Microsoft Launches Windows 7 Development Blog

The folks down there in Redmond have gone ahead and released themselves a new blog, this time focusing on Windows 7 development. There's only a single introduction post right now, but they note their goal to fill us in on all upcoming Windows 7-related happenings. Since '7' has been in development since even before Vista's launch, they no doubt have a lot to say.

They further note that two upcoming events, Professional Developers Conference and Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), will be the first venues where in-depth Windows 7 technical detail will be released, so at that time we should be learning a lot more about what to expect from the upcoming operating system, which is still tentatively dated for release in early 2010.

I'm sure I'm not alone in being skeptical about the future release, because Vista wasn't exactly the ideal launch Microsoft would have hoped it'd be. How they plan to clean up that mess and release a new OS that's not to make the same mistakes is going to be interesting, especially with a release date that's in reality, not that far off.

The audience of enthusiasts, bloggers, and those that are the most passionate about Windows represent the folks we are dedicating this blog to. With this blog we’re opening up a two-way discussion about how we are making Windows 7. Windows has all the challenges of every large scale software project-picking features, designing them, developing them, and delivering them with high quality.

Source: Windows 7 Development Blog

Intel Admits to G45 Performance Issues

A few months ago, I boasted that Intel's G45 chipset held a lot of promise, and for good reason. It's power efficient, powerful and can handle 1080p playback without issue. Or, at least it should. According to a new blog entry at Intel's Software Network site, Aaron Brezenski admits to issues that are plaguing the chipset now, but shifts the blame to the software vendors.

Aaron stresses that the players used for the actual 1080p playback are lacking the appropriate optimizations, which, if true, is a little ridiculous since G45 has been feature-complete for a while. We even saw boards equipped with the chipset at CeBit back in March, so what's the hold-up? The problem relies even with Intel's own DG45ID mATX board, which we are currently evaluating in our labs, and ExtremeTech found it to score only 30 out of 100 on the HD HQV test.

If the players are what's to blame, then fixes should be en route, but you might want to reconsider your G45 plans for now, unless you were planning to build a machine with a very fast CPU and beefy graphics card. Aside from this playback issue, G45 is still a great chipset, but given the playback is a feature almost anyone who purchases a board would want, it leaves little choice but to go with something else.

Despite all the problems Brezenski still maintains that G45 is the perfect home theater chipset. Intel's inability to get its latest integrated graphics functioning correctly for home theater use -- whether or not Intel is at fault -- may leave many wondering how they'll be able to pull off a more complicated discrete graphics processor based on Larrabee in the future.

Source: DailyTech

The iMac Turns Ten

I've said it a million times before, but I'll say it again, "Time flies.". Ten years ago, Apple released a new computer that really, really caught people off-guard. It was so different, and many people were undecided on whether to even like it or not. I personally didn't, but I'm fussier than a wine-taster. What computer am I talking about? The iMac of course.

Ten-years-ago is when the first bulby-designed computer was released in numerous different colors, and as far as I know, it was the first to keep everything internal, except for the mouse and keyboard, of course. Whether or not you liked it though, it's fun looking back, because technology today is in all regards 10x better.

The first iMac had a CRT screen, making the entire unit heavy, it featured a 233MHz PowerPC (G3) CPU, 32MB of RAM (whoa), 2MB of VRAM on the ATI Rage card, two USB ports (I believe the iMac was the first computer with USB ports, but I might be mistaken) and a staggering 4GB hard drive. How far we've come. Whether or not you like the iMac, it's undoubtedly one of the most memorable computers in history.

Suddenly, the dying Apple was back in business, and in a big way. In addition to being all about the Internet, the iMac was the first consumer machine to go completely legacy-free: it offered only USB in an era when serial, parallel, and SCSI cables were still cluttering up desktops, and completely ditched the floppy drive long before the rest of the industry.

Source: Ars Technica

August 15th Tech Roundup

• Lanparty DK X48-T2R - Ninjalane
• ECS P45T-A - PC Perspective
• ASUS Crosshair II - InsideHW

• Samsung Syncmaster 943B 19" Display - PCSTATS
• Sapphire HD 4850 - XSReviews
• Powercolor PCS HD 4850 - techPowerUp

• Kingston HyperX PC3 2GB - Legit Reviews
• Crucial Ballistix DDR3 2GB - Rbmods
• Mtron Pro 7500 32GB SSD - Benchmark Reviews
• ATP ToughDrive 2GB USB Drive - Overclockers Club

• OCZ Alchemy Elixir Keyboard - I4U
• Cyber Snipa Sonar 5.1 Speakers - BurnOutPC

• Zalman CNPS9300-AT CPU Cooler - Virtual-Hideout
• Gelid Solutions GC-1 Thermal Paste - Elite Bastards