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2003
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I don't know what the difference is between
NT Compatible has updated their faq (frequently asked questions - that's
one of them... huh?) with some information about Microsoft's
next latest and greatest. My money's on the thing being called Windows.NET
(...ugh) but we'll see what the "Marketing wizards" will come
up with.
Adrian, the busiest man in Tweakin' has updated his Windows
2000 tweak guide again. This is a great resource, so definitely let
Adrian know if you like it.
Tweaker's Asylum has put up a Windows 2000 tweak guide. I haven't had
a chance to take a look at this yet, so go
see for yourself, and then tell my lazy ass about it.
The whole CPRM issue has caused quite a stir in consumer privacy circles
(see my previous posts here and here).
This time, EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
founder, John Gilmore has some choice words to say about it. He claims
Intel is misleading the media and public
about it's plans with CPRM. Go
check it out and write some angy letters - or at least get angry for
a little bit
These
32 bit emulation benchmarks (in Dutch) performed by tweakers.net show
Intel's new 64-bit Itanium processor (running
at 667 MHz) performing at or below the performance of a Pentium 100 (1996
vintage). The Itanium is a 64 bit processor which employs EPIC (Enhanced
(or Extreme?) Parallel Instruction (set) Coputing) architecture codeveloped
by Intel and HP. It therefore needs to "emulate"
a 32-bit processor in order to run 32-bit code. This may be good news
for AMD, whose planned 64-bit processor "Hammer"
family (Hey, that's where I'm from!)
will extend the x86 architecture to 64 bits and will be able to run 32
bit code without emulation. The downside is that if IA-64 and EPIC
show great benefit, AMD's processors won't share this advantage. The outcome
remains to be seen. Intel IA-64 architecture
home
In this Register
article, they discuss a project Microsoft
Research has been working on: a 3D user-interface for Windows. Wow,
I can't contain my sarcasm... er enthusiasm for such an original idea.
Just saw this on CNet, "Two teams of scientists
have accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of trapping and stopping
light--an achievement that could lead to major advances in quantum computing."
Give it a
read if this sort-of thing interests you.
Speaking of disturbing pictures. Here's
a picture of an AMD Athlon running at over 2.0GHz. Who knows if it's
real or not... This is from someone at Son's
PC Zone (japanese) but like Kyle says, it's in the universal language
of pictures and benchmarks! - well, no benchmarks, but you get the general
idea...
A friend showed me some disturbing photographs and now I can't sleep.
So I redid the links pages. I was working on them
earlier anyway.
CNet is reporting that there is a security problem with Microsoft
Windows media player. Something to do with the skins. From the CNet article,
"It is a high risk," said Elias Levy, chief
technology officer for SecurityFocus.com. The vulnerability "allows you
to take full control of a machine. Someone could do whatever they want
to." I don't use it, so I wouldn't know.
Savage News has a few dozen screenshots from Microsoft's
upcoming Whistler operating system. In case you weren't paying
attention the last time I spread lies... er was talking about Whistler,
it will be the Microsoft's attempt to use the NT/2000 code-base for its
consumer-grade OS. Until now, all the 9x and ME OS'es have used a kludge
of DOS and 32-bit code which Microsoft has wanted to get rid of for years.
Those crazy aussie's at Insane Hardware have some pictures and info
of Intel's next iteration of the Pentium
3 processor, codenamed Tualatin (after a river in Oregon). The
Tualatin is basically a P3 manufactured on a 0.13 micron copper
process (current P3's are 0.18 micron aluminum): This will allow the processor
to run at lower voltages and higher speeds while creating less heat. According
to ixbt, expect a 1.26GHz Tualatin to debut in July. (Tualatin
is expected to have a 133MHz fsb (front-side bus) just like the P3.
Brian Neal has obtained some Intel Itanium (IA-64) benchmarks. The results
are only for one benchmark, "double-precision
matmul, Atlas 3.2.0/Linux - BLAS 3, and don't make use of any SIMD extensions
such as SSE[2] or 3DNow!." But you can see the Itanium stretching
it's legs on a benchmark that, "is unlikely
to expose any weaknesses present in early IA-64 compilers."
Ok, enough of that "Ginger" nonsense. The KT7A
is the updated version of the ever-so-popular KT7 motherboard from
Abit. The "A"
denotes usage of the Via KT133A chipset.
Basically, all the non-"A" chipset based motherboards aren't
stable at fsb speeds above 100MHz (go figure). The new versions, however,
are stable above 100MHz, as you can see with this board Kyle tested at
140MHz fsb. I don't know if this is any good.
With an exclusive story, I have obtained from a "reliable source" a secret sketch of the mystery invention by Dean Kamen. Pictured below is a top-secret sketch of a prototype "Ginger." The invention looks suprisingly similar to what is known as a "bicycle,"
but with powerhouses like Steve Jobs (um...) and Jeff Bezos behind it,
I'm sure it will be amazing (...er).
I came across this
page when I was at JC's or
somebody's the other day.
The CPRM issue has got a lot of people riled-up. If you didn't know,
(long-story-short) CPRM is a proposed technology to be embedded in storage
devices (including hard-drives) which would not allow you to copy material
(songs, movies...etc) which the originator doesn't want you to copy.
The world's least-favorite law-firm
(Rambus, Inc.) is up its usual business. Ripping IC companies new poop-chutes.
At the third annual Needham & Co. Inc. Growth Conference in New York,
Gary Harmon, Rambus' chief financial officer, said that companies engaged
in legal action with Rambus, Inc, may pay substantially higher licensing
fees or lose the right to sell Rambus "patented" memory technology
all together if the companies lose their legal cases against Rambus. This
means companies like Micron (Crucial), Infineon, and Nvidia may face not
being able to manufacture or sell DDR SDRAM or related products (like
memory controller chips) if they lose to Rambus in court.
Got|Apex? (uh-huh) has a "Tweak
your operating system" guide up. It's worth a look. It's got
some interesting deals on Win2000 (and ME I think).
Speaking of Tech-Report, I saw
over there that Microsoft has released
(to beta-testers) a new build (2410) of their upcoming consumer operating
system codenamed Whistler (after a ski-resort just up the road
in Canada).
I read on Ars that UGO
is renegotiating their contracts with some of our fellow computer-enthusiast
web sites like VoodooExtreme,
Stomped and Tech-Report
(not to be confused with Tech-Review).
If you didn't know, those sites serve up UGO ads and UGO pays them money.
I'm sure those guys will all be fine: they won't have any problem paying
their bills. As for TweakCentral? Sh*t, I make this site with a pack of
note-pads I got at OfficeMax.
Looks like the only guy running a real tweak website around here is
my man Adrian. He calls it v.2.1
(hey, whatever floats your boat), but it really is a great little source
for some Windows 2000 tweakin'. Go take a look!
See, I told you it's
important to keep your cpu cool. These guys in japan have managed
to get their 1.2GHz athlon up to 1.7GHz with liquid nitrogen.
Today Mitsubishi
announced that it has signed a deal to pay RAMBUS,
Inc. royalties to manufacture and/or use memory chips or controller chips
based on RAMBUS technology. Mitsubishi becomes the seventh major chip-maker
to sign a patent deal with RAMBUS, leaving only Micron,
Hyundai and Infineon
as the only major manufacturers that have yet to sign a deal with RAMBUS.
The three companies are involved in legal action against RAMBUS (who isn't).
Trying to use Microsoft's workhorse business software to play games?
Me too.
CNet says that Microsoft is looking
for playtesters for it's upcoming XBox console game system. You have to
go to the playtest center, they won't just send you one. But if you want
to play with $500 console systems years, er, 12 months (yeah right) before
they're released, it might be worth your time.
Happy New Year to all of you from Tweak Central! I hope everyone can
make 2001 a great year and I hope everyone can achieve their goals (or
in case you're on the 8 1/2 year plan, at least make some progress towards
achieving your goals)! |
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information
Best tweak sites
VoodooExtreme
.
I'm sure they're not talking about me...
This
is the way reviews USED to be! Tech-Report puts on a clinic and every
wanna-be hardware reviewer should take notes. First they go into the background
of the P4's technology, then the specifics of the chip itslef, and last,
about 10 pages (real pages, not sharky-anand pages) of benchmarks. They
run a wide variety of benchmarks so you can see the different areas of
performance for each cpu. Definitely go check this one out, even if you
know the P4 sucks 
TheRegister
In
an interview with 
Microsoft
Research: Task Gallery home
You
can already buy DVD-RAM drives and media, but (I think) the discs are
stuck in a "caddy" (cartridge) and are basically data-only,
and not compatible with DVD players or drives. The technology that CNet
is talking about is DVD-R (Recordable) or DVD-RW (ReWritable). These drives
are just becoming available and the media is also becoming available.
If the industry can settle on a standard, we could see DVD recorders become
as commonplace (read cheap) as today's CD recoders (burners). DVD-R drives
could store up to 4.7GB (CD-R discs are 700MB max) of data per disc.
Bill
Gates unveiled 
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