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Peripherals and Multimedia
Friday, August 29, 2008

Peripherals:
Cyber Snipa PWNAGE Desktop @ TweakTown
DLO TransDock Deluxe @ Hardware Secrets
Sans Digital MS1U Media Saver @ ASE Labs
Sidekick LX Cell Phone @ Digital Trends

Multimedia:
Making A Sound Decision On Speakers @ TweakTown
SteelSeries Siberia Neckband Headphone @ Metku
Turtle Beach X3 Xbox 360 Headset @ Techgage.com
How to Use the SPDIF Output from Sound Blaster X-Fi Sound Cards @ Hardware Secrets

    
AMD launches New Desktop CPUs, Cuts Prices of the Rest!
Thursday, August 28, 2008

AMD has announced four new CPUs and cut down the prices of their older CPUs.  The four new CPUs include the Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition 125W, Phenom X3 8750 Black Edition 95W, Athlon X2 6500 Black Edition 95W and Athlon X2 5050e 45W. The Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition costs US$186, US$139 for Phenom X3 8750. US$105 for Athlon X2 6500 and Athlon X2 5050e costs US$90.

 "This is a strong price move, indicating AMD's commitment to the channel, especially smaller system integrators," said Raj Suman, Euro product marketing director. "The market is soft right now but this has repositioned AMD well. The main battleground between AMD and Intel is the $135-$180 band." - HEXUS.

 Thanks to Cas for posting this news to our forum.
    
The Internet's Biggest Security Hole Revealed!
Thursday, August 28, 2008

A new technique has been demonstrated by two security researchers to explain the Internet’s biggest security hole. The method exploits the Internet routing protocol BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) and allows someone (obviously an attacker) to intercept Internet traffic anywhere in the globe. The captured information can easily be modified before it reaches its destination. Click here to read the entire story.

 

"It's a huge issue. It's at least as big an issue as the DNS issue, if not bigger," said Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, noted computer security expert and former member of the L0pht hacking group, who testified to Congress in 1998 that he could bring down the internet in 30 minutes using a similar BGP attack, and disclosed privately to government agents how BGP could also be exploited to eavesdrop. "I went around screaming my head about this about ten or twelve years ago.... We described this to intelligence agencies and to the National Security Council, in detail." – Wired Blog.

    
Microsoft Releases Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2
Thursday, August 28, 2008

Microsoft has introduced their second beta of Internet Explorer 8, now available for  public download. IE 8 Beta 2 is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions for Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008. This release extends the language support to Japanese, Chinese and German.

The detailed list of version change history can be found here. To download a copy of IE 8 Beta 2, click here.

We focused our work around three themes: everyday browsing (the things that real people do all the time), safety (the term most people use for what we’ve called ‘trustworthy’ in previous posts), and the platform (the focus of Beta 1, how developers around the world will build the next billion web pages and the next waves of great services). “ – MSDN Blogs.

    
Computer Virus in Space
Thursday, August 28, 2008

Yesterday, NASA confirmed that a computer virus was found on a laptop aboard the International Space Station (IIS) which then went on to infect nearlyt 50 computers. Kelly Humphries, NASA’s spokesperson said that, “It's not the first virus we've seen on the station," "It's not a common occurrence by any means." Humphries has also confirmed that the virus was successfully removed with anti-virus software and posed no threats to ISS systems or operations. Congrats!

Though NASA declined to disclose any detailed info about the virus, SpaceRef.com reported that the virus was the W32.Gamming.AG worm. This game-oriented deadly virus gets installed and steals login information. So, one of the astronauts was gaming onboard the IIS? “The SpaceRef report suggested that a flash card or USB drive brought on board by an astronaut may have been the source of the laptop infection.” – InformationWeek.

(Rating-4.00)
    
Say Goodbye to Laser Mice
Thursday, August 28, 2008

Optical laser mice might have a rough time competing with the new Blue Track mouse from Microsoft scheduled to launch on September 9. In fact it’s already been spotted at the German Amazon.com store and at the YouGame online store . The Blue Track uses a blue (I’m sure you could have guessed!) LED and a wide angle lens, so that can be used on any surface. The Blue Track also has a USB wireless adapter so that you can connect easily connect it to a PC – very handy for use with a notebook - Gizmodo.

    
Switch to Dish TV
Thursday, August 28, 2008

On February 17 2009 the United States will force its people to watch HDTV! Will this be accepted? Looks like there won’t be much choice. They’ll be switching to digital television signals and getting rid of all analogue TV signals. This is a technical advancement with better picture and sound quality but what about the television sets? How will this effect you if you live in the US? Mike Santini from Techware Labs has published an editorial that explains what you need to know.

“We are switching because digital is better. Really -That's why! Digital broadcasting allows for significantly better picture and sound. Digital also allows for what is called multicasting.”

    
NAS with Blu-ray Burner from LG
Thursday, August 28, 2008

Blu-ray is the latest format for data storage and with many manufacturers launching their Blu-ray devices, LG has taken a different step. The company has launched the world’s first Network Attached Storage (NAS) device with a built-in Blu-ray drive. This is no ordinary machine, it punches a massive 4TB of storage coupled with a Blu-ray burner and three USB 2.0 ports. The unique feature of this demon is that the NAS automatically burns old data to a Blu-ray disc, leaving space on the hard disc. - Slashgear.

“while the press release states that the NAS reduces the need for each user to have their own Blu-ray drive, it doesn’t make clear whether this is merely in terms of backup or if Blu-ray movies can be played via the N4B1.”

    
Talk to your PC
Thursday, August 28, 2008

Is this the perfect work partner, which can convert your verbal ideas into document? Dragon NaturallySpeaking is software that allows you to talk at your PC and and then it converts your words into a document. Earlier versions were frustrating – they weren’t able to differentiate many words, but according to PCMech the problem has been solved in the latest, version 10. The new version is apparently so advanced that it recognizes words with 98%accuracy. Is this true? Is this a personal assistant who can write documents for just $99?! – PC Mech

 

“For those not familiar with the product, Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a software product that allows you to speak to your computer (via microphone obviously) and transcribe everything you say into a document.”

    
Linux PC Render Farm: 6 Motherboards, 24 Cores, 48GB DDR2!
Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Have you ever seen a machine with 24 cores, 45GB of DDR2 RAM and 6 motherboards? If haven’t, you need to watch the story of Helmer! You might wonder, what case can be used assemble this monstrous machine? Well, the answer is the IKEA Helmer cabinet. Check out the entire procedure here.

“3D computer rendering are very CPU intensive and the best way so speed up slow render problems, are usually to distribute them on to more computers. Render farms are usually very large, expensive and run using ALLOT of energy. I wanted to build something that could be put in my home, not make too much noise and run using very little energy...”

    

 
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Most recent blog entries
Update in Process
John Gatt's Babblings By John Gatt onThursday, August 21, 2008 2:13 PM
So, there’s a new iPhone update out there. The first thing I did this morning was plug in my iPhone to sync it with iTunes and get the latest update, hoping it would fix some of the crash Apple screens of death issues I’ve been having and also hoping it would fix some of the home wireless network issues I’ve been having. Whenever Wi-Fi is enabled on my iPhone it randomly resets my wireless router. Other wireless network devices like PCs, notebooks and my Playstation don’t seem to have the issue but the iPhones for some strange reason does.
 
So I download the software and let it go through the whole backup process of the phone, which takes an incredibly long time. About an hour later I see an error message that says update failed, unknown error 13. So, I disconnect the iPhone which is now in recover mode, and reconnect it. iTunes ...
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@Me dot com
John Gatt's Babblings By John Gatt onTuesday, August 19, 2008 9:34 AM
iTunes has advertised the Apple @Me service to me a couple of times, so I thought I’d give it a spin. If you don’t know what @Me is, it’s iTune or Apple’s solution to Gmail but it’s meant to have more features than just email. It supports Contacts, Photos and general item storage – up to 20GB can be stored in your @Me account. Although they offer a free 90 day trial, it does have a US$99 per year price tag and there is no option for a free version. It’s all or nothing after the 90 days.
 
The whole idea behind @Me is for flawless synchronization between your work PC, Home PC and mobile device – aka the iPhone. First impressions of this service are that they need to do a lot of work to bring it up to scratch. It’s slow and the POP email section of it is nothing short of pathetic. Although your @Me email has a spam filter connected ...
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VIA Leaving the Chipset Business – Oh my God, is that News?
John Gatt's Babblings By John Gatt onThursday, August 14, 2008 2:41 PM
As some of you may know, I was once heavily involved in the VIA chipset business for quite a number of years. I did everything from reference board designs to chipset presentations at QuakeCon. Last year it became evident that VIA was leaving the chipset business. It was even said in a coupe of interviews, that VIA will only be focusing on chipsets for their own CPUs. Richard Brown, VIA’s VP of Marketing, was interviewed this week, where he reconfirmed that VIA has left the chipset market – not that he really needed to as it’s plainly obvious since VIA hasn’t released a chipset for any product other than its own for well over a year. But yet some media seem to have taken this little comment, confirming something that was very obvious, way out of proportion. It’s laughable that journalists are even thinking this is worthy news. Some of these guys really need to get out from underneath their mushroom and look around at what’s going on, or is it really ju ...
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