• [00:10] Office 2013 is now code complete! Learn more at: http://www.office.com/preview
• [00:30] Microsoft Press has released many new books for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. See them here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/Microsoft_Press     
• [01:25] There are two new Microsoft Jump Starts coming soon! Sign up for the Windows 8 (http://aka.ms/Windows8JumpStart) and the Windows Server 2012 (http://aka.ms/Server2012JumpStart) Jump Starts today!
• [02:35] Take our 6^th Annual IT Pro Survey so we can learn more about the industry's demand for salaries and skills: http://aka.ms/ITProSkillSurvey

Technical Interview: At [04:25] Symon talks with Justin Incarnato, a Senior Program Manager for System Center, about the upcoming changes in System Center 2012 SP1 for Orchestrator. After explaining the release cycle for Service Pack 1, Justin gives an overview of Orchestrator and its history in joining the System Center 2012 family after Microsoft's acquisition of Opalis. Symon and Justin then talk about the importance of integration in a private cloud environment and how Orchestrator has the ability to support and automate processes for virtually any piece of software or hardware in the datacenter, including VMware. Next they discuss the enhancements made for SP1, including: improved System Center integration; new Integration Packs for Azure, REST, FTP, and Exchange; support for Windows Server 2012 and SQL Server 2012; and globalization efforts that give the product many new language options. At [12:25] Justin demos a series of workflows, including cloning VMs in a VMware vSphere environment, integrating alerts with HP Operations Manager, and updating calendar appointments with Exchange with Office 365.

Connect with the Edge Team:

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To view the full write-up, you can read my post on the Extreme Windows Blog.

Remember to keep up on the latest PC news at the Windows Experience Blog, and by following Ben the PC Guy on Twitter @BenthePCGuy.

But what actually happens in the recycling process? You may assume they’d end up back at a printer cartridge factory, cleaned up, refilled and sent out once again as new – good for the planet, and great for manufacturing costs! The truth is a little different, as this video from HP shows.

Each printer cartridge recycled is shredded, melted down, blended to improve the quality of the resin, reprocessed, heated up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit and extruded into plastic strands. Those strands are then cooled, cut into pellets and sent off to be melted down again and manufactured into new printer cartridges.  

HP have now manufactured more than 1 billion printer cartridges with recycled materials. That’s a lot of landfill saved. So, next time you spot one of those little envelopes, make sure you join in the efforts to keep your ink green.

First seen at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, HP are now targeting the 8.9” (22.6 cm) device at retail, healthcare, insurance, education and hospitality businesses. It ships with a pen for note taking, document creation and other ink applications.

HP have packed a lot of kit into such a small and light chassis, which weighs just 1.5 pounds (0.68 kilos). The Slate 500 is powered by an Intel Atom Z540 running at 1.86GHz and supported by 2GB RAM on board and Intel’s integrated GMA 500 graphics. Broadcom’s Crystal HD video accelerator supports for 1080p video playback. Two cameras are included – a VGA webcam at the front, and the 3MP camera on the rear. You’ll also find a USB port and SD card slot for moving data around, or you can fire it over the air courtesy of the integrated Bluetooth and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi.Check out the awesome coverage by the guys at Gotta Be Mobile for full specs, videos and a brief hands-on review.

HP are shipping the $799 Slate 500 in the USA only for now, whilst they evaluate opportunities for other markets. The tablet is back! But did it ever go away?

Also of note, the PC features a spill-proof keyboard (whew) and an LED light that indicates when the PC is networked, so the teacher can see it from a distance with ease. The PC also includes a Wi-Fi certified WLAN modem and a dial-up one for students in a remote areas where there isn’t Wi-Fi available.

The device weighs 3.19 lbs, has a 10.1” screen and is cased in a plastic shell that has a built-in handle for portability. Inside, there’s  a 1.66GHz single-core Atom N455 processor, 1GB of RAM and the choice of either a 160GB hard disk or 16GB solid-state drive (SSD).

The online app serves as a proof-of-concept which demonstrates how this type of system could work. To use Gloe, you enter in your current location and it returns pre-populated content from Wikipedia plus review and photo sharing sites. It also features tag clouds of content by category, trending sites, recommendations, local experts and Facebook integration.

Developers can also use the HP Gloe API to build location-aware services of their own. HP offers a few suggestions, including:

• Personal Bookmarking
• Discovering Local News
• Virtual Tours
• Geographic Polls
• Searching Local Businesses
• Sharing Geo-tagged Pages with Friends

Although there are no commercial plans for the app at this time, it’s an interesting experiment worth checking out. Maybe someone wants to build a Gloe-enabled Windows Phone app?

Both EliteBooks come with the following:

• reinforced glass 12.1 inch 1280x800 LED screen – you can choose to opt for a less reflective screen for easier outdoor use, too
• a range of Intel Core i5 and i7 processor options
• a 6-cell lithium ion battery which provides 5 hours of use and you can optionally add a supplemental battery for 11 hours of use
• stainless steel finish and magnesium casing
• an optional easily portable expansion bay which functions like a laptop dock where additional ports, hard drive bays and an optical drive are available
• military-grade resistance to high temperatures, dust, vibration, and altitude
• HP’s DriveGuard technology

The 2740p tablet starts at $1599 and the EliteBook 2540p starts at $1099. Both will be available next month.

These launch with Windows 7 starting October 22nd with the TouchSmart 300 launching on November 1.

The DV2 is supposed to be a step up from netbooks – the step provided by the all-new AMD Athlon Neo platform – powerful enough to run Windows Vista. The CPU is the MV-40, which runs at 1.6 GHz and it comes with ATI Mobility Radeon HD3410 graphics.

The DV2 supports up to 4GB of memory and offers a 500GB hard drive. It will retail for $699. The DV3 starts at $799 and lets you choose between a 2 GHz Athlon X2 QL-62 or a 2.4GHz Turion X2 Ultra ZM-86. It offers up to 8GB of DDR2 RAM and  a choice between  hard drive (160/250/320/400GB).

Here’s the schedule for the webinars:

• Tuesday, June 24th - 10:00 am PST with Ed Bott, http://www.zdnet.com/
• Thursday, June 26th - 1:00 pm PST with Ian Dixon, http://www.thedigitallifestyle.com/
• Tuesday, July 8th - 10:00 am PST with Patrick Norton, http://www.tekzilla.com/
• Thursday, July 10th - 1:00 pm PST with Mike Garcen, http://www.missingremote.com/

Click here to register.

A free version lets you store 1 GB of data for one year, but if you're really going to back up your computer, you'll need to go with one of the paid plans. For $59/year, a "Home" plan is available, which gives you unlimited storage and allows up to three PCs to connect. That's quite a bargain when you think about it. (But is it really unlimited?)

For businesses, the unlimited storage option can range up to $299 per year, depending on how many users and PCs you have.

While you're traveling, you can access your stored files from a web-based interface from which you can also email the files or publish them for public access.

If desired, you can specify the program to back up to a second hard drive, server, or PC on your local network, too.

There are, however, a couple of problems you should be aware of: Upline doesn't back up email archives or system restore files, but that may change in the future.

In the meantime, you can check out what Upline has to offer from the HP homepage for the service here.