Some unfortunate news for quite a few websites as the MaximumPC network is closing its doors.
This is mostly because of poor ad sales.
Quote from 3DSpotlight's letter from Imagine Media's President:
"Dear Imagine Team:
I'm afraid that I'm the bearer of bad news this morning.
Today, Imagine has closed it's Internet properties: DailyRadar and the Computing Network. In
the light of all that has befallen us this year so far, I don't doubt that this will come as a
surprise to all of you. Once again, products have closed and jobs have been lost. It hurts.
Both DailyRadar and the Computing Network achieved many successes in their relatively short
lives: these were high traffic sites with decent revenues and - better still - we were proud
of them because of what they did for consumers. Sadly though, we're currently in an economy
that is incredibly unforgiving of investments in the Internet that are not on very fast tracks
to profitability. DailyRadar and the Computing Network were on track to profitability but we
couldn't devise a plan that would deliver it anything like fast enough. Between the hard facts
of the economy and the realities of being part of a company traded on a public stock exchange,
we were left with no choice.
Very sadly, the demise of these sites means that most of the teams working on them will be
leaving us this week. We are transferring a small number of people in to other businesses
where there is a clear need but sadly we cannot find a place for everyone.
I would like to express my deep, deep respect for what the DailyRadar and Computing Network
teams achieved in the last year. It was often little short of miraculous and never anything
less than wonderful.
Meanwhile, Imagine must move on and I will look forward to speaking to you all at the
Company Meeting this coming Friday lunch time."
Sunday, April 29, 2001 - 10:09PM
VIA Official 686B Bug Statement
VIA has posted a statement on the bug with the 686B southbridge
Quote from the story:
"Problems with the VIA southbridge 686B VIA takes messages concerning problems with our
hardware very seriously. In this case, there is a problem with the VIA southbridge 686B,
which is used by plenty of mainboard manufacturers. VIA has tested the southbridge
thoroughly and came to the following conclusion: Using certain system configurations there
is a problem concerning heavy data traffic from a master ATA66/100 HDD to a slave ATA66/100
HDD. Only mainboards of manufacturers (not all= using the KT133 and KT133A chipset with the
686B southbridge are affected. Furthermore the problem occurs only while a Creative Live PCI
soundcard is used. Using another soundcard we couldn't reproduce the problem. We gave all
our partners a bugfix as a solution. The manufacturers should be able to solve the problem
with a BIOS update. For further information please contact the manufacturer/dealer of your
mainboard."
A few notes to this posting: a) we can reproduce the error copying from
secondray master (DVD Toshiba SD1212, DMA) to primary master (IBM DNJA 371800 18GB 7200RPM)
b) we can reproduce the error without the Soundblaster Live"
Saw this at 3DSpotlight. They report on
IBM's breakthrough in Carbon Nanotube technology in the April 27'th issue of Jounal Science.
Quote from story:
"As reported in the April 27 issue of the journal Science, IBM researchers
have built the world's first array of transistors out of carbon nanotubes -- tiny cylinders
of carbon atoms that measure as small as 10 atoms across & are 500 times smaller than
today's silicon-based transistors. The breakthrough is a new batch process for forming
large numbers of nanotube transistors. Until now, nanotubes had to be positioned one at a
time or by random chance, which while fine for scientific experiments is impossibly slow &
tedious for mass production."
Friday, April 27, 2001 - 9:38AM
AMD Clawhammer to be the same size as the current Thunderbird Chip
Saw this at ZDnet News. This report is about how AMD will use the .13 micron process and
SOI process to make the Clawhammer the same size as the current Athlons.
Quote from story:
"AMD disclosed that the first of several forthcoming processors, code-named Clawhammer,
will be only 105 millimeters square--about the same size as a current Athlon chip and half
the size of Intel's current Pentium 4 chips. But it will deliver more than three times the
clock speed of the first Athlon, and its small size will help AMD hold down capital
expenditures"
And this one is interesting:
"Intel holds patents to the X86 processor design, on which all PC chips
are based."
Its my guess that Intel gets royalties from AMD, VIA Cyrix, and NexGen (when they were in
operation) whenever they sell a CPU. (Sort of like RAMBUS and SDRAM manufacturers)
Friday, April 27, 2001 - 9:21AM
1TB (1,000GB) Glass Memory Cubes
Saw a link to this at ArsTechnica. IDG.net has a report on the Japanese creating a One
Terabyte (TB) storage device. It is about the size of a sugar cube, and is controlled by
femtosecond lasers to store bits of information.
Quote from report:
"About two years ago, the group discovered that when a very short pulse of
laser light produced by a femtosecond laser is applied to a piece of glass containing the
rare earth element samarium, the glass is transformed, a dot around 400 nanometers in
diameter where the light hits becoming luminous while the rest remains transparent. This
difference allows the glass to be used as an optical memory.
Luminous dots can be spaced 100 nanometers apart on a glass surface that includes samarium
-- and now the group has confirmed that these dotted surfaces can be layered. In their
experiment they had the equivalent of 2,000 layers of dots in a cubic centimeter of glass
and managed to store the equivalent of eight terabits of data (eight terabits is one
terabyte or 1,000 gigabytes), according to Shigeki Sakaguchi at the fine chemical business
planning division of Central Glass, a glass manufacturer."
Saw this at The Tech Report. They report that Win2K will get the copy protection that WinXP
has.
Quote from the story:
"Here's a new and interesting development on the Windows XP
copy protection and
licensing registration front. Many of us aren't too comfortable with Microsoft's plans,
and how they could affect our privacy and our computers' usability. But those who think "Oh,
forget XP; I'll just stick with Win2K and avoid this whole mess" may have a surprise coming.
It's looking like MS is laying the groundwork to update Windows 2000 to support the same
registration process as Windows XP."
AMD and CMTL introduce program to test DDRAM for compatibility
AMDZone has a story about a new program introduced by AMD and CMTL to test DDR compatibility
for AMD systems.
Quote from story:
"CMTL's certification program is designed to ensure that DDR memory module manufacturers
meet specific quality, design, and testing requirements so that DDR memory functions properly
on AMD processor-supported platforms," said John Deters, president of CMTL. "The qualified
memory module list will be posted on both CMTL's and AMD's Web sites in a format to allow
customers to get consistent, reliable and quality DDR memory modules"
ViaHardware has a link to RealWorldTech about the problems with the 686B only showing up with a
SBLive installed in the system.
Quote from story:
"So what did I find out? That if I used a Creative SoundBlaster Live Value
on this Motherboard and two ATA/100 HDDs, the system was unstable and had disk errors. As
long as the SBLV was removed there were no errors and the system was stable. Even under
Win98. Not just Win2K as some have suggested. Not even if connected to different ports."
[H]ard|OCP has a story on WinXP's Windows Product Activation. They mention that WPA is not the
big bad thing we thought it would be. It does not limit your useage to your computer, and does
not make it hard to update your computer.
Quote from story:
"Windows Product Activation DOES NOT require you to get a new product key every time you want
to reinstall/format windows. Not the first time you reinstall, not the 8 billionth time you
reinstall. (You have to go through the Activation process, but you are passing the same AUTH
string to the clearinghouse, it NEVER counts against you. There is no timeout for reinstalling
Windows against the same hardware, or several future hardware upgrades.) Activation takes less
than 10 seconds on a 56k modem, or 5 minutes on the phone with a telephone representative. It
also takes place before ANY personal information is even entered.
Your product key is bound to the hardware in your system. If you change your hardware
SIGNIFICANTLY, you can still reactivate. (In fact, only on HIGH volume keys with different
hardware will MS stop accepting the pirate key.) ie. Customer has a product key, he can go
through a FEW COMPLETE computer overhauls, use the same product key, and be just fine. NOW,
if a product key is used in 1000 different hardware configurations, we don’t let THAT product
get activated. The PID has then become worthless. Nobody can activate Windows with it. This
makes PID sharing (the most common form of Windows piracy) a little more costly. If YOU ever
want to reinstall the Windows YOU bought, YOU better keep your key, and not give it away, or
post it on the internet."
Apple G3 Titanium Powerbook sets off Airport Security
Over at The Register they have a story of an Apple Powerbook laptop setting off airport security.
Quote from the story:
"A Californian airport was closed for six hours on Friday, following a
bomb scare.
And the 'culprit'? Step forward the Titanium Powerbook G4. Operators of an x-ray machine
installed at Burbank airport were unable to get a high-enough res look at a machine
trundling through security. They called in back up for some chemical analysis. Swabs
revealed "residues" which caused some concern The police and the FBI were called in,
flights were cancelled, and hundreds of customers were left milling the booking hall."
Here's something cool I found while on [H]ard|OCP. It is a website that chronicles the stupidity
by some poeple who know nothing about computers and such.
Go here: Computer Stupidities
Saturday, April 21, 2001 - 7:57PM
1Gb/s Home connection
Saw this at Tweak3D on a story at ECompany
Quote from the story
"Ponder flashed a slide that compared the capital expenditures required for a
telecommunications service provider to install and activate a hybrid
fiber-coaxial cable (HFC), a digital-subscriber line (DSL), and a fiber-optic
line at a person's home. The HFC is the cheapest, at $1,907 per home. Second is
-- you guessed it -- fiber, at $2,385 per home (vs. $2,484 for DSL)."
Both of the BIOS's for the KT7A reportedly fix the corruption problems with the VIA 686B
chipset when transferring large amounts of data (Over 100MB at once)
Thursday, April 19, 2001 - 3:01PM
Something is up (or down) with the Icrontic Network. I can't access any of their links.
My guess is that it could be something to with a new Front Line Force patch or something
like that. I can't even access Playnet.
Thursday, April 19, 2001 - 2:55PM
New 800MHz Mobile Duron
Over at the Inquirer they report that AMD is coming out with a Mobile Duron with a slightly
lower voltage.
"Intel announced their earnings for the first quarter today. Net revenue is down 82% over the
first quarter of 2000, with a mere 485 million (!) in profit. None the less, Intel was able to beat
expectations by 1 cent, paying shareholders 16 cents per share.
Intel, of course, is blaming the downturn in profits on the poor market. Although this is a large part
of the problem, AMD recent success has also hurt the mircoprocessor giant. By some accounts, AMD has
taken a full 4% of the processor market away from Intel in the past quarter.
Intel is scheduled to cut P4 prices by up to 50% at the end of this month, to make room for the new
1.7GHz P4. But Intel needs to realize its platform prices, not processor prices, that are holding back
P4 sales."
Tuesday, April 17, 2001 - 6:01PM
AMD and VIA vs. Intel
Here is something about AMD and VIA stoking the EC Intel Fire. Over at
The Register they report on
this news about Intel's anti competitive practices in Europe.
Quote from the story:
"Citing "sources close to (eight month-old) investigation", EBN notes that the
EC has the power to fine Intel up to 10 per cent of its worldwide revenue as the price of continuing to
business in Europe. That's if Intel's found guilty, of course. Besides the EC will take years to come
to a conclusion over the fairness of otherwise of Intel marketing programmes such as its Intel Inside
funding kickbacks for system builders"
AMDZone has a little thing about how to remove the
Intel banner from the cancer research program.
"Go into the directory where the UD Agent is installed and open the ud_4056.bmp. Now
just one little modification and the next time you open the Agent the logo has disappeared"
Sunday, April 15, 2001 - 10:16PM
Microsoft Removes Personal bar from IE6
3D Spolight has a mention about Microsft removing
the personal bar from IE6. It is mentioned that Microsoft listened to users who wanted a more
streamlined browser and that this didn't match their ideas.
Here is something I saw at The Inquirer.
According to RAMBUST they think that there is no demand for DDRAM.
Here is a quote from the story:
"DDR will be the ham in the sandwich, why buy the second fastest thing when you
can buy the fastest thing for the same price?"
Friday, April 13, 2001 - 9:35AM
New 600MHz (300MHz) DDR SGRAM Announced
Over at Infineon Technologies
they have news of some new DDR SGRAM for video cards that runs at 300MHz or 600MHz DDR.
Here is a quote from the story:
"The 128Mbit SGRAM is organized 4Mx32, and hence is an ideal graphics memory for 32, 64,
128 and 256 bit bus applications. Featuring a JEDEC standard Ball-Grid-Array (BGA) package supporting
clock frequencies up to 300MHz, this memory breaks bandwidth barriers imposed by TSOP and TQFP packaging.
At this operating speed the new device is capable of handling data bandwidths up to 2.4 Gigabytes per
second, which makes it the fastest DDR memory available today.
Infineon is pioneering new features with this product, introducing a 1.8V matched impedance interface.
Operating at 1.8V means significant power savings over a standard DDR interface which uses 2.5V - this
will be critical to reach the high performance levels required of 3D graphics cards and power reduction
for Notebook PCs. Additionally the BGA package ball-out of 12x12 incorporates 16 thermal balls for
cooling"
Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 3:41PM
Bug in VIA 686B Southbridge
Planet3DNow has some news about a bug in the VIA686B Southbridge. Apparently when
transfering files above 100MB in size between two ATA100 drives the data can become
corrupt. There is a supposed fix by adjusting some bios settings or a BIOS update.
There is a new version 4.30 of the VIA 4-in-1 drivers. This file is BETA, so install at your
own risk. Apparently, the only new addition is the option to install/uninstall either the IDE
VSD driver, or the IDE Miniport driver. Most people typically have more success with the
Miniport, but results will vary.
Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 3:24PM
Real DOS Mode in WinME
Tweak Files has posted a new file.
This one allows you to enable DOS mode on WinME. What it does is patch the command.com
and IO.sys and REGENV32.EXE as well to enable reboot to dos mode.
Grab it here
Wednesday, April 11, 2001 - 10:31PM
Server54, Where Are You
I saw this over at TechWeb News. It appears that
UNC maintenance workers accidentally sealed a server behind drywall.
Here is a quote from the story:
"The University of Carolina has finally found a network server that, although missing
for four years, hasn't missed a packet in all that time. Try as they might, university administrators
couldn't find the server."
