News

Earth and Beyond Central has gone live!

What is Earth and Beyond? Only the hottest new game to never come out (yet, it is in beta). We will be added content very soon, so add that to your favs! Ohh, by the way, if you like the color scheme shoot me a PM and I'll add that theme here. It uses the same code as this site.

CNET has a piece of news on a 4 CPU Rackmount 1U Server solution utilizing AthlonMP 2100+ chips.

It's not really a true 4 way server since there are no chipsets that support more than 2 MP CPU's, but they have managed to slip 2 motherboards into the rack, giving it the same result. What I wouldn't give to have one of those beasties crunching on one of my distributed computing projects!

The folks over at ieXbeta have posted some download links to a new service pack build for Windows 2000.


Windows 2000 SP3 RC 3.151

The Inquirer has a few tidbits on the new Epox Nforce 2 EP-8RGA+ that Epox will be launching soon.

Fileconnect have posted the newest version of Zoom Player (version 2.70). This player is meant to be a replacement for Windows Media Player, has far more options to choose from than WMP, giving it more flexibility to play with. I typically use Zoom Player myself and I'm quite happy with it. So scope out some of the features it has listed over at Fileconnect. If you need additional codecs, I would recommend downloading the Nimo Codec Pack to cover all the bases.

Who else is hiring? I hope you all find jobs.

Cutting the work force may not provide the tonic Intel needs. Consumers are buying cheaper computers, and the company's foray into the communications market is stalled by a prolong downturn in telecommuncations equipment spending. At the same time, the need to invest in capital equipment, while slightly decreasing, remains high.

Wireless to the country? I need my email everywhere! 802.11b hot spots will be popping up everywhere.

Intel, IBM, AT&T Wireless, Verizon Communications and Cingular Wireless are discussing the creation of a company that would build a network of wireless hot spots across the country, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Hotspots are publicly available wireless networks that use the 802.11b standard to deliver Internet access.

If the discussions bear fruit, the resulting company would build hot spots in public areas such as airports. People would be able to subscribe to the wireless services on the fly, accessing e-mail or the Web while passing through those hot spots. Typically, hot spots charge people by the hour or by the day.

I don't know how to review speakers myself. Hey these sound good.

Overall, for the price you pay, these are good speakers. Its hard to find 5.1 speakers with this quality at this price (around $85 US). But you have to remember that these speakers always distort at high volume and they also interfere with other electronic devices. But you also get great DVD, Gaming, Music performance and 3D Quality. If Hercules fixes these small problems in there next audio line, there future in this sector is very promising.

VR-Zone has slapped up a review of this GF4 Ti 4400. And it is a good one page that gets into the details only, no BS.

XFX knew what to do to get the enthusiasts attention when they planned the release of the their version of the GeForce 4 Ti 4400. They gave the user a good looking card equipped with a cool HSF and ramsinks, decent bundle to get the user off his feat, and performance that would make any enthusiast happy. The only thing we would have liked to have seen in the package are full versions of games, and maybe a few more accessories to get the attention of the computer enthusiast. However, the small flaws of the package do not affect the performance of the card, which is phenomenal. This is definitely a card some one should look at when wanting a good performance / cost ratio, and we've seen the card going for around $230.00.

VIAHardware went to the nVidia PR event and shared their thoughts. There is also mention of a Shuttle SN40 with an AGP slot!

With an AGP slot, this is the perfect small LAN box, and the onboard video looks to be shaping up well too. The SN40 will be fully reviewed and covered here of course, as soon as we get one. No, don't ask, I'm not sure when that will be. One nice thing that you will find on the rear of this system is two VGA ports which will allow you to use a dual monitor configuration with no extra video card installed. I will try to get some close-up pictures and pictures from the inside and get this article updated in the evening, so check back tomorrow morning. Also as you can see in the last image, there is an NVIDIA logo behind the front panel. That was done using plain printer paper and was placed behind the clear panel. It came out quite good, and apparently there will be a kit of some sort with the SN40 so that you can do this yourself.

This means that Microsoft will have tons of different version of Windows floating around. I just want my tablet PC.

Originally code-named Freestyle, this entertainment version of Windows--which will go by the name Windows XP Media Center Edition--will appear on new PCs and PC hybrids in time for the holidays, the company revealed on Tuesday. With Windows Media Center, consumers will be able to use a TV remote control to catalogue songs, videos and pictures, as well as check TV listings.

Windows Media Center brings the number of XP versions to five. The others are: Windows XP Home for standard consumer PCs, Windows XP Professional for business, Windows XP Tablet PC for tablets and notebooks and the embedded version for devices. Earlier this year, Chairman Bill Gates said that selling customized versions of Windows, as requested by nine states pursuing the antitrust case against Microsoft, would confuse customers.

It seems that security beat out privacy 385-3.

The Bush administration had asked Congress to approve the Cyber Security Enhancement Act (CSEA) as a way of responding to electronic intrusions, denial of service attacks and the threat of "cyber-terrorism." The CSEA had been written before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks last year, but the events spurred legislators toward Monday evening's near-unanimous vote.
CSEA, the most wide-ranging computer crime bill to make its way through Congress in years, now heads to the Senate. It's not expected to encounter any serious opposition, although there's not much time for senators to consider the measure because they take August off and are expected to head home for the year around Oct. 1.
"Until we secure our cyber infrastructure, a few keystrokes and an Internet connection is all one needs to disable the economy and endanger lives," sponsor Lamar Smith, R-Tex., said earlier this year. "A mouse can be just as dangerous as a bullet or a bomb."

Me and 4 other peeps are making the second site into an Earth and Beyond Portal/Best site ever. I'll let you know when it goes up. By the way, the new site WON'T have linked user databases, this one is totally fresh. Ohh, and it is better if you play the game if you want to help .

The folks over at Fileconnect have posted a download for Intel's newest best version of thier software that helps boost performance for 800 series Intel chipsets.

INQwell has the details of the R300.

The chip will have eight pipelines and will use as many as 107 million transistors. It will be built using 0.15 micron technology and the card will have external power connector since it will need more power than AGP 2.0 can provide. We learned that AGP 2.0 can deliver 40 watts so this card will therefore need more than that.

Stupid script kiddies should attack Windoze servers, not Linux.

In the past, hackers and virus writers have largely focused their efforts on the Windows platform, as its dominance on desktop PCs makes it a ready target. However, Linux has a large share of the Web server market, and Linux server applications are often vulnerable to attack because of mismanagement, according to the study.

Mi2g has recorded 7,630 successful attacks on Linux systems in the first six months of this year, up sharply from last year's 5,736 attacks. In the meantime, successful attacks on Windows systems running Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) have fallen by 20 percent from 11,828 in the first half of 2001 to 9,404 in the first half of this year.

Active Hardware has a review of the small SS40g from Shuttle.

As you can see, while performance was quite acceptable, it wasn't "up-to-speed" with full-sized systems. Note that this is probably due in large part to the SS40G XTC's integrated graphics card, which is only capable of low level performance at best. Integrated graphics solutions have never managed to set the industry on fire, and anyone who doubts need look no further than the i810E and i815E chipsets for proof...

I didn't even know they were in it.

HP will refocus its software efforts on three technologies that manage software: HP OpenView, used to manage and monitor the health of businesses' computer systems; HP Utility Data Center, to simplify management of data centers, a facility that houses servers which hold Web sites' databases, files and other content; and HP OpenCall, software that allows telecommunications service providers to offer telephony and Internet services to customers.

What a load of BS. I saw this at [H]. Steve's response is:

With that said, I have no idea what they are talking about, I have never had one single person report what they are reporting, and I personally have had various Pentium4 systems at 3GHz plus rock solid for months…not even a hiccup.

Which leads me to believe that a certain publication is losing some edge no? (after a great deal of crappy articles) Take stuff with big, 100 ton grains of salt as always

Tech Report has a review of this i845E board from Abit.

The BD7II-RAID is fast, stable, and features all the integrated components that an enthusiast should come to expect these days. With a little BIOS fiddling, you can even coax a very impressive 178MHz out of its memory bus. There's no reason to believe the BD7II-RAID wouldn't be completely stable at 2-2-2 and 'DDR356' with some better memory. As you can see from our testing, higher memory bandwidth can really help performance under the right circumstances.

Among other things, the new nForce boards will be expensive. Get a clue nVidia, no one will pay over $200 for a board, these aren't like your graphics cards.

Assuming, that is, Nvidia prices nForce 2 right. So far no one outside Nvidia has published any indication of what the chipset's components might cost. The original version was pricey, and the high-end functions highlighted by the rumour sites suggest that nForce 2 isn't going to be bargain basement either. If that's the case, it may be some time before the chipset appears in systems most folk can afford, recession or no.

Digitimes says July 17 for the RV250 and R300.

Industry sources said that ATI’s latest Radeon 9700 is expected to have a significant impact on Nvidia’s GeForce4 Ti chips in the high-end market. However, considering the chip’s overly top-end market positioning and its pin counts, which reaches as high as 1,176, they plan to observe the market acceptance before entering mass card production.<