Erasing the hard drive of your Dell Inspiron laptop can also be used as a security and performance improvement strategy. This is because simply deleting a file from your computer does not remove it from the storage device until the disk space it used is overwritten by new information. A normal Windows ‘Delete’ will send your file to the Recycle Bin from where it can be easily restored back on your desktop. With ‘Shift+Delete,’ the file will bypass the Recycle Bin, but the file can still be recovered back with the help of third-party data recovery software. Thus, as long as the space occupied by a file is not reused to save another file, the ‘deleted file’ can be easily recovered back on your system, making it vulnerable to attack by hackers and spammers.

You can easily delete the hard drive of your Dell Inspiron laptop by following the below-mentioned steps:

1. Go to ‘Start’ and click ‘All Programs’.
2. Open the folder by the name ‘Accessories.’
3. Hit the ‘Command Prompt’ option.
4. If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7 operating system, then right-click on the option and select ‘Run as administrator.’
5. Now, type “format x:” in the command prompt. Here, “x” signifies the drive that you want to erase from the hard drive.
6. Now press ‘Enter.’
7. Type ‘yes’ and again press ‘Enter’ to complete the process.

The head-turning Dell XPS 12 convertible is a laptop-tablet hybrid with a flip hinge design that allows you to conveniently flip the computer to either a laptop or a slate. Powered by Intel Core i5-3317U Ivy Bridge processor, the XPS 12 convertible boasts a 12.5-inch full HD display enclosed behind a Gorilla Glass, 4GB RAM, 128 GB SSD, and Intel HD 4000 graphics. Starting at a base price of $1,199.99, XPS 12
delivers the best productivity and entertainment experience right at your fingertips.

Another award-winning, all-in-one PC rolled out by Dell is XPS One 27. Augmented with touch capabilities, XPS One 27 dons a large 27-inch screen with a whooping 2,560 × 1,440-pixel display. It has Intel Core i5-3330s Ivy Bridge processor, 1TB hard drive, 6GB of RAM, NVIDIA high-performance graphics card, and a built-in Wi-Fi. At a start price of $1,599.99, Dell XPS One 27 is definitely a highly competitive, yet pricy Windows 8 machine.

For those who want to shop on a budget, Dell offers its all-new Inspiron One 23 for just $779.99. This all-in-one, touch-enabled desktop boasts a 23-inch screen with 1920 × 1080-pixel resolution. It is powered by Intel Pentium G645 processor and includes 500 GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM. It includes 8X CD/DVD burner and an ‘optional’ Blu-ray combo drive. This budget-friendly Windows 8 desktop offers impeccable design for stylish living. Dell Inspiron One 23 can be easily wall mounted for clutter-free living.

Dell’s exciting lineup has surely set the stage on fire. But, in midst of high-end competition, whether Dell is able to earn fortunes is something we all need to wait and watch.

Image credit: ZDNet

The announcement was made at VMworld Europe 2012 in Barcelona on October 9, 2012. With the recent cloud computing developments, Dell, the computing giant, is planning to expand its support for VMware View and PC over Internet protocol (PCoIP) on its zero- and thin-clients, Desktop as a Service (DaaS) with PCoIP support, and new channel partner solutions to Europe.

DaaS simplifies desktop virtualization by giving users the option to choose the PCoIP protocol. PCoIP offers a rich remote user experience, along with high-definition multimedia to support high resolutions, multiple large displays, 3D graphics, HD audio, and a wide range of USB peripheral connectivity.

Dell also announced the launch of two of its PCoIP zero-clients – the dual-display Dell Wyse P25, which will be available worldwide, and the quad-display Dell Wyse P45, which will be available by the end of this month. Both of them will support a large number of peripherals. They will provide outstanding application delivery, add client-side caching to reduce bandwidth consumption on LANs and WANs, deliver unaltered performance for graphics-intensive applications, and reduce the challenges of provisioning, managing, maintaining, and securing enterprise desktops across an organization.

Enhancing its ability to deliver outstanding graphics and multimedia performance for VMware deployments, Dell also announced the addition of VMware specific enhancements to its cost-effective Dell Wyse T50 ARM SoC thin-client and Dell Wyse X90m7 mobile thin-client.

Tarkan Maner, General Manager and Vice President of Cloud Client Computing at Dell said, “Dell has always thrived on delivering strong support for users of VMware’s desktop virtualization technologies, and we are raising the bar again with these new solutions.”

All the VDI products will be available by the end of this year.

Image credit: cnme

Dell Inc. has completed its acquisition of SonicWALL Inc., a provider of advanced network security, secure remote access, e-mail security, backup and recovery, and management and reporting.

Over the past few years, Dell has embarked on a major campaign to develop its software and services portfolio, particularly related to cloud computing, consumerization of the enterprise (BYOD) and the need for constant and pervasive access to data and applications from any location.

Under Dell’s leadership, SonicWALL is expected to continue offering comprehensive security solutions that fully leverage its technologies in the firewall and Unified Threat Management (UTM) spaces.

The deal was announced in March. The SonicWALL acquisition expands Dell’s security software and services portfolio. Dell expects the deal to be a contributing factor to generate revenue on a non-GAAP basis in the second half of this year.

John Swainson, president, Dell Software Group, commented, “The combination of SonicWALL with Dell’s existing security offerings and broad market reach will help customers securely manage their data, securely manage consumer devices being brought into their enterprise, and securely expand their applications to the cloud.”

Dell has collaborated with a younger and smaller company named Desktone to become a direct supplier of virtual desktops. Dell will talk about its ability to deliver virtual desktops in partnership with VMware and Citrix Systems at Citrix Systems’ Synergy user group conference in San Francisco this week.

Desktone offers virtual desktops through a cloud-based, desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) platform, and will work with both Citrix and VMware virtual machines. As such, it is “hypervisor agnostic,” said Desktone CEO Peter McKay in an interview. According to Dell, the Desktone-based service of Dell named Dell Simplified DaaS that was available to a handful of customers for a month is now available to all.

Dell will take the help of Desktone’s multi-tenant platform, Desktone Cloud, and use it for provisioning end user desktops for customers from its own data centers. By adopting Desktone as a partner and offering Desktone Cloud, Dell is taking its first step away from supplying physical end user machines, toward directly supplying virtual end user desktops, or desktop services to run on different devices, from its data centers.

Dell is going to unveil a whole new series of its computers equipped with the 3rd generation Intel Core set of processors also known as Ivy Bridge this summer.

Dell already has a few Ivy Bridge laptops in the Alienware M14x, Alienware M15x, and Alienware M17x gaming laptops. Now the company is going to roll out a few Inspiron models as well. The Dell Inspiron 14R and Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition are high-end computer systems that are equipped with quad-core processors, so they can take advantage of the currently available third-gen Core i7.

Commenting on the new series of its Inspiron modes, Dell says:

“The Inspiron R Special Edition laptops are geared towards families and feature a sleek and durable anodized aluminum exterior, up to 3rd generation Intel Core i7 quad-core processor, powerful discrete graphics options ideal for photo and video editing and immersive gaming, optional high-resolution displays, backlit keyboards and mSATA SSD devices with Intel Rapid Start and Smart Response technology for fast boot and sleep resume times.”

Dell has updated its four Precision workstations to cater to the intensive computing requirements of enterprise customers. The four models that have been revamped include Dell Precision T7600, T5600, T3600, and T1650. These models will now feature 32nm E5 series Intel Xeon chips and advanced memory technology.

In addition, Dell has modified the chassis of all four Precision workstations to provide front access for hard drives and externally removable power supply. This has been done to minimize the downtime and ensure easier serviceability. The rack mountable design ensures that these machines can fit anywhere in your office setting.

These Dell Precision workstations are ideal for people involved in the field of engineering, product designing, and animation. Dell Precision T7600 will be priced at US $2,150, whereas Dell Precision T5600 and T3600 will cost you US $1,880 and US $1,100, respectively. The company will start shipping these workstations from May 2012.

Dell has introduced a series of updates to its Alienware M14x, Alienware M17x, and Alienware M18x laptops, including the latest GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD.

Instead of waiting for the release of Intel’s third-generation Core i-series CPUs (also known as Ivy Bridge), these new Alienware models have the current second-gen chips (also known as Sandy Bridge). The high-end quad-core versions of Ivy Bridge are expected to be available from PC makers starting around 29 April.

So, it is better to wait till 29 April to get your hands on any of these updated models, as then you’ll find the new 600 series graphics cards from NVIDIA, as well as updated AMD options. New storage configurations include triple HDDs, with a mSATA slot, or dual hard drives on the smaller Alienware M14x. The audio too gets a boost, thanks to the Creative Sound Blaster chip (clearly aiming to compete with the successful Beats Audio branding in the HP Envy line).

Click here to have a look on the images of the updated Alienware series gaming laptops.

Leading computer manufacturer Dell has officially announced that it is exiting the U.S. smartphone market. According to the company, the Android-based Venue and Windows Phone-based Venue Pro have compelled them to “run their course”.

Dell jumped into the smartphone market with the launch of Dell Aero. However, the company’s next release, the Android-based tablet known as Dell Streak 5 proved that the company didn’t have a proper strategy for the U.S. market. It is not for the first time that Dell failed to enter the new electronics market. Earlier, Dell tried to win over iPod users with the launch of its DJ line of MP3 players and failed.

According to industry experts, the pulling out of Dell from the smartphone market in the U.S. will hardly affect users as very few people use the Dell Venue. After this decision to pull out from the smartphone market in the U.S., Dell is more likely to focus its mobile strategy on the upcoming Windows 8 operating system. This will allow the company to deliver full PC-based tablets equipped with a touch-friendly operating system.

Cloud services are in great demand today and Dell doesn’t want to lag behind in this race too. At the WorldHostingDays 2012 conference held in Germany this week, Dell made an announcement that it has partnered with Ubuntu Linux developer, Canonical, to provide its cloud services outside the United States.

Dell has big expectations from this move and has made potential plans to provide its cloud solutions in the United Kingdom, Germany, and China. The cloud service offering, formally known as Crowbar, is based on the OpenStack platform, as well as the servers, services, and its open-source deployment framework from Dell.

In a blog post, Martin Stadtler of Canonical wrote, “We know that when you’re building private clouds, you want access to a full feature set and the confidence that vendor support provides. With Dell’s OpenStack-Powered Cloud Solution, users of Ubuntu Server 12.04 Long Term Support (LTS) will be able to take advantage of the cost savings and flexibility of the open-source cloud, without the risk.”

If you are an enterprise customer, thinking of deploying your own private cloud, then this cloud offering along with Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS is certainly worth considering.