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Archive for » November, 2011 «

Last Chance to Vote for OWC

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

Well, we’re in the final stretch for this year’s “Visit Me at CES” video contest. Voting ends today, so if you’re waiting until the last minute to vote for us, you’d better act now! And for those who have already voted for us – you can go ahead and vote for us again!

All you need to do is:

  1. Go to the CES video contest page.
  2. Find OWC’s video – videos are apparently listed randomly, so you need to search for “CES: The Countdown” titled video.
  3. Click the Vote button by our video (you may have to register and/or log in first).
  4. Click the Vote button nine more times.

Contrary to our original post a couple of weeks ago it seems you can vote up to ten times per day, so with this being the last day, that’s ten more votes you can give us.

The Other World – Episode 38

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed

Category: The Other World

Holiday Sales Continue on Cyber Monday

Monday, November 28th, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed

Gifts from OWC - Always the right choice!Last week, we posted on our Black Friday/Holiday specials and, quite frankly, the response has been tremendous. We’ve had record numbers of orders, which tells us that a lot of people are finding those deals to be pretty good. Well, we’re going to bump it up a notch and throw a few more deals into the mix.

Rather than a slow, building tease where we show you some neat stuff before trotting out the big mind-blower, we’re going to start out with the special that a lot of us around the office are excited about: We’re offering Drive Genius 3 for up to 74% off Retail Price with the purchase of a qualifying OWC/Newer Technology Storage Solution or enclosure/DIY Kit!

This is actually pretty exciting. Drive Genius 3 allows you to maintain and monitor your drive’s health, alerting you to possible issues before they become unmanageable. You can even use the Drive Slim feature to remove duplicate files and perform other actions that can reduce the amount of space taken up on your drives. With the current hard drive shortage, you’ll want to keep your current drives in tip-top shape, and Drive Genius 3 is the tool to help you do so.

Speaking of hard drives, we’ve got some great new deals on bus-powered portable drives. Starting at $79, these drives are an affordable, convenient solution to your storage needs while on the go.

Over the years, we’ve shown that adding more memory to your computer gives you the most performance per dollar than any other upgrade. Now, with our special holiday pricing, there’s no reason not to max out that new computer (or, for that matter, the one you already have) and keep the holiday joy going all year long.

Of course, these aren’t the only great deals we’ve got for you; we have nearly three hundred different items on our Holiday Specials page. You’d better act fast, though – with the record numbers of people ordering this year, you’ll want to make sure you get your great deal before supplies run out!

 

Early Black Friday/Cyber Monday Deals From OWC!

Thursday, November 24th, 2011 | Author: OWC Grant

It’s that time of year again, where traditionalists head out into the freezing cold (or the blistering heat for those in the southern hemisphere) in search of the perfect gifts for loved ones.

Fortunately, with OWC, you don’t need to camp out in front of a store, waste time standing in snail slow checkout lines, or wait for tomorrow in an attempt to get a great deal on tech gear. We’ve got over 250 featured items on our Cyber Specials page – it’s like “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” both in one day…or a Turducken…except it starts today and runs through this entire weekend. And some specials will even run through the entire season!

Whether those on your good list have a legacy machine, a new 6G capable Mac, or any of the myriad of iDevices, we have something that will make it run faster, last longer, look sharp, in short, make it better than when it was new…and in some cases, better than the latest models from Apple.

While it would take forever to describe all the tasty deals, there are a few that we’d definitely like to highlight…and make sure to read to the end to see how we make these deals even better…as irresistible as that third helping of stuffing and gravy: Article Continues…

Thailand Flood Update: It May Be Longer Than We Thought.

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed

We know that, to some, we seem to be talking about the Thailand situation an awful lot. However, since the flooding has affected hard drive production, that impacts the entire industry and we figure it’s better to let you know what’s happening, so you can make the best purchase decisions for your storage needs.

As we’ve mentioned before, not only are plants for major drive brands like Western Digital affected by the flooding, so are manufacturers of the individual hard drive components. As you might not know, most hard drives have upwards of 200 individual components that go into them (many of them produced by individual suppliers in the flooded region), even if the drive manufacturer’s plants weren’t directly affected by the floods, they are still facing shortages of components. Hard drive motor manufacturer Nidec, who we’ve mentioned before, is just one example.

Even once the waters recede, drive industry experts are saying it could take a year for these component manufacturers to replace their machinery, and many may have to relocate as well. Some companies, like Nidec, aren’t waiting for the waters to recede and have sent divers in to unbolt and retrieve equipment. Others, like suspension arm maker Hutchinson Technology, still has $50 million worth of specialty manufacturing equipment bolted to their now-submerged factory floor.

While many analysts have stated that production should be back to normal by the end of Summer 2012, others are now projecting shortages until the end of 2012 at the very least, primarily because many of the components are surprisingly single source supplied.

In other words, it doesn’t matter if you can push a car down the assembly line if an essential component, say the steering wheel, isn’t available.

 

Apple Hits 5 Percent of Computer Market

Monday, November 21st, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed

Those of you who follow these sorts of things will be happy to know that, after hovering around the 2-3 percent mark for about 15 years, Apple now has 5 percent share of the world computer market, according to analyst Charlie Wolf of Needham & Co.

Most of that growth has been due to a recent jump in enterprise sales as well as explosive growth in Asia. During the September quarter, Mac shipments grew 24.6 percent while the rest of the market only grew about 5.3 percent, making it the 22nd consecutive quarter where Apple’s growth outpaced the computer market as a whole.

Much of this has been due to its growth in the business market, where it saw a 43.8 percent increase over the 4.8 percent the rest of the market saw. The home market had similar (if less dramatic) numbers, showing a 25.6 percent increase to the the total growth of four percent. In fact, the only place where it seemed to fall short of the industry as a whole was in its traditional stronghold of the “education” sector, where Apple’s 2.9 percent growth is considerably lower than the 16.9 percent for the market in general.

Both the business and home user gains seem to be due to the iPad and iPhone. While the iPad, with its simpler interface, seems to be eating into Mac sales  (as well as other computers) in the education market, iDevice “halo effect” in businesses and homes has users buying the computer these devices were originally designed to work with.

Can Apple keep up this monumental growth streak? We’ll see.

 

Category: Apple News

LROC Wide Angle Camera Captures The Moon In A New Light

Friday, November 18th, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed
(Credit: NASA/GSFC/DLR/Arizona State University)

(Credit: NASA/GSFC/DLR/Arizona State University)

Okay, so we’re definitely space junkies that like to bring you the the word on cool, “out of this world” news outside of our atmosphere. The closest orb of interest? The moon. And we’ve been monitoring everything the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has uncovered since its initial launch and historic mission to answer the many questions we have about Earth’s natural satellite. Due to technological and instrumental limitations, scientists have been unable to properly examine the moon’s many geologic formations, rugged terrain and total surface area – until now.

Yesterday NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) team revealed Version 1 of the Wide Angle Camera (WAC) high-resolution topographic map of the moon. This detailed color visualization was produced from a series of images captured by the WAC represents a significant turning point and advancement for lunar researchers. Llunar scientists can now research the geologic terrains to better prepare for future missions. Article Continues…

Category: Space & Beyond

The Other World – Episode 37

Thursday, November 17th, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed

Category: The Other World