Information Technology

Yesterday – June 28, 2008 Blizzard officially announced Diablo III at the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment Worldwide Invitational in Paris, France.

Noctua NF-S12 800 cooling fans are efficient and effective cooling solution for your PC. Most importantly these fans are so quiet you won’t hear them even at night. They don’t come cheap, but are well worth every penny.

Specifications

Size: 120×120x25 mm
Bearing: SSO-Bearing
Blade Geometry: Straight-Blade-Design
Rotational Speed (+/- 10%): 800 RPM
Rotational Speed with U.L.N.A. (+/- 10%): 500 RPM
Airflow: 59 m³/h
Airflow with U.L.N.A.: 34 m³/h
Acoustical Noise: 8 dB(A)
Acoustical Noise with U.L.N.A.: < 5* dB(A)
Input Power: 0,60 W
Input Current: 0,05 A
Voltage Range: 6-13 V
MTBF: > 150.000 h
Warranty: 6 years

Pros

Extremely quiet
Great quality
Excellent cooling considering the low RPM

Cons

Costs about £15 ($30)

Scientists from the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) at Georgia Tech (in the USA) are testing the use of extremely high radio frequencies (60Ghz, which are currently unlicensed and free for anyone to use in the United States) to achieve broad bandwidth and high data transmission rates over short distances. They are testing wireless data transfer rates of 15 gigabits per second (Gbps) at a distance of 1 meter, 10 Gbps at 2 meters and 5 Gbps at 5 meters.

The input-output (I/O) system of current devices cannot reach such speeds, so the scientists are using advanced computer-aided design tools and testbed equipment to recalibrate system models and achieve the desired improvements in speed and functionality.

This new technology has the potential to be applied to numerous devices: external hard drives, laptop computers, MP3 players, mobile phones and many other gadgets that require data transfer. The users will be able to wirelessly connect any device that currently uses Firewire or a USB. Data centers could install racks of servers without the customary jumble of wires. At 10 Gbps, you could quickly synchronize two laptops or two iPods. Pinel, a GEDC research scientist, also ensures that this multi-gigabit wireless system would present no health concerns.

The designed system, expected to be available within 2 years, will be compatible with WLAN 802.11 – the standard used in most LANs today.

The IEEE (the international association of electrical engineers) is considering a 60 GHz standard to be called 802.15.3C.

Steve Jobs said at Macworld Expo 2008 that Apple has already sold 4 million iPhones and presented the thinnest notebook in the world: MacBook Air.

The good news

The new MacBook Air is so thin (0.16-0.76 inches or 0.41-1.93cm) it even fits inside the envelope. It has a 13.3 inch display, full size backlit keyboard and weights only 3.0 lbs (1.36 kg).

MacBook Air is small and thin but with 1.6GHz (or 1.8GHz) Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB memory, 80GB hard drive (or an optional 60GB SSD hard drive) it is powerful enough to do presentations, browse the internet and even more. What amazes me is the battery – it can last up to 5 hours.

Using the Trackpad you can: pinch – to zoom the page or a photo, swipe – to page forward or backward and move through the photo slideshow. You can also rotate photos using a gesture.

There is a built-in iSight video camera and a microphone for video conferencing, a built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1. With MacBook Air you can wirelessly access the optical drive of another computer and install applications.

The bad news

All the external ports are hidden behind the flip down door. You have pop it open to find a headphone jack, usb 2.0 and micro-DVI port, which supports DVI, VGA, Composite and S-Video. The problem is the only ONE usb 2.0 port. Do I have to carry around a spare usb hub in my pocket? It just doesn’t make sense.

Because the notebook is so thin it also lacks an internal DVD drive, but you can buy an optional external MacBook Air Superdrive for $99. If you don’t have an external optical drive, you can download music and movies from iTunes.

So, what was the purpose in designing MacBook Air? Apple wanted to make it thin and light. But will it deliver the performance?

 
If you want a powerful but cheap gaming computer you have to build one by yourself. First of all you’ll need a case:Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Mid Tower Case – With 500W PSU £71.99

This case comes with 500W PSU and is very quiet. At rear it has one 120mm fan with 3-speed control to balance quiet with cooling and one front optional 120mm case fan. The case also comes with a built-in washable air filter to keep harmful dust out of your case.

Now I’m going to list all the components you are going to need and explain why I chose them:

1) ASUS P5K AiLifestyle Series iP35 Socket 775 ATX Motherboard £70.97

This motherboard supports Dual-Core and Quad-Core processors with up to 1333Mhz FSB, has 7.1 channel HD surround sound, a built-in 1Gbit Ethernet port, 4x Serial ATA-300 connectors, 2x ATA-133 connector, one external SATA (with RAID 0 / RAID 1 / JBOD) connector. All cables are included and it also supports PC2-6400 RAM.

2) Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 Socket 775 (2.66GHz) FSB1333 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor £110.97

If you are going to do video-editing and 3D-rendering – Core 2 Quad processor would be your best choice, BUT if you are not, then Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 is what you need. This processor can be easily overclocked up to 3.6Ghz.

3) Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache £63.61

This SATA hard drive has 16 MB cache, it’s very fast, very quiet and reliable – simply the best.

4) OCZ 2×1GB DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 4-4-4-15 PLATINUM XTC £35.00

2GB of DDR2 800Mhz RAM with 4-4-4 timings – best performance and stability. Heatspreaders allow increased ventilation and heat dissipation.

5) Inno3D 8800GT 512MB 256bit GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTVOut PCI-E Graphics card £152.99

I have 8800GT video card in my PC and I can confirm that you can play any latest game on the highest resolution with this card, except Crysis (this game needs two cards in SLI mode to run this game with the highest settings). The tests show that 8800GT card is only about 5% slower than 8800GTX.

6) Samsung SH-S203B 20X DVD±RW/RAM / DL SATA Black Bare Drive – OEM £18.50

Samsung SH-S203B is a very fast, reliable and cheap SATA drive and it comes with Nero 7 CD.

All prices are from eBuyer. They offer a free and fast delivery with City Link.
The total spend is only £524.03!

I was having trouble embedding Youtube videos to my blog. The Wordpress theme would just freak out if I tried to embed the video. Then after some research on Google I finally made it work. Here is what I did:

1) I had to untick “Use the visual editor when writing” in Wordpress under Users>Your Profile. There is a video from Youtube showing how to do that:

2) After the first step the video was working, but the Wordpress theme was distorted. So after some further research I found WP-YouTube plugin for embedding the Youtube videos to the blog. You just have to upload the plugin to Plugins section on your server and activate it in the Wordpress theme.
Now whenever you want to post a video to your blog just type something like:

[video]NopuJsesUy[/video]

Instead of “NopuJsesUy” just write your YouTube ID. That’s it!
I hope this helps someone. Happy blogging!

This is a guide on how to build a computer:

This guide is from www.hardware.info
You can also download this video in HD (720p) from: megaupload.com

Making fun of Macs

I was browsing Youtube as usual and then I found this video. This is a “sketch comedy on the edge”.
Warning: Mac fans close your eyes, because this guy kicks and brakes Mac’s monitor into pieces!