Morning Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:00 PM CEST - Apr,06 2002
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- Win XP to upgrade with more--or less - The software maker says
it plans to start
testing Windows XP Service Pack 1 as early as next month, with a final release slated
for late summer. The update will introduce support for Mira wireless devices and the
Freestyle digital media interface. More importantly, the update will let consumers and PC
makers remove access to about a half-dozen of Microsoft's so-called middleware
technologies integrated into Windows XP
- Sony: PC price hikes on the way - On Friday, Sony said it would raise prices of
notebooks and desktops in the United States and Japan. Some new high-end notebooks
have already been increased in price by $100 to $200. The price of other notebooks and
desktops will also go up, although desktops will see less of an increase, a Sony
representative said.
- Is Office NGO really the next version of Office? - A
number of readers alerted me this week to a fascinating Shockwave animation that purports
to demonstrate some of the online/subscription features of the next version of Microsoft
Office, which will be called Office .NET. Code-named Office NGO ("Next Generation
Office") in the animation, this Office version will include links to a number of of
online services, including a secure My Office Web site; a consolidated email account with
Web-based Inbox; Office .NET Notifications; online scheduling with a sharable calendar;
Meeting Workspaces for viewing agendas, pending tasks, and related documents, SharePoint
Team Services-based Team Workspace for sharing information with team members; and a set of
online content such as templates, online training, communities, and the like. So is
it real? Is Office NGO really a sneak-peak at Office .NET? It's hard to say, and though
some UI inconsistencies have me thinking that this is an April Fools prank, I will say
this: If it is fake, it's the most elaborate fake I've ever seen. Let's
take a look.
- NVIDIA ChameleonMark Review - ChameleonMark is a performance tool for measuring pixel shader
performance for a variety of shaders. It is based upon the popular "Chameleon"
demo released by NVIDIA with the introduction of the Geforce3 line of GPUs. The test uses
three of the Chameleon "skins". These are the "real",
"shiny" and "glass" skins. The test for each skin is run separately.
- Fire-i Digital Camera (Firewire) Video-Review - The Fire-i has great image quality, very small and the reliability
that Firewire technology offers. A fantastic idea if you need Home/Office Monitoring.
- Athlon XP 2000+ Review - The XP 2000+ still rides the Palomino
bus. What this means is achitecturally, the CPU is unchanged
from the XP 1800+ we've looked at earlier. As most enthusiasts know, XPs are fast, and
they run cooler than the previous generation Athlons, but we're getting to the point that
heat is becoming an issue again. Dissipating in the range of 70W of heat, you'll still
need a quality heatsink and fan combination to cool the processor.
- Microstar GF4 MX440 Graphics Card Review - GeForce 4 MX440 being the most affordable among the new line of video
cards from nVidia (most affordable and still providing some 3D power that is) is very
interesting for most end users. No wonder there are so many reviews of cards based on this
chip all over the net. There is not much difference performance and looks wise between
manufacturers, but some do stand out - either with price, or overclocking options, or rich
package. Microstar International, besides being among top 5 motherboard manufacturers, is
number one manufacturer of video cards for the OEM market. Besides making cards for
others, MSI has a very good line of its own video cards and G4MX440 is one of the best
examples why MSI is so successful.
- ATI Radeon8500 Review - ATI is aggressively positioning the Radeon 8500 as a
viable upgrade for those users who still have older graphics technology but can't afford a
GeForce4 Ti card.
- MSI KT3 Ultra ARU Vcore Mod Guide - Mods4ME has publisher a MSI
KT3 Ultra ARU Vcore mod guide.
- System Tweaking Guide - Tweaking is the manual adjustment of
specific settings and performance options in both software and hardware. Tweaking can
start well before any operating system is installed as this guide will
show, and can even be implemented as soon you install your brand spanking new motherboard
into your case.
- Internet Connection Guide - As windows sets the MaxMTU to
1500 bytes in the first place, almost any personalization will be of benefit. Taking the
examples earlier in this guides, Windows claims by default it can handle 1500 bytes in one
packet. For a connection that can only handle 800 means data is packaged into 1500 byte
units and then has to be fragmented by the modem, which takes time and slows your
connection down.
- Codecreatures Benchmark - The Codecreatures benchmark is written with Microsoft's DirectX 8.1
API and incorporates the use of Vertex and PixelShaders popular on next generation 3D
accelerators. The benchmark plays a photo-realistic nature scene and calculates the
performance of the graphics adapter by measuring the fps that it can display at 1024x768,
1280x1024 and 1600x1200 resolutions. The score is a geometric mean of those three
resolutions called the Codecreatures number.
- Apache 2.0.35 Released - Apache 2.0 offers numerous
enhancements, improvements and performance boosts over the 1.3 codebase. The most
visible and noteworthy addition is the ability to run Apache in a hybrid thread/process
mode on any platform that supports both threads and processes. This has shown to improve
the scalability of the Apache HTTP Server significantly in our testing. Apache 2.0 also
includes support for filtered I/O. This allows modules to modify the output of other
modules before it is sent to the client. We have also included support for IPv6 on any
platform that supports IPv6.
- IE6 SP1 beta leaked - Download IE6 SP1 Beta build 2800.1005
(10.9MB) Mirror
/ Install instructions.
- HyperSnap-DX 4.40.01 - HyperSnap-DX 4
is a screen capture and image editing tool for MS Windows. It captures screens from
standard desktop programs and even those hard-to-grab DirectX, Direct3D, 3Dfx Voodoo and
Glide mode games. What's new in version 4.40.01: Non-rectangular window capture (e.g.
rounded corners of WinXP windows, or arbitrary shape windows, like Media Player in
"skin mode"), PNG files now support transparency and interlace attribute, Saving
ICO files now correctly sets transparency mask according to transparency color selected,
Color reduction from true colors to palette, now provides less "reddish"
colors., GIF files can now be saved in any of 1, 2, 3, ... 8 bits per pixel, resulting
often in smaller file sizes and of course bugfixes.
- Mozilla 0.9.9 Build 2002040506 - The next Mozilla 0.9.9
builds are out. MathML is now enabled on all win32 and UNIX builds and the JavaScript
Debugger now does profiling. Other highlights include TrueType font support for UNIX and
SOAP support.
- FlashFXP Beta 1.4.840 Beta - FlashFXP
is a powerful and popular FTP & FXP Client for Windows. It is loaded with features for
the power user, but has an intuitive user interface that takes only minutes to master.
This new beta finally adds SSL support!
- CloneCD 4.0.0.0 Beta 9 - This is
the full version, including the setup program. There is no word of what's new yet.
- WinOnCD 5 SP2 - The second service
pack for WinOnCD 5 is available.
- nVHardPage NVIDIA Tweaker v0.80.9b - Do you seek an easy way to
en/disable overclocking options or vsync option in your detonator drivers without the
burden of importing registry entries or the need to go in that registry yourself ?
Basically CoolBits and more within your fingertips. This program serves on
enabling/disabling hidden features in NVIDIA control panel and tweaking NVIDIA
Direct3D & OpenGL settings.
- Fixed Epox KT333 BIOS - Quite a few people have been having
problems with the Epox 8K3A+ (KT333) while overclocking to anything above 143MHz FSB even
at full VCore. There is an updated
beta BIOS which seems to have fixed the problem.
- Sound Blaster Extigy Drivers - This webpackage updates already installed software to the bracketed
versions as well as updating the drivers themselves:
PlayCenter 3.01.22 (to 3.01.23), RemoteCenter 1.40.14 (to 1.40.15), Recorder 2.00.22 (to
2.00.24), Mixer 2.01.11 (to 2.01.12).
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Updated:09:29 PM CEST Jun,22
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