Arthro Theoreio (The BOX) v.1.0.158

I-Phone Gaming (huh?)

Well, there seems to be so much news about the I-phone lately. this one says that Apple is planning to put games or develop the I-Phone as a main gaming flatform. This is not such a bad idea, but I think using the touch screen of the I-phone as the interface for the games is not quite a good idea.

The Touch-sensitive portion of the I-Phone is not made to withstand great pressure from gamers that are so engrossed in their gaming experience. I think if Apple really wants to pursue this gaming in the I-phone, They'd better put in some very sturdy sensors on that.

Another issue that I'm seeing is that the current I-Phone Batteries won't be able yo give gamers a descent playing time, as it is not really intended for gaming. what I see is that Apple might introduce more powerful battery packs for the would-be I-phone gamers.

I'll try to keep track of this story and see how it will develop.

Mac Book Air goes Kapoot!

Ok, i know this is a late reaction, but late reaction is better than none at all.

So, I went to a Mac outlet in QC, and guess what I saw.... Hint: it fits in a legal sized brown envelope and is more expensive than a ware house full of brown envelops (ok maybe not). It's a Mac book air.... Damn it.

Anyways, it seems to be the most attractive piece of electronic  in the outlet. people were just staring at it like it was Micheal Jackson  running around in drag. Sure it's thin, SO? it's not the thinnest laptop ever! I believe the thinnest laptop is a Sony.

That thing doesn't even have an Optical drive for crying out loud! it only has ONE USB... yes you read that right ONE! how the hell are you supposed to use that laptop for everyday use?

Sure it looks cute, but cute is not the bottom line in buying a laptop! *sigh* I really don't know why a person in the right mind would buy one.

predictions? people would be stupid enough to buy one, but, it won't be soon enough that people will realize that MAC book air is just an over priced piece of Sh*t. that would be all.

Some Thoughts

Today am to tackle some issues in the tech world that I may have ignored or was too busy to write about. So, let’s start.

Microsoft extending Windows XP’s retirement day

As most of you may know, Microsoft has announced a couple of months ago that XP will retire next year. This means that the Windows Version will not be supported by Microsoft. Hmm… so, why is Microsoft doing this? It’s because they wanted XP users to ‘upgrade’ to Windows Vista. Well, why is Microsoft extending the service of XP?

I can think of quite some reasons. Here are some of them.

• Microsoft actually realized that Vista      is so messed up and they would want to save their ass by keeping XP alive      while Bill’s gang tries making a better version of Vista or a completely      new OS. This means that Vista will eventually suffer the same fate as      Windows ME.
• There’s just too much demand for XP      that Microsoft would still like to capitalize in it, while Microsoft is      waiting for the next version of the Mac OS so that they can copy it.

Whatever the reason is, I’m pretty much sure that Microsoft will put all their efforts to improve Windows Vista. They also might release a new version of Windows and trash Vista all together. Because rumor has it that Microsoft is already baking up another operating system and this is the successor to Vista.

Now, many people are asking me whether or not I think Vista will eventually go mainstream like XP. I’d say it will, if only Microsoft will admit that they have messed up Vista and put all efforts in making it work like Windows 98SE. I’m not saying Windows 98SE is perfect, but, so far it is one of the more stable versions of Windows that I’ve seen, plus it’s not a resource hog like Vista.

I really wish that Microsoft would be able to produce an OS that will not require users to spend too much on upgrading their hardware just to be able to enjoy all the features of the latest version of Windows. I think this is one of the biggest problems of Vista; it is just too expensive for most PC users to upgrade to Vista. Another is its price, Vista is more expensive than XP.I have a Vista-ready laptop, but I’m still running XP on it. Mainly because my hardware can run XP faster and more reliably than Vista. And why would I run Vista on this laptop is I can run MAC OS in it? After all, I’m using my laptop more for multi-media content creation.

Another news that I would like to touch is the I-Phone issue where Apple is turning the Hacked versions of the I-Phones into I-bricks.

Well as I have written in my previous post here in my blog, the I-phone is sold ‘Locked’. Meaning, you can only use the I-phone if you agree to get a plan with whatever Apple–approved-telecommunications provider.

Now, this is kind of a turn-off for most users who wants to have the I-phone but does not want or need to change providers. So, some people in the net came up with an ‘I-phone Hack’. This is mainly a set of instructions that will unlock the I-phone.

This quickly became a hit. After a couple of hours or so, some I-phone owners have unlock their I-phones. Apple eventually discovered this and so they decided to do something about it. And so, when Apple released a patch for the I-phone, they included codes that will ‘brick’ the hacked I-phones or render them useless.

Lots of owners installed the said patch and in just a few seconds they now have an I-brick. Naturally, users were pissed about this and some of them are actually planning or already suing Apple regarding the patch.

My take on this? Well, I strongly think that Apple will earn more if they ‘opened’ the I-Phone. I’m sure, the very moment that Steve Jobs opens the I-Phone, it will sell more. Who wants to be stuck on a telecommunications provider just to enjoy a phone?

Update:

I-Phone goes to China and Chinese I-Pods

Wow! This is news, Apple is finally releasing their I-Phone in China. This is great, I guess. I agree with what John Dvorak said about this, expect I-phone clones from China. I predict that the clones of the I-phone will be like the Chinese versions of the I-pod. The Chinese I-pods basically look like I-pods only, they do not have hard drives like the real ones and they use Flash Cards. Craftsmanship is crappy and the casing feels cheap. Sound quality is also very poor. Man! If you like the I-Pod buy a real one. If you only want an MP3 player, buy a phone that has MP3 playback capabilities.

Microsoft, Advertising Company

A couple of weeks ago, Steve Balmer, an executive from Microsoft said that Microsoft will be venturing into the advertising industry. I was just thinking, will Microsoft ever be able to stick to one thing for very long? I mean, Microsoft has been venturing into the gaming business with the Xbox, the  

Reasons why Mac’s I-Phone is not Filipino Friendly

For the past few months or so, there has been hype on when the I-phone, the mobile phone from Apple will be available for the Philippine market. I think this is not the real question that Filipinos should ask, why? Well because we are still not sure if the I-Phone will be able to offer what both Nokia and Sony Ericsson Phones currently do. Okay, let’s talk about issues first, issue number one is that the I-Phone is exclusively distributed by AT&T, not by Smart, Globe or Sun; This means that if you’d like to have an I-phone, you better switch to AT&T. And as far as I know AT&T is not even available in the country, so, where will we be switching to? Second, The I-phone DOES NOT have 3G capability, the I-Phone was made to cater the needs of Americans and Europeans who have Wi-Fi instead of 3G. As we, all know Wi-Fi technology in the country is still in its budding stage, as we all know there are only selected areas in the Philippines where Wi-Fi is available. Third issue is that I-Phone will only be playing songs or music files that was downloaded from legitimate sources, in a country that have widespread piracy and counterfeit market, I don’t think this is a good idea. Mainly because majority of Filipinos will not even buy an original CD. Moreover, those who buy original CDs just might already own an I-Pod, so, what is the use in buying a Phone that does not have 3G and does some things that the I-Pod could do? Final words If ever the I-Phone does get into Philippine soil, I think it will have strong competition from both Nokia and SE. I would suggest that possible buyers of this Phone very carefully about purchasing such a gadget, because it just might turn out as a piece of junk in the end. Now, if you are filthy rich, then go ahead buy one, but do not tell me I did not warn you.

The Dell People did it Again

Just a few days back I raved about the decision of Dell to keep selling Windows XP as a default Operating System for their computers, this move by Dell was due to the heavy demand for XP coming from their customers.

Now, just when I thought Dell would not be any cooler and wiser, The Computer Hardware company made another stunning move, Dell Decides to make Ubuntu, a Linux Distro one of the default operating system for some of their computers. Now, this is a big leap for Linux, because this means that computer makers like Dell, are seeing that there is a need for Linux Operating systems and that the efforts of Linux makers to make Linux a lot easier to use is finally paying off. \

Costumers will benefit from this move of Dell because the computer maker will be able to slash a big chunk from the prices of their hardware, because as we all know operating systems are quite expensive.

The Open-Source people are surely very happy now because Linux is finally having a global spotlight, also, the open-source programs that are bundled with the Ubuntu CD will be having their time under the sun. However, there’s a ‘con’ to this decision too, ‘cause there’s not that much programs made to run under Linux, most users might have a very difficult time looking for games and other apps for their PC.

I just hope that this move by Dell would be able to make software developers to see that the Linux is also a lucrative and untapped market.

I think all these are good news for the PC community because it might mean that Linux could become a lot more like Windows, only, it is free and less vulnerable to attacks and viruses. I think this move by PC makers is a sign that M$ better make their Vista OS really good because it’s going to have tougher competitions. I am seeing a larger adaptation of open-source programs in the near future. Heck, we just might see a future with Linux-Based PCs and Macs.      

Chip war is OVER: WHo won?

A few months ago, there was an explosion of interest in the Chip war between AMD and Intel, if we could recall, AMD had the dominance over the Processor Market when they introduced killer Dual-Core Chips that are made to serve the gaming niche in the market. But AMD's dominance crumbled when INtel fought back and introduced their "Core" product line, Intel was able to produce a killer Chip that is about 40% faster that it's rival. AMD then tried to regain the market by purchasing ATI, a video card maker, and introduced the idea of having an integrated CPU-GPU structure for more efficient data processing.

But, what has happened to that war? Is it over? my opinion?

Well, I would say it's all over, but AMD is hit quite hard by the counter attack of INtel. right now, i think even if AMD pulls its prices down it will not give them the market back. I mean, AMD chips are good, but right now, COre-DUOs and Core 2 DUos are the standard in most computer makers sites.

I have used a Core 2 DUO system and it has impressed me so much, I have never felt so much power in a computer and it runs cooler too.

what AMD should so is to make a much better Chip, think out of the box and develop a replacement technology... AMD needs to think 10 steps ahead of Intel, If intel could LEAP AHEAD... then AMD needs to RUN Ahead of Intel.

We have not seen the last of AMD, I believe that AMD could still survive this wrath from Intel if they only listen to what the market craves. I don't really know what the heck that means but the main focus should be to be able to cater to the needs of your clientèle... that's the  Business 101. AMD was able to do it once, why not try it again?

Bottom line, Intel won this round fair and square, but this bout still has a long way to go.

M$ says:" XP No more by 2008

Yeah, I know, I have been away from my blog for a very long time. I would have wished to take a longer break from blogging but i could not resist writing about this article that i read in DVORAK's blogsite. The article says about the plan of our good 'ol pal bill and his gang in Redmond to stop selling Win XP OEMs by the end of this year, this is despite the steady demand for Win XP in the market.

What the heck is M$ trying to do? if there's still demand for XP then don't kill the OS yet. I understand that Win Vista is not yet being (fully) accepted  by the common PC-User but phasing out a OS like XP. See, stopping the distribution of OEMs like XP is the first step to killing the OS. it's like a disappearing act for programs.

What M$ should do is to make Vista more affordable to the public, and if Vista IS as good as the Redmond  claims, naturally, consumers WILL buy that damn OS. Lesson # 1 never... NEVER... and I repeat NEVER force a product to the public. another thing, let us not forget that M$ has control over about 80% of COmputers in the World, and if M$ says that VIsta is the way to go, then Vista It is... but forcing people to go Vista and killing the OS that they once said is THE BEST is NOT a classy thing to do.

Note to Bill Gates:
I know how much you'd like to go to the moon, heck! you already have enough money to go and build a hotel there. Vista will be embraced by the consumers no matter what. it's just the way it is. be patient.

Internet Explorer 7 (Final Version): Revisited

A few minutes ago I downloaded and installed the newest and final version of the latest and somewhat biggest mistake of Microsoft (well next to Windows i guess), and ladies and gentlemen, I am referring to Internet explorer 7 (A.K.A Internet Exploder 7). So, what was I thinking when i did such a thing? Well, It seems that there are quite a few people who are actually impressed by the final version. To tell you the truth I was surprised because I have already tested the Beat 2 version (although I did test a beta version more or less I would have an idea on how the Final version would perform).

So, I decided to waste precious bandwidth just to be able to try this version. After waiting for about an eternity for downloading a 14MB installer in my super dial-up connection, I was able to installer the said browser in my PC (geeshh! Firefox 2.0 only took me a few minutes to download and it's only 5+Mb). The installation of IE7 is somewhat a lot faster than the one I tested, but it is still longer than the installation of Firefox 2.0. it took me about 8-10 minutes to install. Not bad, for IE7 standards but not good enough.

After installation I was required to reboot my system, maybe to update older files in my hard drive, so I restarted. I took a deep breath before I started the performance testing that I have applied to the beta 2 version of IE. Again, I used 56kbps dial-up for this test (and I found out that Dial-up is definitely the best speed to test these new browsers and not DSL connections this is because you'd see just how fast the browsers will be able to display graphic and texts from websites).

I fired up IE7 and loaded Yahoo's Homepage, it took quite a while before texts and graphics showed in IE7 but it was faster than the Beta version. This was somewhat good but still, it's not good enough. Firefox 2.0 loads the Yahoo homepage in my PC about 4 seconds faster (with Firefox web page Cache cleared).  Having been somewhat satisfied with the improvement in speed and web page rendering. I tried, loading more tabs into the IE interface. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and.... on the 8th tab IE7 became sluggish and somehow it's having some trouble in loading the 8th page (Adobe acrobat homepage). After realizing that IE7 is getting all unstable, I closed the Abode acrobat page and everything went smoother compared to when the Adobe page was loaded. So, IE7 can't handle flash objects very well, also it has trouble trying to handle tabs that are more tan 8 (although i'm not really sure if it has something to do with my hardware, but firefox can load upto 30+ tabs with out any sweat in my PC tsk..tsk..).

Then, I loaded Yahoo's new beta mail GUI. I gotta' say Yahoo's Beta mail page looks better in Firefox than IE7. Now, while testing IE7 I realized that the Tile function that i once loved in the bate version of IE7 was in fact a way to cover up how horrible IE7 handles its tabs. When I tried to load 8 tabs in the browser the tabs just became smaller and smaller, this is mainly because the "Home" and "Options" tool bar are located next to the  "tabs" area. So, the tab would only have really small spaces to occupy and they need to fit in that small space (poor tabs). So , to address this issue, the MS people thought about the  "tile" function for, supposedly, easier navigation. I have to admit this was good, but the way the "Tile" function was implemented was crappy at best. The Browser tends to slow down and even hung up when the user switches from the "tab" look to the "tile" look. Furthermore, the tiles that should show the users a preview of the pages that are loaded do not update as fast as they should. So much for preview.

Still, after making the installer of IE7 grow to 14MB Microsoft still was not able to fit a dictionary and spell checker function on IE7. Mozilla Firefox was able to fit Spell checker on a 5MB installer.

My verdict? Well although some say that the performance of the final version of IE7 is good. It's not good enough to win back Firefox users like me. It's just too little too late in the part of Microsoft. Security-wise, IE7 is still one big security risk for all Windows Users. Heck! it still has the exploits that IE6 has. I mean, how foolish could the MS people be? IE7, does NOT deserve the version 7.0 title, its' better of to be called 6.5 or something. My recommendations still stand (and they stand high and proud) junk IE, and adopt either Mozilla Firefox or Opera or any other open source browser for Windows Vista and the succeeding Windows Versions and let the MS people concentrate on making Windows a better OS for PC users.

End OF ATI?

Just a few days ago, AMD and ATI has finalized the deal that would merge two companies. But as of now nobody can really say what AMD's plans for ATI is. Some say that AMD will definitely integrate a GPU chip into it's CPU chip. Some say that they'd better let ATI do their business and keep the "openess" of the AMD systems that has made AMD popular because this will still generate revenue for the company.

If AMD decides to integrate ATI to its chip, this could be a good thing for ATI rival Nvidia, this is because, as we all know there are only 2 leading GPU makers, and if this happens Nvidia will have a much bigger share (something close to monopoly i think) in the stand-alone GPU business. If such will happen, Intel's GPU controller for laptops will have an instant rival.

In my opinion, AMD is better off if it just let ATI do it's own thing. This will still generate revenue for the company, also AMD could also test the waters by introducing some CPU model that would have an integrated GPU controller. AMD just might pull this kind of stunt off.

So, how would an Chip with integrated GPU controller benefit us users? well, for gamer and PC enthusiast this will mean better graphics for gaming, higher frames per minute rate and better video rendering. This kind of move will definitely be something to look forward to. But how AMD will do this is quite unclear. As of Now.

Does Intel need to worry about this move? I'd say no, well not yet. Intel also has this kind of technology, but it seems to me that they have not really perfected this technology, and so is AMD. But as AMD's reputation would show, they can easily develop and perfect such a technology; specially now that the pressure to produce a better chip is on the AMD side.

Whatever AMD will do to ATI will definitely affect not only AMD users but also Intel users indirectly. But this is definitely an interesting development to follow.            

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 : Scrutinized

 A few days ago I downloaded Microsoft’s latest version of IE 7 Beta 2 because I wanted to know if the raves about this decade old web browser is true or at least justifiable. And since this beta version is supposed to be close to the final release one could expect that the main stay features would already be here and stability would be at least decent. But, before I go on examining the browser itself let me just say that I am an avid Firefox fan and the ultimate thing that this browser can do is to win me back and make me realize that Firefox is not in any way more advance than this IE 7.

 

 First of, the installation; the installation of IE 7 took ages! This is the first disappointment that I had with this browser. It took about 20+ minutes to install in my Sempron 2200+ (1.5Ghz) 512DDR PC. Firefox only took about 2-4 minutes to install in my setup. I guess IE7 won’t be able to win me back. Tsk… tsk…

 

 Second, launch time. One of the negative things about Firefox is it’s inability to launch fast enough. And this is where IE7 wins, well I do know that IE7 is cheating here. Most of the components that IE7 needs to run is launched once Windows boots up. But then again, I’d still say that IE7 wins because it starts 2-3 seconds after I clicked the IE icon compare that to the 10-15 seconds delay of Firefox 2.0 RC3. I just wished Firefox was able to launch faster.

 

 Nowadays, programs need not only be powerful rather they should also look good. So, next I would like to comment on IE7’s interface (GUI, for tech people out there). Well, definitely this is one of the features that Microsoft worked on, I just wonder how long it took them to assemble such a horrible GUI (stupid and inconvenient at that). Although this is truly a big change for IE6 users I think it does not seem to assume that most of the users of IE6 are working professionals and even executives in corporations who do not like re-studying something. Believe me, I’ve used so many kinds of browsers but this GUI is so far the ugliest and most tiring to look at. The first time I launched IE7 that first thing that I noticed is that the round “stop” button is nowhere to be found, but after a few minutes of tinkering with the GUI I noticed a square (and not round) button that has an “X” on it. Gee, that’s the Stop button, Why the heck did they change the round button? At first I thought that was the “close” button for the tabs. The “refresh” button is also changed and it’s beside the “stop” button. One more thing that I noticed is a little tab-like thing that is put beside the main tab. I found out that that was the “add new tab” button, how retarded! I guess IE people did not really think too much about aesthetics at all! All in all I’d say that the new GUI for IE is the most horrible GUI I’ve seen. So much for good looks.

 

 So, what’s new about this browser that’s worth raving for? Well it does have things that it copied from open-source and freeware browsers like the Tab system, Anti-Phising features, built-in search section, the ability to have plug-ins (one that MS calls add-ons) and a built-in pop-up blocker. All of these features have been in both Firefox and Opera for ages. One thing that most people are raving about this browser is its RSS reader. I’m not a big fan of RSS and I’ve never tried it myself so, that does not mean so much for me and a majority of common web users all around the world.

 

 So far I’m very disappointed with IE7’s features and looks, what’s next? Well performance test is. I got tired of looking at IE7’s GUI so, I tried loading pages like Yahoo and Google. I also tried loading the Yahoo beta mail that launches pretty fast with my Firefox. I also tried loading numerous tabs (about 10-15 of them at the same time) and guess what! The browser crashed. I guess IE has not mastered the tabbing technology yet. Come to think of it I have never crashed Firefox with only 15 tabs loading in it, I even tried loading about 30+ tabs in it but it never crashed like IE7 did. So, next I tried loading PDF pages in the browser. Again, it crashed! I just hope that IE also copied “restore session” from Firefox.

 

One thing that impressed me about this IE version is that it has the ability to “cascade” pages that you are loading. The tabs are replaced by “tiles” that previews the page that is loading. This is one thing that I’d like to see Firefox do one of this days. It looks cool!

 

 As for loading speed, I tried loading yahoo’s homepage and the yahoo mail beta using my 50.6 kbps dial-up. Man! It took forever to load those pages in this browser, to think that it usually loads fast in my Firefox. IE even hangs when I scroll up and down a page that’s full of images.

 

 My verdict? Well IE7 is certainly something to try if you’re quite curious about what the fuzz is all about, but I must warn you there’s nothing much. I think this is all the works of the promotions branch of MS. Bad looks and worse performance that’s what IE 7 is. It’s not even going to be challenging Firefox 2.0 with its lousy imitation of Firefox’s tabs.

 

 My suggestions? I say to MS, scrap IE! For crying out loud! Let the Windows users have some choices! Please adapt either Opera or Firefox as the bundled browser instead. Now, for users, do not and I repeat, DO NOT even think of using IE7 as your main browser. It still has the old IE6 flaws in it! MS is doing a whack job with their IE. It’s just so stupid. And they even worked one whole year for this piece of miserable junk!? One year of waiting and anticipating and all of those for nothing.

 

 Oh well, Firefox 2.0 the final version is going to be released tomorrow and I’m quite excited to see any improvements from the RC3 that I have. Although they say that it would not differ much from RC3. I’m still sticking with my Firefox. Period.   

 

 

A glimpse of Firefox 2.0 RC2

While reading articles online, firefox told me that that it has finished downloading the newest version of the browser (Firefox 2.0 RC2). I was surprised that they were able to come up with another beta in a few days time. I was just getting the hang of the RC1 release of Firefox. Nothing much was changed from RC1 but it is quite more stable (errors are lesser now). The new version of Firefox has definitely able to work with  Yahoo mail in harmony (compared to the 1.5.x release where yahoo mail seems to dislike the browser for some reason) Firefox 2.0 RC2 and RC1 has a new set of icons and a much better looking GUI. 2.0 also has changed the position of the "X" close button for each tab.

Firefox 2.0 still starts slow, that's a downside. and for RSS users and feed users sad to say Firefox has not perfected this feature yet (well, not like IE 7 has). But if you're not a fan of RSS feeds Firefox is definitely a good alternative for IE6 and maybe even IE7.

If you're tired of having to re-edit your blog posts because of Typos you will certainly like the built-in spell checker of the 2.0 version. This feature is one that i have come to love the most with this browser. although it would have been a plus if there was a option to plug-in other languages for Firefox to learn. that would have been so great. Also, there is a very limited selection of themes to choose from. It would have been so great if the programmers of Firefox could make the browser launch faster.

All-in-all, I think Firefox is still better than IE7 in general, I mean it's only a matter of time before hackers crash IE's security measures. I'm not saying that Firefox is invulnerable, it's just that it's lesser of a target for hackers and virus makers.

Yahoo Make-up

While logging-in to my Yahoo Mail Account I was greeted by a new interface for yahoo mail, they call it "yahoo mail beta" (so much for creating really exciting names for new products). The new interface was quite good, it looks a lot like the Opera Web browser or the Firefox 2.0 interface with all those tabs. My first log-in  to the new Yahoo mail was quite slow maybe due to my ISP an my Browser I think it may be that Firefox is "Caching" the page for faster loading time. While logging into the new yahoo mail, I was greeted with boy sitting in a bouncing green balloon.In my opinion,  it would have been better if yahoo put their smiling face logo instead of that boy in a green balloon it just doesn't make any sense (it's not Yahoo-like to do something like that). Although it would be a good idea if yahoo would actually offer users to choose or costumize that log-on thing.

The new interface is quite more attractive that the old one, you can just drag and drop a mail from your inbox to one of your folders at the side (now, that's cool!). You can also use hotkeys now, although this cannot be changed by the user yet. Although this Yahoo mail beta is still hmm.. a BETA. I think Yahoo mail has made an excellent decision to upgrade their GUI, it's something new and it's  convenient.

I think yahoo made such a decision to keep yahoo mail users from going to the G-mail side. Al though I would really have liked it if they did Upgrade also the Mail size (currently 1GB) to 2GB just like G-mail.

Let's just wait and see what G-mail will do to answer this move by Yahoo.

Narrow-minded Broadband

Yesterday, I my ISP had some problems and i  could not connect to the net and i was not able to check my mail one task that has already become a habit for me, every morning. Checking mails, for me, is like drinking a cup of coffee, it's like my day would not be complete with out having to log-on to Yahoo mail or G-mail. I think this is because I've gotten used to this kind of lifestyle since I am a Distance Education Student.

After trying to connect ,desperately, to the web with my PLDT Vibe dial-up connection. I realized that they have a problem with their server or maybe they're just taking time to maintain their servers. Oh well, that's one of the down side of using dial-up connection (thank God it's already Sem break, or else I may have missed very important mails from my professors.)

Dial-up connection has a speed limit of 56kbps, well, actually it only gets as high as 50.6 kbps on my Dial-up line, that's not bad for people who only check their mails and chat in Yahoo, but if you're the type that likes to download things from the web, that speed sucks, and it sucks hard. It normally takes me about2-4 minutes to download a 1-2 MB file. And an eternity to download anything that is larger than 50MB (service packs and windows updates included, even MP3s). So, this is why I tried to sell the idea of having a DSL connection for our PC. My Mom liked the idea (since she is also using the PC to talk to our other relatives abroad). So, I jumped in front of my PC and connected to the net to see what kind of promos ISP companies could offer me. there are only a handful ISP that offers cheap DSL packages, one is PLDT MyDSL. The most basic plan for MyDSL is P799 (if i'm not mistaken) this is because if we choose MyDSL it would only be an upgrade from their Dial-up (this is good, because we'll be able to save about P100 per month). But, one thing that really pissed me off is that they did not even have any available port in our area. Now, that sucks!

Disappointed with MyDSL I researched the web for other ISPs that will offer us DSL connection. Then, I saw this add by SkyDSL in friendster, they are offering 300+kbps for only P899. not bad, i will only be adding P100/month to have 128kbps more. So, I told my mom about this offer and we paid their installation fee of P2,000. They promised us that DSL will be connected within 5-7 working days. a few days after we paid the installation fee (that is very expensive by the way) the contractor called us and told us that they'd be able to connect the DSL within that day, so I waited for a whole day for them. they finally arrived about 5PM and they called 10AM in the morning (so much for fast installation). So, they came but they did not do anything, they told us that they will survey the ports first. Again, i waited and waited and waited, until it was about 8 days after we paid the installation fee I still don't have any DSL connection in my PC.

We tried calling the agent of the DSL company but it seems that the agent is MIA (Missing in Action). So, again very disappointed with what happened to our application we decied to refund our installation fee. It took us about 1hour just to be able to get our refund, It seems that companies train their workers to move as slow as they can when they are going to refund fees from unsatisfied costumers, Again that Sucks!

So, i tried to search for people who are complaining about ISPs And DSL connections in the web, and Of course there are about a million unsatisfied users who are ranting about slow and "on/off connection" from MyDSL and other DSL companies. There is also a growing number of Smart BRO users who are complaining that they are paying P899 (a common DSL rate) for a Dial-up bandwidth (56kbps and even less).

One question, why is it that DSL and Wifi connections in this country so horrible? are we actually becoming guinea pigs for these corporations? and worst of all they are doing this at our expense (literally) we are shelling out big amounts of money in exchange for horrendous services. What is the government doing to make sure that the interest of the consumers are carefully looked after?

Are we going to bare this kind of cross forever? when will these companies listen to all our complains? and when will those stupid costumer service agents keep us on hold?

Vista and Core 2 DUO

Well, what can I say, I’m back. During the times when this blog was dormant there have been so many movements and innovations and even accidents that the tech world has encountered (all that in about 3 months). Basically there is a good and rather blissful vibe in the tech world today, there’s good news here and there and some of the not-so-good news too (like exploding batteries). It’s like the two leading companies in computing is actually doing things rightly (well, it is safe to say that they are not doing things as they used to do, and that’s good especially with Bill’s MS). Both Intel and Microsoft have released some of the best products in the market so far, Core 2 DUO and Windows Vista are both having great reviews from both common users and tech people. Just last night I spoke to the people in a chatroom in yahoo, they have laid their hands on the latest Windows Vista RC2, the so-called ultimate beta (more like the tallest midget for me LOL!), and I got surprise to hear that they are actually praising the newest Windows release (knowing that they are fans of Linux and Mac and one of the harshest critics of Windows).

They say that Windows Vista is far more stable than Windows XP Pro SP2, some even predict that there will only be a few fixes for the Operating system and no major Service Pack will be released. If all this remains as it is, then Microsoft has struck a gold mine with this kind of initiative and it’s quite good; it’s nice to know that they are actually thinking of improving our computing experience. So, what can I say about this Vista raves? One thing, in my opinion eventhough Vista is quite pleasing and so far it has delivered major improvements for the Windows product line, these features come with a very high price tag (I think about double of the premium Windows XP license). And let’s face it not all computers will actually be able to run Vista with all the eye-candy. A regular PC right now only meets the minimum requirements for running Vista.

I think that Vista will be delivered on time but, its effects will be quite slow and the transition from XP to Vista will be quite costly. One more issue that I see that will hinder Vista from entering the Asian market would be the enhanced Anti-Piracy module in the OS. In my opinion more and more people will be annoyed by this “anti-privacy” step of Microsoft, remember how these measures were met by XP users? Windows Vista seems to be promising, but do the regular Joe and the big corporations really feel that they need to upgrade their OS? And how will the underground community welcome this new OS? How many viruses and exploits can this new OS handle? And how will Vista perform in the real-world stress test as a primary operating system? These questions still remains unanswered, all we can do is to wait and see.

Now, let’s look at the newest and, as Intel says it, the best Chip in town; Core 2 DUO. Well, after about 3 years of getting beat-up by rival AMD in the CPU race, Intel has unleashed a beast, well an energy saving beast. Core 2 DUO processors have been in the lead for about a few months already, it’s nothing but great reviews for this chip. Superb performance and lesser energy in-take that’s quite good, but this chip also has a “good” price tag, about double of the regular AMD chip. And as we all know, AMD has kept its market share in the chip industry by plunging the prices of their chips and introducing ground breaking features for their chips. This is one thing that is affecting the “Core DUO wave” from shattering AMD’s brand line. But, what is AMD thinking of doing next, now that Intel has released a powerful chip?

So, far all they did is to, again, dive prices and introduce AM2 technology (which is not that much a threat to Intel’s Core DUO), I think AMD is yet to release another trick out of its sleeves. What it is, we still don’t know. But surely, it’s bound to benefit us users. So, what my take in this entire Intel wave”? Well, the new chip seems promising but the price tag isn’t, this is going to be a big factor for the greater number of Intel consumers, users are not really into the big scores thing anymore, for the greater chunk of users it’s all about the price tag that comes with the upgrade. And this will also be the deciding factor for business establishments all around the world. There is also no Operating system and programs that are optimized for Core DUO yet, well until Windows Vista is released. But most common users will not be too thrilled by this new chip, after all it’s all about the price.             

Bottom line, these two new technologies are quite good but they are still very pricy that’s not so good for these companies because their biggest market shares lie on the middle-income earners. Gamers and PC enthusiasts are but a small piece of that pie, if Intel does not see this trend immediately they just might loose more of their market shares to their rival AMD with their price tag strategy. But, let’s wait and see what people will think of this new chip when Vista comes out.       

FAQs on PCs (Part2:Motherboards)

For the second part of this series of articles regarding the FAQs about PCs, I would like to write about the Motherboard. The motherboard is the component that connects all of the other components of the system that you are building like the Video card, memory modules and your drives. The motherboard plays a very vital role in a system’s overall performance; it can make or break a PC.

 

“What kind of motherboard should I get?”

 

 Well, the type of motherboard that you should buy depends really on what kind of processor you have chosen. And as I said earlier, you should always decide on what chip you will be using before buying a motherboard for your PC. Now, if you have bought a let’s say an AMD Sempron 2200+ which is a socket A chip and requires a FSB of 333MHz then you’ll need a motherboard that can comply with that requirement. The second thing that you should be considering is whether you are planning to upgrade your system, let’s say you have plans to upgrade your RAM when you have the money to buy one or let’s say you are planning to install more hard disk drives in it. Then, you’ll need a motherboard that can accommodate all of these upgrades. If you’re planning to add more RAM later, then you should buy a Motherboard that has enough RAM slots in it. Or if you are planning to buy a better graphics card that runs on 8x AGP, then you’ll need to buy a board that can support that feature.

 

 I would recommend that you list down all of the peripherals that you are planning to add to your system like printers, speakers, scanners, projectors, infrared device adaptors, external modem, mouse and keyboard. You should make sure that you have enough universal serial bus (USB) or serial slots for these. 

 

 There are so many things that you’ll need to consider in buying a board for your PC. There are boards that has built-in video graphics array (VGA) that uses a certain amount of your RAM for video purposes. There are also boards that have built-in modems, or local area network (LAN) cards or even Wi-Fi capability.

 

 The good thing with boards nowadays is that most of the time they have everything that you need and there is no need to buy a separate card for say, video or sound. But this is not always good though, some of this built-in features are not always very good like the built-in VGA, well you see since the built-in VGA shares memory from your system RAM, it may greatly decrease your system’s performance since you may have lesser amount of RAM to use for carrying out tasks. Furthermore, if you’re planning to use your PC for extensive gaming, buying a separate graphics card will be your best option.

 

 There are so many board manufacturers out there and there are just so many boards to choose from. So, my tip for you guys is to go visit the manufacturer’s sites first and read about the features and reviews about the board that you are considering and again carefully weigh your options. 

 

Comments on the techworld

There have been so many things that happened in the tech world since the last time that I wrote a post here in my blog. Well I will try to cover them all with this article (hopefully). First of, Intel has just unveiled their brand new top of the line processors, I have been seeing so many reviews regarding this new chip but basically they are all saying that it is fast; even beating the hell out of AMD’s top of the line processors. I guess the ball is now passed to the AMD camp this time (and I think it will stay for some time there). Later in the week, AMD has announced that they will be cutting off about 57% of their high-end chip’s price (sweet!), this is just the thing that I expect AMD would do. And as if launching their new chip is not enough Intel also countered AMD’s move to cut prices in more than half Intel too cut their chips prices too (too bad Core Duo is not one of them though hehe…). As for this event, I think although Core DUO of Intel may be very good and fast and all that, I think it will still take some time before they realize the money coming back in their accounts again. Why is this so? Well consumers do get tired of keeping up with the ever advancing technology. But I do think this will somewhat hurt AMD’s gaming market share. The new chips from Intel has the power but the real question is will regular consumers feel the need to buy these new chips as soon as they hit stores world wide? I don’t think so.

 

Speaking of the Intel-AMD rivalry, AMD has just announced that they are buying ATI, on of the leading Video card chip maker. Now, this is interesting. I wonder if Intel will in return buy NVIDIA just to keep up with AMD’s strategy. As to how this deal between ATI and AMD will affect users is still not that clear though. But I do think it will still benefit the consumers at the end.

 

On the software side of the news, Mozilla has released their Firefox 2.0 beta. And because I’m one big fan of Firefox I downloaded this new version of the rapidly growing open-source Netscape based web-browser. There were not that much improvement that is visible once you launch the browser; I have read that most of the improvements made are under the hood. But there are some new innovations although very minor like the built-in session restore and the Opera type tabs (one that has the close buttons in the tabs rather than having only one on the side). One thing that I really like and I know that most bloggers will appreciate is the built-in spell checker, it works while you type in the textbox part of any webpage (cool! I bet Microsoft will also copy that idea…) it’s really continent to have such feature because it checks real-time too; although at first I thought this was the workings of MS office 2003, but it was one of the main innovations in Firefox.

 

For Microsoft, they have just unveiled their Anti-POD product, hmm… I have seen pictures of the Anti-POD and I must say it is Anti-POD it is certainly not pretty like the I-POD (period). As for Windows Vista, still no exact date on the world-wide release though, but knowing Microsoft they will try to keep the heat alive for

Vista

with some gimmick like releasing a certain number of copies of the said OS at the end of the year just to make some buzz for the new OS.   

Logging out... (temporarily)

It has been a while since I have updated my blog, and sad to say this is not a techblog of any sort.
I have decided to take a rest from blogging and speaking my mind with all that is happening in the tech world right now (yeah, I know there are so much to cover and comment on like Intel's brand spanking  new Core DUO that has shown really impressive benchmark results and there's the thing about the Anti-POD from Microsoft and the release of IE 7 beta and oh yeah the net neutrality issue with google) but I guess I will need to take a break for now and concentrate more on my studies and all that. So I guess this is "see you later" for all of you who reads my posts (if there is any).

So, i'll be back be late September of this year. as soon as the sem break begins.
So there... This is BLaise Cedrick Gomez, Logging out...

Friendster, now less friendly?

Taken from: http://www.redherring.com

Originally wirtten by L. Gannes for Redherring website

Friendster Wins Patent After emerging from debt, Friendster wins a patent on social networking. July 6, 2006 Friendster said Thursday that it has received a patent that covers online social networks, one the company had applied for long before its decline and recent recapitalization. The U.S. patent, which was awarded June 27, is extremely general, and would seem to cover the activities of many other sites, especially those like LinkedIn that allow people to connect within a certain number of degrees of separation.  Naming Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams, who has left the company, as inventor, the patent refers to a “system, method, and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks.” “It’s way too early to say” whether the company would pursue licenses and litigation from its competitors, Friendster President Kent Lindstrom told RedHerring.com. “We’ll do what we can to protect our intellectual property.”
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The dragon loves the penguin

Taiwan mandates Linux-ready PCs
By Aaron Tan, ZDNet Asia
Monday   , June      26 2006 03:34 PM

update Taiwan has mandated that all PCs purchased for government use must now be compatible with the Linux operating system.

According to media reports, the new requirement came into effect last month, marking the start of efforts to boost adoption of open-source software in Taiwan. About 120,000 new desktop PCs acquired by the Taiwan government will have to comply with the new mandate, the reports stated.

The Central Trust of China, Taiwan's government procurement agency, has commissioned the Taipei Computer Association (TCA) to ensure that bids from PC vendors include equipment that are compatible with Linux. So far, about 33 desktop PC models from Acer, Asustek, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard, have been certified Linux-compatible by the TCA, reported Taiwan's Chinese language newspaper, Economic Times.

It is not known, however, if the certification process involves any specific Linux distributions such as Red Hat and Novell.

Goh Seow Hiong, director of software policy at Business Software Alliance (BSA) in Asia, noted: "There are many different distributions of Linux, and the intention may not be to ensure that every variant of Linux would be supported."

"Perhaps the certification may be [awarded based on] more specific criterion such as the Linux Standards Base (LSB), which is easier to verify for compliance," he told ZDNet Asia. "Otherwise, very few computers will be able to meet the requirement." The LSB is a set of common standards established by the Free Standards Group to enhance interoperability across Linux distributions and applications. 

Fewer choice, increased cost
While the Taiwan government is not mandating, for now, that its PCs must run on Linux, Goh said the new hardware requirement might reduce choice and increase cost for the government.

He noted that it might potentially be more expensive to acquire hardware that are compliant, and exclude PCs that can be used in non-Linux environments.

"If the policy is intended to cut costs in IT expenditure, the government should stay technology and brand neutral," Goh said. "It should avoid targeting specific areas or brands, as policies would always lag behind industry trends."

Such policies, he added, would intervene in an otherwise free and competitive market.

But Harish Pillay, manager of partner development at Red Hat Asia Pacific, disagrees. He noted that the new requirement is a “great move” that would foster a more competitive PC market in Taiwan.

"Right now, it's not a level-playing field because of the lack of device drivers for Linux," he said, adding that the mandate would compel hardware vendors to ensure their products work well with Linux. This will also expand the options available to those who do not want to be locked in to a single vendor.

Late last year, Taipei Times reported that Taiwanese legislators passed a resolution that called for a 25 percent cut, across all government agencies, in the procurement budget set aside specifically for Microsoft products--which they claimed were too expensive.

But Goh noted that the cost of IT includes both hardware and software. "If there is a need to cut cost, why target only software? Hardware costs are equally significant, and neither would be of any use without the other," he said.

A Microsoft spokesperson told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail interview, that the software giant respects the Taiwanese government's decisions, but called for neutral procurement policies that promote fair competition in a free market.

(taken from ZDnet Asia: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39370618,00.htm)

---Now I was supposed to wirte an article about this about a few weeks before today, this si actually the second time that I read this news about Linux and China. Sadly while I was writting my post about this Firefox Broke down. Anyways, I think this is a very good move for the Chinese Gov't and that the reasons for them to move away from Microsoft A.K.A "profit-orriented-Software-maker" are superb.

This is also a very big chance for the penguin and his opensource buddies to shine and be more popular. Poor Ozzie, he's going to need to battle this one on his own. Well anyways, I think Microsoft products are uyser friendly and all that but then again China wants something that is less costly than Windows and MS Office for their offices. Again I think it all boils down to the budget.

I do hope more and more countries,will also look into the possibilities that Linux and Other opensource Progarms can do for them. after all what's there to loose?

 

The time when 98 is just too old...

A few days ago, i came across an announcement from Microsoft that they are dropping support for Windows 98/SE and ME. Why is this so important? well (ehem...) I am using Windows 98 SE for my PC, and it's not because I have a very old rig. The only reason why I haven't taken the XP plunge is because of the bad rep that XP has had ever since it was relased. Issues like numerous buffer overflow flaws and exploits have been scaring the hell out of me. But now that Microsoft has dropped my current OS, then I think this might just be the perfect time for me to take the XP plunge.

XP has many features which were not present in Windows 2000 pro ( one that I can easily install in my PC since I have an original CD here, courtesy of my Uncle), I also chose Win XP becuase i have tried installing games under Windows 2000 pro but they do not seem to jive with each other even some softwares don't like Win 2000 pro.

I do hope that the transition form Win 98 SE to Win XP may not be a living nightmare for me. And (ehem...) I am still very skeptic about Win XPs reliability. But it may be a fun-filled experience for me becuase I haven't really tried to install a new OS like Win XP. So, my fingers are still crossed and I am Wishing for the best.

I'll post my initial experiece about Win XP within the first week of July (hopely!)

Anyways, until then this you me signing off.... (repeat 3x then fade...)

Bill Gates bids goodbye to Microsoft.

Microsoft Announces Plans for July 2008 Transition for Bill Gates

Working full time at Microsoft through June 2008, Gates then will continue as chairman and advisor while increasing Foundation efforts; Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie to assume expanded roles.

REDMOND, Wash. — June 15, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that effective July 2008 Bill Gates, chairman, will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The company announced a two-year transition process to ensure that there is a smooth and orderly transfer of Gates’ daily responsibilities, and said that after July 2008 Gates would continue to serve as the company’s chairman and an advisor on key development projects.

The company announced that Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie will immediately assume the title of chief software architect and begin working side by side with Gates on all technical architecture and product oversight responsibilities, to ensure a smooth transition. Similarly, Chief Technical Officer Craig Mundie will immediately take the new title of chief research and strategy officer and will work closely with Gates to assume his responsibility for the company’s research and incubation efforts; Mundie also will partner with general counsel Brad Smith to guide Microsoft’s intellectual property and technology policy efforts.

“Our business and technical leadership has never been stronger, and Microsoft is well-positioned for success in the years ahead. I feel very fortunate to have such great technical leaders like Ray and Craig at the company,” Gates said. “I remain fully committed and full time at Microsoft through June 2008 and will be working side by side with Ray and Craig to ensure that a smooth transition occurs.”

This was a hard decision for me,” Gates added. “I’m very lucky to have two passions that I feel are so important and so challenging. As I prepare for this change, I firmly believe the road ahead for Microsoft is as bright as ever.”

In September 2005 Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer organized the company into three divisions under presidents Jim Allchin, Kevin Johnson, Robbie Bach and Jeff Raikes, who were given much greater responsibility for product development and strategy decisions within their respective businesses. In August 2005 the company appointed Kevin Turner as chief operating officer.

“Bill and I are confident we’ve got a great team that can step up to fill his shoes and drive Microsoft innovation forward without missing a beat,” Ballmer said. “We will continue to hire the world’s best technical talent and give them the tools to do their best work, and we will continue to tackle the biggest challenges and opportunities for our customers by investing for the long term.”

Ballmer and Gates noted that Microsoft has been steadily expanding its senior leadership in recent years, and that today’s announcement continues a transition process that has been underway for several years. In January 2000, Gates assumed the role of chief software architect and Ballmer assumed the role of CEO, responsible for all day-to-day operations and company business strategy.

“This is a very sensible and thorough approach. A two-year transition will ensure that the company has a smooth transfer of strategy and knowledge from Bill to the next generation of leaders,” said James I. Cash, Ph.D., member of the Microsoft board of directors and former James E. Robison Professor, Harvard Business School. “Steve and his management team are very impressive, and I’m confident the company will not miss a step.”

Ozzie, 50, worked on the first electronic spreadsheet, VisiCalc, in the early 1980s, then joined Lotus Development Corp. in 1983 to develop Lotus Symphony, an MS-DOS^®-based integrated software management product that combined word processing, spreadsheet, business graphics, data management and communications capabilities. In 1984, Ozzie formed Iris Associates Inc. to develop Lotus Notes. In 1997 Ozzie founded Groove Networks, where he developed Groove Virtual Office. Microsoft acquired Groove Networks in April 2005 and named Ozzie chief technical officer.

Mundie, 56, joined Microsoft in 1992 to create and run the Consumer Platforms Division, which was responsible for developing non-PC platform and service offerings including the Microsoft^® Windows^® CE operating system; software for handheld PCs, Pocket PCs and Auto PCs; and early telephony products. Mundie also started Microsoft’s digital TV efforts and acquired and managed the WebTV Networks Inc. subsidiary. Mundie is also the original champion of the Trustworthy Computing Initiative at Microsoft, which has influenced Microsoft’s software development strategy. His current responsibilities also include global technology policy and a variety of technical and business incubation activities.

Ozzie and Mundie will continue to report to Gates. At an appropriate time during the two-year transition period, they will shift to reporting to Ballmer.

Gates, 50, started Microsoft in 1975 with childhood friend Paul Allen. He took Microsoft public in 1986 and was the company’s chairman and CEO until 2000, when Ballmer took over as CEO. For the past six years Gates has focused on Microsoft’s software development as the company’s chairman and chief software architect. In 2000, with his wife, he formed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose assets now are $29.1 billion.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft has pioneered many of the software innovations that paved the way for the digital information revolution and launched the PC industry. Beginning with MS-DOS, Microsoft’s first operating system, and continuing with products such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows and Xbox^®, the company has developed a broad range of software, services and solutions that have transformed the way people work, communicate and play. Microsoft has 63,000 employees in more than 100 countries and generates annual sales of more than

$40 billion (U.S.). With products for desktop PCs, servers and mobile devices, Microsoft continues to be the worldwide leader in helping people and businesses realize their full potential.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Microsoft, Windows, MS-DOS and Xbox are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/jun06/06-15CorpNewsPR.mspx

------xXxXxX--------

In my opinion this is a good thing, Bill has delivered some real innovations since he held this position in Microsoft, But lately Microsoft has been lacking innovation or foresight. I guess this move should inject a much needed boost of vision of what the future of computing should be.

And Bill will not really go out of the picture but he will take the backsit now and only give opinions on his company's direction under a new leadership. This may be a start of better innovation in Microsoft's products.

Nice move Bill! that's the only thing that I can say for now.

Bill + Japanese tool makers VS. Steve's I-POD Let the battle begin!

Microsoft Denies iPod Rival Rumors

By Bary Alyssa Johnson

Microsoft reps have denied recent rumors alleging that it has partnered with a number of Japanese consumer electronics companies to develop a device to compete in Japan with Apple's iPod.

Several reports are currently making the rounds, reporting that Microsoft has collaborated with eight other companies to create a new product to compete with Apple. "The announcement that came out of Japan this week was simply about the Japanese launch of Windows Media Player 11," said a Microsoft representative who asked not to be named. "Due to translation issues the announcement was misconstrued to sound like Microsoft was developing a rival to the iPod; that's just not the case." According to Microsoft, the press release (which is in Japanese) actually states that Microsoft announced availability for its new WMP 11 in the Japanese market. The companies listed in the release are companies that Microsoft has partnered with in Japan to ensure a good user experience. These companies have all agreed to support Windows Digital Rights Management 10 for portable devices. "The companies listed in the Japanese release are device partners," the representative said. "For example, in the U.S. one of our device partners is iRiver. We've partnered closely with them to ensure that their Clix [media player] device runs WMP 11 technology." The release lists both device partners and service partners. Device partners include iRiver Japan, NTT DoCoMo, CreativeMedia, Toshiba, and Victor JVC. Service partners include The Language Channel, a subscription-based e-learning service; OCN Music Store, which is used for Portable Media Center (PMC)-optimized video downloads; and Napster Japan. Napster Japan service is slated to become available in the fall of 2006. "The announcement was written about the WMP 11 launch in Japan," said Microsoft representative Sally Julien. "The companies listed are partners who will use the technology in their products, just as they have done with WMP 10." Both sources at Microsoft refused to comment when asked whether the company has plans to launch its own MP3 player. In addition, Microsoft refused to confirm recent rumors regarding a portable gaming device dubbed "xplayer." "We don't comment on speculation," Julien said. "There are a ton of rumors out there right now but we have nothing to announce at this time." Microsoft has already unveiled its WMP 11 technology in the states. The player comes integrated with MTV's URGE digital music service. Similar to existing music download services, URGE also offers music blogs, feeds, editorial content, radio, and MTV/VH1/CMT channel hubs. URGE incorporates MusicNet's 2 million-track music library. Microsoft reps say U.S. consumers can expect to see verified MEDIA devices rolling out to retail stores in the coming months. These devices will be interoperable with WMP 11 and URGE.

Source: PCmag website:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1971200,00.asp

---End Of article

I've been waiting for a very long time for this moment that Bill's Microsoft will also try to get into the MP3 Player Business (Although Just a Rumor). In my earlier post I have been wondering this pass few days on what the heck Bill is going to do next... well my questions are answered Bill is ploting to conquer the MP3 world that is currently dominated by Steve's I-POD series. Again Bill has surprised me with his actions, and now  it all makes good sense to me. Microsoft released WMP 11 with the Audiofile buying feature to make way for the New Anti-POD player that Bill is going to introduce to the marker in the near future. I guess the release date for such anti-POD product will be after WIN Vista goes mainstream. It's all quite logical, when the Anti-POD player comes out anyone ho wants to buy one should also buy a Vista OS for his/her PC so that it would be compatible with the new ANTI-POD player. Hmmm.... in return more people will buy the new OS so that they'd get into the Anti-POD craze.... Genius! I must say.

Windows Vista+MAC OS= OS Utopia (let's think through)

While searching the net for any interesting articles about tech, I stumbled upon an article written by Brett Thomas (a writer for bit-tech.net) entitled "When Titans Collide" (Published: 31st May 2006).
In his article Brett suggested that both Bill's Microsoft and Steve's MAC should merge their Operating System (OS). Brett sighted that both MAC OS X and Windows Vista has something that the other wants to copy, including both OSs weaknesses and MACs Hardware Upgradability issue.

                               
                               (Blue paragraphs Quoted from Brett Thomas' Article)

"...Windows is designed to handle anything that you throw at it, and many of those things (viaUSB) are thrown at it while the OS is already booted and running. This means having generic drivers galore, along with multiple background programs that are unnecessary 95% of the time. But they must be there, so that during that other 5% when someone plugs in that device, it's up and running with no effort on the user's part. Each of these drivers adds one more layer of instability, but one more layer of ease-of-adaptation."

"...Most Windows fanboys won't have ever thought this through, but the visible representation of file structure in Windows is archaic. The visual organization of data involves copious moving of files between folders, directory trees, etc. This was fine back in the days of fully text-based navigation (a la DOS), but is clunky with a GUI. For instance, if you want to find a particular program and create a quick access, you have to hunt through layers of directories, then drag and drop a shortcut onto your desktop. If you move the file or directory, the shortcut becomes invalid. In fact, if the program puts some type of key in the registry for any purpose,the whole program may no longer work, requiring reinstallation."

"Mac-OS, however, is based on Unix. "Directory" structures in any 'nix are unnecessary, as the OS organizes data in the form of a relational database, "mounting" huge chunks of data and querying it. Think of one table that contains all the characteristics to every file on your drive, and then think of being able to create infinite queries, permanent or temporary, to organize that data any way you need. No moving, no drag and drop for organization. It's all there, you simply make a new "path", provide the terms of what files should be accessed through it..."

Brett's Arguments are quite logical... but then again, although both Bill and Steve are businessmen and they want to earn more money. And this kind of setup just might work, let us not forget that they are rivals and that it will be hard for their ego to merge. Sure, it would have been a very good sutup for us users, but I don't think the two guys will do it anytime soon. But i'm not discounting the fact that statistically there's always a 1/x (where x>1) probobility that such thing can be made possible. But if this do materialize then it will be the start of a smooth-sailing computing experience.

I wonder what they will call the new MAC-WIN OS?
and what would it feel when the Win-MAc rivalry is gone?

 

MACROs are back? (what is this 1990's)

Just this morning while I was checking out Dvorak's Blog I saw a post about an Open office virus,
and the article goes like this (taken from Cnet news ):

Stardust virus lands on OpenOffice

By Joris Evers                                

Staff Writer, CNET News.com
                               

 

Published: May 31, 2006, 10:30 AM PDT

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab have spotted what they believe is the first virus for OpenOffice, the open-source rival to Microsoft's Office productivity suite.

The virus, dubbed Stardust, is capable of infecting OpenOffice and StarOffice, which is sold by Sun Microsystems, a Kaspersky Lab researcher wrote on the Russian company's Viruslist Web site on Tuesday.

"Stardust is a macro virus written for StarOffice, the first one I've seen," the researcher wrote. "Macro viruses usually infect MS Office applications."

The pest is written in Star Basic. It downloads an image file with adult content from the Internet and opens that file in a new document, according to Kaspersky's posting.

So far, Stardust is a proof-of-concept virus, which means that it was created to demonstrate that an OpenOffice virus is possible. The virus has not been sent out in the wild and is not actually attacking people's systems.

The story is different for Microsoft Office applications: A yet-to-be-patched security hole in Word has been exploited in at least one recent cyberattack.

A new "macro virus" is like a blast from the past. Viruses have evolved significantly. Boot sector pests were around between 1986 to 1995, followed by macro viruses that exploited early Microsoft Windows operating systems, according to security company F-Secure. The advent of e-mail subsequently propelled e-mail viruses such as the "I Love You" and the Anna Kournikova virus.

--END--

Well, what do i have to say? I'd say Opensource Programs like Open-office and Firefox are not really more secure than Microsoft's programs are, the truth is that Open-source programs maybe as vulnerable as Bill's merchandise are, the only diff is that Bill's products are more in demand than it's open-source counterparts.

Now, about the virus. I while i was reading the whole article I felt like I was reading an article that was written in the early 1990's, Man! macro viruses are way out of circulation now. I can write a Macro virus in minutes even a pre-school can make one ( okay, maybe some geeky elementary student...)

But I do have a theory that one of Bill's fan did that virus.

Bye bye DUOs HELLO QUADs (I love AMD!)

Lately AMD has announced the latest addition to their FX series processors the FX-62 and
an AMD athlon 5000+, both of which frying their Intel counterparts in PCmag's Test. In fact most of the leading PC assemblers had used the new FX-62 for their bleeding edge gaming PCs like the Poly 590SLI4 FX-62/DualCore, But these CPUs from AMD are not our real topic these processors are just a part or the two part punch or AMD to Intel. It was not enough for AMD to just kill and fry Intel's P4 Extreme Edition and even Prescott.

The second part of AMD's assault is the upcoming release of a Quad-Core Processor.

Here are some articles that has discussed the Upcoming release of the most anticipated Quad-Cores

• Darkvision Hardware
• Softpedia
• Anandtech

After reading these articles, I got really happy. not becuase I want to have the latest Quad-Core from AMD, but becuase this means that Most dual-cores will become cheaper now. Although I think the deployment of those quad-cores will take awhile becuase rith now there is no MOBO that can support quad-cores yet but then again it's not really a very long time before MOBO makers like ASUS release one of those really cool and powerful quad-core compatible and quad-SLI capable Mother boards.

Again, AMD has prooved to Intel that they are thinking of the future needs of their costumers.

I wonder what bill will think about doing next?

Hey! remember my previous post about all my randoms thoughts about what's going on in the tech world? and how I said that Bill has been trying (over actingly) to recover most of the lost market dominance that Microsoft had? well this also included the web services sector, and lately when I was checkin' out most of the posts in Dvorak's Blog I saw an article that says Microsoft is planning to buy E-bay to integrate the famous auction site to their MSN.com webpage in order to try to challenge Google's dominance in this sector.

I wonder what bill will think about doing next?

Thank God there are Blogs!

A few years back (that's about 4 years) making a personal webpage requires one to have HTML knowledge and one must know how to use web content making applications like microsoft's Frontpage, but now things has changed. Now, as long as you have an idea of what you want your site to be and you know have to use the net there's no stopping you to make one.. well... atleast a Blog that is.

The very first time that I heard the blog I did not really have any idea of what it really was and its use. So what is a Blog?

Blog

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

A weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled web log or weblog) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles, most often in reverse chronological order. Early weblogs were simply manually updated components of common websites. However, the evolution of tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of web articles posted in said chronological fashion made the publishing process feasible to a much larger, less technical, population. Ultimately, this resulted in the distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize today. For instance, the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of "blogging". Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services, or they can be run using blog software on regular web hosting services.

Like other media, blogs often focus on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news. Some blogs function as online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

So, a blog is generally a webspace that can be used accoring to the owner's own purposes, (more like a swiss knife isn't it?) but what is the diff. Between a Website and a Blog?

On an ordinary user's perspective there isn't that much, only that building a webpage is a lot more complicated than making a Blog. and blogs are pretty much less versitile than Websites where you can upload applications and put in some neat stuuf that you can't really do in most blog sites, though some blogging services now have some of the features  that I mentioned, for a price of course.

there are so many types of blogs now, there are personal blogs which contain the user's personal details and sometimes even thier Public diary, there are also newblogs like Dvorak's Blog that posts some of the tech rumors and news there are also corporate blogs where workers can Post things (like their disappointment to their bosses) and some are just blogs for fun and venues for discussion and posting their opinions about a certain topics. Blogs are truly one of the greatest innonvations in the tech world today and they have made having your own webspace a reality.

Thank God there are Blogs!

Random thoughts about the Tech world

I have always been a very big fan of Mozilla's Firefox web Browser and I have been using it as my default browser for almost three years now. I started using it way back when it was only at version 0.x. And now  the current version of the browser is 1.5.0.3 and I've seen many dramatic changes, but lately I have been noticing that the current version (1.5.0.3) which I use has been crashing from time to time. And I found out why, Firefox has been having some trouble in processing Flash objects.

Firefox now has more than 1 million users all around the world and it is currently one of the  most popular web browsers in the Web.

So, maybe you're thinking what the heck is he trying to prove here? nothing really, I just wanted to see the improvements and the flaws that one of the fastest growing web browser in the user's perspective and not in the "techy" point of view, now here is where Microsoft's IE failed.

Microsoft has been always trying to beef up and over stuff it's web browser with features that most ordinary users would not even bother to use, at more than 10MB of download size it's such a wonder why IE6 has lesser innovation than that of Mozilla's Firefox. In fact it took Microsoft more than a Year to apply tabbed-brwsing technology in their flagship browser.

Of course as I mentioned earlier, Firefox has its own flaws to. it is not perfect. but it has always puzzled me that Microsoft has been left behind in the Browser war. not only this, Bill has been losing a big chunk of his OS market to Linux and MAC. So, where has Bill's company been spending thier efforts? still I'm having no answers about to this question, But lately I have been seeing over kill efforts to try and regain most of the market that Bill has lost in the past few years, more and more products that aim to make the computing life of Bill's consumers easier. But then again do they really like the products that Bill has been giving? and are we really left to have a choice? MAC? Linux?

Well MACs are great, but they still give lesser performance than PCs, Linux? well that would have been a very good choice but then again just how many users can really install or even know how to troubleshoot a linux box?

In the application aspect, there has been a steady rise in popularity among open-source softwares. but then again are they really that good? are they really that reliable? when they bug down will there be someone to help the users about their problems? sadly the answer is still "No".

Just how long will we consumers be tied to whatever software giants like Microsoft has to offer?
and when will the monopoly of Bill's microsoft end and the freedome to choose begin? I do hope it is very soon.

but don't tell me that did not warn you! (Win Vista)

Lately there has been a type of OS frenzy among the Microsft Windows users, this is because the much awaited and long overdue Windows Vista  has already released its Beta 2, this means the OS is pretty much in the release state of developement in this stage the OS should be very stable and most of the application softwares should already run smoothly on the  WIn Vista.

Also, during this week Microsoft has also released the minimum specs for runnning Vista on ones Rig.
the minimum specs are as follows:

A Windows Vista Capable PC includes at least:

• A modern processor (at least 800MHz).
• 512 MB of system memory.
• A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable

and the recommended Rig specs should be as follows:

A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC includes at least:

• 1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor.
• 1 GB of system memory.
• A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero.
• 128 MB of graphics memory.
• 40 GB of hard drive capacity with 15 GB free space.
• DVD-ROM Drive.
• Audio output capability.
• Internet access capability.

Yes, that's true. Win Vista requires some of the latest hardware specs so that it would be able to run on your Rig. While for some this kind of setup may not be a very big problem, the hardware requirement issue is a big issue for corporate users.

So, for most of the long-time Windows users the Jump from XP or 2000 Pro to Vista may be a very costly one. Furthermore, not all hardware vendors will be making drivers for Win vista yet.

One more thing to consider is the stability and security of the new OS, we can recall that when Win XP was released there were many major flaws which were found in the OS' kernell.dll. many of the applications that we all use now many not be able to run smoothly under the Vista environment becuase running the OS itself in your PC may already become a burden for your hardware.

For gamers like me, sadly there are no Cool games that will take advantage or atleast be exclusive with Vista. So, why Upgrade?

Here's some common reason that I always see:
1)    it promises a better Computing experience ( yeah but how many times have we heard that from Bill's people?)

2)    it is more sucure. (yeah, like win XP is?)

3)    it's the latest and it has cool features like IE7 that supports tabbed browsing and the new Aero GUI. (yeah like those are new... get firefox or get a Mac or a Linux if you like better looking GUIs)

my conclusion, Win Vista may look good at first glance and yeah I must agree that it is rather fun to play with for some time, it's like buying a new car with all those new bling blings. but then again it all comes down to performance and preference. In my opinion, don't take the plunge yet, don't switch to Vista until all the major flaws have been found and fixed.

Surely as Microsoft's reputation is esp. on their OS they will release Service packs to fix all of those (remember Win 2000 and XP?).

But then again if you don't have the patience to wait for most of the major flaws be addressed first, then do what you want to.

but don't tell me that  did not warn you!

Here comes the FOX

I've been using Firefox for almost 2 years now and i'd gladly recommend this to every one who uses MS internet explorer.


<a href="http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=affiliates&id=0&t=190"><img border="0" alt="Upgrade to Firefox 1.5!" title="Upgrade to Firefox 1.5!" src="http://sfx-images.mozilla.org/affiliates/products/firefox/upgrade_1_5_120x600b.jpg"/></a>

SasserWorms guys?!

Well it has been a very long time since the first appearance of the pesky sasser worm that infected most of the Windows Xp ran PCs... and i must admit this type of worm is a bit hard to wipe out of your HDD (hard drive) ones it got it....

Lately in a Forum site that i often visit (tristan cafe) , i saw a very interesting post by one of the members it goes something like this...

"help po ...san po me pwede magdownload ng virus remover for lsasse.exe...evry 5mins po turn off pc ko..bcoz of dis virus..
thanks po..."

i thought it was very interesting because sasser is not a very big problem nowadays especially the newer XP systems, but i guess not all users are aware of the "simple" ways to avoid these things rom going in your PC. So, I replied on this post...

"hmm... i never thought that some users still get infected by that stupid worm... well most of        the time the one's who get infected by the Sasser worm are XP users and most likely the ones        who still doesn't have the patches and latest sevice packs installed like SP2.

well first of all you've got to have an updated anti-virus in your pc. then you need to boot your        machine in "safe mode" i hope you know how to do that.
and then make a full virus scan of your hard drives.

if this does not work decide if you'd want your pc to be reformated and if not then you go to             the nearest PC technician in your area get your HDD fix and cleaned."

one tip:

always update your antivirus and make sure that you have a very dependable firewall installed     in your system.

good luck

Pretty simple right?

actually all that you would need in your PC so that you'll have a better security is the following:

A Firewall
Antivirus
Anti-spyware
Service packs or OS (operating system) Updates and Security Patches.

and never to forget to update your virus and spyware definitions!!!

---for more info about this measures refer to my first post entitled “How to make your Personal computer a lot more safer”.

LapTop VS. Desktop (Pros and Cons plus Tips)

Laptop pro:
1. portability ( if you're using it in your school and if you'd like to be Cool... this is a good reason to buy one)

2. hmm.... i can't think of another reason to buy one...

cons

1. it is very limited in terms of upgradability (in short it is easily outmoded... "disposable" is the term other people use).

2. not so durable (well unless you are buying the really hard core ones...)

3. sometimes it's not so portable as most of the makers say it is.

4. the price...

5. it can easily be stolen from you... ( unless you have a car or a very secure environment in your school this remains to be an issue)

Desktop Pro.

1. well as we all know desktops are a lot more versatile and upgrade friendly.

2. it's a hell lot cheaper than buying a laptop.

3. it is less prone to damage than laptops.

cons

1. well for one it is not as cool as having a laptop in school.

2. it does require a bit of space (this is an issue for the ones in dorms and condos...)

3. you can't carry it around  :lol:

Advice on buying a tech gadget like a PC or laptop:

1. well if you are not really a tech geek, you'd have to atleast have some one to guide you some one who knows about the hardwares and all that...

2. NEVER trust the salesperson in the computer shop... the rule here is that the expensive ones are not always the best ones.

3. ask about the warranty of the parts and the procedures on replacement of parts. ask how long it would take to replace or repair and how long the product will be covered by the warranty also the terms and conditions.

4. buy a pc that you need and not the one you like. (don't buy a ferrari if you are just going to use it to go to the mall... i think you get the point here)     ;)

5. buy a PC or Laptop at a computer shop that is near to you. (it will be a very big discomfort if you'd buy one from a comp shop that is far from your place, especially if your PC breaks down...)

6. window shop for the PCs first you might see a better deal in other shops.

ayos ba?

i hope that this helped you...

Enjoy!

Unleashing the power of Google

I just saw this at www.tristancafe.com

Having trouble finding a specific program, mp3, template, etc? Use Google Strings for all of your search needs! This will for sure get you what you want!

Google Searches

METHOD 1

put this string in google search:

“parent directory ” /appz/ -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

“parent directory ” DVDRip -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

“parent directory “Xvid -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

“parent directory ” Gamez -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

“parent directory ” MP3 -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

“parent directory ” Name of Singer or album -xxx -html -htm -php -shtml -opendivx -md5 -md5sums

Notice that I am only changing the word after the parent directory, change it to what you want and you will get a lot of stuff.

METHOD 2

put this string in google search:

?intitle:index.of? mp3

You only need add the name of the song/artist/singer.

Example: ?intitle:index.of? mp3 jackson

METHOD 3

put this string in google search:

inurl:Microsoft filetype:iso

You can change the string to watever you want, ex. Microsoft to adobe, iso to zip etc…

* Phrase your question in the form of an answer. So instead of typing, "What is the average rainfall in the Amazon basin?", you might get better results by typing "The average rainfall in the Amazon basin is."

* This is an old one, but very important: Put quotes around phrases that must be searched together. If you put quotes around "electric curtains," Google won't waste your time finding one set of Web pages containing the word "electric" and another set containing the word "curtains."

* Similarly, put a hyphen right before any word you want screened out. If you're looking up dolphins, for example, you'll have to wade through a million Miami Dolphins pages unless you search for "dolphins -Miami."

* Google is a global White Pages and Yellow Pages. Search for "phonebook:home depot norwalk, ct," Google instantly produces the address and phone number of the Norwalk Home Depot. This works with names ("phonebook:robert jones las vegas, NV") as well as businesses.

* Don't put any space after "phonebook." And in all of the following examples, don't type the quotes I'm showing you here.

* Google is a package tracker. Type a FedEx or UPS package number (just the digits); when you click Search, Google offers a link to its tracking information.

* Google is a calculator. Type in an equation ("32+2345*3-234=").

* Google is a units-of-measurement converter. Type "teaspoons in a gallon," for example, or "centimeters in a foot."

* Google is a stock ticker. Type in AAPL or MSFT, for example, to see a link to the current Apple or M*cros*ft stock price, graphs, financial news and so on.

* Google is an atlas. Type in an area code, like 212, to see a Mapquest map of the area.

* Google is Wal-Mart's computer. Type in a UPC bar code number, such as "036000250015," to see the description of the product you've just "scanned in." (Thanks to the Google Blog, http://google.blogspace.com, for this tip and the next couple.)

* Google is an aviation buff. Type in a flight number like "United 22" for a link to a map of that flight's progress in the air. Or type in the tail number you see on an airplane for the full registration form for that plane.

* Google is the Department of Motor Vehicles. Type in a VIN (vehicle identification number, which is etched onto a plate, usually on the door frame, of every car), like "JH4NA1157MT001832," to find out the car's year, make and model.

* For hours of rainy-day entertainment, visit labs.google.com. Here, you'll find links to new, half-finished Google experiments-like Google Voice, in which you call (650) 623-6706, speak the words you want to search for and then open your browser to view the results. Disclaimer: It wasn't working when I tried it. (Ditto a lot of these experiments.)

Technical Support stories

Actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect 
Customer Support employee with a 
caller:


"Ridge Hall computer assistant; may I 
help you?"

"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with 
WordPerfect."

"What sort of trouble?"

"Well, I was just typing along, and 
all of a sudden the words went away."

"Went away?"

"They disappeared."

"Hmm. So what does your screen look 
like now?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"It's blank; it won't accept anything
when I type."

"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did 
you get out?"

"How do I tell?"

"Can you see the C: prompt on the 
screen?"

"What's a sea-prompt?"

"Never mind. Can you move the cursor 
around on the screen?"

"There isn't any cursor, I told you, 
it won't accept anything I type."

"Does your monitor have a power 
indicator?"

"What's a monitor?"

"It's the thing with the screen on it 
that looks like a TV. Does it have a 
little light that tells you when
it's on?"

"I don't know."

"Well then, look on the back of the 
monitor and find where the power cord 
goes into it. Can you see that?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Great. Follow the cord to the plug, 
and tell me if it's plugged into the 
wall."

"... ...Yes, it is."

"When you were behind the monitor, did 
you notice that there were two cables 
plugged into the back of it, not
just one?"

"No."

"Well, there are. I need you to look 
back
there again and find the other cable."

"... ...Okay, here it is."

"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's 
plugged securely into the back of your 
computer."

"I can't reach."

"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"

"No."

"Even if you maybe put your knee on 
something and lean way over?"

"Oh, it's not because I don't have 
the right angle -
it's because it's dark."

"Dark?"

"Yes - the office