Acer Upgrades TimelineX Laptops

Acer's TimelineX series of laptops are best known for their sleek style, mobility, and performance. These machines excel in providing well over five hours of battery life—even with a discrete graphics chipset, making them the power user's best friend. Acer has launched the next series of the TimelineX, currently available in North America, offering an upgrade in performance with Intel's 2nd generation Core i3 and i5 processors.

In usual fashion, the TimelineX's lid and interior have a brushed aluminum design. The keyboard has gone through a redesign when compared to its predecessor, the Acer Aspire TimelineX AS5820T-5951 , whose keys had a different take on the chiclet style. In this latest iteration, it seems Acer is looking to have a keyboard layout that look more like Apple's MacBook Pro series. In addition, the 14- and 15.6-inch displays will also feature a numeric keypad; unfortunately, the 13.3-inch is too small to support one.

The laptop measures around 1-inch thick and at its largest (15.6-inches) weighs around 5.6lbs. At its smallest (13.3-inches) it weighs in at about 4.12lbs, which makes it an optimal choice for mobile users. Its newly equipped Intel 2nd generation Core i3 or i5 processors also provide lower power consumption and, according to Acer, average about nine hours of battery life with integrated graphics. If you decide to tack on a discrete graphics chip, Acer is offering Nvidia's GeForce GT 540M and 520M with Optimus. Optimus is a technology that automatically switches the GPU on when the computer needs it for taxing 3D tasks (i.e. gaming) and switches it off when you're Word processing or browsing the Internet. Ultimately, this technology helps save on battery life and, according to Acer, offers a battery life of up to eight hours.

The new series of Acer TimelineX notebooks will also offer an HD webcam, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, HDMI, and Clear.fi, which is Acer's own technology that allows your Acer Clear.fi-enabled devices to communicate within your home network and access all shared multimedia—like a local cloud service. The notebooks will also be equipped with a USB 3.0 port, providing faster data transfer speeds on USB 3.0 hard drives. This USB 3.0 port will also double as a charging station for your USB devices when the laptop is on or off.

The Acer Aspire TimlineX laptops will be priced as follows: 13.3-inch AS3830TG-6431 for $779, 14-inch AS4830T-6642 for $699, and 15.6-inch AS5830T-6862 for $599.

Your questions about computer keyboard layout | computerskeyboards.org

Why does my computer’s keyboard switch to the Dvorak layout sometimes?

Sometimes, while I’m in the middle of typing, my computer ‘s keyboards switches to the Dvorak layout for no apparent reason, and I can’t figure out how to switch it back to QWERTY without closing the program I’m using and re-opening it, or sometimes even having to go so far as to reboot. Why does it do this, and if it does it, how can I switch it back without having to shut down?

This sure happens for a reason more than apparent, and you just need to configure your keyboard language settings by clicking Start (or the Windows button if on Vista), then click Run and in the appearig “Run” box type: “control intl.sys” without the quotes and press Enter. A window titled “Regional and language settings” should appear, so click the “Languages” tab and then click on “Details”. The “Text services and Input Languages” window launches and there you can delete the DVORAK option or reconfigure the keystrokes that activate it by clicking on “Key settings”. Good luck.

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