***200th POST!!!***
Blue-ray vs. HD-DVD
A good comparison of the two up and coming media storage formats...

High Definition and You

It is estimated that one half of the 24 million households who own HDTVs don’t watch high-definition (HD) content. Simply buying an HD set and hooking it up to a cable signal doesn’t provide any more detail than a regular TV set. To enjoy HD to its fullest you need HD programming, either through an HD broadcast antenna or an HD cable service. With those services, home viewers are stuck with whatever’s on TV, though. DVD proved to be a television revolution after its release, and with thousands of titles released so far, entertainment choices are more varied than ever. But how do people utilize and connect the HD capabilities of their HDTV with an optical disc format? Last year both Sony and Toshiba-Samsung unveiled solutions in the form of Blu-ray and HD-DVD respectively. Both formats offer HD content for the home theater environment, but the way in which they deliver that content is fundamentally different, placing the two camps in a format war hearkening back to the VHS vs. Betamax struggle in the late-70s/early-80s. With hardware costs for both camps being relatively high, not to mention the fact that there are very few dual format players (LG recently brought the first to the market at the staggering cost of $1,200), most consumers are forced to decide between Blu-ray or HD-DVD for their high definition needs. But which format is worth the investment? Which format will provide the best quality and stick around to make the investment worthwhile? We’ll take a look at the answers to those questions for both formats.

Read all about it here, courtesy of HardOCP.com

Eric

Run Linux, lose warranty

Translation: Microsoft is forcing system builders to sign a "non-competition" clause to keep other OS's from being offered or supported.

Friday March 23, 2007 (03:01 PM GMT)

By: Joe Barr

Laura Breeden bought a new Compaq Presario C304NR notebook in January. She bought it because she wanted to get rid of Windows and all the malware that surrounds it and move to Linux, and her old laptop lacked the memory and power to run Ubuntu Edgy. The salespeople assured her that the C304NR was "Linux ready." But they didn't tell her that running Linux would void her warranty.

Until recently, she's been happy with it, and with Ubuntu Edgy. But a couple of weeks ago she began having keyboard problems. The keyboard is misbehaving when she begins to type quickly: keys are sticking and the space bar does not always respond when pressed.

When she called Compaq -- the unit comes with a one-year warranty on the hardware -- they asked what operating system she was running. When she told them Linux, they said, "Sorry, we do not honor our hardware warranty when you run Linux." In order to get warranty service, she was told, she would have to remove Linux and reinstall the original OS.

Laura is not a software engineer, but she failed to see how her choice of operating system could damage the keyboard. Furthermore, there isn't a word about the subject on the Compaq C304NR Web page -- nothing to alert consumers to the fact that if they chose a reliable, secure operating system like Linux instead of Windows, they would lose their rights to service under warranty.

She bought the notebook from Best Buy, and they did their best to sell her a maintenance contract ($200 for three years). But since the notebook only cost $549, she thought that was a lot of money to add to the purchase price, and she also thought that she could depend on the Compaq warranty.

I've been tracking this story for a couple of weeks with a PR rep from Hewlett-Packard Customer Service, who has been trying to "do the right thing" by Laura. There has been some discussion of swapping her unit with an HP notebook which is available with Linux preinstalled, but after a couple of weeks of back and forth, nothing has changed.

The PR rep told me, after wading through all the terms and conditions attached to the notebook's warranty, that "it is impossible to anticipate every single issue that a customer can face, so the terms and conditions of warranties can't list every possible scenario. Usually if a customer installs a different OS, it has a big impact on the PC and will void the warranty. However, since the OS couldn't have been responsible for keys sticking on a notebook keyboard, I think this is an exception to the rule." She also asserts that Compaq's "warranty terms and conditions are in line with the rest of the industry."

I have a feeling that she is correct about that. Gateway and Dell have both declined to respond to queries about their own warranty coverage in a similar scenario. Tier one manufacturers like Dell and HP are locked up in double-blind secrecy about their marketing deals with Microsoft, like the ones that keep them from offering preinstalled Linux like their customers are demanding, or even from offering machines without an OS installed at all.

Laura's problem will probably come to a satisfactory end: the return of the merchandise for a full refund, or a swap for a unit that is offered with Linux in the first place. But the bigger problem is that Microsoft's tentacles are still obvious in choking a free marketplace, and the tier one manufacturers are still submissive to and complicit in Microsoft's enterprise.

Read all about it here, courtesy of enterprise.linux.com

Eric

Gaming comparison with Multi Core Processors: XP vs Vista - Which is really better?
The HardOCP gang puts XP and Vista through the paces using Supreme Commander

We all want the best gaming experience possible in the games we play. There are two primary hardware factors which attribute to improving the gameplay experience; the video card (GPU) and the processor (CPU) in your system. The most current and powerful video cards that exist today for gamers, are the NVIDIA GeForce 8 series of GPUs, most notably the flagship GeForce 8800 GTX video card. The GeForce 8800 GTX supports the new DirectX 10 API native to Windows Vista. It also produces the best performance we have ever seen in computer video games to date. This is only bested by configuring two 8800 GTX in SLI. The GeForce 8800 series GPU power will allow you to increase in-game quality settings as well as resolution, antialiasing (AA) and anisotropic filtering (AF) which improves visual quality creating a more immersive gaming experience. As such, the video card has the potential to greatly affect your gameplay experience.

However, that potential is only realized when another component of your computer is fast enough to allow the video card to work at its peak efficiency, that is your CPU. The CPU controls several aspects of the game including geometry setup to varying degrees, physics, artificial intelligence (AI), and sound. It is also responsible for keeping the rest of your system running while you are playing the game. If it is not fast or powerful enough, it will choke the video card and become a bottleneck, disallowing the video card to meet its potential in your game. The CPU therefore does carry a great burden for the overall gameplay experience. Today though most games are GPU-limited, meaning that we very rarely seeing gameplay inhibited by today’s more power desktop processors.

With the introduction of multi-core processors, the CPU is evolving into a powerhouse capable to do more tasks at once then it has ever done. There are applications which benefit from multi-core CPUs, and up until now most of those have been mostly related to server tasks or specialized desktop applications. Desktop multi-core CPU advantages haven’t been realized until the last couple of years as more people are doing more activities on their computer at one time instead of simply doing a single task. While the advantages of multi-core processors are showing themselves for desktop use now, gaming support for multi-core processors has been severely lacking.

Up until now games have been mostly single-threaded. This means that they are only capable of taking advantage of a single-core on the CPU. If you have dual or quad-core processors the game will not utilize those extra cores efficiently to provide any gameplay experience improvements. Therefore multi-core CPUs have been pointless for gaming. Times are changing though, and we are finally seeing the evolution of gaming take on the advantages that can be had from utilizing multi-core CPUs.

Read all about it here, courtesy of hardocp.com

Eric

IBM Optical Chipset allows instant downloads
Image all the movies, programs and applications you will be able to pirate!
Seriously, this is great news, as the coming of age for online program distribution matures.

BM Corp. researchers showed a prototype optical transceiver chipset Monday they say will allow people to download movies or share online data eight times faster than current technology allows.

The chipset can move data at 160G bits by representing information as light pulses instead of electrons and could be used for both corporate and consumer applications as soon as 2010, IBM said.

Consumer demand for digital media such as movies, music and photos has caused an explosion in the amount of data being transferred over the Internet, and underlined the need for greater bandwidth and connectivity, said T.C. Chen, vice president for science and technology at IBM Research, in a statement.

IBM says it can meet that need, building its new chipset by making an optical transceiver with standard CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology, and combining that with optical components crafted from exotic materials such as indium phosphide and gallium arsenide. The resulting package is just 3.25 mm by 5.25 mm in size, small enough to be integrated onto a printed circuit board.

Although all those technologies exist today, it will probably be at least three years until suppliers can produce enough parts for IBM to bring optical transceivers into its product stream, the company said.

When it does arrive, the part could have an immediate impact on applications from computing to communications and entertainment. A PC using that board would be able to reduce the download time of a typical high-definition feature-length movie from 30 minutes to one second, the company said.

The demand for bandwidth has also pushed other chip makers to explore optical circuits. In September, researchers at Intel Corp. and the University of California at Santa Barbara said they had discovered how to build low-cost "laser chips" that move data much faster than standard copper wire interconnects. That could help eliminate the bottleneck of feeding data to processors that are becoming ever faster according to Moore's Law, they said. And in December, IBM said it had found a way to slow down speeding photons, allowing them to store data as light instead of electricity.

IBM did the work with funding from the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Researchers will present details of the project on March 29 in a report at the Optical Fiber Conference in Anaheim, California. The full name of the chipset is the "160Gb/s, 16-channel, full-duplex, single-chip CMOS optical transceiver."

Read all about it here, courtesy of infoworld.com

Eric

***Consumer Alert***
LG HDTV's Freezing up
If you have one better take a look and make sure your not affected by this.

Software Update

LG has become aware of the need for a minor software upgrade with selected models of our digital TV range. Over the past 48 hours LG has conducted extensive in-lab tests and established the cause to be a software issue. We sincerely regret any inconvenience caused to our customers and are now implementing resources and procedures to enable this update to be implemented. This will involve a free, short, in-house service call by qualified technicians to carry out the update. This will ensure that the affected TV units are operating at the optimal level.

Now that the cause of the glitch has been identified, we are continuing to work with the free to air networks to ensure that no further disruptions are experienced.

In the unlikely event (prior to the software upgrade) that a ‘freeze’ occurs again, simply turn the TV off and unplug at the wall socket (leaving for approx) 20 minutes and allow the unit to completely power down before rebooting.

Which products are affected?

Only models purchased after August 2006 with serial numbers beginning with 608, 609, 610, 611, 612, 701, 702 or 703 (*some models of 42PC1DG and 32FS4D with serial numbers beginning with 607 may also be affected).

Models with serial numbers not beginning with these numbers do not require the update.

LCD TV models 32LC2D 37LC2D 42LC2D 42LC2DR		Plasma TV models 42PC1DV 42PC1DG 42PX4DV 50PC1D 50PC3D 50PB2DR 60PC1D 60PY2D
Rear Projection TV models 56DC1D 62DC1D 62DC1DA 71SA1D		CRT TV models 32FS4D

Read all about it here, courtesy of lghdtv.com

Eric

Lack of Mac Malware baffles experts
"out of 236,000 known pieces of malicious software, only seven affect Mac OS X." <--That pretty much says it all.

Apple's Mac OS X remains almost completely free of any sort of malware threat despite several years of availability, a significant market share, and even an entire month dedicated to pointing out its flaws.

And security experts are not exactly sure why. In an article for the McAfee Avert Labs blog, security researcher Marius van Oers pointed out that Mac malware is "pretty much non-existent at the moment".

The researcher said that out of 236,000 known pieces of malicious software, only seven affect Mac OS X.

"With an estimated OS X market share of about five per cent on desktop systems we would expect to see more malware for OS X," said van Oers.

The Mac OS X system is not inherently more secure than other operating systems, according to the researcher.

The Unix/BSD code on which OS X is based is fairly well known, and van Oers noted that there are more than 700 pieces of malware targeting various Unix and Linux platforms.

Read all about it here, courtesy of vnunet.com

Eric

Global PC market to see little impact from Vista says survey
I am soooo surprised by this! No really, I am.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Global sales of personal computers are expected to increase 10.5 percent in 2007, getting little help from the new Windows Vista operating system, a market research firm said Tuesday.

Gartner Inc. predicted worldwide PC shipments rising to 255.7 million units in 2007. But because prices are falling this will mean only a 4.6 percent rise in revenues to 213.7 billion dollars, the survey found.

"We expect the market environment to be much the same over the near term as it has been recently," said George Shiffler, research director for Gartner's Dataquest service.

"Emerging markets and mobile PCs will continue to afford PC vendors their best opportunities for growth," he said.

"However, falling average selling prices, slowing replacement activity and further declines in mature market desk-based PC shipments will keep PC vendors under pressure to rationalize their operations or exit the market."

Gartner analysts said PC shipments will enjoy, at best, a limited boost from the release of Microsoft's new operating system, Vista, launched in January for all customers.

"Vista's effect on PC shipments ultimately depends on the number of consumers and small and mid-size businesses that find its new features compelling enough to buy a new PC," said Mikako Kitagawa, a Gartner analyst.

"While Vista includes a number of interesting features, these features just don't have enough 'must have' appeal with the average home and (business) user to spark a significant rush of new PC sales."

Gartner said it expects a minor increase in sales to the small number of consumers and small companies that put off replacing their older systems in anticipation of Vista's release.

However, the vast majority of consumers and firms are expected to maintain their gradual pace of replacement in the next several years.

Read all about it here, courtesy of news.yahoo.com

Eric

20x DVD burners coming soon!
Now you can burn those DVD's from Netflix / Blockbuster movies faster!

With Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell evaluating the feasibility of adopting half-height 20x DVD burners, and other PC brands already having decided to adopt such burners for market segmentation and the promotion of sales of desktop PCs equipped with Windows Vista in the second quarter, 20x stands a good chance of replacing 16x to become the mainstream writing speed of DVD burners in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to leading Taiwan optical disc drive makers.

Lite-On IT started volume production of 20x DVD burners in late 2006, while Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS) and Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology (TSST) began production of 18x DVD burners but were not interested in producing 20x models then, the sources indicated.

In view of emerging OEM and ODM orders for 20x DVD burners and the likelihood of increasing volumes, HLDS, TSST and Pioneer are preparing to start volume production of 20x DVD burners in the second quarter, the sources pointed out.

Lite-On IT and BenQ have launched 20x DVD burners under their own brands Liteon and BenQ, respectively, for retail sale in the global market, the sources said. The demand for 20x DVD burners is expected to extend from retail markets to OEM/ODM clients, the sources noted.

Read all about it here, courtesy of digitimes.com

-Eric

SanDisk Samples 32-Gbyte Flash Drive, Predicts Price Drops
The age of solid state hard drives are upon us...


SanDisk on Tuesday said it would be broadening its solid-state drive (SSD) family for the portable computer market with a new 32-gigabyte, 2.5-inch Serial ATA (SATA) interface model.

The solid-state flash memory drive will be compatible with most mainstream notebook designs, according to the company, and comes just months after SanDisk announced a similar 1.8-inch SSD for ultra-portable notebooks. That drive—also a 32-gigabyte version—was $600 more than a comparable 32-gigabyte disk drive would cost.

The new 2.5-inch SSD is now available, however, for $350 (for large volume buyers) as a drop-in replacement for hard disk drives, SanDisk said.

Amos Marom, vice president and general manager of SanDisk's Computing Systems Division says the new 2.5-inch drive will bring the all the benefits typically associated with solid-state memory—increased durability, faster performance, lower power consumption—to the mainstream notebook market.

He also said the price, per gigabyte, of SSD storage will continue to go down while capacities shoot upwards once consumers realize they can opt out of rotating disk drives for the "superior experience of SSDs."

Read all about it here, courtsey of extremetech.com

Eric

Editorial: Vista - Where's my innovation?
Microsoft's Vista is taken to task over the lack of innovation...

There’s no doubt that Microsoft has had an effect on the computer market that could really only be referred to as “global.” Taking inspiration from the Unix and Apple interfaces, the company produced a stable operating system that changed the world of computing forever.

But to quote Eddie Murphy, “What have you done for me lately?” In other words, where has the innovation and imagination that went into the early Windows builds gone? There are scores of readers and critics that have pointed out the features in Vista and said, “You know, Apple has had that for a while.” While I won’t go into them all here, there are some recent comments made by various folks that have really gotten my gut churning. As the resident [H] Mac zealot, it falls to me to defend the honor of perhaps the only true innovator left in the OS business.

In a recent article, [H]’s esteemed Editor-in-Chief made some flagrantly, but not uncharacteristically, blunt comments regarding his opinion about Mac OS and, indeed, the company as a whole: “Apple operating systems = suck. All of them. Actually, it’s Apple itself that sucks.” He later specified his particular distaste with the company with the following rationale: “It shoves its terribly overpriced ‘froo froo’ hardware down my throat to make me get the OS, and, quite frankly, I am just not buying it.”

The initial blanket statement had me asking, “Well, would you like to know what I think of Microsoft, Mr. Bennett?” But then I began to see his point: He’s not happy because the most stable OS on the market is only available with Apple hardware. This is understandable, and perhaps Apple does suck for excluding nearly the entire DIY enthusiast market as potential customers.

Sinking Ships: A Brief History

So maybe Apple sucks. But I’m here to tell you that Microsoft sucks more.

Read all about it here, courtesy of hardocp.com

Eric

Great Gamers Needed
Are you a gamer looking for a road trip? Your in luck...

One of our MVPs, MthdDirector, reminded me of a chance for some good players to try out Shadowrun at the FASA studios. He writes:

FASA is holding a special invitation only event this Saturday 3/17. They're looking for pro-level gamers in Washington who'd like to take a crack at SHADOWRUN.

This is open to both Xbox 360 and PC players.

Fall, from the FASA boards asked me to help spread the word ... so I turn to you, my friends...

They really need to find some top players who can make their way to Redmond. There is an application process - all the details are below. If you can get the word out on your blog/site/favorite message board, that would be keen-

http://forums.shadowrun.com/forums/thread/40438.aspx

thanx :)

Read all about it here courtesy of gamerscoreblog.com

Eric

Video games grow up as adult ownership grows
Video games aren't just for the kids anymore.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Video games aren't just for the kids anymore. More than one in three U.S. adults who go online, or 37 percent, own a video game console and 16 percent own a portable gaming device, Nielsen//NetRatings said on Tuesday.

The majority of those console owners, 71 percent, are married, and 66 percent have at least one child in the household.

"As game consoles have become increasingly sophisticated, families have incorporated them into their centralized home media centers, which include the television, digital recording device, digital music player and the PC," said Carolyn Creekmore, senior director of media analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings.

Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. are positioning their Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles as entertainment hubs for gaming, music and photo viewing amid a fierce battle for dominance in the $30 billion global video- game market.

Sony in particular is making a huge bet on the living room, having installed a Blu-ray high-definition DVD player in each of its new PS3 consoles, which are available for $500 or $600 in the United States, depending on the size of the unit's hard drive.

Nintendo Co. Ltd. competes with the Xbox 360 and PS3, but is selling a more basic machine with a motion-sensing controller that has won raves from gamers and non-gamers and introduced new audiences to video games.

Read all about it here, courtesy of reuters.com

Eric

Top 22 Mac OSX products: Part 1 of 2
Must have products for the Mac...

Our Apple expert John C. Welch picks 22 lesser-known applications that can make your Mac experience more productive and more fun. Mar 10, 2007 - By John C. Welch

While Mac OS X is a top-notch operating system, there are always things it can't do, or could do a bit better. This applies to every OS, because if they were all perfect, then no one would make money writing third-party software! I know the Internet abounds with various list of "Mac Software You Can't Live Without"; if you can stand one more, I've compiled what I've found to be some cool and useful tools. No, I don't think you can't live without any of them, but they've all made my Mac experience more complete, and a little more fun, too. One further word: Don't take the order below too seriously; it's more a reflection of how and when things occurred, rather than a definitive comment on relative merit.

Read all about it here, courtesy of networkcomputing.com

Eric

Parental tool to help keep your kids surfing "safe"
Nothing replaces Mom and Dad, but when your not sitting on thier shoulder...this works pretty well. Best of all, it's FREE!

If you're like most of us, parenting in the age of the Internet has you facing a new set of challenges. Blue Coat is committed to helping you and all communities through this 'First Generation of Internet Parenting'.

K9 Web Protection is our free Internet filtering and control solution for the home. K9 puts YOU in control of the Internet so you can protect your kids.

Read all about it here, courtesy of k9weprotection .com

Eric

30 Days with Linux
HardOCP lives with Linux for 30 days.

Many people, daunted by Vista's hardware requirements and product activation issues, claim on various boards how they plan to "switch to Linux." We spend 30 days using nothing but Ubuntu Linux to find out if this is truly a viable alternative for the consumer.

Introduction

Complaining about Windows Vista is a national past time on Internet forums these days. Windows Vista "costs too much," "has onerous product activation," "requires too much hardware," etc. These complaints are often followed up by a very simple boast: "I'm just going to switch to Linux (or Mac)."

But in today's landscape, how viable is that statment? Is the threat to switch to Linux an empty one, or is it entirely possible? Linux on the desktop has been viable for years, especially for programming gurus who can solve their Linux problems by simply writing new software. It also seems to be viable for “Mom and Pop” end-users who just want a machine to write letters, send email, and browse the Web (although, admittedly, a guru will probably have to set it up for them).

But what about power users, such as the typical audience of HardOCP - those who know how to build their own computers, but not compile their own programs? Or people who may not know how to do something, but aren't afraid of taking the time to figure it out? Is Linux truly an alternative? Can they do everything they did in Windows? The truth is, we didn't know, but we very much wanted to find out.

To properly explore these issues, we took a cue from Morgan Spurlock and made the decision to use Ubuntu Linux as our home operating system for 30 days.

Read all about it here, courtesy of HardOCP.com

Eric

"Adult" spam hits all time low
The good news is, you still get a healthy does of Viagra ads!

There's still plenty of spam going around, but "adult" spam has been on a steady decline and hit an all-time low in February, according to a new Symantec report.

Of all the spam filtered by Symantec's e-mail security tools in February, only 3 percent could be classified as adult spam, the company said Tuesday. Adult spam, according to Symantec, contains or refers to "products or services intended for persons above the age of 18" and is "often offensive or inappropriate. Examples: porn, personal ads, relationship advice."

The top spam categories are health care or other general product ads, which combined account for 48 percent of all junk e-mail, Symantec said. Other top spam categories include advertisements for financial services (21 percent) and Internet services (15 percent), according to the Symantec report. Of all junk messages, 8 percent was fraudulent or part of a scam such as phishing, it said.

Read all about it here, courtesy of cnet.com

Eric

Consoles gain ground in U.S. homes
18% of homes have a console. This is likely to grow....a lot.

Video game consoles are hot and getting hotter all the time in the U.S., according to a new Nielsen report on video gaming, called "The State of the Console." The Nielsen study found that by the end of 2006, about 148.4 million people had access to at least one video game console in their home, although the jury still seems to be out regarding which video game console will reign supreme.

According to Nielsen Wireless and Interactive Services, the number of video game consoles in U.S. households has expanded by 18.5 percent since the fourth quarter of 2004.

In the fourth quarter of 2006, there were 45.7 million homes with video game consoles, representing 41.1 percent of all households that have TVs, compared to 39.1 percent, or 43 million, in 2005, and 35.2 percent, or 38.6 million, the previous year.

The increase in both the number and the percentage of households with video game consoles is significant, Nielsen said, given that the number of total television households has risen just 1.6 percent during the same period.

"The video game console has become a major player in the battle for the living room," said Jeff Herrmann, vice president of Nielsen Wireless and Interactive Services. "In households across the country, consoles are successfully competing for consumers' time and attention; not simply as gaming platforms, but as multimedia hubs that also can deliver high quality digital movies and IPTV."

Read all about it here, courtesy of newsfactor.com

Eric

Videogames industry 'is maturing'
Video games broaden thier audience from teen boys and girls to a more "mature" audience.

Videogaming is maturing with more platforms than ever and the emergence of celebrity developers, said the head of the industry's key creative event.

Jamil Moledina, director of the Game Developers' Conference, said the walls between gaming areas were coming down.

"The dissolving of boundaries between silos is one of the key themes of this year," he said.

More than 12,000 developers and designers are expected at the event in San Francisco, in the US.

"Overall the game industry is growing and we are seeing that the previously discreet silos of mainstream games, indie, casual and mobile games are starting to dissolve.

Read all about it here, courtesy of news.bbc.co.uk.

Eric

U.S. DOT Ban On Windows Vista, Explorer 7, and Office 2007
The can't be a good thing for Microsoft...


By Paul McDougall
InformationWeek

March 2, 2007 12:00 PM

Citing concerns over cost and compatibility, the top technology official at the federal Department of Transportation has placed a moratorium on all in-house computer upgrades to Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system, as well as Internet Explorer 7 and Office 2007, according to a memo obtained Friday by InformationWeek.

In a memo to his staff, the DOT's CIO Daniel Mintz says he has placed "an indefinite moratorium" on the upgrades as "there appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products. Furthermore, there appears to be specific reasons not to upgrade."

Among the concerns cited by Mintz are compatibility with software applications currently in use at the department, the cost of an upgrade, and DOT's move to a new headquarters in Washington later this year. "Microsoft Vista, Office 2007, and Internet Explorer [7] may be acquired for testing purposes only, though only on approval by the DOT chief information officer," Mintz writes.

Read all about it here courtesy of informationweek.com

Eric

AMD tips quad-core performance
Don't count AMD out just yet, the chip wars just escalated...

(02/28/2007 7:03 PM EST)

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Advanced Micro Devices upcoming Barcelona processor will sport floating-point performance 42 percent higher than Intel's current top-of-the line CPU, the Xeon X5355 also known as Clovertown. The news marked the first performance numbers AMD has provided for the chip that packs four Opteron cores on a single die and will be in production this fall. AMD also demonstrated working versions of its next-generation graphics chip the R600 to be released by the end of June. AMD has been under pressure from archrivals Intel and Nvidia. Intel is shipping multiple quad-core processors using a system-in"package approach, claiming it has retaken the performance lead in x86 CPUs. Nvidia shipped a new generation graphics controller last fall, a move the graphics division of AMD has not yet answered. Mario Rivas, general manager of AMD's microprocessor group, said Barcelona will provide a double-digit leap in integer performance over the quad-core Xeon, though he declined to be more specific. Henri Richard, chief of sales and marketing at AMD, said Barcelona will have a significant integer performance lead over Intel's quad-core chips.

Read all about it here, courtesy of eetimes.com

Eric

Vista Ultimate will only get 5 years of support
...and the non-ultimate version get 10 years of support?!?!!?

Windows Vista Ultimate is Microsoft's operating system with all the whiz and bang for all users. But there is something important missing after all: extended life cycle support.

I was poking around Microsoft's Support Lifecycle page for another blog post and observed some oddities, one being that Windows Ultimate support ends on April 10, 2012. Windows Vista Business and Enterprise both receive Extended Support, which means five more years—or April 11, 2017.

According to Microsoft's Support Lifecycle Web page, support for consumer products ends after five years. There is no Extended Support option. I had always assumed that Windows Vista Ultimate, which Microsoft pitches as having the most consumer and corporate features, would be supported for more than five years. Besides, Microsoft does offer Ultimate to businesses for volume-licensing purchase, with caveats such as single activation.

Laura DiDio, an analyst with Yankee Group, isn't surprised by the five-year support for the software. "Vista Ultimate is more of a consumer purchase," she said.

For businesses deploying Windows Vista Ultimate, however, the clock already is ticking down to the end of support. While Ultimate may not be standard fare on corporate desktops—even Microsoft is standardized on Vista Business, or so say some employee sources—small businesses are good candidates for the software. Likewise are universities. For schools with campuswide volume-licensing agreements, standard desktop distribution is Office Enterprise 2007 and Windows Vista Ultimate.

The limited support option creates potential problems for smaller businesses looking for improved security. BitLocker encryption technology is only available in two Vista editions: Enterprise and Ultimate. However, Enterprise is only available through volume licensing, a purchasing option not used by many smaller businesses.

"They [Microsoft] are forcing customers to make some hard choices," DiDio acknowledged. That said, "five years is a long time in the high-tech world."

Read all about it here, courtesy of microsoft-watch.com

Eric