| Tweak Central news archive
- Here's what WAS new: |
2000 
|
Archived News - April 2000:
Government
to Judge: Break up Microsoft
(source: CNet News): what people have suspected all week - that
the Government is asking the judge to penalize Microsoft by breaking
them into two separate companies. Now you, the consumer can receive
what we call in the pr0n industry, double ... er nevermind...
Here
are some related articles (still on CNET)
Do you think this is a good idea? A bad idea? Sound off on some
other site's forum! Since Steve is
too much of a neophyte (no! that's not the same as necropheliac)
to have a forum here.
Judge
rules in favor of RIAA, against MP3.com (source:
CNet News): A little background, the RIAA (Recording Industry
Association of America) has long (always) been against any form
of end-users copying music. They were against cassettes, they were
against CD-R's, they are against MP3's. RIAA claims that mp3.com
(and their "MyMp3.com" service in particular) violates
their copyrights. (Guess who's
next?)
UCITA passed
in Maryland (source: slashdot): Slashdot has news and discussion
on this supercharged topic.
Related links: Bad-Software
- Anti UCITA headquarters - get your rights on.
SBA - They are one of UCITA's major
proponents.
AMD announced their upcoming
DURON (I know... marketing people... ugh) processor.
You mgiht have heard people refer to it by it's codename, Spitfire.
AMD is aiming at an early June release date. They intend to put
this chip head-to-head with Intel's CeleronII chip for the low-end
(read cheap) market. AMD will also be releasing their high-end chip,
codename Thnderbird (it doesn't have a corny marketing-name yet)
at about the same time. I'm interested to see the performance of
these two processors. Rumor has it, that they perform really well.
I actually am putting off buying a CeleronII until I see the performance
of the "Duron" seeing as it's supposed to cost $99 for
the 600MHz version. We'll see...
Related links: ZDNews
story, CNet
News story (with blaring
innacuracies), AMDZone.
GNUTELLA: If you haven't tried Gnutella...
I finally got it to work on my box - Um... let's just say that homework
won't be getting done... If you don't know, Gnutella
is a program that allows users to share files with each other very,
very easily. This program is just pure genius - and as connection
speeds get faster, things will only get better! There are a lot
of places where you can get Gnutella,
it's freeware (go opensource!) I got mine here.
Legal note: Gnutella
is perfectly legal and don't even think of bringing legal action
against Tweak Central for linking to a site that links to it.
New motherboard available, upgrade time just around the corner.
The new motherboard I want is the ASUS
CUBX (i440BX - Socket370 FC-PGA) and it was just released. I
have finally found a place that sells it: GamePC
(sorry - forgot to put this in). I wasn't able to find it anywhere,
until I came across it at Thresh's.
Speaking of Thresh, He's got a new Overclocking
the Celeron600 article up. Let me know when you're sick of these
Celeron articles... ha ha.
As a little aside: I recently noticed a few (dozen)
people complaining on the Ars-forums that they had purchased Celeron566's
and can't get them to run any higher than 750MHz or so. These people
are stupid. (not 1337 like me ).
"I bought it and plugged it in and it doesn't work!" Are
you mental? (no offense to mental people). Seriously: just pay attention.
My recommendations: Get a QUALITY motherboard (like the ASUS
CUBX or an Abit) - if
you have to use a "slotket" or whatever, make sure it's
of a decent quality (Thresh
used this Abit to get to 945MHz). Get a GlobalWin
FDP32 heatsink, some thermal-paste,
and maybe a copper FC-PGA "shim"
and call-it-good. This pretty much goes for any kind of overclocking...
Just pay attention to details and you'll be fine.
Serioiusly, as soon as I sell a few more copies of my hoenymoon
video, I'm upgrading!
I added H-Oda to the hardware
links page. I know, it's not really hardware, but then again
it is. And his stuff is just the goods. If you haven't already,
go check it out! *NOTE: I'm using SoftFSB
to turn-down my bus speed to 66MHz so Dreamweaver3
doesn't crash (don't ask). When I'm done, I just crank it back up
to 100MHz and I'm back at 600. Life is good!
3 RAM Articles (learn your ass™): In today's installment
of learn your ass™, I've rounded up 3 (well 2 good and
1 not-so-good) articles about the current and future states of RAM
(Memory) for your PC. Hopefully these can help shed some light on
the RAM situation we're in and dispell some of the FUD that seems
to surround memory these days. (If you don't know what FUD is, go
look it up):
1. DDR
SDRAM: Memory of the near-future (iXBT-Labs): this is cool -
it explains the upcoming technology: what you'll need to run DDR
RAM... and some benchmarks too.
2. Rambus
Revisited... (Tom's Hardware): Biased as Tom can be, this article
does a great job of pointing out what the differences really are.
3. Will
Rambus go bust (32bitsOnline.com) (I got this link from JC's):
Good article, but lacks on some details.
Related news:
Micron to
produce DDR SDRAM PC's (the Register): and since Micron and
Crucial are in kahoots, DDR DIMMs for us to buy can't be far behind.
(I think they're available now, but I haven't been able to find
any...).
Kingston to
drop price of RAMBUS RIMMs (the Register): by as much as 68%?
Greater availability and shorter lead-times to follow...
*Note: in-case you didn't know: DDR is (Double Data Rate) whereas
nearly all SDRAM (Syncronous Dynamic RAM) in-use today is SDR (Single
Data Rate). SDRAM is the most widely used type of memory in PC's
today.
In other news:
JC's got Spitfire pricing,
oooh... ("Spitfire" is the code-name for AMD's
upcoming Athlon (K7) processor variant with less (but faster) on-die
L2 cache - aimed squarely at competing with the Intel Celeron in
the "low-end" market *Note: "low-end" here means
cheap.)
Site news:
Home page (this page) updated: hopefully it will "play nice(er)"
with lower-resolution viewers. Contact page
updated with "new look".
(Another?) Internet Explorer security bug: this CNet
News article reports that "veteran browser-bug hunter Georgi
Guninski" has found a bug in Internet Explorer that can allow
a malicious web-site to access files on your computer by exploiting
the way IE handles Javascript. Guniski has a demonstration here.
For information on how to shore-up your Internet Explorer security
settings, see TweakCentral's "Paranoid"
Internet Explorer user page. In all seriousness, you should
take news about this stuff with a grain of salt: The likelihood
of encountering malicious javascript is minimal and the consequences:
worst-case, some of your files (or just filenames?) are visible
or maybe recorded on a web-site somewhere? For the average user,
it's probably not worth the time to think about it...
That "BAM" guy that I talked about though, with the click
here that would crash your computer - now that was annoying.
Related links: CNet
reports on the series of security and other bugs in Internet
Explorer.
TweakCentral's "Paranoid" Internet Explorer
user page.
P3
vs Celeron2 @Thresh's Firing-Squad: Thresh (Quake-champ
from like 5 years ago...) clears things up once-and-for-all about
why the P3 outperforms the new Celerons at the same clock-speed.
Wanna know why? (spoiler) He says it's the L2 cache and how it's
set-up. Read
on.
Related links: HardOCP's
P3 vs Celeron2 article.
Tech-Report's
Celeron II vs Coppermine, round II.
Kyle(HardOCP) got his hands
on a Voodoo 5 5500AGP - we'll see what he "does with it."
I wrote him an email asking whether or not he was going to benchmark
it or what... He's a pretty cool guy, so he should write me back
(I have to say that in-case he checks out this site... shhh).
Tech-Report
reviews the Pentium3 800EB (if you didn't know: E means Coppermine,
B means 133MHz fsb): if you don't like overclocking and like spending
money - oooh! you're in heaven!
TheTechZone
has an article entitled: "How to start a tech-site and
become a Millionaire!" - wait without the Millionaire-part.
At first I thought this was a parody, but he's actually trying to
help people. Oh yeah. This is funny because he says things like
"Your site must have unique contents.
If you plan to just post news from other sites, you can forget about
ever becoming a big site" PSHHH!!! Whatever dude! I
trod all-the-f***-over those stupid rules and look at the site I
got! ...eh. (confession: I rig the hit-counter)
Just to show I care™: Please read the
Onion's Personal safety tips. There are some commonsense tips,
but I really think many people overlook personal safety - it's that
"Oh, that could never happen to me!" attitude. Well you
know what? Statistically, you're probably right, but that's a pretty
crappy attitude to have!
And I (finally) realized that the tech-review
CPU price-list link was pointing to March 17th or something.
I "was all," DAMN! I wonder if those bastards want to
update their price-list or get it pulled from TweakCentral? Fortunately,
cooler-heads prevailed and I soon realized it was my own incompetence
(not incontinence). To quote my friend Ha... er we'll call him...
"Hank" At-any-rate (he likes to try to sound intelligent)
- anyway, it's fixed.
AnandTech's got an article on how to overclock that Celeron2:
read it here.
Some people call it Celeron2, some call it Celeron FC-PGA: you say
tomato, I say tomato...
Just an idea: Anand points out that Intel also released a "transitional"
version of the FC-PGA Celeron - the 533A (this time, the 'A' denotes
FC-PGA packaging and all the other good stuff that goes along with
the new Celeron). One
of these can be had for $115. Now with an 8.0x multiplier and
maybe some PC133 RAM, I could see someone doing maybe 112MHz or
124MHz? - that would put you in the 896 to 992MHz ball-park. You
might have trouble getting it to run at those speeds. I (always)
recommend a big-ass-fan™.
The Register
is reporting that Intel is having trouble producing their new
FC-PGA babies (so am I). But we all knew that.
As much as I hate to do it: Here's a link to... uh... Tom's Hardware.
He
recently whipped-up a CPU roadmap for 2000. Good biased info.
Go Tom! He didn't mention Intel's upcoming Itanium processor (or
AMD's sledgehammer), citing that "There's
still only wildly speculative data about each processor, although
Itanium is obviously much closer to its launch date. I prefer to
not comment on any of those processors before we can spot some actual
real-world data about each of them" - he's right. Intel
doesn't have a whole web-site full of docs and specs. There
probably isn't any accurate information
elsewhere either.
btw: I know - this page (heh, yeah, just this page...) gets "messed
up" on Netscape at under 900 or so pixel-wide windows. I'll
fix that too (promises, promises - we know, he'll never keep...)
New layout (again): I tried to clean-up this front-page
some more... I'll work on it some more... Unfortunately, it's 860+
pixels wide so it'll inconvenience users with smaller monitors.
I'll get that straightened out too... Not much going on in news...
HardOCP got
some "Thunderbird" (AMD's next iteration of their Athlon
CPU) benchmarks. Someone at AMDZone
said that the
benchmarks seemed inaccurate, and a flame-war ensued
(...flamers). Anyway, long-story-short: Kyle (HardOCP)
produced some pictures, while some people are wondering whether
AMD somehow limited performance
on the Thunderbird samples so they wouldn't reveal Thunderbird's
true capabilities (apparantly that's what they did with the
original Athlon).
1GHz
Celeron and more Celeron overclocking:
HardOCP shows just why they're called that (wtf?) in this article
where Kyle (most likely) takes a brand spakin' new Celeron(II) 633
chips and bumps it up to 1012MHz. He says it's not very stable -
I think he's not stable.
Seriously - he was in a hurry and didn't have time to "tweak"
or cool it, I guess... But he says 950MHz is rock-solid. This is
kinda cool 'cus I
read in this article over at Sharky's that his 600 Celeron(II)
was not stable above 900MHz.
Ha ha - HardOCP also ribs Sharky
a little - everyone knows Sharky gets 200 Million page hits because
he spreads a simple 2 page article across 20 pages! Ooh more ads!!!
PS Give Kyle props while you're over there on their AWESOME new
menu-bar on the left-side of his page... err...
In related news: HardOCP
also has this Coppermine (P3 E) vs CeleronII comparison (April 7,
2000) in which we find out that even when the new Celerons are
cranked up to equal speeds, they don't perform quite as well as
their P3 counterparts.
Related Links:
iXBT Chip
name guide - learn your ass™
JC's always got the latest
news on the latest chips. And repeatedly sticks his foot-in-his-mouth
like a true Tom wanna-be should!
JC's where you can learn about how the Coppermine has 8-way set
associative cache with a 256bit bus or something and how the Celeron2
has a different kind of cache associativity or something... I don't
know... I'm not even going to try acting like I know what the differences
are...
Note: JC (I'm
pretty sure) invented a cool word: halfcacheness - ha.
The Tech-Report (not to
be confused with Tech-Review)
has a few thoughts on the performance disparity between Celeron2
and Coppermine.
And I guess the new CeleronII's (as I guess they're being called)
are FC-PGA (Flip-Chip Pin Grid Array, like the P3's) and my motherboard
is PPGA (Plastic Pin Grid Array) - and the two aren't compatible
without an adapter. So I guess I will be buying a new mobo too.
LINUX
3D graphics cards benchmarked. WHAT?!?
WHY? wtf is LINUX? LinuxGames has benchmarked a 5 differnt 3D video
cards under LINUX. Their point is, no-one benches under LINUX:
everyone benchmarks under Windows. So what's LINUX-user to do? (buy
a REAL™ OS?) - Ha ha! I'm just kiddin! I knew that would get
any LINUX zealots riled up. It's a good article. I don't know why
the GeForce or TNT2 aren't in there...
Update: I found Celeron 566's
at Kaypro for $150 + s/h ($10 I think)
- pretty good deal. They seem to have a pretty good rep. over at
ResellerRatings. A
little side-note. I LOVE ResellerRatings.
That is what the net is all about: enpowering the consumer. Problem
is, like eBay's "feedback"
system, crooks are already trying to defeat the system by constantly
changing company-names or "shill" posting complimentary
reviews. My advice: stick to companies that play by the rules and
treat their customers well - After my experiences with quite a few
bad online-businesses, I simply won't shop at store with a bad-rep.
And as always, CHECK THE SHIPPING COSTS FIRST!
I also realized that I can my current motherboard will support
a 566, so I'm about to get a little upgrade soon.
New overclocker's CPU of choice? Thresh's
firing squad has an article that's got a bunch of people all
worked-up. A littlle "history": about 2 years ago, Intel
released the Celeron 300A (the A meaning it had 128k of onboard
full-speed L2 cache, whereas the "300" non-A didn't have
any L2 cache. Since then, all Celerons have come with integrated
L2 cache) - Overclockers (myself included) loved that chip because
most of them ran at 450MHz - so you got a near top-of-the-line chip
for $160 or so.
OK. So now Intel puts out the Celeron 566, Thresh
cranks that bad-boy up to 850 - and then 901MHz, and now it's
the same thing over again.
I wrote a similar snippet about the 500E and 550E Pentium3 CPU's
- but the difference is, to run one of those at 800+ MHz, you need
high-quality PC133 SDRAM which can run you... The celeron 566 will
run at 850+ with standard PC100 SDRAM, which you probably already
have. So while the P3 will definitely give you better performance,
some people might not want to drop the extra money on all new RAM.
Anyway, if you have $300 to blow and some PC100 SDRAM in your box
already, I can't not recommend this upgrade.
If you're shopping: I recommend Paragon
for CPU's and Motherboards - I've ordered from them before - they
are great!
Btw - ZDNews
has an article about overclocking - I just breezed through it,
but I thought they actually recommended average users trying to
overclock their PC's. If you are interested in overclocking - please
read up before you start. There's a TON of information on the web.
Go inform yourself first - it will save you headaches (and $$$)
down the road.
Cheap Zips? I just picked up a Zip 100 disk(Iomega brand)
from Onvia for $8.69 + WA state tax and Onvia has free UPS ground
shipping. Is it just me, or is that a pretty good deal? I don't
use my Zip at all, but one of my prof.s wants work handed in on
Zip's and I don't think I'll get my one disk back before the next
assignment is due.
New Links page: hardware links up.
(more links on the way): I just finished the hardware
links page. I'll get the rest of the links up soon. As always,
if you know of a good site, zap
it to me.
PS I'm completely flooded by emails from women responding to my
personal ad on excite (see below) - maybe in the future, I can use
a picture of one of my friends instead, and that would cut down
on the demand females have for me! (...eh)
Update: My friend neglected
to tell me he got this "gigolo" stuff from Cr0bar
(remember what I said about having digits in your
name) - I heard he (Cr0bar)
gets pretty pissed if you steal his sh*t, so I'll give him "mad
props" - and credit - go visit Detonate.net - it's funny.
I just thought my buddy sky
was cruisin' the excite personals for a guy-pal.
Busted! My friends found my personal ad on
excite: OUCH! Here's the email I recieved today, complete with
images - great!
 |
 |
Steve, I knew that scanner would end up hurting you.
Dear Girls, I am a lonely Asian male who would like to
have a girl friend. If you [are] interested, here is my
picture on the left. Am I not hot? When I was in my Japan,
I was a gigolo!
Gigolo: A Professional Dancer or Lover who is hired as
a companion by a wealthy Women.
I will not tell my age, I am very WEALTHY as
you can see all the gold I am wearing. They are 100% real
and not the cheap ones you = see many Americans wearing. I
drive a 1999 Mercedes Benz S class.
If you become my woman, I will treat you like a princess!
So please email me, I will be waiting.
xxxxxxxx@excite.com If you would like to call me,
my phone number is 360-xxx-xxxx. I live in Bellingham, WA.
Email, please satisfy a lonely man. Good Bye my Future woman.
:).
|
This is a nightmare! My friends will nag my ass about this for
the rest of my life.
The sad thing is, I wish I was that good-looking, that cool, that
rich, that tall, and I wish my "Mad-Max" civic was that
mercedes!
Links page status update: I just finished the hardware/performance
links. I'll get all the links up soon, then I'll start reworking
the rest of this site (read tweaks and files). Remember to send
me any links you think others might find useful, send
it my way. If you're shopping for a new motherboard for your
AMD Athlon, Anand
has a review
of the new ASUS K7V KX133 (Via Apollo Pro 133). Anand
also has a
nice PC133 SDRAM roundup: he only tests 4 brands of memory...
I
did some reading in the Anand forums and it turns out he only
tests memory from his sponsors. I'm not going to step into that
pit, but a reader did post a link to Overclockin'.com's
RAM
roundup II (the return?): It tests a few more brands with different
results. Definitely read-up before you buy. *Already got Overclockin'.com
on the links page.
Btw: A lot of people like the crucial
PC133 CAS2 chip: It's only $135 - is it me, or is that cheap?
I like crucial myself and I can remember (back in the day™)
when crucial used to cost double the market price.
New links page coming along nicely: I'd say it's about 40%
done. I'll keep on working on it during the next few days. If you
want your page on there, or if you know of a page others may find
useful, send it my way.
Send a brief description too, will ya?
A few "tips" pages added to quicktips.
While I was digging through my saved links, I came across some tips-type
pages, so I just threw them in with the other quicktips.
New CPU Comparison: JC's
got a nice little preliminary comparison of the upcoming CPU's
(Like Intel's newest Celerons
and AMD's new Spitfires): It turns
out that JC doesn't know whether these are real or an April
Fool's joke - See for yourself.
Or better yet, buy the all the processors, test them and beat everyone
to the punch by posting the benchmarks first! You'd be a nerd-hero!
(for a few days).
Quick Tip added: I want to make the site a little more helpful,
so I'm going to try a "quick tip" on the front-page here
and maybe archive the old ones on a separate page. I also want to
completely redo the links page(s) and basically link up every computer
enthusiast related site out there... pretty ambitious, but I think
I can handle it. I need to do something about the pathetic state
of the "tweaks" sections: maybe a mega-database or index
of all the tweaks known to man and just have links to all those
that are off-site. This is probably too ambitious for me - and a
maintenance nightmare, so maybe I'll find a compromize...
And don't knock the quick-tip box - it took me all day to make
it!
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