphone, speaker, headphone jack, digital compass, a few sensors (light, accelerometer, proximity) and A-GPS, “Assisted GPS.” Bottom line Just a tad smaller than a regular magazine and weighing 1.5 pounds, the iPad is hardly a shirtpocket take-along. It needs a case so you won’t scratch it, and a data plan with AT&T so you can use the WiFi or 3G. What remains to be seen is, Who will buy this thing? Apple fans with iPhones already shell out to AT&T, so it’s hard to believe they’ll double their monthly bill for a larger iPhone with little added functionality. MacBook Pro rentals at CRE won’t be threatened, since the iPad doesn’t run any Mac software. People who are PC-centric and don’t like Apple in the first place are hardly going to rush out to buy this device, either. The iPad appears to a number of observers to be the first pure entertainment play from Apple since the iPod. It is not a productivity enhancer, not easy to use as a phone or book reader, has a closed platform that may hinder third-party development and costs from $500 to over $800 in a somewhat bizarre pricing structure. It just may be that Apple has made an expensive toy for jetsetters and tech collectors, but if you see the “Steve Jobs magic” at work again, post a comment and let us know! In the meantime, for true Apple productivity, CRE has the Mac Pro rentals and laptops, along with convention technology and everything else you need from Apple, H-P and other companies. From office equipment to Audience Response System rentals, our Account Executives have the expertise and the equipment to help you get the job done. Call, send an e-mail or fill out the Quick Rental Quote form and we’ll get right on it for you. Let There Be Lighting, Part 1 of 2 – CRE RentalsJanuary 19th, 2010Whether it’s a presentation, seminar, conference or trade show exhibit – in small rooms, large halls or a stadium – good lighting can make or break an event. As a leader in trade show management and convention rentals, CRE knows the importance not only of good equipment, but good information. Here’s some on basic lighting. Good lighting gives presenters a more dramatic, more impressive stage presence, and also ensures that video or film recordings are clear and usable. Armed with a PowerMac G5 with Kona card rental from CRE, an artist could adjust lighting and contrast “in post,” but you always want to capture the best possible original image. Different strobes for different folks
For large meeting halls or dinner events, theater-style lighting adds color and drama to the atmosphere, and can transform “the usual thing” into something truly memorable. Many of the new, smaller, integrated systems can be controlled by computers available to rent from CRE. Let there be light Consider these basic lighting tips as you plan your next event:
In Part 2, we will show how to set up lighting for a press conference or presentation in a mid-size room (think conference breakout or company meeting). In the meantime, if you’re planning an annual shareholder meeting or exhibiting at a trade show, CRE is the one-stop shop. Our experts can help you with everything from lighting to computers, audience response system rentals to kiosks– just request a Quick Rental Quote today. We can definitely throw some light on the subject for you. Reviews of Computer & Technology News of 2009December 29th, 2009
This past year, for computer lovers, was as good as it gets. While every year sees new inventions and further refinements of existing products, 2009 was a landmark year in many ways. From the new MacBook models that CRE now rents to new display technology and “wireless everything,” 2009 was a big year. Laptops have gotten more powerful while getting lighter. Leaving aside the new netbooks, subject of a future blog, the laptop sector has made big strides in power, heat dissipation, battery life, displays, and connectivity. The year started off with dual-core processors limited to the MacBook Pro laptop rental and PCs, and ended with quad-core processors available at the high end of some lines. Desktops have changed in terms of power and ports. Apple dropped the original FireWire 400 connector for FireWire 800 (backward compatible with an adapter). USB is king of the hill for connections, with USB 3.0 right around the corner promising another serious speed bump. Ethernet? Faster. Phone modems? Disappearing. Hard drive capacities are into the terabyte (TB) range and no one gets a PC with just “a gig of RAM” anymore. Even low-end PCs now come with 2-4GB of RAM. Powerhouses like CRE’s quad- and eight-core HP computer rental can have up to 32GB. LCD Displays – Seeing is believing Computer users can thank display manufacturers for their less-strained eyes. The LCD and LED-backlit monitors look better, use less power and emit less radiation. Plasma monitor (rentals) are still tops in the largest sizes, while the Apple Cinema Display 24-inch LED monitor is what every post-production pro wants under the tree this year. Look, Mom, no wires on technology rentals Yes, it was a “wireless” year, for sure, and not just in terms of Web browsing at the coffee shop. The mouse, your phone, the printer, your TV – everything is hooking up with everything else by radio, Bluetooth, WiFi and (it seems) smoke signals, too. It’s not just tablet PC rentals that provide portability with connectivity. Your phone, its headset and your office all-in-one have all lost their electronic umbilical cords. This coming year, watch for wireless recharging of these devices. If you want to know what else to watch for in 2010, keep checking our blog. We will feature tech trends in 2010, laptop and desktop guides, a netbook report, gadget updates and other problem-solving, trend-spotting news. In the meantime, when you’ve got work backed up and no time to waste, remember that CRE is here to solve your problems with just the right tools. Contact us or fill out the Quick Rental Quote, and an expert Account Executive will take good care of you. That’s what we do! Review the New Mac Computer Desktops – CRE RentalsDecember 17th, 2009Several times this year, most recently at the end of October, Apple upgraded and updated its Macintosh product lines. It still has its top of line Mac Pro towers, last “refreshed” in Q1 2009, but now has faster iMacs with larger screens and a potent Mac mini. (Not that it will replace the Xserve line that CRE rents, but the mini can now be purchased with Mac OS X Server installed.) The new Mac laptops are pretty exciting, too; read the MacBook Pro laptops review. Go with a Mac Pro When the Mac Pro high-performance desktops like CRE rents get their next refreshing in early 2010, they may get Intel Xeon six-core processors, according to a recent unconfirmed rumor on the Web site, Hardmac. The Core i9 chip will increase performance while decreasing power usage, or so the story goes. The Mac Pro might also have a modified motherboard with a 10 Gbit/second Ethernet port (a major increase) and support for 8 and 16 GB RAM modules (current maximum is 4GB). This allows a potential total of 128 GB of RAM. A new iMac for you? The iMac line has had two screen sizes in its modern (flat panel) version, now measuring 21.5 and 27 inches, but has new LED backlit displays with 16:9 widescreen ratio. A 21.5-inch imac rental has a high-resolution 1920 x 1080 pixel display. Movie lovers should note that the 27-inch model’s Mini DisplayPort supports bi-directional connections – just connect an HD source and your iMac is an HD monitor. The iMacs now have 4 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 16 GB of RAM, and four different Intel processors. The 21.5-inch models can be configured with 3.06 GHz or 3.33 GHz Intel Core2 Duo processors, but the “serious fun” starts with the 27-inch iMac. It is configurable with the aforementioned CPUs, a 2.66 Quad-Core i5 or a 2.8 GHZ Quad-Core i7 processor. The two Quad-Core options take the iMac to the level of performance first seen in the Mac Pro – very impressive! Mini goes maxi The Mac mini has two new configurations: one model featuring a 2.26 GHz Intel Core2 Duo, a 160 GB hard drive and 2 GB of RAM; the second has a 2.56 GHz Intel Core2 Duo processor and double the hard disk and RAM (320 and 4 GB, respectively). Both feature seriously upgraded graphics capabilities via an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M chipset. These minis are becoming very popular as “small-but-mighty” servers especially for small businesses or for off-site, temporary offices at a convention center. Call one of our Account Executives today and find out how a Mac Pro rental or iMac rentals can help increase productivity or solve those backlog problems. Give us a call or send an e-mail, or simply fill out a Quick Rental Quote form. We are Mac rental specialists and are here to help. Review of the New MacBook Pro Laptops – CRE RentalsDecember 15th, 2009
The base model MacBook Pro retains the classy, aluminum unibody and the slick multi-touch trackpad of its predecessor. The positive additions include a SecureDigital memory card slot, full-size backlit keyboard, a FireWire 800 port, a color-enriched display and a permanent (non-removable) battery good for up to seven hours on a charge. These macintosh laptops are faster, have more ports and offer a longer-lasting battery! Mid-range and top of line MacBook Pros One rung up the MBP ladder is the 13-inch MacBook Pro with a 2.53 GHz processor, above which there are 15- and 17-inch models available with CPUs up to 3.06GHz. All MBP models have a 1066 MHz frontside bus, 3MB of shared L2 cache (as much as 6MB for the 15- and 17-inchers) and run applications faster than ever. When you choose to rent a MacBook Pro or iMac rental, you can be assured that you’re getting the state-of-the-art in desktops and notebooks. The basic graphics subsystem is a power-saving NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, offering integrated graphics processing for solid, everyday performance with long battery life – the best choice for an MBP to rent for “cruising” conventions and conferences. The 17-inch MBP and certain 15-inch models have the NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT discrete graphics board, offering powerful performance for graphically demanding work. Powerful, colorful (and green) The MacBook Pro’s glossy LED-backlit widescreen display has 60 percent greater color gamut than previously, for richer and brighter colors. Everything you see – including the display itself – is spectacularly clear, with performance that is solid. With its seamless glass enclosure, this display is strong, durable, power efficient, mercury- and arsenic-free – and greener than ever. Every MacBook Pro has a large hard drive, up to 500 GB, or you can opt for a 128 or 256 GB solid-state drive (SSD). The MacBook Pro also supports up to 8 GB of high-speed RAM, has the iSight webcam and a microphone built in, and ups the wireless ante to 802.11n for even faster communications. There are two USB 2.0 ports (three on the 17-inch model), a FireWire 800 port for speedy peripherals and a Mini DisplayPort that can easily power the new Apple LED Cinema Display. Apple didn’t forget the entry-level MacBook laptop, either, giving it a unibody of its own (plastic, not aluminum), a new battery technology and a few other tweaks. Try MacBook rentals for an upcoming corporate event. Curious about the new Macs and what they can do for your company? Talk to one of CRE’s expert Account Executives today – send an e-mail, make a call, fill out a Quick Rental Quote form – and find out everything you need to know about the new Mac laptops. You can also read our round-up of the latest Mac desktop computers, as well as an overview of other new Apple technology. Cost-Effective Training Options from CRE RentalsDecember 10th, 2009With the pace of technological change seeming to accelerate all the time, how can SMBs (Small and Medium-sized Businesses) hope to stay current? It’s not just a matter of getting the latest equipment. You also have to keep your employees updated, trained and equipped. It’s not easy, but online education of various kinds may help you. There are companies that run well-structured, highly organized online schools, and you might want to look into these. However, there are also many low- and no-cost ways to keep your employees up to date. If you work in digital media, with audio and video applications like Final Cut or Vegas—on powerful quad- and eight-core desktop computers like the Mac Pro or an H-P XW 8400 workstation—then you already know how much time it takes to stay current.
Use it or lose it? Remember, too, that the software packages you’ve invested in usually come with tutorials, online help files, sample documents and other training aids. It may be that you are well covered for software training without knowing it. In that case, extend your horizons a bit and you will discover that there is as much, or more, business and marketing training available to help you grow and expand your company. It should go without saying that most companies need a strong, compelling and (hopefully) original Web presence or “online strategy” in this day and age. Check out these excellent online webinars and seminars featuring search engine marketing topics that will help your organization “conquer” search. Low-cost training/research station One of the lesser-advertised benefits of a computer rental is training and research. In SMBs, most computers (like their users) are dedicated to certain daily tasks that are interrupted at your peril. Renting a wifi-enabled tablet PC, laptop, or desktop from CRE will keep your own assets invested in ongoing work, and allow you to keep skills updated as you rotate your computer users through a new training workstation—outfitted with free lesson plans that you’ve just learned about. Fill out our Quick Rental Quote form now and our expert Account Executives will help you set up whatever you need to keep you on the cutting edge. Let the training begin! USB 3.0: SuperSpeed Is On the WayDecember 1st, 2009
As 2.0 runs at 480Mbps, the 10x improvement would be the full theoretical maximum, and real-world experience with upgraded standards, like 2.0’s release a few years back, suggests that USB 3.0’s actual top speed will likely turn out to be around 3.2Gbps. That would make it faster than either flavor of Firewire, 400 or 800, whose numbers refer to its speed in Mbps, or megabits per second, and means USB 3.0 is capable of moving 15GB in about a minute. That’s fast, as users of CRE’s Mac Pro rentals know (some iMac users, too), as the top Macs have Firewire 800 ports, the current speed champ. Which niche is which? Some connections, like the increasingly ignored eSATA, are faster, but will likely remain niche players such as Firewire is becoming. Firewire never caught on with PCs as it did with Macs, where it is standard. Still, the big news about USB 3.0 is its potential to replace all the different ports computers now have. Here are their names and major uses:
There is one more transfer protocol CRE customers may know about, and that’s the Fibre Channel (FC) interface on Mac’s Xserve RAID that CRE rents. The Xserve RAID is only accessible via Fibre Channel, and only using the integrated Fibre Channel protocols. Xserve RAID cannot serve or share its storage via an Ethernet network. USB 3.0 could eliminate most existing standards, except Ethernet, FC and other special solutions. Instead of different ports and jacks, tomorrow’s computer might have four to six USB 3.0 ports. Although people are not used to thinking of USB for monitors, 3.0 will be far faster than necessary to deliver data to monitors (which is even done now with 2.0), while continuing to retrieve it from scanners and exchange it with hard drives. Get ready for USB 3.0 – the new standard Whatever it is you are moving, storing, transferring or archiving, USB 3.0 will be a revelation, moving some 15GB of data per minute. The USB-IF has no doubt that the standard will conquer the computer and home electronics market in no time – so, ready or not, here it comes. If you have questions about the imminent arrival of USB 3.0, or any other computing matter, contact one of our Account Executives today, or fill out a Quick Rental Quote form for a speedy reply. Mac Says “Farewell” to PowerPCNovember 17th, 2009Forget the press releases. Forget the keynote addresses. Forget the rumor mills. If you want to know what Apple’s plans are for supporting its Macintosh computers, read the “system requirements” on their new software releases. Within the last few months, Apple has released new versions of Final Cut, Logic Studio and its operating system, Mac OS X. All of them tell part of the story about Apple’s plans. Lets see what Apple’s OS software changes tell us about the company’s hardware strategy. Goodbye, PowerPC
Requirements for 10.5, now one “rev” (revision) behind state-of-the-art Snow Leopard 10.6, are increasingly common in today’s third-party Mac software releases. The need for the Intel CPUs that came to the Mac just a couple of years ago is not yet universal. However, the high-end functions for film and music, the types of work that creative pros do on a PowerMac G5 with Kona card rental, now depend on the hardware capabilities of Intel chips. The way forward Not every company replaces or upgrades equipment at the same rate. In addition, A/V pros, like those using AJA Io HD rentals, are known to hang on to hardware/software combinations that work “just right” for them, even when (as in the case of Mac’s OS 9) that combo workstation is out of date. The battle to save working OS 9 workstations is pretty much over, but battle lines are now forming to keep PowerPC Macs (G3, G4 and G5 chips) in the creative arsenal. For a company like CRE, with clients in all industries using all types of hardware and software, it is important to “meet them where they’re at” with the right tools. CRE stocks PowerPC Macs (primarily G5’s, with some G4 laptops) as well as the latest Intel machines. Whatever kind of project you need extra help with, from graphic-intense creative assignments and video post-processing to PowerPoint presentations and Flash animations, CRE can match your PC and/or Mac configurations to get you the right tools to finish the job. Fill out the Quick Rental Quote form now and expect a swift, problem-solving reply from our experienced Sales team. Blazing New Trails with Both Macs and PCsOctober 30th, 2009We are truly living in a virtual world now. Many of the best new ideas in computing and communications are technologies that transport your voice, your face, and your mouse, keyboard and touch-tone commands through cyberspace into someone else’s computer or other device. It’s all about “connectivity with control,” at least for this news cycle. PC remote control If you need help on your computer, it is now possible for someone at a remote location to log right onto your computer with you and even take control of your system. This is not some advanced, expensive add-on technology. It’s built right into Mac OS X’s iChat application, and is easily done in Windows Vista and the new Windows 7, as well. This could completely change how your company maintains its PCs. Remote operators can log on to corporate workstations to perform a remote computer repair and/or ongoing maintenance—for PCs across the hall or across the country. You can also train remote employees by taking control of their screens and showing them what to do. If you want to test all of these capabilities without interrupting any ongoing work flow, consider renting iMacs from CRE. The iMac runs both Mac OS X and Windows, so you can test all the different setups and combinations. Telephonic control Let’s say you’ve decided to host your own Web site and/or a company intranet. Imagine being on the road and remotely monitoring CPU, memory, disks, uptime, load averages and more, using only your iPhone. More Apple talk New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller may have inadvertently disclosed Apple’s long-rumored tablet computer device as he was speaking to his paper’s digital media group last week. Keller was discussing his hopes of delivering the news via an assortment of online media when he said, “I’m hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple Slate…” Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab posted a video and transcript of Keller’s talk. Online pundits and rumormongers pounced on the errant statement as a case of “Nerdian slip” (with apologies to Freud). The Times has allegedly met with Apple executives about the future of digital media and many have guessed that such discussions touched on the possibility of delivering content to an e-reader-like device from Apple. With sales of its desktops and laptops making records every quarter, some still question whether Apple would cannibalize its own business with a netbook or tablet, even one that “thinks different.” Interested in renting a PC or Mac? Request Rental Quote today. |
There are many leading specialty lighting makers offering a world of lighting products for every situation. Event lighting can include fluorescent, incandescent, strobe and LED lights, and are available in banks, spots, tubes and other shapes, in all sizes and wattages. No matter what type of lighting you need, there is a light that will meet your needs.
For your other employees, perhaps working with continuously upgraded software like office applications and operating systems, you can save money by locating some 
The next release of USB will be version number 3.0, already dubbed “SuperSpeed” by the USB Implementors Forum, the USB-IF, for its theoretical top speed of 4.8Gbps. The idea is for the jacks to be “backwards compatible” and work with USB 2.0, while taking the speed up by a factor of “5 to 10 times.” Every 
Rather than making a broad announcement, Apple has quietly noted in the system requirements that its flagship audiovisual applications, Final Cut Pro and Logic Studio, need an 
During the development and debugging period, you can 
If you have the Xserve set up 
