How to keep you PC secure from Hackers
They didn't even mention the safest bet of all...don't own a computer! ;)

In many ways, the internet today resembles a digital version of the wild, wild west. There are a lot of ways that you can potentially open up your computer and allow “bad guys” in. Then you have companies like Symantec that turn all this into a game of “cops and robbers”, with your PC as the battleground and your wallet as collateral. This is not to say that companies like Symantec don’t have a purpose. They certainly do, and they help guard your computer against “bad guys” when you are stupid enough to allow them in in the first place.

If you are using a computer, you need to obey certain laws of common sense so that you don’t give your computer away as an early Christmas present to some hacker. These basic laws of common sense are:

1. Do not click on any links in an email which is not solicited.
2. Do not install little-known shareware applications to your computer.
3. Not hanging out with the “bad guys” means you’re a lot less likely to get zapped by them. This means you’re a whole lot safer when you’re not surfing warez sites, porn sites, and other sites of questionable material. The owners of such sites usually have a lower sense of ethics and you’re more likely to encounter PC infections on such sites.

Now, there are more than 9 ways to give your PC over to hackers. But, I am going to focus on some of the “biggies” that I see people do. I don’t fault people if they have done some of these things. It’s really easy to trust everybody until they prove otherwise, but unfortunately, that’s risky when you’re talking about the internet.

So, without further ado, here are 9 ways you can hand your PC (or your identity) over to hackers, spyware applications, and advertising agencies.

Read all about it here courtesy of pcmech.com

Eric

Why Apple Can't Stop iPhone Hackers
If you build it, they will hack it...

It sure sounds like a steal. On Aug. 31, George Hotz plans to trade in his iPhone for a metallic blue Nissan (NSANY) 350Z sports car and three brand-new iPhones. But the 17-year-old's device is no ordinary Apple phone. Hotz hacked his iPhone and unlocked it so that it can be used on a variety of cell-phone networks, becoming the first person known to have done so. The person buying Hotz's phone, Terry Daidone, believes he's the one getting the deal because Hotz has agreed to work for him at his cell-phone refurbishing company, CertiCell.

Daidone says he doesn't plan to sell unlocked iPhones just yet. Rather, he says that he wants Hotz to teach CertiCell's technicians the secrets to unlocking other kinds of cell phones. But that could change—if he can clear up legal questions surrounding the practice of unlocking mobile phones. "As the need arises to unlock phones, we should be at the forefront of that," Daidone says.

Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T), the sole authorized supplier of the iPhone in the U.S., are doing what they can to make sure that legal clearance never comes. The two companies have put their lawyers on the case, applying pressure on hackers involved in unlocking iPhones to try to get them to stop. Much is at stake. AT&T has been hoping that as the exclusive provider of the iPhone, it will see a surge in new customers and monthly service charges of at least $60 from each one. Apple is supposed to get a cut of the revenues. If iPhones are unlocked, they can be used on the wireless networks of rivals like T-Mobile USA—and AT&T gets zippo. AT&T wouldn't comment for this story, while Apple didn't return a request for comment.

Read all about it here, courtesy of businessweek.com

Eric

***300th Post!***
Far Cry 2 Hands on Preview
By God, I think we have a solid contender for Game of the Year and Game Best Utilizing DX10 Horsepower!

Ubisoft Montreal gave its first public showing of the pre-alpha build for its first-person-shooter Far Cry 2, currently in development for PC only, at PAX 07. Taking over development of the series from the Crytek, creator of the original Far Cry on PC, Ubisoft Montreal will now have to compete with the German developer when Crytek's Crysis launches in November. That's a massively daunting shadow to be working under, but based on the looks of this early build, Ubisoft Montreal is taking the challenge on full-bore.

"My job today is to take your preconceptions of what Far Cry 2 was supposed to be, and pretty much burn those to cinders," said Far Cry 2 creative director Clint Hocking at the event. Hocking, whose past roles include creative director for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and lead designer for the original Splinter Cell, made it clear what would return in the sequel: exotic locales, open-endedness, realism, and immersive gameplay. Unlike in Ubisoft's own Far Cry Instincts reimaginings, there won't be mutant powers or anything else that couldn't roughly realistically happen. And rather than placing gamers in the lush island environment of the original Far Cry (and now Crysis), Far Cry 2 will take players to a 50-square-kilometer African landscape.

This doesn't mean there won't be jungles, but the jungles will be joined by savannas and deserts, with wildlife and weather patterns appropriate to the area. Using a proprietary engine, environmental elements like trees and clouds will be generated procedurally, ensuring distinct looks for these objects in-game. All areas will load dynamically, and everything in the world is destructible down to the pixel, according to Hocking. He demonstrated by using a sniper rifle to shoot off the branches of a distant tree, one by one.

Complementing this expansive, interactive environment will be what Hocking described as open-world gameplay--exploring the harsh habitats of Africa at your leisure while building relationships with other characters and taking on sidequests. You begin the game in a central African hospital dying of malaria. Where you go from there depends on your choices, Hocking said. I've heard developers make this promise before, so we'll see if it's as dynamic as he claims.

Read all about it here, courtesy of Shacknews.com.

Eric

The End of PC Gaming: Part II
Why won't the media let this go? It's no secret pc gaming will continue to lose ground as the cost of building /maintaining / updating pcs skyrockets.

Not going to happen

We've all heard the news by now, gaming on the PC is dead; the console has won.

This declaration has left a few people, including myself, scratching our heads.

Mark Rein from Epic Games, who was in charge of the development team on Unreal Engine 3, as well as being responsible for the creation of titles like Unreal Tournament 3 and Gears of War has pointed out the cost problems of developing DX10 games. The price of a higher end DX10 compatible PC graphics card does not compare favourably to the price of a console, in some extreme cases you will pay double the amount for a graphics card than you would for a console. More to the point, a console is ready to be plugged into a TV and played, whereas you have just gotten started on building a gaming PC by purchasing a graphics card, there is still much work to be done and money to be spent.

id Software has declared the same outcome. The PC will become second fiddle to the console; their programmers will focus on developing games primarily for the console and then port them to the PC (maybe). They are so convinced that this is the way to go that they have attached Xbox 360 controllers to every single PC at id, to get their programmers in the console mindset. This move reflects their new philosophy; where once they focused on pushing graphics cards to the utmost limit, now they will focus on gameplay, and ensuring the games will run on any system, not just high end systems.

The Good(?), The Bad and The Ugly

It's hard to spot the good in this move, unless you own a store that sells games. Less PC games is certainly not a benefit to the PC gamer, nor is it likely to improve console gaming to any great extent, except to speed up the release dates for sequels and provide more retail shelf space. Console gamers don't demand groundbreaking new experiences in gaming as vocally as PC gamers, unless you are talking about certain, very specific new features. The console experience benefits more from being able to pick up a game and master the basics in a very short amount of time, allowing the player to get to the meat of the game, usually the fancy graphics and powerful bosses. There are certainly exceptions, mostly published by SquareSoft or EA Sports, that can require more from the casual gamer than your average console game, with either a lot that needs to be learned before you are proficient at the game, or with a huge memorable story line.

It seems unlikely that id Software or Epic are planning to devote most of their development teams energies to that type of game, when many console gamers would be happier with a Gears of War sequel. The PC gamer enjoys having a huge learning curve as long as the game is immersive enough. When the rewards are there, either through the storyline or the sheer joy of the challenge presented in taking over a city, country, planet or universe, a PC gamer will quite happily invest serious amounts of time to be able to complete the game. In certain games there is no set ending to your play, the games leaves you in an open environment once the main storyline has been completed where you are free to do whatever you wish. Many PC gamers thrive on the complexity that goes against the basic premise used when programming a top selling console game.

Read all about it here, courtesy of PCper.com

Eric

iPhone gets unlocked twice, and AT&T gets fired up
Everything was going fine, until the "Cease and Desist" papers came along from those pesky Lawyers.

It was bound to happen: AT&T is going after the commercial snakes groups trying to profit from the iPhone unlocking. Apparently they can hunt these mercenaries down. You can still 100% unlock with the TurboSIM method but, once again, there is only one way to really blow up the Death Star: Support the iPhone Dev Team to get the FREE software unlock and keep advancing native software development for the iPhone.

Press Release August 25th, 2007

iphoneunlocking.com, a subsidiary of UniquePhones (www.uniquephones.com). was poised and ready to release remote software unlocking services for the iphone today at 12 noon EST. The sale of unlocking codes is on hold after the company received a telephone call from a Menlo Park, California, law firm at approximately 2:54 a.m. this morning (GMT).

After saying they were phoning on behalf of AT&T, the law firm presented issues such as copyright infringement and illegal software dissemination. Uniquephones is taking legal advice to ascertain whether AT&T was sending a warning shot or directly threatening legal action. The logistics of different continents as well as it being a weekend factors into how the situation develops.

Until an assessment is made of the potential of legal action, Uniquephones is unable to release the unlocking software for sale. The company spokesperson also said that the company would also be evaluating what to eventually do with the software should they be legally denied the right to sell it. A substantial delay caused by any legal action would render the unlocking software a less valuable commodity as well as creating unforeseen security issues for the company

Oh, and keep your eyes open during tomorrow and the weekend because the shit is about to hit the fan. [iPhone Unlocking]

Read all about it here, courtesy of iphonapps.org

Eric

Intel quietly announces 2.8 GHz notebook processor
That would be the same 2.8 GHz X7900 Intel Core 2 Due Extreme found in the recently launched uber iMac 24 inch model

Leipzig (Germany) – Intel officially introduced a new Core 2 Extreme model for notebooks: The X7900 model increases the performance for high-end notebooks with a clock speed of 2.8 GHz.

According to heise online, the processor comes with the regular 4 MB L2 cache and support for FSB800, which was introduced earlier this year as part of the Santa Rosa platform. As the X7800, the new 7900 is also rated at a thermal design power of 44 watts, which means that you will not be able to find this CPU in your average notebook, due to its special cooling needs.

The tray price of the chip is $851. The company did not say if and when it will reduce the price for the X7800 version.

The first customer to get this high-end processor was once again Apple, which quietly began offering the chip two weeks ago for its new iMac. A 2.8 GHz iMac with a 24" monitor is currently offered from $2300, which translates into a $250 premium over a 2.4 GHz (non-"Extreme") model. Intel gave Apple preferred treatment before when it provided the company with 3.0 GHz Xeon quad-core processors several months before the chip was officially announced.

Read all about it here, courtesy of TGDaily.com

Eric

DX10: The Good, The Bad and The Pretty
Bottom line: You can live without DX10, in the near future this will probably change as games will be made specifically for DX10.

Ever since its announcement, DirectX 10 has been one of the most anticipated developments in PC gaming since the move from 2D sprites to fully 3D polygonal bad-guys. By completely redesigning its venerable Application Programming Interface (API), Microsoft is promising better than ever effects, a more streamlined programming methodology and improved performance. All of which is meant to lead to better looking, more stable, less hardware limited games. However, we all know that this hasn't yet proved to be the case.

Immature hardware drivers, a lack of games, and enough (Vista) bugs to make even Bear Grylls think twice has meant that seven months since Vista launched, and a full nine months since the first DX10 capable graphics card arrived, we have yet on TrustedReviews to look at what DX10 truly has to offer. But, after umpteen driver revisions and a whole slew of Vista patches, we finally feel that performance, stability and game choice is sufficient to warrant a first glimpse at both the visual improvements and supposed boost in performance we can expect this new platform to provide.

Read all about it here, courtesy of TrustedReviews.com

Eric

Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT 1GB
ATi / AMD isn't dead yet, and shows real promise for staying competitive with Nvidia

By the time you come to the last page of this review there will be little doubt that ATI is back in the videocard business, big time. After the inevitable stumbling following its takeover by AMD, its engineers and staff fleeing to nVidia, its head offices being consolidated, the five billion dollar arm of ATI is flexing its mighty muscles once more. ATI, now confusingly called AMD, (or is it ATI ?) has blitzed the market with a big red slice of silicon known as the Radeon HD 2900XT graphics processor. nVIDIA, which has gotten used to having free reign in the videocard market, must be sweating at the sight of Crossfire finally working with killer effectiveness.

In this review PCSTATS will be benchmarking a pair of Diamond Multimedia Viper Radeon HD 2900XT 1GB videocards, alone and in Crossfire at stock and overclocked speeds. If high end gaming is your past time, fragging at high framerates your Joi de Vive, PCSTATS has laid down seven frag-tastic pages of videocard benchmarks! Everything from synthetic 3DMark tests to DirectX9.0 and DirectX10 game titles are represented.

ATI, DirectX10 & Vista

Given the upheaval of a post-merger situation, the slow adoption of Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system has actually worked in ATI's favour. DirectX 10 game titles like Crysis, Microsoft Flight Simulator X and Unreal Tournament 3 are still on the horizon, rather than being old hat before it even launched the Radeon HD 2900XT graphics card. Consumer demand for DirectX 10 compatible videocards is only set to ramp up from now on.

Nothing gets the juices flowing more than a couple of top of the line videocards fresh out of the box. Diamond Multimedia is getting back into high end videocards, and what better way to reintroduce itself than by releasing a videocard based on AMD's blistering 720 million transistor Radeon HD 2900XT GPU, with a staggering 1GB of GDDR4 memory no less! It's ATI's absolute best technology available, and PCSTATS has two of these bad boys on the test bench today. Yes, we're happy campers. :) The ATI Radeon HD 2900XT VPU core runs at 743 MHz while the 1GB of GDDR4 memory hums along at a very sweet 2 GHz! In pairs, the Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT is ATI Crossfire compatible on supporting motherboards.

You to can share in the joy of a flagship gaming experience, but with a retail price of $520 CDN ($499 USD, £243 GBP) per Radeon HD 2900XT1GPE videocard, it's not for the faint of heart. It takes two Diamond 2900XT1GPE videocards to enable Crossfire; I'm sure you can do the math on that.

Diamonds' retail package includes two DVI to analog converters, a Component output cable, a S-Video/Composite VIVO cable, a DVI to HDMI adapter and one CrossFire Bridge connector. The Diamond Viper videocard PCSTATS tested did not come with any games, but then again only Company of Heroes and a couple other demos can show off the videocard's DirectX 10 powers anyway.

Read all about it here, courtesy of pcstats.com

Eric

Ready to make the switch to Mac?
A dedicated site for making the transition from PC less painfull and much easier...

You've found the Switching to Mac community with information about Switching to Mac and Mac vs PC! We are here to help with all your Switching to Mac and Mac vs PC questions. Make sure to drop by our Switching to Mac Forum and see how easy Switching to Mac really is...

Sharing Files Between a Mac and a PC

August 20th, 2007 by Mike

My First Mac just published a really good step by step article on how to share files between a Mac and a PC, or in other words, how to setup a Network between a Mac and a PC. This type of setup is a good choice for anyone who uses both Mac’s and a PC’s in their day to day computing and need to have a permanent connection between them.

Read more to find out how to setup shared network folders on each system, there are several steps that you will need to follow but it is not very difficult with help from this useful article…

Posted in Articles | No Comments » Send this to a friend

I’m going to jinx myself….

August 16th, 2007 by Mike

Here is Testimonial from one of our Switching to Mac Forum members, JamesJM. It is very entertaining and thought it should be posted on the main Switching to Mac site.

“I am NOT a superstitious person…. but I gotta admit I’m a bit queasy about posting this.

When I was a PC guy it never failed that when I upgraded, or added anything new, I would inevitably be forced into the ‘troubleshooting guide’ because I would encounter at least one, and sometimes several, of the “If such and such is not working” lists of things that could go wrong.

Those happen for Apple people as well… I read about them all the time. ie: “iPhoto 08′ Preferences Will Not Open”.

It has not, as yet, (take note of that jinx thing), happened to me, however, not once…. could life GET any better, I ask you?
Read the rest of this entry »

Read all about it here, courtesy of switchingtomac.com

Eric

Linux set to become next "dominate OS"
Don't say I didn't tell you so!

Comment Open source moves at a different speed to commercial software. This has become apparent over the last decade as Linux and its open source fellow travellers (Apache, Open Office, MySQL, Firefox ,et al) gradually established their position in the software world.

It may have been frustrating for the open source activists, more vocal than numerous, who had been hoping for more instant gratification than the software market delivered. Nevertheless, Linux and many of its associated open source products continued their forward march.

Server dominance

Figures from IDC, in May 2007, show Linux accounting for 12.7 per cent of the server market by revenue compared to Windows with 38.8 per cent of the market. Most of the remainder is Unix, although IBM mainframe still has a share.

However, these figures are for servers shipped from the major hardware vendors (HP, IBM, Sun, Dell, etc) and omit some important facts. In particular, the number of "constructed servers" is very large and they nearly all run Linux. How large? Well Google, for example, builds all its own servers and is estimated to be the fourth largest builder of servers in the world - after HP, IBM, and Sun. It's not the only ISP that does this, but its activity is so great that it distorts the market stats.

Linux probably doesn't trail Windows by much and it will almost certainly dominate in time. The determining factor is the emerging economies where Linux is growing at a much faster rate. Linux has two very important advantages for developing economies such as China, India, and Brazil:

• It can be used to establish a local software industry with local skills.
• The cost of adopting it is lower by far than any alternative.

If you examine the enthusiasm for Linux in these rising economies you quickly see that it is government led, with governments mandating Linux for their own IT needs. Bear in mind that in most countries government accounts for 10 per cent of the IT budget and the drive to Linux becomes clear.

The Microsoft threat and GPL 3.0

Microsoft, the main loser in the rise of Linux, has been doing what it can to derail it, most recently through vague legal threats to enforce patents against Linux distributors that it does not partner with.

The Linux community has responded by issuing a new Open Source License, GPL v3. This license binds all distributors of Linux to treat all other distributors equally in respect of patent protection. Thus, if you protect one distributor, as Microsoft has done with Linux distributors Novell, Inspire and Xandros, you agree to protect them all. Microsoft is thus forced either to drop its patent threats or cease to handle Open Source products such as Samba, the dominant Open Source file and print capability.

Microsoft's patent threats are, most likely, saber rattling with no intent of initiating legal action. The goal is probably to make corporate users of Linux feel a little uneasy. Microsoft must have watched the sorry course of SCO's legal action and can have little doubt that it would suffer a severe commercial backlash if it were foolish enough to take legal action against Linux.

Linux on the desktop, eventually

Linux has made least headway on the desktop for one obvious reason. It has no significant commercial backer on the desktop. The open source approach to software development usually produces products built by software developers for software developers. While Apple's OS X is making clear inroads into the Windows desktop monopoly, the Linux PC still languishes with minimal market share. The Mac OS X marketing slogan "it just works" is reasonably close to the truth. With the Linux PC the slogan could be "it's just for developers".

This situation changed a little with the advent of the Ubuntu distribution of Linux, which was much easier on the user, but not anything like as easy as OS X. Ubuntu is, nonetheless, the shape of Linux to come. Linux is being made easier as it gradually becomes the de facto educational software platform in developing countrie - stimulated to some degree by the Nicholas Negroponte's OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) initiative. Ultimately, this movement will establish a genuine low cost computing Linux PC market, but it will take time.

However, it could be accelerated by the success of Apple. The bigger Apple's success, the more PC manufacturers will want to control the PC OS and for that to happen either Microsoft will have to open Windows up or Linux will become a much better supported option.

Read all about it here, courtesy of theregister.co.uk

Eric

10 Reason to buy an iPhone
Uhh, like I really need 10 reasons?...

The Tale of My iPhone Purchase
Before I get into the ten reasons why you should buy an iPhone, let me begin with my own purchasing story. Remember how everybody was going crazy the day the iPhone was released? Well I was right there with them. Yes, I was out and about with the masses at the mall. I had what I thought was an absolutely fool-proof and ingenious plan to get my iPhone...I went to an AT&T store instead of an Apple store. This later proved to be quite stupid, more on that later.

When I got to the mall, I headed to the AT&T store. I saw a cop standing outside the door. I'm thinking "he's blocking the damn door, how dare he come between me and my iPhone!" So I attempt to squeeze by the cop to get into the store, and he stops me. I said in a snarling tone "I'm here to get an iPhone!" and he replied in a bemused fashion "So are they..." As soon as he said that I turned my head to my left and saw a large crowd standing in line. Feeling like an absolute fool I said "Oh, I see" and then went to get in line.

So I'm standing in line and I started chatting with some of the other folks. To my utter and everlasting horror, I discovered that I'd run into an Apple Cultist. Yep the guy two people ahead of me was a true Apple Cultist and worse yet...he was a know-it-all-Apple Cultist! Ugh! Somebody save me! He kept babbling on and on about how great Apple is and how much he knew about this product or that product. He especially kept babbling on about the iPhone, touting this feature or that feature. Like I didn't already know about all of it from all the hype beforehand? I needed this self-important dingbat to regurgitate all of it again? After about ten minutes of it I'm standing there thinking "SHUT UP! DAMN YOU! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST SHUT YOUR FREAKING MOUTH! IT'S JUST A DAMN PHONE!!! SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP!!!!!" Mercifully, other people intervened and actually said something so that the know-it-all would not bore us all too much longer.

Well the time came and went and then a terrible thing happened, the store manager came out and said that they only had so many iPhones left. We all started freaking out! OMG! What if I can't get my iPhone? Noooooooooooooooo! The Apple store is probably sold out by now too! Terrible news!

So then we find out the next terrible announcement: They are out of 8GB phones! OMG! No! Do I take a 4GB and settle for it? Or try my luck at the Apple store? Stupidly, I decided to buy a 4G phone. I got one of the last ones and headed back to my car with my prize, smug with satisfaction that I'd gotten the best of the masses. Or did I?

After I got my iPhone home, I unpacked it and hooked it up to my computer and all that. Well it wasn't long before I realized I'd made a terrible mistake! 4GB wasn't nearly enough storage space! I easily filled that up with videos, music and photos. I'd seriously goofed.

So I did what any self-respecting geek would do, I took it back to the AT&T store and then drove to the Apple store and bought an 8GB instead. And now I'm a happy camper indeed!

Read all about it here, courtesy of ExtremeTech.com

Eric

Core 2 E6850 - The Sweetest CPU of All
As things stand today, this is the one to get...

Has it really been only just over a year?

Thirteen months ago, we wrote our first review of Intel's Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor. Since then, Intel has been a juggernaut, shipping new CPU models based on the Core 2 architecture, including the first quad-core desktop CPU, built by embedding two Core 2 dies on a single package and sharing the front side bus, as well as mobile and server CPUs based on Core 2.

Last month, Intel began shipping newer processors, built around the new G stepping, and increasing the front side bus speed to an effective 1333MHz. At that time, we took a look at the mainstream Core 2 E6750 and the new member of the Core 2 Extreme line, the QX6850.

Today, though, we look at the CPU that's really the current sweet spot in terms of price/performance ratios: the Core 2 E6850. Clocking in at 3.0GHz, this sub-$300 CPU runs at a marginally higher clock speed than the original Core 2 Extreme X6800, but is priced nearly 75% lower. Just as importantly, the E6850 is rated at a TDP (thermal design power) of 65W. We decided to pop in an E6850 in our standard test platform, built around an Intel P35-based motherboard, and put the CPU through its paces. We compare the results against a Core 2 E6750 and AMD's fastest mainstream desktop CPU, the Athlon 64 X2 6000+.

Read all about it here, courtesy of ExtremeTech.com

Eric

Mitron SSD (Solid State Drive) 32GB
The first of many reviews of the up and coming new HDD format...


Solid State Drives are making great strides towards offering performance that matches and in some cases exceeds the best high-end consumer drives on the market in our limited benchmark results. We are in the early stages of testing several SSD products under an operating system (Vista) optimized for them. We also have a new test suite designed to emphasize actual applications that the typical business or home user might utilize on a daily basis, along with updated game benchmarks.

While iPEAK and test applications like PCMark05 based on iPEAK have served us well and are certainly one of the best tools to show the pure performance capabilities of a storage device, it does not work properly under Vista. It is also getting long in the tooth as the ability to generate meaningful trace files with newer desktop chipsets and drive sizes is severely limited at this time. In fact, the results generated in our first iPEAK benchmarks with the MTRON drive did not match our upcoming application results nor did they match the performance capabilities of the drive based upon current tests. This leads us to believe that current chipset and drive technology will soon surpass the capability of current test programs to properly generate meaningful results.

Beyond that, as we found out with the MTRON drive your choice of core logic chipset can make a difference in the overall performance of the drive. Exactly why the latest Intel desktop chipsets have an apparent 80 MB/sec ceiling for sustained transfer rates with the SSD products is still a mystery to us and the drive manufacturers. We are still testing other Intel chipsets and will report these tests results and any updates from Intel or the drive manufacturers in our next article. In the meantime, using this drive with the Intel ICH9R provides the speed of Wile E. Coyote while we liken the NVIDIA 680i to the Road Runner: just a little faster and apparently a little smarter when it comes to SSD products.

Our limited testing shows both the strengths and weaknesses of this particular drive when comparing it to one of the best performing consumer desktop drives. The read and write speeds are incredible for an SSD and its vastly superior access and random read rates generate very competitive scores in our application tests. Add to this the fact that the drive is completely silent, offers greatly improved thermals relative to pretty much any mechanical drive, and the ability to withstand extreme vibration and shock, and you have an absolute winner on your hands. Well, almost.

Read all about it here, courtesy of Anandtech.com

Eric

5 Tech Myths
Extremetech goes Myth-Bustin' to uncover the truth about 5 common Tech Myths

Sometimes it's just like playing an endless game of whack-a-mole. You may remember the old arcade game, where you pound on plastic moles with a rubber mallet as they pop up out of little holes.

Sometimes myths propagate mysteriously, just like the old "telephone" game, where you'd sit in a big circle with your classmates and whisper some phrase in the next person's ear. By the time the phrase makes its way around the circle, it's something completely different.

ther times, companies may change their plans, but old information dies hard, so keeps reverberating through the system like some standing wave that never quite goes away.

Let's take a look at a few we've tackled in the past year or so.

Games for Windows Live: Must Pay Micro$oft $$$
It is true that Games for Windows Live is a premium service, and has an annual fee associated with it. The confusion revolves around what exactly you get with the free (Silver) version, and what you get for extra cost (the Gold version.) As GfW Live evolved, Microsoft kept updating us on the features, and some of the stuff that Redmond initially suggested would cost money got moved into the "free" column.

I still see people post that they'd never pay money just to get voice chat. Please, let's just stop. Voice chat is something built into the free GfW Live Silver account. What you get with the premium $50 per year version is matchmaking services and game achievements.

I also need to note that if you already have a Xbox Live Gold account, then GfW Live Gold is folded into that at no extra cost.

Now, if Microsoft would stick with this and not change their story again, maybe this meme will die out.

Read all about it here, courtesy of Extremetech.com

Eric

Samsung SyncMaster 275T Review
When 24 inches just won't do. This 27 inches could be the next "must have" in gaming displays!

Not everyone has the desk space for a 30-inch LCD monitor like Dell's UltraSharp 3007WFP or HP's LP2065. Not to mention, that big 2560x1600 resolution is a lot of pixels for your 3D graphics card to drive. On the other hand, some people want a bigger screen than the many 24-inch models on the market. If you want something in-between, new 27-inch LCD monitors could be just the ticket. Featuring a resolution of 1920x1200, these displays are very large, but not quite as overwhelming as 30-inch monitors.

Samsung has just released a contender in this category, the SyncMaster 275T, and the unit is loaded with outstanding features like multiple USB ports, six-color hue/saturation adjustment, and component video input. The SyncMaster 275T can be found online for roughly $1,100–1,200, making it about the same price as Dell's 30-inch 3007WFP (and for that matter, the same as Dell's 27-inch model).

Does the performance of this promising panel match its impressive feature set and handsome aesthetics? Let's find out.

Read all about it here, courtesy of Extremetech.com

Eric

DX10 Hardware already obsolete?
In a word yes,...sortof...

REPRESENTATIVES from the almighty Vole have been speaking at Siggraph over the last few days, and what they've said hasn't exactly lowered the blood pressure of many attendees.

Microserfs were there to espouse the greatness of DirectX 10.1, the next revision to the DX graphics spec, which is due to arrive with Windows Vista SP1.

Here's the thing. DX10 hardware - such as the GeForce 8800 or the Radeon 2900 - won't work with the new 10.1 features. The 0.1 revision requires completely new hardware for support, thus royally cheesing off many gamers who paid top whack for their new hardware over the last few months on the basis of future game compatibility.

But these gamers shouldn't fret too much - 10.1 adds virtually nothing that they will care about and, more to the point, adds almost nothing that developers are likely to care about. The spec revision basically makes a number of things that are optional in DX10 compulsory under the new standard - such as 32-bit floating point filtering, as opposed to the 16-bit current. 4xAA is a compulsory standard to support in 10.1, whereas graphics vendors can pick and choose their anti-aliasing support currently.

We suspect that the spec is likely to be ill-received. Not only does it require brand new hardware, immediately creating a miniscule sub-set of DX10 owners, but it also requires Vista SP1, and also requires developer implementation.

With developers struggling to justify including DX10 features in their games (see the recent comments by John Carmack and Mark Rein), they're going to be about as likely to further limit their product's market as they are to start developing NES games again. This is especially true given the incredibly limited benefits 10.1 is bringing to the party.

Read all about it here, courtesy of theinquirer.net

Eric

New iMac reviewed
I want two please, make mine 24" with all the trimmings!

Although the white, thin-profile iMac form factor has had a long and venerable run since its introduction as the iMac G5, many felt it was time for a change. In the weeks leading up to the unveiling of the new iMac, the Applesphere twittered with rumors of aluminum enclosures, Santa Rosa chipsets, and the death of the 17" iMac.

Most of the iMac speculation turned out to be right on. The 17" iMac is no more, with the product line streamlined into two 20" models and a single 24" behemoth. Gone is the matte display, too: the new iMacs have a glossy display—and come with a black cloth to keep the extremely-reflective display smudge free.

Apple kept the same form factor but drastically revamped the look. The sleek white look has been replaced with anodized aluminum, and there is now a black bezel around the display—which is now under glass. The Apple logo on the chin of the iMac is now black. It's very different, and after two years of having a white iMac G5 or iMac Core 2 Duo in our kitchen, the anodized aluminum iMac is going to take some getting used to.

Read all about it here, courtesy of Arstechnica.com

Eric

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Preview
Does Blizzard have what it takes to keep it's mega MMO rolling in new subscribers and cash?

We all knew it was coming. Then it was rumored it was coming. Now it's here: the next World of Warcraft expansion, titled Wrath of the Lich King. Among the announced features, the additions include new battlegrounds, quests, items, zones, and a new Death Knight hero class. It's a deceptively basic list, but World of Warcraft has always been a game that really has to be played to be sold on.

To save precious demonstration time, Blizzard had a full array of level 70 characters available to rent out for the day. I chose a prefabricated Undead Mage, who came equipped with piddly blue items and a purple mount, the Yaris of the Warcraft lot. The thing kept breaking down at all the wrong times, with boars and Viking-men repeatedly dismounting and punishing me for my carelessness, eventually rusting my armor to the point of no repair. As a result, my playtime consisted of a set of multiple excursions to all corners of the Howling Fjord zone, where I would inevitably encounter some new level 72 enemy that would do my poor Mage in. This preview is an account of these doomed trips, like an apocalyptic version of National Geographic. My initial trek lead me from the basic grassy knoll of a starting area to a long rope bridge extending between two land masses, with a vast precipice below. Looking out away from the bridge, I spotted a row of dragon heads far off in the distance, some kind of gargoyle-esque display. Moving in that direction I came upon the camp of Nifflevar, where mounted enemies riding on the backs of dragons circled overhead, and men wielding giant axes stood defending the various tents. Being the Undead daredevil that I was, I rode straight through the dangerous fort, issuing a cry of "olo" as I charged. However, without a map to guide me, I found myself stopped at the edge of a cliff, with no way down and a train of angry Vikings on my tail. I leapt into the air in desperation, only to be saved by a well-placed ledge. Impossibly stuck, surrounded by death on either side, I prepared myself for a meeting with the Spirit Healer



Read all about it here, courtesy of Shacknews.com.

Eric

Building a computer for your significant other (and getting her to do all the work!)
We build a ton of pcs for ourselves, it's now time to have one built for our "better half".


Let's get one thing clear from the start: This is not a guide on how to build a "girly computer." If you're hoping to find a list of pink PC components or information on how to bedazzle the crap out of a PC case, you might as well stop reading. My girlfriend of more than three years, Glenda, hates that stuff.

She is, as I'm sure many significant others of people who read this site are, a self-professed computer geek. More than most, even. She doesn't need any help getting things done in Windows. She's not afraid to change a registry entry or two. She loves video games—PC or console—and wants some fairly beefy hardware. The only problem is, she's not into hardware. She knows what all the important parts are, but she doesn't have an interest in PC components and certainly holds no romantic ideals about building her computer herself. Maybe you can relate?

I built a nice Shuttle small-form-factor PC for her a couple years ago, but it's getting pretty outdated, so now's the time for an upgrade. So I made Glenda a deal. I would take her list of what is important to her in a PC, and select and acquire the parts. Then she would have to build it, and write about her experiences doing so here. This will be a little different than many of our Build-It articles—more personal, less generic—but it may provide a nice template for those of you considering a new PC for your better half. Continued...


Read all about it here, courtesy of Extremetech.com

Eric

AMD's Opteron hits 3.2 GHz
Is this too little too late for underdog AMD?

"AMD has no answer to the armada of new Intel's CPUs."

"Penryn will be the final blow."

These two sentences have been showing up on a lot of hardware forums around the Internet. The situation in the desktop is close to desperate for AMD as it can hardly keep pace with the third highest clocked Core 2 Duo CPU, and there are several quad core chips - either high clocked expensive ones or cheaper midrange models - that AMD simply has no answer for at present. As AMD gets closer to the launch of their own quad core, even at a humble 2GHz, Intel let the world know it will deliver a 3GHz quad core Xeon with 12 MB L2 that only needs 80W, and Intel showed that 3.33GHz is just around the corner too. However, there is a reason why Intel is more paranoid than the many hardware enthusiasts.

While most people focus on the fact that Intel's Core CPUs win almost every benchmark in the desktop space, the battle in the server space is far from over. Look at the four socket market for example, also called the 4S space. As we showed in our previous article, the fastest Xeon MP at 3.4GHz is about as fast as the Opteron at 2.6GHz. Not bad at all, but today AMD introduces a 3.2GHz Opteron 8224, which extends AMD's lead in the 4S space. This lead won't last for long, as Intel is very close to introducing its newest quad core Xeon MP Tigerton line, but it shows that AMD is not throwing in the towel. Along with the top-end 3.2GHz 8224 (120W), a 3GHz 8222 at 95W, 3.2GHz Opteron 2224 (120W) and 3GHz 2222 (95W) are also being introduced.

The 3.2GHz Opteron 2224 is quite interesting, as it is priced at $873. This is the same price point as the dual core Intel Xeon 5160 at 3GHz and the quad core Intel Xeon 5355. The contrast with the desktop market is sharp: not one AMD desktop CPU can be found in the higher price ranges. So how does AMD's newest offering compare to the two Intel CPUs? Is it just an attempt at deceiving IT departments into thinking the parts are comparable, or does AMD have an attractive alternative to the Intel CPUs?


Read all about it here, courtesy of Anandtech.com

Eric

CoolerMaster Cosmos Computer Case
Quite possibly the best and most attractive case to come along in a long long time.

Very few cases stood out at this year’s Computex show in Taiwan. The only exception to that was the Cooler Master Cosmos. Not only did this case stand out from all of the rest but they were everywhere. Many companies that don’t sell cases wanted to have a Cosmos displaying their products in their booth. At first glance you can tell that the Cosmos is a high quality case just like all of the products in the Stacker line. For the last couple of years Cooler Master has lost a little market share to the likes of Thermaltake and Antec but with the Cosmos they are looking to take it back. To do this they went with the tried and true formula, quality parts, excellent design and a lower price.

Today we are going to look at the Cooler Master Cosmos in detail. Once we get done with product packaging and random images we are going to build a daily use workstation inside of the Cosmos and see how it performs visually, acoustically and let you know if we had any difficulties. By taking this approach with our case reviews you will know everything there is to know about the Cosmos just like you built it yourself.

About Cooler Master

Cooler Master was formed around a decade ago with a goal of providing the very best thermal solutions. Over that time CM has expanded their operations from heat sink cooling systems and now manufactures cases, fans, power supplies and other miscellaneous products for the PC industry.

Read all about it here, courtesy of realworldbenchmarks.com

Eric

Lost Planet Performance and Directx 10
Is DX9 actually better in terms of performance to DX10?...yep

We have all been waiting for a PC video game to be released into retail with “native” DirectX 10 support. We all thought Crysis would be the first game to be delivered with this support, but it isn’t here yet unfortunately. Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, is now for sale and does boast DX10 support. Lost Planet’s roots are planted in the Xbox 360 but it has been ported over for PC gamers. There have been many upgrades made to the PC version of the game, namely DX10 functionality and at least one DX10-only feature. When you launch the game you can chose to enable DirectX 9 mode or DirectX 10 mode. The graphic upgrades from Xbox to PC include resolution support to 2560x1600, improved shadow quality, parallax occlusion normal mapping, image-based ambient occlusion, higher detail textures, the use of vertex texture fetch for the animation system and depth buffer reads improved for soft particles.

Read all about it here courtesy of HardOCP.com

Eric

Hacking Vista: Speeding Up Your Web Browser and Network Connection
If your going to use Vista, you might as well tweak it and make it the best you can.

The following is a complete chapter from our recent ExtremeTech book, "Hacking Windows Vista." Our two previous excerpts from this book include Optimizing Core OS Components and Speeding Up the System Boot.

Your browser and network subsystem play a major role in the use of your computer. People are spending more and more time using their web browsers and the Internet, making the web browser the most used application on many users' computers. Now that you have optimized almost every major component of the operating system, let's cover the most used application and components it is dependent on, the web browser and the network that connects you to the Internet.

First you will optimize the speed of both Internet Explorer and Firefox by tweaking the number of active downloads. Then I show you some great utilities that will increase the speed of your downloads, followed by tweaks that will speed up your network.

Read all about it here, courtesy of Extremetech.com

Eric