Tech News

Novell Innovation in Linux Education Drives New Learning Options

Posted on July 6, 2006 9:07 AM by Rob Williams

WALTHAM, Mass. – July 5, 2006 – Novell today announced two new innovative programs for Linux training designed to promote education around open source. Novell unveiled its “Train the Teacher” series, the industry’s first free week-long boot camp for Linux* educators. In addition, Novell is the first Linux vendor to partner with Thomson Course Technology, the world’s leading technology education publishers, with the release of a series of new joint SUSE® Linux Enterprise courseware offerings. As a result, students and teachers interested in Linux have compelling new options for building their expertise on the increasingly popular open source platform.

You can check out the full press release right here.

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Hardware Roundup for July 6

Posted on July 6, 2006 9:06 AM by Rob Williams
    Motherboards & CPU’s
  • Abit and DFI tackle ATI’s CrossFire Xpress 3200 – Tech Report
  • ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe WiFi – Phoronix

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China’s Censorship Firewall Defeated

Posted on July 5, 2006 11:08 AM by Rob Williams

A group of computer experts from the University of Cambridge claims that they are now able to circumvent the censorship mechanism that China uses to block unwanted content from reaching its citizens. Certain words are banned and certain websites are also banned. A user sitting within the country’s network will not be able to reach websites for which the government has deemed inappropriate. China itself has defended its right to police the Internet for its citizens many times.

It was bound to happen, and there’s no doubt this ‘hole’ has already been exploited before. I am sure it will not take them long to fix it though.

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All bets off as casino refuses to pay jackpot

Posted on July 5, 2006 11:06 AM by Rob Williams

Two men from Manitoba have hired a lawyer and are threatening legal action after a Winnipeg casino refused to pay out more than $209,000 in slot-machine winnings.
The men were playing a computerized version of Keno last week when they matched all five numbers on the screen. The machine said the win was worth a jackpot of $209,716.40. The casino said it was a software error.

You have to feel for these guys, who fully believed they won $200K. Granted though, they where on nickel machines!

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Unified Display Interface Nears Release

Posted on July 5, 2006 11:04 AM by Rob Williams

UDI addresses the primary issue of cost by redesigning the current DVI standard. While there is room and margin in the video card market to add DVI, the interface is relatively complicated and costly to add to the value space, which is made up mainly of integrated chipset graphics solutions. According to Silicon Image, motherboards with integrated DVI chipset output for the business and value market do not exist — although NVIDIA’s integrated GeForce 6150, positioned for Media Center PCs, does feature a DVI TMDS. Some manufacturers have created DVI-output add-in boards that contain the necessary transmitter as a purchasable option.

I am sure I am not alone when I say there is far too many different ports and such. Usually choice is a good thing, but unless TV’s/Monitors come with 20 different connectors, consumers will have a rougher time with purchase decisions.

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Google to File Antitrust Complaints

Posted on July 5, 2006 11:03 AM by Rob Williams

Google spoke to reporters today and warned that if broadband service providers abuse a possible right given by the government, it will step up and file anti-trust complaints. The issue boils down to net neutrality, which has been large ongoing issue between broadband service providers, companies, schools and the government. Google says that it hopes that legislators will support net neutrality, which will prevent large telcos and cable companies from creating tiered networks, charging more for a certain type of use than another, even though the data travels the on same network.

Now this is a rather comforting thought… to know that such a large company has our backs. It’s good to see massive companies with lots of cash take action instead of sitting around.

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Hardware Roundup for July 5

Posted on July 5, 2006 10:58 AM by Rob Williams
    Cases & Enclosures
  • Aerocool ExtremEngine 3T – TweakPC (German)
  • Fantec LanDrive 3,5 External – Technic3D(German)
    Motherboards & CPU’s
  • ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe Motherboard – Legit Reviews
  • ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe – TechSpot
  • ASUS P5WD2-E Premium Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 975X – Think Computers
  • MSI K9N SLI Platinum – nForce 570 SLI – Hexus
    Video Cards & Monitor
  • NGO ATI Optimized Driver v1.6.6 – NGOHQ
  • Palit GeForce 7900GT “Sonic” 512MB in SLI – TweakTown

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Micro Machines V4 Review

Posted on July 4, 2006 9:43 AM by Rob Williams

Some games have a hugely impressive pedigree with a history that has dominated your early gaming years. Tomb Raider is one such game. Championship Manager is another. Then there’s Worms and Sensible Soccer too. Which just happen to be two Codemasters’ titles and so have something in common with the game under the spotlight, Micro Machines V4 a game that across multiple platforms ruled the roost for top-down, then isometric racing games.

I had high hopes for this one, but after playing the demo I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. Hexus Gaming had a good time with it though. Their main complaint is the ackward camera angles at times. I hear that!

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Pirate much? Get insurance!

Posted on July 4, 2006 9:15 AM by Rob Williams

In an attempt to protest against Sweden’s new piracy law, a man named Magnus Braath is creating a piracy insurance policy for fellow Swedes who wish to continue downloading copy protected content such as music, movies and other data. The insurance policy can be purchased to cover 6 months or an entire year at a time.

Now THIS is crazy. It’s unclear how he can afford to take such a huge chance, but fines there are not as asinine as the ones RIAA hands out here.

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AMD Dual-Core Optimization Utility Available

Posted on July 4, 2006 9:12 AM by Rob Williams

AMD has silently released a utility that fixes time stamp counter (TSC) issues with dual-core AMD processors such as the Athlon 64 X2 and Opteron. The AMD Dual-Core Optimizer utility is a driver that synchronizes the time stamp counter on both processor cores and improves game compatibility and performance. Time stamp counter issues occur in older games that are incompatible with multithreading and would run too fast or out of sync.

It seems that this could have been around for a few months at least, but we’ve just stumbled on it now. It’s also compatible with Intel Dual Cores, which is another oddity.

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FreeDOS not Dead

Posted on July 4, 2006 9:11 AM by Rob Williams

Jim Hall, creator of the open source MS-DOS operating system project FreeDOS, says that while work on the project may have slowed recently, he isn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet. In fact, Hall says he hopes to see version 1.0 released as soon as the end of the month.

This is great to hear, considering FreeDOS has been in the works for a very, very long time. You can see what’s in the horizon over at NewsForge.

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Real DJs Code Live

Posted on July 4, 2006 9:10 AM by Rob Williams

A new brand of music maestro is turning programming into performance, eschewing turntables for a compiler and a mind for syntax structure. “Livecoding” practitioners improvise using Perl or homemade programming architectures to build compositions from the ground up, replacing instruments and samples with raw code authoring before a live audience.

As odd as this sounds, it’s really quite interesting. I have to wonder what happens if they happen to miss an operator or misspell a function?

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The Extreme Lian Li by Ediejo

Posted on July 4, 2006 9:09 AM by Rob Williams

The story of the Extreme Lian Li starts back in 2002, when I came upon a case mod by Tom Versteeg, during a local Home Computer Club computer exchange. That man had built one sweet case mod. Back then, I was totally unaware of the phenomenon of case modding. Inspired, I started looking around on the internet, finding new ideas and tips and tricks. I decided to give modding a whirl, and I bought a Lian Li PC70 to make my first case mod.

I know I have said it before, but this is one of the most incredible case mods I have ever seen. Truly amazing..

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Nerds Switching from Apple to Ubuntu?

Posted on July 4, 2006 9:08 AM by Rob Williams

The recent switch of two lifelong Mac nerds to Ubuntu hasn’t escaped Tim O’Reilly’s radar. He cites Jason Kottke: ‘If I were Apple, I’d be worried about this. Two lifelong Mac fans are switching away from Macs to PCs running Ubuntu Linux: first it was Mark Pilgrim and now Cory Doctorow. Nerds are a small demographic, but they can also be the canary in the coal mine with stuff like this.

A day doesn’t seem to pass where we hear about Ubuntu in some way, but here’s an interesting one. Though, hearing the term “Mac Nerds” is a completely new one to me. Aren’t people who generally use Macs the type who love simplicity? Doesn’t sound like a nerd to me.

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IE7 Beta 3 Release

Posted on July 4, 2006 9:07 AM by Rob Williams

Build 7.0.5450.4 allows users to reorder tabs by dragging them left or right, enables horizontal scrolling while zooming, allows users to update RSS feeds automatically, disables DHTML scriptlets and ActiveX controls by default and also removes support for DirectAnimation. Extension support has also been added, and a few extentions are available now.

For you IE users out there, a new beta of version 7 has just been released. I think IE will have to come up with a lot more unique features than they have in order to gain back the users they’ve lost though.

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Hardware Roundup for July 4

Posted on July 4, 2006 9:06 AM by Rob Williams
    Memory & Storage
  • A-DATA “my Flash” Fingerprint Disk – Nordic Hardware
    Etcetera, Complete Systems & Contests
  • AlphaShield Professional Firewall Package Giveaway! – ModTheBox
  • Pacific Rim iPod Nano Magnesium Case – XYZ Computing
  • Zenwalk ZenLive 2.6 – Phoronix

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Creative Labs Releases New SoundBlaster X-Fi Driver

Posted on July 3, 2006 11:09 AM by Rob Williams

Creative Labs has finally released a production quality driver update for its X-Fi XtremeMusic, Platinum and Fatal1ty lineups. The driver release address some (but not all) issues with crackling, corrects a number of issues with popular games and adds full support for OpenAL 1.1.

Apparently the driver fixes a lot, but some issues like the crackling issue is still intact. Either way, if you have an X-Fi, these will be worth your time.

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Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms Announced

Posted on July 3, 2006 9:30 AM by Rob Williams

The Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms is a real-time war game, based on the Chinese historical saga “The Three Kingdoms”. The style of The Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms is combines the grand battlefield action of a real-time tactical warfare game and the story development of a role-playing game. In it, you will have the chance to control several armies from the perspective of the Marshall, Liu Bei – the commander-in-chief of the fighting force. Instead of controlling each individual unit at a time, you will command entire divisions of up to eighty men at once. Using formations, tactics, and careful strategy, you can lead your soldiers to victory.

If you enjoy the good ole’ fashioned hack-n-slash Chinese field combat, you may want to check this one out. It seems pretty plain, so it may be for the hardcoreists only. Thanks BluesNews.

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MS says no to Xbox 360 with built-in HD DVD

Posted on July 3, 2006 9:26 AM by Rob Williams

Microsoft has “no plans” to offer a version of its Xbox 360 console with an internal HD DVD drive, a company employee has stated in a bid to confound rumours to the contrary. According to the software giant’s official Xbox employee blog, the company is “sticking” with the external drive it announced in January this year and demo’d in May.

So this probably affects about two people, because there is still hardly a need for an HD-DVD player.. let alone it being internal. Microsoft claims it’s due to giving choice, but it’s likely more to do with the high costs.

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Another Microsoft Exec Joins Google

Posted on July 3, 2006 9:23 AM by Rob Williams

CNN is reporting that Vic Gundotra, a 15-year veteran general manager at Microsoft, has left the company to join Google. Gundotra worked at Microsoft as general manager for platform evangelism to get software developers to use Microsoft’s software and online offerings. The function he will perform at Google is not yet known, but he will need to wait one year before starting his new job because of a non-compete clause in his contract.

In other news, Microsoft HQ apparently just contacted IKEA for a complete replacement of office furniture. Really though, Google has mastered the art of coaxing people to join the light side.

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Seagate Invents Nanotube Lubricated Harddrives

Posted on July 3, 2006 9:18 AM by Rob Williams

Seagate has submitted a patent for a technology it invented that could give current hard drive technology a few more years of life. Using nanotube technology, Seagate plans to bring a hard drive’s read and write head even closer to the spinning platter than it already is today. Because of the mechanics of the way hard drives store data, the closer the read and write head is to the patter, the more information can be recorded.

Now this is a cool idea. Technology like this doesn’t sound like it could be -that- reliable though.. it’s extremely precise. The drives also have a fixed life span of 5 – 10 years. Ahh, the fun of backing up your 5,000GB HD before it dies.

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Freedb.org Ending

Posted on July 3, 2006 9:15 AM by Rob Williams

Freedb, the free music database used by tons of CD ripping software, has been shut down due to a disagreement among its developers. One of its developers used a data dump from the original freedb.org and is providing the service at freedb2.org, though, and will be adding features and posting them at his site as they become available. Unfortunately, a database dump or source code for freedb2.org is yet nowhere to be found.

This sucks. FreeDB was an awesome service that was far more accurate than other DBs out there. There is a makeshift replacement site up, but it’s hard to say if it will completely take over.

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Hardware Roundup for July 3

Posted on July 3, 2006 9:03 AM by Rob Williams
    Memory & Storage
  • Super Talent DDR2 1000 MHz CL5 Kit 2 GB – PC Masters (German)
  • Western Digital Caviar RE2 – TweakTown
    Motherboards & CPU’s
  • AMD Athlon64 FX-62 – T-Break
  • NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI vs. nForce 590 SLI – Legion Hardware
    Peripherals & Power Supplies
  • Pendrive A-Data Fingerprint Disk FP1 2GB – MadBoxPC
  • Razer Copperhead Mouse and Mantis Speed Mat – UK Gamer
  • XTracPads Hybrid – APH Networks
    Video Cards & Monitor
  • ASUS GeForce 7600GT Silent – GD Hardware
  • Leadtek WinFast PX7600 GT TDH – Bit-Tech
    Etcetera, Complete Systems & Contests
  • AlphaShield Professional Hardware Firewall – ModTheBox
  • Newbie’s Guide To Overclocking – Rojak Pot
  • July Post Like a Mad Man Contest!! – Bjorn3D
  • Toshiba M70-159 Laptop – Driver Heaven
  • Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 EB Earphones Giveaway – 3D Gameman

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Microsoft Denies the Windows Kill Switch

Posted on July 2, 2006 11:23 AM by Rob Williams

Microsoft has denied that WGA will kill pirated copies of Windows. According to Waggener Edstrom,”Microsoft anti-piracy technologies cannot and will not turn off your computer.” Microsoft also says that WGA is a necessary part of its campaign to catch those illegally using Windows XP which leads one to think what WGA really does then.

Something tells me that if Microsoft ever did this, it would hurt them more than it would the people it cut off.

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Thermaltake Aguila VD1000BWS Mid-Tower Case Review

Posted on July 2, 2006 11:22 AM by Rob Williams

Thermaltake Aguila boasts a number of customization options starting with a
removable HDD/FDD 5.25″ panel which also houses the Power and Reset buttons as
well as the activity LEDs. This unique panel can be positioned in any of the
free 5.25″ drive bays in the top or bottom portion of the case. A series of
extender cables protrude from the rear of the unit and connect to the
appropriate headers on a motherboard. This is a luxury not offered in most
standard cases currently on the market and it was nice to see Thermaltake
offer something functional and very different from the norm.

Check out the full review at ModTheBox.

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