AVL schrijft: "Als je niet alleen te weinig geld hebt om een goede PC te kopen, maar ook te weinig geld voor een monitor, kun je met dit dingetje je Dreamcast aansluiten op je 14" VGA monitor. Hmm.
Volgens de gasten van 3D Alpha is het echter heel mooi:":

After I had sat down and put some serious time into some game playing, I found this VGA adapter to be extremely useful. In fact, I found it to be worth much more than it's street price of $50 in terms of usage. I don't think there's another Dreamcast periphrial that can come out that I'd be able to use more than the Dreamcast VGA adapter. The only drawback I had with this periphrial is that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how it hooked up to everything, but then again, that can be attributed to my own mind's slowly grinding gears. Once all the dust settles, I give this VGA adapter a 92% rating, and I simply know that if Dreamcast users want high quality graphics in a convenient location... This is their ticket.

Lees hier meer info over de Dreamcast VGA Adapter.

Zoal je wellicht al weet zijn er nogal wat sites die moeite hebben met het weergeven van het jaartal 2000 in hun klokkie. Volgens sommigen is het nu 19100 terwijl andere sites beweren dat we in 3900 of 1900 leven. Anywee, the Register heeft ze allemaal verzameld in dit artikel.

Digital-Clips heeft een vergelijkings review klaarliggen tussen de DiamondMax 6800 Plus en zijn opvolger, de 40GB dikke Maxtor DiamondMax 40 Plus. Het nieuwe model blijkt uit de benchmarks tot zo'n 15% sneller te zijn dan zijn voorganger. Lees hier het hele verhaal.

This was our first encounter with Maxtor drives and I must admit, I’m thoroughly impressed. Both drives are plenty fast enough for everyday use, and the faster 40 Plus is just a speed demon in its own right. While previously, many have judged hard drives against IBM’s 34GXP (and before that, the 22GXP), it seems manufacturers now have to play catch up with Maxtor’s DiamondMax 40 Plus. Its huge capacity, blazingly fast performance and just as importantly low price make it a winner by our books.

And its elder brother? Although the 6800 Plus is brutally beaten in our benchmarks, it is a well built drive worthy of any gamer’s rig. While it may not be as fast, it’s every bit as cool and quiet as the 40 Plus. Both drives are quite capable of running without a drive cooler, although having one is just good insurance. And noise? It’s whisper quiet when idle, and just noticeable when accessing data.

Whichever Maxtor drive you go with, you can’t go wrong.

wildhagen schrijft: "IE-gebruikers leven in het jaar 3900... dit blijkt te liggen aan de manier waarop IE JavaScript interpreteert...":

Internet Explorer users worldwide may come across the year 3900 as they browse the Web today. This is due to a flaw in the way IE renders JavaScript.

The getYear() query normally returns a two-digit year, however upon reaching the year 2000, Internet Explorer is returning four digits. Microsoft has claimed this to be a problem in the implementation of JavaScript itself, independent of IE. However, BetaNews tested the same code under recent Netscape, Opera, and Mozilla browsers without an erred result.

Microsoft suggests the use of getFullYear() instead, which will turn all dates into four digits. Although, this requires changes in the physical code, placing blame on the HTML programmer rather than Internet Explorer.

The main issue is that many Web sites compute the date by adding 1900 to the current year in the two-digit format, resulting in a four-digit display. Upon reaching 2000 however, getYear() returns 2000 instead of 100, making the current year 3900. While this may not be a problem for smaller Web sites, it will take time and money for large corporations to update thousands of pages with new code.

Microsoft has not yet said whether they will patch the bug, although with over 75% marketshare according to StatMarket.com, much of the Internet community is potentially affected. Network Associates, makers of the popular McAfee anti-virus suite, experienced the problem earlier this morning when reporting virus pattern dates, while Netscape's Netcenter reported today's news as year 3900.

Bovenstaand bericht gejat geleend van Beta News. Een voorbeeldje van dit verschijnsel is overigens hier bij TMF-Web te vinden.

eenTurk schrijft: "Was effe aan het surfen en kwam toevallig op de website van Gigabyte Taiwan uit. Ik zou zeggen check je moederbord als je een Gigabyte hebt. Op de site staat namelijk als datum: January 2, 4000":

Ik kijk nu zelf en zie dat Gigabyte inmiddels een sprongetje terug in de tijd heeft gemaakt, daar is het nu 2 januari 2100. Trouwens ook een leuk detail: volgens Netcraft wordt Gigabyte.com.tw gehost op Windows 2000 beta :

Bij Abit geen rare jaartellingen, die site ligt gewoon helemaal op z'n waffel .

Update: Gigabyte blijkt er een dubbele jaartalling op na te houden. Netscape gebruikers leven in het jaar 2100, terwijl Internet Explorer gebruikers net de overgang naar het vijfde millennium hebben meegemaakt (dit zegt verder niets over de kwaliteit van beide browsers ):

Het volk van Riva3D heeft een review van de Creative Labs Annihilator Pro neer gemikt. Hier wat info over de bij dit GeForce DDR kaartje geleverde software bundel:

Besides the obvious performance benefits that you get from the DDR-equipped Annihilator Pro, you get a pretty decent software package to play with. This includes the seemingly obligatory DVD software (in this case, WinDVD) that seems to be standard in any GeForce offering, plus the Colorific color matching and monitor calibration software. On the gaming side, you get the Evolva Demo, which uses hardware T&L, plus the NVIDIA Demo Suite. AND you get the full version of Need for Speed: High Stakes, which is a very good racing game that even non-race fans (such as myself) can enjoy. WinDVD is definitely one of the best software DVD players currently on the market, and game afficianados will appreciate the ability to use 3Deep's automatic gamma adjustment for gaming visuals the way the developer meant them to be.

While currently the Unified Drivers work with the Annihilator series, users are still unable to get them from Creative's web site since the serial number database still awaits updating, which is necessary to accept Annihilator serial numbers. Until they do, you're out of luck unless you happened to have owned a CL TNT2 or know someone who does. The benefits of Unified GLIDE support is at best limited, due to 3DFX's decision to release GLIDE as an open API. Even so, the Unified drivers work incredibly well and are very compatible with most GLIDE games.

Ik lees bij Slashdot.org dat er een nieuwe XFree86 snapshot is gereleased. Hier een overzicht van de nieuwe features in versie 3.9.17:

Summary of new features in 3.9.17 compared with 3.9.16.

This section contains a brief summary of what has changed since the previous snapshot. Unfortunately, only a small number of changes are listed here. For detailed information, refer to the CHANGELOG file in the xc/pro- grams/Xserver/hw/xfree86 directory in the source tree. The sections that follow this one have details of features that are new to the pre-4.0 snapshot series.

The 3dfx driver is now supported by the DRI.

Tiny-X for the Itsy has been added.

Significant font and font server enhancements.

New driver for ATI Rage 128. The driver is called "r128".

Xterm enhancements and fixes.

DPS support hooks have been added.

DRI enhancements including Mesa update to version 3.2, full support and fifo code for 3dfx hardware, and device driver updates for Linux 2.3 kernels.

Add Riva TNT2 M64 support to nv_driver.

Significant enhancements to Xv.

Add initial VESA VBE support including initialization and DDC.

Several PCI enhancements.

"SilkenMouse" enhancement for smoother mouse movement.

Add GeForce/Quadro support to the NVIDIA driver.

Int10 support for Linux.

Resource allocation infrastructure added.

De binaries kun je hier van xfree86.org wegtrekken.

Betanews meldt dat Microsoft op de Hotmail en MoneyCentral sites twee kleine Y2K probleempjes heeft dicht getimmerd:

Microsoft reported two minor problems with Y2K involving Hotmail and their online portfolio Web site which works in conjunction with Intuit's Quicken software. Apparently, some customer's online portfolios were appearing larger than they should have been, and Microsoft had the error fixed by midnight. In a minor Hotmail glitch, any e-mail sent prior to October of 1999 erroneously reported the year as 2099 instead of 1999. Engineers in Redmond quickly resolved that problem as well.

Hot Hardware heeft een gecombineerde review van de Gigabyte GA-6CX i820+Rambus moederplank en Gigabyte GA-MG400 videokaart. Laatstgenoemde is gebaseerd op de Matrox G400 en zit verpakt in een erg coole blauwgekleurde PCB:

The GA-MG400 is an excellent overclocker and we ran it full out at 140MHz. core frequency and 186MHz. memory frequency, without a single lock-up throughout our battery of tests. The heat sink that Gigabyte uses is a fairly heavy duty piece of aluminum and performs well. This is a passive cooling setup with no fan however. I feel very comfortable stating the following benchmarks at this overclocked speed since I feel it is very achievable for most of you. The default core speed of the GA-MG400 is 126/168, as with all G400 cards not of the "MAX" variety.

Club Overclocker schreef een review van de Abit BE6-II, een plankje dat met het verbeterde Softmenu III (121 busspeed settings, Vcore en Vi/o voltage tweaking) voor overklokkers een aantal interessante vernieuwingen meebrengt:

The performance of the BE6-II is nothing less than astounding especially when it comes to overclocking! The high performance of the BE6-II is right on target with other ABIT boards but the SoftMenu III puts this board way out on top. With SoftMenu III the overclocking potential is far beyond today's CPUs and will be for a long time to come. This board is an Overclockers dream come true, imagine being able to step up your FSB speeds by 1MHz at a time! Stability is second nature to all ABIT motherboards and that hasn't changed with the BE6-II. I experienced a noticeable drop in chipset temperature compared to other ABIT boards even while overclocking. The chipset temp stays within a few degrees of room temperature enabling stronger stability at higher clock speeds. The BE6-II is definitely the motherboard to have. If your worried about upgrading issues because of Intel's new standard socket 370, don't give it a second thought. Slot 1 CPUs are going to be around for quite a while and with slot adapters such as Iwill's Slocket II, upgrading to Intel's new Coppermine 370 chips is as easy as changing out a light bulb in your living room lamp.

Applied Digital Solutions, een wazig bedrijf uit Florida, heeft een dingetje bij elkaar geknutseld dat onder de huid geïmplanteerd kan worden en waarmee middels GPS (Global Position System) de locatie van een geïmplanteerd persoon gevolgd kan worden. Een prototype van het apparaatje, dat bijv. ingezet kan worden om loslopende criminelen en kleuters te tracken, moet eind dit jaar beschikbaar komen (thanks flamerz 'r us voor de link):

Planted inconspicuously just under the skin, the implantable transceiver sends and receives data and can be continuously tracked by GPS technology. The company expects applications in the fields of law enforcement, security and medicine.

According to ADS, a company with an Internet and e-commerce focus, the devise could track lost hikers, abducted children and "military, diplomatic and other essential government personnel."

It can also identify individuals for e-business security and check certain biological functions and alert a monitoring facility if it detects a medical emergency.

Meer info over dit redelijk enge idee vind je in dit artikel van CNN.

Reviewnews.com heeft een review van de Trinity Micro GFD online gezet. Het apparaatje krijgt een matige rating van 4/10, vooral vanwege het ranzig gesoldeerde printplaatje:

If you're interested in overclocking your Athlon, and you want a cheaper, easier solution than PCB soldering, I would definitely suggest getting an add-on card. In the U.S. there are two current vendors that are selling these devices. The first is TrinityMicro, and the second is Outside Loop. I haven't been able to get my hands on the one from Outside Loop, but, it seems like it has all the same features as the GFD, but costs more. It also looks more professional because of the custom PCB. Personally, I would recommend the other one. For ten dollars more, youget a better design, layout, and overall quality of craftsmanship. I think that's worth a couple more bucks. But if you're really in a pinch for cash, this one should work fine.

Op een trage nieuwsdag, zoals deze eerste zondag van 2000, mag het bericht dat er een nieuwe versie van Powerstrip gereleased is als waardevol nieuws beschouwd worden . Hier heb je de soep aangaande v2.60:

PowerStrip 2.6 (639kb) has been released as a unified build, with transparent support for the original retail release of Windows 95 to the latest RTM build of Windows 2000. Support has been added for the GeForce DDR and Savage 2000, as well as - belatedly - for Number Nine's proprietary T2R4. Fixes relate to, amongst other things, Rendition CRTC calculations, ATI Rage hardware configuration under Win2000, the TNT2 M64 clocks, and Intel overlay color correction. Also new in this release is a comprehensive diagnostic module and command-line support for configuring AGP transfers, along with automatic, temporary disabling of "secondary monitors" when you switch to DirectX or OpenGL settings (including the second of the G400's DH). Both the PowerStrip and the latest PCIList - now at Version 1.5 - include support for several new PCI class devices.

Powerstrip 2.60 kun je downloaden bij Tweakfiles.com.