Tag: laptops

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Statement On Lenovo Superfish

Lenovo recently came under fire for being caught preloading laptops with a program called Superfish. The program contained a security flaw which allowed users’ web connections to be hijacked and spied on. Superfish is considered “adware”, software that automatically displays advertisements.

However, a Lenovo spokesman reported, “We have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any evidence to substantiate security concerns.” Superfish “does not profile nor monitor user behavior. It does not record user information. It does not know who the user is. Users are not tracked nor re-targeted,” according to Re/Code.

Lenovo did not install Superfish on any ThinkPad notebooks, nor any desktops, workstations, servers, tablets, or phones. The only laptops that were preloaded with the software were the following consumer model notebooks:  Z-series, Y-Series, U-Series, G-Series, S-Series, Flex-Series, Yoga, Miix and E-Series. Superfish only affects these laptops shipped between September and December of 2014.

No devices sold from catmandu will contain Superfish.

At catmandu, with our commitment to excellence and to our customers, we only sell high-end Lenovo products. You will not find any of the consumer models in our locations.

Lenovo will not be preloading Superfish on any device in the future and they are making every effort to inform consumers of the risks of not uninstalling Superfish. In a statement to their retailers, they stated, “We know that millions of people rely on our devices every day, and it is our responsibility to deliver quality, reliability, innovation and security to each and every customer.”

Removal of the adware is relatively simple. You can find the instructions here, or you can bring your laptop to one of the catmandu locations.

At catmandu, we continue to stand behind the Lenovo product line.

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John Deere & catmandu

John Deere and catmandu. Weird combination, right? What could an outdoor and farm equipment company have in common with a tech company? We live in an agricultural community here in Amarillo, TX. Our city thrives on the rampant production agriculture that occurs outside the city limits.

For miles and miles into the distance, all you can see is fields of wheat, corn, and sorghum blanketing the landscape with a lot of cattle herds mixed in. And what brand of equipment do you normally see tilling the soil, planting the seeds, and eventually harvesting the crops? John Deere. Why? Because they’re the best in the business and John Deere equipment is the industry standard.

At catmandu, we sell Lenovo brand laptops, desktops, and tablets. We like to say that Lenovo is the John Deere of PCs because Lenovo is the #1 PC maker in the world and has the lowest failure rate.

At catmandu, we could sell HP, Toshiba, or Dell systems and honestly, we would make a lot more money if we did because 1) computer brands like these are cheaper, therefore we would be able to charge a higher mark-up and still sell more and 2) the computers would fail more often, causing the customer to come into catmandu and spend more money trying to fix the problems that will inevitably crop up. We’ve seen too many one month old laptops come through our doors with a myriad of issues and we couldn’t live with ourselves if those were the laptops we were selling.

At catmandu, as our motto states, “everything matters.” Especially our customers. We want to sell you the best products in the world. You deserve nothing less than excellence from us. That’s why we only sell Lenovo, the industry standard and the John Deere of computers.

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Windows 8 Only Makes Sense With A Touchscreen [VIDEO]

Windows 8 has, so far, only had a lukewarm reception.  The main reason?  Most people are installing it on – or buying it new on – a traditional laptop or desktop.

 

Without a touchscreen, Windows 8 just doesn’t make sense.

 

As a Microsoft Partner, I got my hands on a copy of Windows 8 before it was available to the public and I installed it on my workstation. My experience? I felt like I was trying to conduct business computing on my son’s Xbox 360. I was constantly trying to hover my mouse in one corner or another in order to find an app or a program or something that I could use. I was desperate just to get back to the desktop that I was familiar with. My productivity at work sank and my opinion of Windows 8 went with it.

 

Why didn’t I didn’t like it? I was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

 

That’s when we got our first shipment of Lenovo’s All-In-One IdeaCentres and I realized that Microsoftmight be on to something. Using the touchscreen changed my Windows 8 experience from a productivity killer to a faster way of getting around and a realization that I was connected to the PC via the touchscreen. This was a feeling I was all too familiar with from my experiences with my smartphone and tablet.

 

What if Microsoft had figured out a way to only release Widows 8 on devices with touchscreens? Would satisfaction have been dramatically higher – causing a boost in sales? Honestly, I believe so.

 

Since I’ve had the ability to use Windows 8 on a touchscreen, I’ve realized that it’s much more powerful than when using my old monitor, keyboard and mouse.

 

In short, it’s a waste of money buying a PC or laptop that has Windows 8 but lacks a touchscreen. You will have to fork over an extra couple of hundred dollars initially but you will gain a love for the new OS and hours of  lost productivity and fewer frustrations.