Daiki maakt op zijn site melding van een nieuw K7-Athlon moederbord

MAGIC-PRO launchs their Athlon M/B "MP-A7-F", whose spec and pic are here. This one is maybe yielded by Gigabyte, so it is very similar to GA-7IX, which is very stable good Athlon M/B.

Hoewel het bord veel problemen kent - er is er al een grote groep die het bord weer eeft ingeruild - is hhij in korte tijd toch erg populair geworden. Wat nog ontbrak was een site die zich speciaal op die enorm veel verkochte bord richt.

Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. September 15, 1999—Following the debut of ABIT’s BP6, the excitement for the world’s first dual socket 370 motherboard has not subsided. To help the growing number of BP6 users, the hardware sites, Hot Hardware and Hardware Extreme helped launch the new site devoted entirely to the ABIT BP6, WWW.BP6.COM. The site is filled with lots of helpful information that they have taken time to put together, everything from "Tip of the Week", to Benchmarks, Specifications, Message board, BIOS, Drivers and The UGM (The Ultimate Gaming Machine, with a BP6 of course!) Starting from the front page you see the most recent news pertaining to the BP6, from there you can see the "Tip of the Week" or go to one of the many discussion boards that the site maintains dealing with tips, tricks, and troubleshooting. From the Bench Marks section you can see recent scores from a BP6 system. You can also download the latest drivers and BIOS updates.The discussion boards a very helpful, they list topics for the BP6 such as:

Discussion	Documentation	Utilities
Topics	Getting Started	New Messages
Last Day	Formatting	Keyword Search
Last Week	Troubleshooting	Contact
Tree View	Program Credits	Edit Profile
		Administration

From there if the news is really hot and you can join in on the new Online Chatfeature setup!
Go check out the site at: http://www.bp6.com
For more info on the BP6 at ABIT go to: http://www.abit.com.tw

WWW.BP6.COM dus! (need I say more?)

Xitel heeft nieuwe drivers voor de Storm Platinum in elkaar geknutseld. Het spul is gebaseerd op de v2036a reference drivers van Aureal. Na het neerhalen van deze file vindt Xitel het prettig wanneer je onderstaande instructies op volgt:

Print this page and follow the instructions below to install the updated driver.

- Create a folder called 'STORMPLATINUM'.
- Unzip the driver update into the 'STORMPLATINUM' folder.
- Remove the old drivers as outlined on p.9 of the User Manual.
- Restart Windows.
- After Windows restarts, select 'Driver from disk provided by hardware manager' and proceed.
- Select the folder you created earlier and click OK. Your driver installation will proceed.
- You can delete the 'STORMPLATINUM' folder now.

Ik kwam via Slashdot bij dit artikeltje van Techweb, over de Investigator 2.0 zachtwaar van WinWhatWhere. Hiermee wordt het mogelijk om onzichtbaar het gedrag van werknemers te monitoren, wat uiteraard een grove inbraak is op de privacy van deze personen (laat al die *.philips.nl en *.nl.ibm.com lui s'middags toch lekker naar Tweakers.net surfen ):

A super stealthy software covertly monitors all keyboard and application activity, then invisibly e-mails a detailed report to the employees' boss. While it bolsters IT's ability to monitor workplace computer usage, it troubles privacy advocates.

The newly upgraded software, Investigator 2.0 from WinWhatWhere, runs silently, unseen by the end-user as it gathers exacting details on every keystroke touched, every menu item clicked, all the entries into a chat room, every instant message sent and all e-commerce transactions.

[...] "Employers who practice this kind of monitoring don't have a clue as to what they are getting into," Maltby said. "People now turn to the Web for all kinds of information, including information about the most sensitive personal issues imaginable. If you are a member of [Alcoholics Anonymous], 20 years ago, you went to a meeting. Today, you are just as likely to talk to your support group over the Web. The same is true for incest survivors and people who are HIV positive. If you want to pry into your employees' deepest, darkest secrets, there couldn't be a better way."

Workplace electronic monitoring calls out for new privacy legislation, Maltby said, adding it is illegal for employers to listen in on an employee's telephone call to a spouse. But the same conversation over e-mail could be read and posted on a bulletin board. No legislation to address the issue is currently pending.

Interessant nieuwsberichtje van News.com, over een artikel van de New York Times, waaruit zou blijken dat Microsoft zou hebben betaald voor advertenties van the Independent Institute, waarin gezegd werd dat de rechtszaak tegen Microsoft ten nadele van de consument zou zijn:

Microsoft secretly paid for newspaper ads by a California foundation that purported to present the independent views of 240 academic experts who said the U.S. government's antitrust case against the software giant was hurting consumers, according to a published report.

The New York Times quoted Microsoft spokesman Greg Shaw as acknowledging that the world's largest software company paid for the June newspaper ads.

The Times also cited internal documents of the Independent Institute of Oakland, California, showing that Microsoft paid a $153,868 bill to cover the cost of newspaper ads and air fare for the foundation's president, David Theroux, to travel to Washington for a press conference the day the ads ran in two major newspapers.

[...] At least one academic whose name was included in the ad disagreed. "He should have told us," Simon Hakim, a Temple University economist, said when told yesterday of the financing. "I would not have participated if I had known. It's not right to use people as a vehicle for special interests.”

Het complete verhaaltje lees je hier. Over the Independent Institute kwam ik dit tegen.

Systemlogic heeft een afbeelding van de (spaanse) Guillemot 3DProphet doos te pakken weten te krijgen:

Ik zag bij Betanews dat Matrox nieuwe NT drivers voor de G400 heeft gaar gebakken:

Matrox has updated their NT drivers with an update for the G400. It comes with Powerdesk version 4.22.081.

De drivers kun je hier neerhalen. Verder bij Betanews: Sygate 3.1 build 535 (Win9x/NT) en Sambar Server 4.3 Beta 2.

Digital Clips heeft een review gepost van de Zerotech MP2000, een super goedkoop geluidskaartje met S/PDIF uitgang en EAX, A3D1.0 en D3D support:

So who should get the MP2000? Anyone who needs TOSLink optical output on a shoestring. After all, this IS the cheapest optical-capable sound card in the market. For HK$230 or US$30 bucks, it allows your beige box to hook up easily to a MD recorder and churn out your favorite mp3s in pure digital manner. And since MDs are still an on-going craze in Hong Kong, the MP2000 should sell pretty durn well. And on top of its SPDIF I/O features, it produces average 3D sound effects through various APIs for little more than a decent dinner at Hard Rock café or TGIF, or Chris Ruths, or Sizzlers, or Planet Hollywood, I don’t care, just name your favourite trendy restaurant. The MP2000 is a decent soundcard, capable of holding its own against most of the competition out there, and combine that with its price, its pure value. Just pray that your MP2000 won’t crash your system like how it crashed ours.

Het volk van Hot Hardware heeft een review van de Hauppauge WinTV USB op hun site geplant. Zoals de naam doet vermoeden dient dit TV tuner/capture dingetje op de USB poort aangesloten te worden. Het apparaatje zelf is (zoals zo'n beetje alle USB spullen tegenwoordig) uitgevoerd in de welbekende transparant blauw/groene iMac kleur:

Performance: Using the tuner on my DSS satelite system worked well. In windowed mode the 2 different TV applications worked like it's PCI version does. The only drawback is the video seems to pull a lot of system resources if you don't have a decent video card. The opening of other applications running in the background seem to slow down the video playback. The image quality is decent also. But if you switch to full screen mode, then the speed of playback and quality of the image will decrease. Based on my experience, this device is best run in small window.

3DAlpha heeft een preview rond de Diamond's Viper II Savage2000 kaartje gebouwd:

Also, another treat for video card enthusiasts, and those looking into this card: Diamond will be releasing the Viper II LE in the fourth quarter of this year, which features the Savage2000+ chipset that features higher memory and engine clock speeds, as well as 64mb of onboard video memory. Of course, the Viper II LE will be packed with even more advanced features than the Viper II, making it an even harder solution for other companies to compete with.

So what about the price? Well, you can say that for all this, the Viper II's estimated price of 200 dollars is quite affordable, and will obviously get lower than that after a week. You've got to allow for the dying interest in any new toy which makes companies say "Okay, okay! We'll lower the price...". And the Viper II LE? Expect that honey of a card to be available for a high estimated sum of 270 dollars. Of course, I would think that this solution would be well worth that chunk of change

Verder natuurlijk de gebruikelijke Savage2000 info die we elders al 10.000 keer hebben tegen kunnen komen.

Sharky Extreme heeft een review gepost van de A-Trend ATC3970, een op 125/125MHz geklokt Savage4 kaartje met 32Meg geheugen:

Unfortunately for the A-Trend card, its bloated price will likely be its downfall. Underperforming the Diamond Stealth card by about 10% across the board, the true story of the A-Trend ATC3970 is told. A 10% performance decrease for a 5% price increase - hardly a bargain.

While both cards are hardly speed demons, it is still startling to see how poorly this chipset does on newer games such as Descent and Quake3. While they may be considered playable in Quake2 even at 1024x768, not much else positive can be said. 13 frames per second (Q3 at 800x600x32) is hardly playable, and even at 640x480 the performance is nothing stellar.

Tim Sweeney heeft een update gepost op de Unreal Technology page, over EAX en A3D support in de UT demo:

3D sound acceleration is absent from the Unreal Tournament 3dfx demo while we sort out some recent code changes, but will be in the full demo coming next week. A big thanks to the A3D guys, Skip McIlvane and Scott Etherton for helping us get the code back up and running.

-Tim

Het is sinds kort mogelijk om niet alleen faxen via e-mail te versturen, maar ze ook te ontvangen via dit reeds wereldwijd gebruikte medium. Xoip heet deze nieuwe service die je een compleet faxnummer geeft die alle faxen doorstuurt naar je e-mail adres. De faxen worden in tif formaat als attachement verstuurd:

Whoever wants to send you a fax simply dials your personal XOIP number and press send. From the sender's point of view, XOIP works just like any regular fax transmission. The message can include text, graphics or both. Once sent, your fax is received by XOIP and converted to an email attachment which is instantly forwarded to your existing email address.

En het werkt zelfs internationaal. Zou internet dan echt al onze wensen gaan vervullen ?

Ars Technica heeft twee leuke artikeltjes over Apple gepost. Allereerst 'An Open letter to Steve Jobs en Apple':

I may have had my ideological disagreements with Apple in the past, but I offer this letter in a spirit of giving. As a tech support professional, I think the G3s (and, it appears, the G4s as well) could very well lead to many loyal but non-fanatical Apple customers deserting the company for failing to think of them in the drive for "The Next Big Thing." Essentially, I feel that long-term Apple customers are being stranded by the design decisions of the G3 Macs. Allow me to elaborate.

First, there is the question of who exactly is being abandoned. Fanatical Mac zealots will no doubt stay with the company no matter how badly they are being screwed because they've swallowed the idea that their computer is not just a tool, it's a revolution. Whatever. No, the customers I see being abandoned are those very customers whom I serve as a tech support specialist. They aren't all that savvy, but they've been using Macs for a long time. How loyal are they to their Macs? Well, the organization I work for has essentially abandoned official support of the Macintosh line of computers. A few employees, however, have been offered the opportunity to buy whatever computer they want. Despite being warned that they would have no support from the IT department, a handful still opted to upgrade their old LC IIs and whatnot to new G3s. The struggle to upgrade them has been much greater than anyone had anticipated. [break] Het complete verhaaltje lees je hier. Leuker is dit artikeltje over de typische Mac Zealots (extremistische Apple fanaten): [/break] Instead of recognizing that developers' concerns should affect the way computers are designed, Mr. Every pulls the typical method of avoiding admission of any wrong that might have been done by the company he worships. This method is what I call the Millennialist Method. It can be found in religious Millennialist groups who see themselves as a persecuted, but ultimately correct, minority. When threatened, they look back to a Golden Age when they were in control and look forward to the time when God will come to earth and put them back in control again. Likewise, Mr. Every, instead of agreeing that the Mac's 3D capabilities have heretofore not met the needs of developers like Carmack, points out how Apple had a different kind of 3D implementation way before anyone else, blah, blah, blah. But, then, of course, all will be right in OS X. So, not that there's anything wrong with what we've got now, but when OS X comes out, everything will be perfect.

In the tradition of all great Millennialist groups, such expectation has failed in the past. I remember when OS 8, or Rhapsody, or the proposed purchase of Be (remember that phase?), or the return of Saint Steve, were all going to cause Windows users around the world to burn their Dell or Gateway boxes and beg benevolent Apple to grant them the latest Mac. As with all failed Millennialist hopes, some people fall away from the fold, but others just decide that they misinterpreted the signs and that, in fact, the next major development goal will be the one that brings about the end of the sinful Microsoft world, and usher in an age of peace, love, and painfully overpriced hardware.

Hardware Masters heeft een review van het Elsa Erazor III TNT2 kaartje op het net gezet. Het ding wordt standaard 'ondergeklokt' op 125/140MHz en presteert daarom nogal matig vergeleken met andere TNT2's:

This is where the ERAZOR is lacking compared with the other cards on the market. First, ELSA doesn't offer an Ultra card at all. The card I received was clocked at a slow 125mhz core and 140mhz memory. It ships with 7ns memory chips which is slower than most other standard TNT 2's. This limits its performance as well as its overclockablity. With the slower memory, the card was only able to make it to 160mhz core, 160mhz memory. Not quite as high as other standard TNT 2's. This doesn't mean the card is slow. The ERAZOR is quite fast, just not as fast as other TNT 2's. Running through my collection of games, I didn't find one thing that choked on this card. There's nothing quite like running Unreal at 1024x768 with no slow down.

Wired heeft een artikeltje over het fenomeen LAN party in elkaar geklust.

Its called a LAN party: a roomful of hard-core computer gamers dueling over a local area network, without the server crashes, lag, and mysterious time-outs that often accompany Internet gaming action.

Network performance isn't the only motive for gathering. There are also more, um, primal reasons.

As one enthusiast, Mike "Theseus" Payne, writes in a recent email missive, "You haven't had multiplay fun until you jump up and scream 'AAAAHAHA, FEEL THAT!' right after you put a rocket right up your best bud's posterior." [break] En dit hier is ook wel een redelijk snuggere opmerking : [/break] "You're not going to meet your wife at one of these things," quips Jesse Staple, a 21-year-old programmer, who's come from Fairfax, Virginia, for the party.

Ik kwam bij Blue's News een handig trucje tegen waarmee het mogelijk wordt om de Unreal Tournament 3dfx demo in software mode te draaien:

The Unreal Tournament demo is Glide only, but Davis Lentz sends word that creating a blank text file called Glide2x.dll in your Windows\System directory will allow the game to be played in software mode, which, depending on the horsepower in your system, may just allow you to check out a bit of what the demo is like, or even allow you to play (sCary confirmed for me that it can be playable). Also, since the demo is actually Glide-only, rather than 3dfx-only, many owners of Creative Labs-based TNT2-cards are reporting excellent results playing the demo using Creative's unified drivers, which, of course, support Glide. [break] Voodoo Extreme weet ons te vertellen dat de 3dfx demo uitstekend werkt met de Creative Labs Unified Savage4 & TNT drivers: [/break] Spicy stuff here...I wanted to inform you guys that Creative Labs has done some preliminary testing and have found the our latest version of our Unified driver (1.20) runs the newly released, 3dfx only, Unreal Tournament demo on our TNT/TNT2 and Savage4 cards. We were able to successfully, and quite impressively, run the game with a TNT2 Ultra and a K62-300 MHz system with 64MB RAM. [break] Verder bij VE een post over de release date van de D3D demo (info afkomstig uit een posting van Mark Rein op het GT forum): [/break] As for D3D it's looking like it will be toward the end of next week. We really want to release for DX7 instead of DX6 and that means waiting on Microsoft to release the downloadable version on their site. We're not sure when that is but we hope to have an exact answer from them on Monday. One of the main reasons for doing the demo is for testing and as we plan to ship the retail game with DirectX7 it would be a shame not to ship the demo/test with DirectX7. Although I think our D3D performance is excellent, DX7 provides yet another nice little performance boost that's worth the wait.

I'm hoping I can convince the guys to release an extra map that should help ease the pain of the couple of days we might spend waiting for DX7. You guys gotta know, there are OVER 50 MAPS in Unreal Tournament and I don't consider any of the demo maps to be among my 5 favorites although 2 of them probably make my top 20. We certainly won't release a top-5 map with the demo. We want you guys to be really, really happy when you get the final game. I hate those movies where the all the best parts were in the trailer! [break] Tenslotte nog een sympathieke .plan update van George Broussard (3DRealms / Duke Nukem Forever): [/break] WAY TO GO EPIC! Unreal Tounrnament is awesome! If you haven't downloaded and played this thing, get it now...It's that good.

Congrats to the Epic guys for creating an amazingly fun game to play!