Tech News

ATI Releases Catalyst 9.7, Sports New Interface

It’s been a long-time coming, but ATI yesterday officially released their Catalyst 9.7 drivers, which aside from bringing some performance updates, also sports a brand-new interface. In the little amount of time I’ve had to spend with the latest driver, I’m still up in the air as to whether I like the new interface, more, or less, and I have a good feeling that a lot of people are going to be with me.

To help improve the interface, and make it appear cleaner, ATI has hid all of the sub-menus to reside inside of the top menu that’s labeled “Graphics”. Clicking there will reveal all of the menus we’re used to, such as “Information Center”, “Desktops & Displays”, “Desktop Properties”, “3D” and so forth. Selecting one of these will change what’s seen in the application face. In the case of the below screenshot, I have the 3D tab selected.

While the CCC looks cleaner, what it also does is makes it a little more difficult to access the tab you want, quickly, since before, all the options were available right there. The upside is that the tab you leave it on before closing, will be the first tab you see when you start it back up. This will prove useful for when you overclock with ATI’s Overdrive utility.

Also new to Catalyst 9.7 is Windows 7 WHQL certification. This is a rather significant announcement, because it means that Microsoft themselves have verified the driver for use with the latest OS, so you can feel completely confident in installing it in your rig. Aside from that, the ATI Video Converter has also received an update, also for added Windows 7 support.

For those on ATI cards, be sure to head over to Game.AMD and grab the driver!

In this new beta version of Catalyst Control Center we have a newly redesigned user interface to enhance usability and end user efficiency, which includes a newly designed Desktops and Displays Manager which will enable users to quickly configure and arrange their displays. Most of us power users have multiple monitors and as such, this will help with the frustrations of multi monitor management, especially with scenarios where a laptop is removed from a docking station prior to sleeping and returned prior to sleeping. ATI Catalyst 9.7 has full support for Hydravision under Windows 7.

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Cheap Notebooks, DIY Linux, Google’s Chrome OS and More…

I’m going to feel like a broken record when I say this, but I’m still working on revising our various methodologies, and thanks to other work creeping up on me, things have slowed down just a tad. The goal at the moment is to wrap up our GPU testing by the middle of next week, then jump right on wrapping up our CPU testing suite. As a reminder, I’m actively looking for ideas in that regard, so please check out our thread and comment if you have a great idea!

It pains me to have not delivered a piece of performance content in a while, given it’s what we thrive on, but we haven’t skipped a beat on other content, so there’s still lots to check out. In case you missed it, Brett took a hard look at what Google’s Chrome OS may become, and I agree with a lot of his thoughts. It’s really hard at this point in the game to know exactly what Google has in store, but it’s sure fun to speculate!

Just earlier this week, Bill took one of the wildest chassis’ I’ve ever seen for a spin, and his end thoughts are mixed. On one hand, it’s a neat-looking case, and it also has some unique cooling-abilities. On the other though, my idea of building up a PC never involves cutting myself on the case’s rough edges. Who’s with me?

If you want what I consider to be quite the deal, I posted a review of Gateway’s UC7807u notebook earlier this week. What makes it quite the deal is that it’s been discontinued, and as a result, what had a price tag of $800 two months ago now has a price tag of $600, and that, to me, is well worth it. The notebook has sweet styling, solid performance and other perks. For $600, it’s hard to go wrong.

Posted just today is a look at SUSE Studio, a service that allows you to build a distro your way. This article also happens to be our first in-depth Linux article in quite a while, but we plan to keep things going and conjuring up some cool content for anyone out there intrigued with Linux (and according to our site stats, about 8% of our readers already use some form of Linux). But that all aside, this is a cool service, and though it’s not live, it’s open for beta testers, so check it out!

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Windows 7 Hits RTM Stage, Family Pack is a Go

The moment so many of you have been waiting for is here: Windows 7 has finally hit RTM. That means that the code is done, and absolutely no changes will be made prior to final release. Any bugs found from hereon out will most likely be of a minor variety, and will have to be taken care of through Windows Update. For those keeping track, the build number for the RTM is 7600 (Vista’s RTM was 6000.16386).

As mentioned in last week’s post, regular consumers and tech enthusiasts are unable to get their grubby hands on the latest release, as it’s being reserved for partners, OEMS, business customers and so forth. If you’re wondering whether you or your workplace qualify for an early test-drive, you can refer to a recent blog posting that covers pretty much everyone.

Also, to follow-up on the potential “family pack” mentioned a few weeks ago, the same blog post linked to above answers the question, saying, “we will indeed be offering a family pack of Windows 7 Home Premium (in select markets) which will allow installation on up to 3 PCs“… so if you have more than one PC in your house that you’d like to upgrade to 7, pre-ordering right now might not be the best idea. Details will hopefully follow very soon.

In somewhat related news, the Windows Server team also celebrated an RTM for 2008 R2. If you are a system administrator, you can see all of what’s new at that blog. And just as a reminder, Windows 7 will be launched on Oct 22, so you can begin your planning now if you are going to upgrade right away. If you happen to be either a hardware or software developer, you can check out the Ready. Set. 7 site to get all of the information you need to get started.

Not only is RTM an important milestone for us – it’s also an important milestone for our partners. Today’s release is the result of hard work and collaboration with our partners in the industry to make Windows 7 a success. We delivered Windows 7 with a predictable feature set on a predictable timetable that allowed OEMs to focus on value and differentiation for their customers.

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Thunderbird 3 Beta 3 Released

It seems to me that nowadays, the number of people using desktop e-mail clients is beginning to diminish. With services like Gmail offering support for external addresses, there are many reasons that  people may choose to forego installing an extra application on their PC. I’m the opposite, and the only web-based mail I use is on the our servers when I’m out of the house. I love the features and stability actual desktop e-mail clients offer, and I don’t see that changing soon.

Regardless of which OS you run though, the options for clients is quite slim. Although there are many out there, in my experience I’ve found many to be lackluster, or too specific in its goals. Sometime during 2004, I discovered Thunderbird from Mozilla, and I haven’t looked back. If there’s one reason it kicks ass, it’s because it’s cross-platform. Since I use Linux on a day-to-day basis, but sometimes Windows on notebooks, I can interchange profiles without an issue. So regardless of which PC I’m on, I can use my e-mail as I always do.

But if there’s one thing Thunderbird seems to be due for, it’s an upgrade, not only in features, but visuals. That’s where Thunderbird 3 comes into play. The first available beta was released last December, with a follow-up this past February. Just the other day, Beta 3 was released, tackling many issues that existed, while also adding a few new features. If you want to get an idea of what plans are floating around for the final release, you can check out the respective wiki page, and for Beta 3-specific information, hit up the link below!

I’m going to take the “do not use in a production environment” warning to heart and wait until the final release before really exhausting the new features.

Double-clicking or hitting enter on a mail message will now open that message in a New Tab window. Middle-clicking on messages or folders will open them in a Tab in the background. When quitting Thunderbird, visible tabs will be saved and will be restored when you open Thunderbird the next time. There is also a new Tab menu on the Tab toolbar to help you switch between Tabs.

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Intel’s Revised X25-M Delivers on its Promise of Improved Performance

In case you happened to have missed it, Intel launched the industry’s first 34nm-based solid-state disks on Tuesday, and there are a few reasons to be excited. First, there are significant price-drops, with the 80GB version to sell for around $225 (/1,000) and the 160GB drive for $440. What’s impressive about these refined prices is that the original 80GB was released less than a year ago. In that time, we’ve seen the density double, yet the price lowered.

We’re still awaiting our copy of the 160GB model (the joys of living in Canada!), but we expect it here within the next few days. Once I receive it, I’ll give it some preliminary testing and post the results. As you’re probably aware, we haven’t done storage content in a while, but that will soon change. We’re still ironing through the details of our CPU/Motherboard methodologies, but once done, storage will follow. So you can expect a lot more HDD/SSD goodness in the coming months.

While I await our copy of the drive, I couldn’t help but check out Anand’s initial findings on the drive, and some of them are quite interesting. Probably most interesting is that rather than stick to 8GB memory chips as on the previous 160GB model, the latest drives use 16GB. Because of that, only one side is occupied, meaning that if Intel had wanted to, they could likely make a 320GB version of the drive right now. Don’t get too excited though… that’s not likely to happen for a while.

In initial tests, Intel still dominates the sequential read tests, and also the random read/writes, and despite its 70MB/s rated write speed, a synthetic test showed it to hit 78.1MB/s. Still, even with that bump, Intel’s drives still fall well below the competition, unless we’re talking about their SLC-based X25-E. Luckily for Intel though (not that they are likely too worried), it’s the random read/write performance that truly matters, at least at this point in time.

The real strength of the Intel drives is in its random, small file, read/write performance. Here we see a 10% improvement in random read performance over the 1st gen drives, putting the new X25-M ahead of even the X25-E. Now there are obvious lifespan benefits you get from an SLC drive that the G2 can’t match, but for a desktop user this thing is even better than the X25-E.

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Is it Time to Lay Internet Explorer 6 to Rest?

People love to hate a lot of things, and in the browser world, it’s Internet Explorer 6. The hatred isn’t unfounded though, and even non-techy Internet surfers understand just how much it’s lacking. I found this out in a big way late last week when my brother, who in no way is a software geek, complained to me after designing his website, saying that “Internet Explorer needs to die”.

His comment really caught me off guard, because coincidentally, social networking tracking site Mashable posted a story with almost an identical title, “IE6 Must Die for the Web to Move On”. If you’re a web developer, you already know all of the reasons, from incompatibility with web standards, to incompatibility with web standards, to, and most important, incompatibility with web standards.

It’s true. Try to view a PNG with a white background or no background in IE6. Most often, what’s supposed to be transparent is pure black. Or the lack of support for CSS 2, an absolute standard code-type that lays as the backbone for many site’s themes and layouts (including ours). Then there’s the fact that upcoming web technologies are only going to make things worse, such as HTML 5, since IE6 in no way will fare well with what it brings to the table. Bottom line? Make sure your family and friends drop IE6 and use a more modern browser (even IE8!).

Other companies have cited IE6 as holding them back as well. 37Signals, the maker of some of the most popular web-based business apps around (i.e. Basecamp) very publicly cut support for IE6 because according to them, “continued support of IE 6 means that we can’t optimize our interfaces or provide an enhanced customer experience in our apps.”

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Foxconn Employee Commits Suicide After iPhone Prototype Disappears

If I had to work anywhere in China, the last place I’d consider a job at would be Foxconn. Over the years, there have been a few stories of what the demands on their employees are like, and it really came to the forefront three years ago when the company was accused of running a sweatshop. It was indeed found that employees would regularly work 80 hours overtime a month, when the legal limit was 36.

Well, the image around the company has gotten even sketchier this week with an employee suicide that’s apparently directly-linked to pressure from the company. Sun Danyong, 25, was responsible for handling the shipment of 16 iPhone prototypes. One went missing, and even now it’s unknown (at least to the public) about its whereabouts. That didn’t stop Foxconn from using less-than-ideal measures to find it.

After the prototype was found to be missing, Sun was quickly interrogated. Although it hasn’t been verified to be true, he told friends that he was beat as well. To push the envelope just a little too far, Foxconn employees even broke into and ransacked his apartment in search of the device. Long story short, the pressure was apparently too much, and Sun unfortunately decided suicide was the only option.

I won’t let personal feelings get in the way of this news post, but something clearly has to be done to improve the work ethics of these companies. Although it wasn’t even verified that he was the one responsible for the missing unit, they took extreme action. This handling of things along with other incredible employee demands… it’s just twisted. As for Apple, they expressed sadness of the incident. Now we’ll just have to wait until the investigation clears to (hopefully) get the full story.

Sun’s classmates (he had just graduated from university and joined Foxconn in 2008), said that before his suicide, he had talked to them about the interrogation techniques Foxconn’s security guys had used – including “laying hands” on him, though he did not specify how. Security officers that worked with Gu argued that it was unlikely – the security office is one large room staffed by 60 to 70 people. While Sun had been taken behind a screen that obscured the rest of the room’s view, witnesses would have been able to hear if he had been beaten.

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EVGA’s GTX 285 for Mac Given a Test

During our meeting with EVGA at last month’s Computex, one product on display that really caught my eye was a GTX 285. Of course, since that particular model had been available for three months at that point, it wasn’t the card itself that was impressive, but rather the subtle “Mac Edition” denotation on the card’s face. Finally, I thought, a high-end graphics card for the Mac that wasn’t designed for workstation use!

If there’s one person concerned with Mac performance nowadays, it would have to be Anand, so it’s no surprise that he wasted no time in getting one of these into his lab to see what it took to upgrade his brand-new Mac Pro. Believe it or not, upgrading such a machine isn’t the same as upgrading a PC. Rather than installing the card and then the driver, it’s vice versa on the Mac. There’s also a unique power setup, but I’ll leave that to the article to tackle.

Not surprisingly, there’s little reason right now to have such a fast GPU for Mac OS X (gaming under Windows through Bootcamp, however, is a good reason), unless you have really specific needs, so what it really comes down to is the amount of GPU memory available. Believe it or not, a web browser at 2560×1600 takes up about 7MB of your GPU’s memory, and get this… a 12 megapixel JPEG in Photoshop (thanks to the OpenGL feature) can take up over 50MB! Benefits of having 1GB of on-board memory becomes a little clearer.

One fun piece of information I walked away with from the aforementioned EVGA meeting was the fact that the card wasn’t going to cost that much more than the PC version. Well, apparently thing’s have changed, because as it stands, the Mac version sells for $449 on all e-tailers I’ve checked, while the PC version sells for $345. On the PC side, there’s even a version with a slightly slower memory bus, and that sells for $305. For a ~$105 premium, they could have slapped 2GB on there. At least that would have given people the illusion that it wasn’t overpriced!

The other thing I’d like to see is EVGA work to break down the ridiculous pricing on these things. A $100 price premium for two cables, different packaging and an EFI compliant ROM is ridiculous. Unfortunately that seems to be what the Apple user has to live with. EVGA’s pricing isn’t as bad as it could be (remember the $399 X1900 XT?) and from talking with EVGA, apparently they are also working to drive prices down. However if you take into account the fact that two PCIe power cables will cost you $60 and EVGA bundles them for free, the price premium ends up a more manageable $40.

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Intel Launches Industry’s First 34nm Solid-State Disks

When Intel first launched their X-25M SSD, no one knew what to expect. After all, although Intel is no newbie in the semi-conducter business, storage wasn’t exactly their forte. All doubts were quickly put to rest though, as the X-25M (and then the SLC-based X-25E) blew away all expections. Somehow, Intel managed to take what we thought were lackluster memory chips (MLC), paired them with an unbelievable controller and as a result, delivered an SSD that offered the fastest random write speeds on the market, along with an incredible read speed. The problem at the time of launch was of course, the price.

As exciting as their SSD line-up is, it’s about to get a lot better for various reasons. In today’s announcement, Intel officially launches the market’s first SSDs based on 34nm memory (previous were 50nm), along with some nice price drops that are sure to please many.

Although you’d imagine that a shrink like this would bolster performance, Intel says it won’t in this case, except when testing them in specific ways (synthetic benchmarks). Since Intel can say it better than I can, here’s a verbatim quote on their thoughts:

Compared to its previous 50nm version, the new Intel X25-M on 34nm offers decreased latency and faster random write Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) than its 50nm predecessor. Specifically, Intel’s new SSD provides a 25 percent further reduction in latency, for quicker access to data, operating at 65-microsecond read latency compared to approximately 4,000 microseconds for an HDD. Random write performance has increased 2x for the 80GB and 2.5x for the 160GB to further separate the X25-M from other SSDs. By delivering up to 6,600 4KB write IOPS (8,600 IOPS for the 160GB) and up to 35,000 read IOPS, the X25-M continues to set the bar for SSDs, while leapfrogging HDDs which only operate at several hundred IOPS for traditional HDDs.

So there you have it. As for the pricing, Intel is “passing on cost reductions to its customers“, and as a result, the 80GB model will sell for $225 in quantities of 1,000, while the 160GB model will sell for $440, also in quantities of 1,000. By comparison, when the original 80GB X25-M launched, it cost $595 to the consumer, so we’re steadily moving in the right direction. We’ll have a review of the 160GB model within the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

The Intel X25-M on 34nm flash is drop-in compatible to the current 50nm version and traditional hard disk drives (HDDs). Higher in performance and durability than an HDD, the lightweight and low power Intel X25-M can also help extend notebook battery life. Featuring the latest-generation native SATA interface with an advanced architecture employing 10 parallel NAND Flash channels, our high performing SSD is architected with powerful Native Command Queuing to enable up to 32 concurrent operations. Other features include low write amplification and a unique wear-leveling design for higher reliability and longer lasting performance.

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Apple’s Not Fond of Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunters” Ad Campaign

I admit… whenever I post Apple news, I feel like an anti-Apple zealot even though I’m not. It might be the rapid fans of Apple that make me feel that way, or not, but either way, a story posted at CNET last week is just far too humorous to not talk about, and yes, it puts once again puts Apple in a poor light.

Everyone’s familiar with the “I’m a PC” and “Laptop Hunters” ads from Microsoft, which aim to change consumer perception of PCs. No surprise, these were been created to serve the purpose of undoing the harm caused by Apple’s own long-running ad campaign that tried to put PCs in a bad light (many of which were highly exaggerated). So it’s somewhat of a surprise to know that when Microsoft fights back, Apple complains, and that’s exactly what happened here.

During Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference held in New Orleans last week, the company’s COO, Kevin Turner, recounted an experience, one where Apple’s legal department gave him a phone call. What could it have been about? Oh, how about Apple demanding Microsoft to stop running the ads? Their reasoning? “… we lowered our prices”, about $100… not exactly a ground-breaking change. I’m not sure if Apple meant this as a joke or not, but wow, what a demand!

I have no doubt that if the roles were reversed, Microsoft would have no problem calling Apple demanding the same thing, but the fact that it happened at all is just too funny.

And you know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, “Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.” They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business.

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Is 5-Hour Energy All it’s Cracked Up to Be?

If you leave your house on a regular basis, or watch TV, chances are good that you know what “5-hour Energy” is. It’s like a typical energy drink, but not. In this little bottle are numerous vitamins, amino acids and various other good stuff to help keep you alert and give you back a little bit of the energy you lost during the day. Seems good, but…

There’s questioning on just how useful this stuff is, and how healthy. After all, it’s never been tested over long periods of time, and some doctors don’t rule out the fact that all of these vitamins and chemicals thrown together may not be a good thing. In some rarer cases, and if you overdo things, you may actually experience side-effects… not the energy boost, especially if mixing with other energy drinks, or medications.

Many people visiting this site are gamers, myself included, and I’ve never stopped myself from overdoing it on the Red Bull or Bawls during a LAN party. Even at home, I used to have a bad habit of drinking way too many “Jolts” or Red Bulls. I have since stopped the gluttony, only drinking one on “special” occasions (like LANs), even though for the most part, I find they do nothing at all.

I tried 5-hour Energy a few months ago, and downed both bottles in the package at once, to make sure I’d feel something… but no. It’s almost like I’ve had so much caffeine throughout the years, these quick-energy potions don’t do jack for me. Do they work for you? Have you tried 5-hour Energy yourself? Our forums exist for a reason… let us know your thoughts!

The overall health impact of the shots’ energy blend is a little fuzzy, according to some experts, because little data has been collected about the effectiveness or safety of the natural compounds. The blend contains: citicoline, tyrosine, phenylalanine, taurine, malic acid, glucuronolactone and caffeine. Phenylalanine, taurine, tyrosine are all amino acids our bodies naturally produce. Malic acid is a natural chemical substance found in food. Glucuronolactone is a byproduct of glucose produced in the liver. Citicoline is a natural compound that produces a chemical in the brain.

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Australian Police to Go Wardriving

From the “Don’t they have anything better to do?” files comes news out of Australia of law enforcement taking unique action against unsecured wireless networks. How so? By wardriving, of course, to find the culprits, and then set them straight. I have to admit, it’s times like this when I wish I were an officer, and in particular, an Aussie officer, because I’ve had fun wardriving in the past, and it seems like a cool way to waste away the day.

“What’s the big deal?” is a question many will have, but in truth, unsecured wireless networks are a problem, and can cause significant damage. If you had to do something illegal online, from the rather modest task of downloading commercial software, to the extreme side of downloading child pornography, wouldn’t you want to do it on someone else’s Internet? After all, the crime would be traced back to that customer, not you.

Although situations like that are going to be exceedingly rare, I like to live by the “better safe than sorry” motto, and in all seriousness, it takes absolutely nothing to protect yourself with a robust password, and it’s not as though you’ll have to re-type it in constantly. There’s just no excuse for not protecting yourself. It may be also that you actually want to offer up your Internet service to the public, but if you do, you are taking a rather sizable risk, and hopefully you have proper protections in place to block certain keywords and the like. You don’t want to be the target of someone else’s crime, after all.

Detective Superintendent Brian Hay of the Queensland Police explained to Brett Winterford the thought process behind the move. “We know unsecured networks are a problem,” he said. “We know the crooks are out there driving around trying to identify these networks. We can’t just sit back and not address the issue.” Winterford then continued, “[S]o let’s test the waters – let’s scan the environment. And let’s tell people, ‘Excuse me, this could happen to you and your family and this is how you can rectify it.'”

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Total Solar Eclipse on Wednesday, But There’s a Catch…

Solar and lunar eclipses aren’t too rare, but when one does occur, and you happen to live in the right location, then it’s a real treat. For the uninitiated, where solar eclipses are concerned, there are four possible outcomes, but three of those four appear almost just as often as one another (partial, annular, total), while hybrid (a combination of annular and total) eclipses are very rare.

The last total solar eclipse to occur happened just last year, but one that happens later this week (July 22nd) is rather exciting, and with it, there’s some good news, and bad news. The good news is that the totality stage of this particular eclipse will last longer than any other in the 21st century, at a staggering 6 minutes, 39 seconds. This duration won’t be surpassed until 2132… so I wouldn’t plan on holding out for it.

The bad news is that the vast majority of readers to this site will be unable to view even an inch of the eclipse, as it occurs on the other side of the globe. According to NASA, the absolute best place for viewing the totality stage is just outside of Patna, India, although a handful of cities in China will also be treated to the spectacle. If you live anywhere in China or the outlying regions, then you may still be able to view the partial stage of the eclipse.

If you happen to live in or around Asia, you can check out a larger version of the image below, provided by NASA, that gives a good idea of where the eclipse will be viewable. I’m horrible at figuring out times, but if my calculations are correct, you can view the eclipse anywhere from between 8:00AM – 10:30AM mainland China time. If you’re planning to view, definitely pick up a newspaper to find out for sure.

On Wednesday, 2009 July 22, a total eclipse of the Sun is visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses half of Earth. The path of the Moon’s umbral shadow begins in India and crosses through Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China. After leaving mainland Asia, the path crosses Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and curves southeast through the Pacific Ocean where the maximum duration of totality reaches 6 min 39 s. A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon’s penumbral shadow, which includes most of eastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean.

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Why We Don’t Review Memory & Power Supplies

At Techgage, we review products from many different categories, such as CPUs, GPUs, motherboards, chassis’, cooling and more. There are some products, though, that we haven’t taken a look at in quite a while, and to help clear things up, I’m posting our reasoning behind it all here. What pushed me to write this is that we’re constantly asked by companies to review their power supplies and memory, and being able to point them here rather than repeat myself over and over… well, it makes life easier.

First, the memory. Back in the DDR1 and even DDR2 days, memory was a ton of fun to benchmark and overclock, and in some cases, overclocking memory could actually deliver some noticeable differences in certain scenarios. Then DDR3 came out, and it became very apparent that we were at a point where neither timings nor frequencies mattered, at least in the enthusiast scheme of things.

I’m sure that there are some specific reasons for fast memory, but on the enthusiast side, I sure can’t see it (aside from CPU overclocking of course). As long as you have a kit with decent frequencies and timings, you should be fine. Over the course of the past two years, I’ve talked to numerous memory vendors about this predicament. To many, I simply asked, “In what scenario would an enthusiast see an improvement with faster memory?“. Not one could give me even a single scenario. That, my friends, is why we don’t review memory.

I’m not going to sit here and jump to conclusions, though, and it could be that there are scenarios where regular consumers and enthusiasts would see a real reason to opt for a faster kit of RAM, but as I mentioned, I’ve yet to find it. And in truth, if it’s that difficult to find one, how much does it really matter? This issue prompted me to start a thread a few months ago, so if you have any ideas for us, by all means post there and and let us know.

So what about power supplies? Unlike memory, I do believe that a higher-end power supply is better than a low-end, because when it comes to the health of your computer, you need stability and the assurance that your PC isn’t going to go up in smoke. But, the key reason we don’t review such products is primarily due to the fact that we don’t have a means to properly test them.

In order to properly test a power supply and its rated claims, you absolutely need an accurate way of testing, and simply tossing it into a PC and using a multi-meter to check for voltages is not how to do it. Rather, a full-blown stress-tester needs to be brought in, that’s capable of at least topping out the wattage abilities of the unit, because after all, readers should be able to know whether an 800W PSU can actually handle that kind of load. Given that most computers nowadays cannot surpass even 400W, it becomes clear why simple multi-meter testing isn’t enough.

In the future, should we come into contact with another proper load-tester and also find a reason to begin taking a look at memory again, we’ll consider it. But for now, we’ll continue to focus on components that we can both properly test, and also components that will actually make a real difference in your computing. Have any thoughts or questions? That’s what our related thread is for!

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Majority of People Prefer Real CDs Over Downloadable Music?

Not too often do the results of a report pique my interest, but one recently held by two firms in the UK does, and it likely will for music-lovers of all stripes as well. Despite how it seems right now, it looks as though the majority of music purchasers equipped with broadband Internet would still rather purchase the actual disc in the store, rather than online in a downloadable format.

Given the absolute popularity of iTunes, Amazon’s music store, Zune Marketplace and all the others, I would have thought the absolute opposite (I’m personally very fond of actual CDs, and usually buy one or two a week), but in one thousand conducted face-to-face interviews, 73% prefer a disc copy, and of those, 66% are between the ages of 14 – 18. Yes… the majority of people today who prefer the real thing over a download… are youngsters.

It’s hard to settle on such a small percentage of music buyers, but numbers like these are very pleasing, at least to me. I’m such a big fan of buying music in the store (lossless quality being the number one draw), it gives me a little bit of hope that downloadable albums and songs are not going to kill off these retail music stores as fast as I originally imagined.

Credit: ricktherazor

Still, subscription and music streaming services are apparently doing their part to help people decide which music (CD or otherwise) to buy. According to The Leading Question’s research, those who pay for a subscription service such as Napster spend more on CDs than the average music buyer (£16.87 per month, compared to £11.37). The same applies to people who listen to streaming music—those people spend £12.17 per month on CDs and £7.02 per month on downloads, compared to £3.81 per month spent on downloads by the average music fan.

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Corsair Releases “Extreme” SSD Line-up

It’s hard to say that the SSD game is heating up, because in reality, it’s been hot for a while. A day doesn’t go by when a company doesn’t release a new model – even companies we’ve up to this point have never heard of – but it’s all good, because as these new products get released, the prices go down. That’s a good thing, as the price has been the greatest deterrent for most people, so if trends from the past year are anything to go by, manageable densities should become a real viable solution very soon.

One company who’s been releasing quality SSDs for a while is Corsair, although unlike the majority of their competition, they aren’t releasing what seems like a dozen different series. Rather, they’re keeping things simple, and up to this point, we’ve seen Legacy (for older PCs, so they are slow) and also Performance, which is for those who want – you guessed it – the performance.

The company has just released their third series, called Extreme. The name basically says all, but with a 240MB/s Read and 170MB/s Write (sequential), the performance definitely earns it its name. Using the ever-popular Indilinx Barefoot controller, the new SSDs support both user-upgradeable firmware and updateable features, such as the TRIM command, which will be built into Windows 7.

Corsair didn’t touch on pricing in the press release, but you could likely expect to see the 128GB top-end model sell for just under $400, and the 32GB for $150.

“The combination of the Indilinx Barefoot controller, Samsung flash memory, and 64MB of on-board cache delivers blistering, stutter-free performance, eliminating the bottleneck imposed by traditional mechanical hard disks,” said Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing at Corsair. “The new Extreme Series SSDs are ideal for use as primary drives in desktop and notebooks systems, and also for RAID 0 configurations in high-performance desktops for enthusiasts who want extreme performance.”

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25 Brilliant Bookmarklets to Boost Browsing

If you’re asking yourself, “What the heck is a ‘bookmarklet’?”, don’t worry… I didn’t know what one was either until I spotted an article over at TechRadar. As you likely assumed, ‘bookmarklet’ is a portmanteau of ‘bookmark’ and ‘applet’, and how they function is actually pretty cool. Are you aware that right now, you can excecute JavaScript code in your address bar, and it will actually do something?

It can, and that’s the design behind bookmarklets. We all save bookmarks, and inside of those bookmarks are the raw URLs of the page we want to return to later. Since JavaScript can be executed straight from the browser’s address bar, you can create a new bookmark, replace the URL with code of your choice, and have quick access to cool functionality… all without touching an extension or plugin.

So what can you do? Well, on the simple side of things, you can change background colors, font styles, increase font size, highlight URLs, list mailto: URLs and a lot more. Some is more useful than others, but if you create certain features you find yourself using on a regular basis, they’re well worth looking into. As an example, say you love the Verdana font (include me in that camp), you can execute this code in your address bar:

javascript:void(document.body.style.fontFamily=’verdana’)

That again is quite simple, but the functionality can get very creative also. There are many listed at the source article, so give them a try. Many don’t actually work for me, even while using the latest version of Firefox, so success on your given setup may vary.

Most modern browsers have been around for years, so you might think the developers would have perfected them by now. Yet every time you go online you’ll probably run into a host of browsing problems, from navigation issues, to pages you can’t read clearly, and disorganised sites where it’s difficult to find the information you need.

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Retail Employee Perspective of Bricks in Boxes

Ever get home after an exciting trip of running to some retail store to purchase the latest gadget that you just had to have, only to open up the box to find something other than what you were expecting? I never have, but there are many who haven’t been so lucky, and we see proof of this every so often with a disgruntled blog post of someone expressing their woes.

In recent memory, there have been stories of people opening their product to find bricks or stones, floor tiles and even meat (could you imagine how bad that would have to smell!?). This isn’t an issue that likely happens every minute of the day, but it does happen enough to make us all wary about leaving the store with our purchase. Usually, I look all over the product to make sure it feels solid, and doesn’t look like it’s been opened before, but some people are very crafty, so even that may not protect you.

Ars Technica took the time to interview three previous employees of differing stores, to get down to the bottom of things. How does this happen, and who’s behind it all? It seems that most often, it’s not the employees doing this, but actually the customer. One scheme is to purchase the product, replace it with something of an equal weight, and then bring it back to the store for a refund. Nice.

What I found most interesting about the story though, wasn’t so much the actual topic at hand, but the knowledge of  just how hardcore Apple is with their Apple Store employees. Imagine having your bag searched by the manager on duty after each shift, and also reporting each electronic item you own when you come to work. They’re truly gung-ho about making sure nothing gets stolen internally, and it must work, since few of the stories like these have an Apple Store at the source.

My question to you is, what would be better, opening up a box to find a pile of bricks, or opening up a box to find a bricked product? Well, I sure know one would be more interesting than the other…

As for employee theft, Apple keeps its stockroom locked with more locked cages inside, and employees must sign out a key from a manager before gaining access to product. And that’s not all. “All employees’ bags had to be searched by a manager prior to leaving the store at the end of a shift,” Apple David said. “Any personal tech gear had to be registered with the store, and a manager would issue a ‘personal technology card’ with your items and their serial numbers, which would be checked every time you left the building with said gear.”

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3DRealms and Take-Two Continue to Duke it Out in Court

It’s been a good two months since we all found out that 3DRealms had shut down, and a lot has happened since. Of course as we now know, 3DRealms hasn’t actually shut down completely, but rather currently exists with a truly skeletal team. It’s also been found out that Duke Nukem Forever development hasn’t completely ceased, either, but the company is keeping tight-lipped on the entire situation for probably obvious reasons.

Game news site Shacknews has been following the entire debacle since it all began, and in the past few days, a few interesting bits of information has arisen. First is the fact that 3DR hasn’t stopped releasing screenshots for the upcoming game, but have oddly chosen to release them on the official Duke Nukem Facebook page. But, the screenshots aren’t what’s truly interesting here…

As it became known after 3DR was known to have shuttered, the company received $2.5M worth of funding towards DNF by Take-Two, but the reasoning behind it wasn’t too clear, except for perhaps the fact that the company had exclusive publishing rights, and understandably wanted to see the title released. Well, it turns out that the funding was part of a deal Take-Two made in order to publish another unrelated Duke Nukem title through a third-party publisher, now revealed as Gearbox.

What happens from here-on-out is yet to be seen, though. The title from Gearbox, titled “Duke Begins” has had its development halted, though Take-Two stresses that it hasn’t been cancelled (as a Duke fan, I hope not). Either way, the entire mess is just that… a mess, so it’s going to take a while until it gets sorted out. Hopefully it will happen sooner than later, so fans can finally put their minds at rest.

As for the ongoing soap opera regarding Duke Nukem Forever and the funding issues that led to 3D Realms laying off most of its staff, Take-Two denies knowing in advance that terminating the funding negotiations between the two would lead to layoffs, though 3D Realms asserts Take-Two was “fully aware” of this “weeks before.” And though 3D Realms claims it continues to work on “the development of” Duke Nukem Forever and has no contractual deadline by which it must deliver the game, Take-Two writes that the “law implies a reasonable deadline for the completion of contractual performance where no deadline is explicitly set forth in the contract.”

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Apple’s Latest iTunes Update Breaks Palm Pre Support

When Palm released their Pre smartphone, one of the perks was something unique. That of course was the ability to sync up with Apple’s iTunes music software, and this is a feature that Palm themselves boasted about in order to sell more units. Well, as it turns out, anyone who bought the Pre with that feature in mind has now been screwed, as Apple has just unveiled a new iTunes update that deliberately breaks the support.

I have many thoughts on all of this, but I can’t possibly tackle them all here. The main one I have, though, is that I find it ridiculous that Apple locks deliberately locks out devices simply because they’re not their own. Sure, Apple would lose out on an iPod sale, but they might in turn lose out on iTunes sales as well. However, I’m willing to bet Apple earns far more off of an iPod sale than iTunes for the life of a regular consumer, but it’s hard to say.

In some ways, it’s easy to side with Apple. After all, if they allow syncing with other devices, what happens if an update accidentally wipes out the device’s file system? On the other hand, you’d expect that companies like Palm have thought this out, and have some protections in place to prevent that from ever happening. Either way, it sucks for consumers, because if you want to use iTunes’ syncing feature, you need an iPod. It’s that simple.

The best thing for consumers to do, is something I failed at. Don’t use iTunes, and don’t use an iPod. I found this hard to pull off though, given neither Amazon nor Microsoft offers their respective music stores in Canada…

Apple designs the hardware and software to provide seamless integration of the iPhone and iPod with iTunes, the iTunes Store, and tens of thousands of apps on the App Store. Apple is aware that some third-parties claim that their digital media players are able to sync with Apple software. However, Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple digital media players and, because software changes over time, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players.

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Two Core i7 and One Core i5 Lynnfield En Route

Been holding out on building a new computer because Lynnfield is en route? Well, it doesn’t look like the wait will be that much longer, as the prospective release date is hovering around September. That’s not straight out of Intel’s mouth, but the rumor-mill, of course. The timing doesn’t seem unrealistic, though, especially with the company’s Developer Forum occurring the same month, and generally, major launches such as this do tend to happen around this time.

So what models are to come out? Again, this hasn’t been verified by Intel, but previous leaks have been accurate more often than not. On the Core i7 side (as revealed last month, the Core i7 branding isn’t limited to Bloomfield), it looks like we’ll be seeing an i7-870, at 2.93GHz and also an i7-860 at 2.80GHz. I truly don’t understand why two products with frequencies so close to one another are needed, but the pricing should be interesting to look out for.

On the Core i5 side, the first known model is the i5-750, at 2.66GHz. Unlike the Core i7 models, this (and all the others to come I’m sure), lack HyperThreading, so like Intel’s Core 2 line-up, the Quad-Cores here will stay at 4 threads. For most regular consumers, the lack of HT isn’t likely to make a difference, but as we discovered in our launch article, it will likely affect those using workstation applications (and also server).

The Core i5 performance-level brand will share both Lynnfield quad-core 4-thread chips and Clarkdale dual-core 4-thread chips that are yet to be announced. The entire brand will be operating on socket LGA 1156. As for the Core i3 entry-level brand, it will consist of all Clarkdale dual-core 4-thread chips that are yet to be announced. Finally, at the very bottom will be Pentium branded Clarkdale dual-core 2-thread chips running on LGA 1156 that are yet to be announced.

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Will Chrome OS Wipe Out Splashtop and HyperSpace?

When Google announced their Chrome OS just last week, speculation begin almost instantaneously with regards to what exactly it would become. Google isn’t too clear on the subject, which doesn’t help things too much, but as it appears now, the OS is not designed to be a full-fledged offering, and it’s very unlikely to ever escape the grasp of netbooks, nettops and other similar devices.

So instead of competing with the likes of Windows, it looks like Chrome OS is to take such solutions as DeviceVM’s Splashtop and Phoenix’s HyperSpace head-on. The products from those companies offer similar goals, to give the consumer a computer that boots up and literally allows the user to be online within seconds. Both of these solutions, however, deliver an OS that’s installed to a flash chip on the motherboard. Whether or not Google will take the same route, is unknown.

I think what it will all come down to is whether or not there are people who actually want this product to begin with. Splashtop has been around for a little while now, and we’ve taken a look at it more than once, but I still don’t see such an overwhelming response to it, and the only time I ever hear about it is when I receive a press release from them. Of course, such a new technology may just need time to catch on, so we’ll see where things stand once Google unveils the final version of Chrome OS.

Google says that Chrome OS will be distributed under an open source license and will be available to use at no cost. This could seriously undermine the relevance of HyperSpace, which Phoenix commercially licenses to OEMs. Phoenix is banking on the technical advantages and greater maturity of its platform, characteristics that the company believes will make its offering a better value for hardware manufacturers.

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Transcend Releases DDR3 ECC Modules with Built-In Temperature Sensors

Although I don’t partake in the activity much anymore, I used to be huge into overclocking memory. Even though at stock speeds, memory doesn’t really offer mind-blowing differences in performance over a slower kit, something about pushing the frequencies to ridiculous heights was exciting. But there was a major problem… heat. To make matters worse, without a reliable way to monitor RAM temps, it was hard to know when a fan was, or wasn’t, required.

Well, memory giant Transcend has tackled the problem, just a wee bit, with a release earlier this month. Their latest DDR3 ECC kits feature sensors built right in, and it’s monitorable by whatever software of your choosing, I’m assuming. Essentially, this offers one nice benefit of FB-DIMMs, but in a non FB-DIMM format… certainly not a bad thing (in my own opinion, of course).

Although this is currently targeted a the server and workstation market, I’d love to see this catch on to the enthusiast market as well. Even if overclocking isn’t a concern, being able to monitor such an integral part of your system would be great, especially if you didn’t have to go through the hassle of installing your own temperature probes yourself. Something like this, you’d imagine, would be a standard. Let’s see it happen.

Transcend Information, Inc., a worldwide leader in storage and multimedia products, today released a new line of server-grade DDR3 ECC DIMM and Registered DIMM premium memory modules equipped with thermal sensors. This advanced innovation in thermal monitoring technology can greatly enhance memory reliability, efficiency, and overall system stability, making these new modules perfect for use in dedicated servers as well as workstations.

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Windows 7 RTM Not Yet Released, But Will be Soon

Last Monday, we posted about a potential release date for the Windows 7 RTM, which was effectively yesterday, the 13th. That date came and went, however, and no RTM saw the light of day. Of course, it’s hard to say that Microsoft missed the date, because not once did they even claim that to be date to begin with. So when is it going to come out? Apparently, soon. Very soon.

According to the official blog, the RTM will see a release sometime this month, and given that we’re half-way through as it stands, it’s not going to be much longer. Unless you are a huge fan of downloading leaked copies, though, you’re likely going to have to wait until the actual final copy is released to the general public, slated for October 22.

In the same blog post, it’s mentioned that MSDN & TechNet subscribers will be able to download the RTM a few weeks after it’s announced (which leads us to believe that no one will be able to use it until early next month at least), while Volume License customers will be able to access it at the beginning of September. For the rest of us, we wait. And if you are one of the rabid fans who can’t wait, be careful where and what you download. There are many people preying on your lack of patience!

Another thing to keep in mind is that when we do a specific build internally of Windows 7 we have an extensive step-by-step validation process to ensure quality. This process takes time. Just because a single build may have “leaked” it does not signal the completion of a milestone such as RTM. As always, don’t believe everything that you read on the Internet – except this post ;-).

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Read Your Snail Mail Without Receiving It

Now here’s an interesting take on snail mail. I’m not sure about you guys, but I receive a lot of junk mail (and for what it’s worth, I’ll point out that it’s Rogers in Canada who are responsible for a lot of it), and it sucks. I hate running out to the mail box only to come back with three or four envelopes of pure junk mail. When I open up the mail box and find a credit card bill and actually get excited, then I know there’s an obvious problem.

It looks like some solutions are on their way, and some are even implemented now. A company called Earth Class Mail allows customers in 170 countries to sign up on the service using their mailing address, and from there-on-out, it’s intercepted, and the envelope is scanned and e-mailed to you. From there, you decide whether or not to trash it, have it opened (scanned and sent), or have it forwarded to the ultimate address.

This is a seriously cool concept, and it’s apparent that more than just that start-up thinks it’s a good idea. It looks as though the Swiss mail service has just opened its own service that’s works the same way, and people can take advantage of it for $18.35 US per month (kind of high?). Obviously, security buffs have reason to shun the service, but the Swiss postal service looks to be taking it extremely seriously. If you opt into the service, your mail will actually be handled in the same facility as where banking materials are taken care of. Let’s see if this begins to catch on over here… my recycling bin is begging for it to be so.

All the images are encrypted, and you can even request that mail that contains personal information (such as bills or credit card offers) be shredded. This is all done with your authorization—if you’re in the US, you must file a form with the US Postal Service so they know someone’s not just trying to steal your mail—and the company promises the utmost privacy and security with your documents.

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