While the organisers of the China International Consumer Goods Fair 2009 (CICGF) recognise that the global slowdown will impact the upcoming fair, they remain optimistic about the business opportunities that the fair will generate.

Australia has been watching the OPEL and FTTN network processes with baited breathe over the last few months and the process for each network hits various roadblocks and obstacles. Now the two ideas are in real trouble. If OPEL and FTTN both fall by the wayside, Australia could be left in a vast wasteland of technological limbo.

In a move expected to shake up the Australian markets a bit, Dell has announced it will be getting a new partner in Australian retail. Now the game is hurry up and wait as Dell prolongs the announcement of the actual name another day.

There’s little wonder that most people are now opting to buy a notebook rather than a desktop PC: they offer high performance capabilities comparable to most desktop PCs but they can be used anywhere. But with thousands of models and configurations available, how do you choose the ideal model? We show you how to buy the perfect notebook PC.

Core 2 Duo chips are everywhere these days, winning the speed crown from AMD, available in desktop PCs, iMacs, PC based notebooks and perhaps by next week, in Apple’s ever versatile MacBooks and MacBookPros.

It’s been a busy time here at Free Access Central, with all kinds of things happening in the consumer electronics industry. A new Bluetooth headset from Gear4, makers of popular iPod acecssories and speaker systems, connects to your iPod by wire and gives you a wired remote control. When a call comes through, the caller ID info is displayed on the iPod’s screen, with the voice coming through the headphones and a microphone likely on the remote control cable. We’ll be getting one to play with in a few days and we’re keen to try it out and give you a report on how useful and effective it is.

On Thursday, 21 September, I had the honour of being the Keynote Speaker of the Telecentre Networks’s
“Innovation… more than a word - Conference 2006″.

This is a test post live from the conference.

Microsoft have finally released Windows Vista ‘Release Candidate 1′, or RC1, which is one of the final test versions before Windows Vista, the next version of Windows, is made available to business and the public.

Ricoh’s new digital camera with GPS compatibility – the Ricoh Caplio 500SE - lets outdoor adventurers, lifestyle extremists and workers in demanding environments identify the exact location where a photo was taken.

Last night I contributed to a story on Channel 9’s ‘A Current Affair’. It was about how your privacy can be violated on the Internet, and I gave some information on how and why you should protect your privacy online, just as you (should) guard it in the real world. Unfortunately ACA does not post a transcript or a video link of every story they run, but there is a video link of a story I contributed to on ACA a few weeks ago on ‘Email Addiction’. View it at:

Samsung has exhibited the world’s largest LCD television at 70 inches, eclipsing Sharp who, in 2004, produced the world’s first 65 inch LCD TV. Samsung expects to go into production in mid 2007. As expected, it has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 progessive, or 1080p, the ‘best’ high definition (HD) standard available today.

Is Microsoft’s next version of Windows, known as Windows Vista, secure? That’s the promise that Microsoft has been making to us all for quite some time, especially as the launch date draws ever closer. One Microsoft employee even said words to the effect a few months ago that with Vista, the concept of ‘Patch Tuesday’ would be a thing of the past. Patch Tuesday is where patches are released to fix bug and deliver updates to existing versions of Windows, such as XP, 2000 and others.

Use your broadband connection to make low-cost calls to virtually any phone number, anywhere in the world! Learn why Internet calls are so popular and what you need to get started, see how easy it is to set up, discover what it costs and get answers to common questions.

Download the PDF Edition of FREE ACCESS #43 (Autumn 2006). Fetaures include Simply amazing digital devices, Great digital cameras and Home theatre heaven.

Click on the cover to down load the magazine.

An explosion in the need for bigger portable storage has seen a battle emerge between flash memory and the ever shrinking hard disk drive. Alex Zaharov-Reutt explains and compares both types of data storage, shows us the types of devices they’re used in today and where these duelling data devices are headed in the future.