Content and news by Rob Williams

“The PCB (printed circuit board) in this case cost $13.40, but the most expensive stuff is the memory. In this case Nvidia used 128 bit memory clocked at 500MHz and it used 8Mx16 chips. The total number of chips is eight, and each chip costs $3.50 so that’s $28.

In total this card’s BOM cost $99.40 and there will also be money spent on cooling the thing. Nvidia’s partner has to pay for the shipping, bundle, and cables but Nvidia suggested a retail price of $199 back then. So there is still some money to be earned from selling these cards.”

Check out the posting at The Inquirer. Definitely interesting..

“OpenOffice.org, an open-source software maker, has confirmed a buffer overflow issue that could allow remote attacks.

The problem in its freely distributed productivity applications has been fixed, the organization said late Tuesday. Representatives said the group hopes to release a patch within the next 48 hours.”

Check out the full read at News.com.

SWG Dev Chat on Wednesday, April 13th! On Wednesday, April 13th at 5:00 PM PDT / 7:00PM CDT / 8:00PM EDT, SWG Stratics network will be hosting a chat with the developers of Star Wars Galaxies in the #StraticsHoC channel on Stratics IRC. The topic of discussion will be combat balance. If Comment (0) -->

“Picture yourself sitting on a cross-country airplane flight trying to read a book or catch a nap while sandwiched between passengers yakking non-stop on their cell phones. And consider the overall increase of noise in an airplane as dozens of passengers walk up and down the aisle hollering into their phones. People often feel that their peace and privacy are invaded by inconsiderate cell-phone users in restaurants, movies, elevators … you name the public venue. Inside an aircraft, however, you’ll be stuck. You can’t change seats or walk out.”

Check out the interesting read at Chigago Tribune (Free Registeration).

“Do you have a lot of lights in your case? Do you want to be able to control them through one control panel, add a bunch of different effects, and even make them sound reactive? Well today we will be looking at a product that can do all that and more. I am proud to present the Sunbeam LightBus!”

Check it out at Think Computers.

GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN — Project Entropia, a rapidly growing virtual world utilizing a real cash economy, today announces the enormous success of the 7.2 version update and the “Home for Everyone” campaign as thousands flock to buy virtual property. On March 23, 2005, the launch of the 7.2 upgrade took effect including the Comment (0) -->

“THE ASIA-CENTERED Turbolinux Inc., the company which calls itself “the leading Linux distribution in the Asia-Pacific region” but has very much retreated from the rest of the world (there was a time when Turbo had a decent market share in the U.S. and IBM’s Lotus Notes software supported only two linux distros: RedHat and Turbolinux, -go figure-) has announced the availability of a freely downloadable “technical preview” of Turbolinux 10 for 64-bit cpus. The company says that Turbolinux 10 for AMD64/EM64T is “compatible with the 64-bit Extension Technology Software (EM64T) of Intel Corporation, and AMD Opteron/Athlon 64 Processor of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.”.

Might be a slow download, since it appears on a Japanese server. Check out the posting at The Inquirer.

They are continuing on day three of their Me TV set of articles.

“And for all 200 laps, fans were right in the front seat with Junior and six of his rivals, flipping between seven respective channels displaying live driver’s-eye views fed straight from the cars’ roll bars. Others followed the race on the XM Satellite Radio service, the HDNet high-definition TV network, multiple sports cable outlets and even at two movie theaters showing the race.”

Check it out at News.com.

“Card readers have not only been very popular, they have also become something of a necessity in a world of multiple flash media standards.

Today, PsYkHoTiK takes a look at the Soyo BayOne XP multi-card reader. Let’s see what this internal 9-in-1 multi-card reader can do!”

Check out the review at Rojak Pot.

“Initially I was a little skeptic about the design concept as I worried a little how well a passively cooled system can cool down a modern CPU, in our case an Athlon 64 4000+, but what if I tell you that we never ever topped 35 Degrees C with this kit, in complete silence and with the heat dissipated from the ambient surroundings (inside) of your PC case.

Interesting ? Yes, of course it is. Let’s talk a little about cooling and then startup a big photo session on everything that we did with this kit as it isn’t just about cooling, it’s also about aesthetics, you’ll get UV reactive peripherals, UV reactive water, and a blacklight to make it all light up like a Christmas tree. Really good stuff.”

Head over to Guru3D for the review.

“Microsoft has released a slew of new security fixes for Windows, Messenger, Internet Explorer, Word and Exchange software. Five of the eight updates are marked as critical.

Users who have already downloaded and installed the new Windows XP Service Pack 2 still need to get these latest fixes to prevent systems being compromised. Microsoft say all operating systems from Windows 98 are affected.”

Check out the posting at Boost Marketing and download your updates!

“First off we must say that the fan we used in this review with this Thermalright XP-120 is only a basic computer case fan of low power output so we cannot expect top cooler performance from this Thermalright XP-120 in these tests. We chose this fan because you all know or probably have a basic 12cm computer case fan so you can judge for yourselves what sort of increased cooler performance this Thermalright XP-120 will achieve with a much more powerful fan that can be easily and cheaply purchased from many suppliers.”

Check it out at A1 Electronics.

“PCs ARE SLOWLY creeping into every room of the house, particularly the living room, where home-theater PCs (HTPCs) have become popular among enthusiasts seeking to integrate multiple audiovisual devices into a single system. Personal video recording (PVR) features have also become an increasingly popular feature for HTPCs, a trend that has not gone unnoticed. Microsoft recently eased licensing restrictions on its Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system to allow any system builder to purchase the OS. However, Media Center Edition still has strict video requirements. To take full advantage of MCE’s features, a system requires a TV tuner with hardware MPEG2 encoding and a DirectX 9-compatible graphics card.”

Check it out at Tech Report.

“Ultra Products, known for their very sharp looking power supplies, has recently started to branch out and offer different types of products such as MP3 players, computer modding accessories, and system memory. In this review, we’ll be reviewing their Mini Portable Hard Drive Enclosure 3.5″.”

Check out the full review at Phoronix.

“It seams everybody is wanting to do more and more with their PC these days. We have ultra fast systems that put out lots of heat, so we want to keep them cool. We have digital cameras and other devices that use all kinds of media cards, not to mention those that use USB, Firewire or even SATA connections. To fulfill these needs companies have come up with fan controllers, I/O panels, card readers, and temperature displaying LCD screens. But what about the limited amount of real estate on the front of your case? If you have all these items and a standard mid-tower case, there’s no room left for your drives. How are you supposed to make that work? That’s where Sunbeam comes in.”

Check it out at 3D Xtreme.

“After a few hours on idle. and the lowest recorded voltage on the 12v rail was 12.28. However, really to fully test the CPU we need to give it an extra bit of volts and clock the system up. Infact let us clock the whole system up.. CPU a P4 3.0 went from 200fsb to 242 and a resulting clock of 3.639, with a bus of 970mhz. Graphics was pushed from a 400 core to 445 with memory up from 950 to 1100.. even then the 12v+ didnt drop below 12 under load.”

Check it out at Xtreme Computing.

“The Aspire X-Plorer Steel Case has great looks, good features and is affordable. The case is available in a number of different colors and build quality is quite good for this line of product. There are plenty of drive bays: 5×5.25″, 2×3.5″ (Ext.), and 4×3.5″ (Int.). It also comes with two 80mm fans, one at the top and rear. It even has a window with a ventilation port for the CPU cooler to insure proper case cooling. Watch the Video to find out more…”

Check out the review at 3D Gameman!

“Eager Mac customers can get their hands on Tiger at 6pm 29 April at AppleCentres and authorised resellers, where the company will host events for the release..

..The desktop edition will cost AU$199 (Approx $153US) for a single-user licence. An AU$299 licence for a single residence, called the Mac OS X Tiger Family pack, will cover five users.”

Check out the full article at ZDNet AU. Lots of info about Tiger can be found here.

“The All-In-Wonder series of boards have long since been one of ATI’s premier ranges, marrying cutting edge PC multimedia features with the best of ATI’s graphics, however with the announcement of All-In-Wonder X800 XT back in September, the gestation period for actually bringing it to market could hardly have been called short.”

Check out the full review at Beyond3D.

“The April 12, 2005 deadline passed Tuesday and Microsoft has followed through with its pledge to revoke the grace period that provided enterprise customers the option to postpone the adoption of Windows XP Service Pack 2. The update, which fortifies Windows with a variety of new security enhancements, will now be pushed to customers and has become a requirement to receive future upgrades.”

Goodie. As some may remember, when SP2 was first launched, it worked on only 90% of computers smoothly. That’s not a high number, really. It will be nice to see how this affects these enterprises. Check out the full read at BetaNews.