Lookin Good

LooKInMyPC won’t fix your PC the next time it throws a wobbly, but it might make it easier for you, or someone who knows their way around computers, to track down the fault. When called into action it produces a detailed system profile and diagnostic report about all of the hardware, running services, drivers, updates, startup programs, networks, Internet connections, event logs and a zillion other things about your PC that could prove useful. Save the report when the PC is behaving itself and if things do go awry and help isn’t at hand you can email the report to a knowledgeable friend or tech. You don’t even have to install it on your PC after you’ve downloaded the program you get the option to install it on your hard drive, or on a removable drive or UDB memory stick. Hopefully you’ll never need it (some hope…) but if you do, it’s ready to help.

Windows 7 Goes Gold

We’re fast approaching one of the final milestones in the run up to the consumer launch of Windows 7 this autumn. But in advance of that, on July 10th, the so-called ‘Gold’ RTM or Release To Manufacture version of the operating system will be confirmed, swiftly followed by distribution to manufacturers and developers on July 13th. This head start should help avoid some of the problems following the launch of Vista when far too many hardware devices didn’t have the necessary drivers in place. Barring any unforeseen last minute glitches or bugs this is the version of the software that will go on sale on October 22nd. Good news too on pricing, it looks like it will be a fair bit cheaper than Vista.

NVIDIA Is Still the King of Graphics

Santa Clara, California-based NVIDIA is reported to have recorded an impressive first quarter in 2009, as the company managed to maintain its position as the number one GPU vendor on the market. The news comes after earlier reports, according to which Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices grabbed a market share of approximately 40 percent in the third quarter of 2008. However, NVIDIA now claims that its market share has increased to an impressive 68 percent, compared to the company’s results in the fourth quarter of 2008.

According to a recent news-article on bit-tech, citing sources from research firms Mercury Research and Jon Peddie Research, NVIDIA succeeded in increasing its market share by 0.3%, in Q1 2009. Read more

Expected to come before Windows 7

Windows 7 beta, the border is removed and the remaining free by millions of users worldwide have been tested. I collect a huge appreciation of the different sectors in relation to the beta of Windows 7 from Microsoft, a news came. In fact, many experts were estimated by the courage to say but no one could. And finally, Microsoft was expected to explain, this is another Windows 7 beta will not!

So easy to use on your Windows 7 beta to get comfortable. Microsoft Windows 7 as that for the first RC, so the final release version of the island were out on the market. RC version probably will not be open to the public. Read more

Superior Memory Usage and Graphics Performance for Windows 7

Microsoft already proved that on the same system configuration Windows 7 would boot a few seconds faster than Windows Vista. But fact is that the evolution from Vista to Windows 7 is not limited to the boosted startup times. In this context, at the Windows hardware Engineering Conference in Los Angeles, Mike Angiulo, General Manager, Windows Planning and PC Ecosystem Team for Microsoft, and Jon DeVaan, Senior Vice President of the Core Operating System Division, revealed Windows 7′s superiority compared to Vista also in terms of memory usage and graphics performance.

“Once we’re even booted we’ve done a lot to improve the memory usage, and the graphics performance. This graph that you see on the screen here shows how in Vista we scale linearly with the number of open windows, so that’s the amount of memory that’s consumed by the system as you open more Windows. Read more

Power in your Pocket

How about this for green energy? A pocket-sized device developed by a US company called M2E (Motion 2 Energy) promises to generated enough electricity to charge cellphones, media players and such, just by rattling around in your pocket or handbag. The gizmo is full of coils and magnets that convert movement into electricity, which is stored in a rechargeable battery, ready to be let loose when you need it. Apparently it generates between three and seven times as much power as rival ‘kinetic’ energy systems. The company has also developed ‘D’ cell type batteries that self charge as they are moved around, a bit like those torches that light up when you shake them. Read more

Microsoft Blue Track Says Goodbye to Laser

Although Microsoft is not breathing a single word in relation to an event it has cooking for September 9, 2008, under the slogan “Say Goodbye to Laser,” leaks from its partners are managing to paint a more complete picture. As it has been speculated, the new technology, which will be unveiled in the second week of the coming month, has been incorporated in a mouse. The Microsoft Blue Track mouse, featured in the adjacent images, reportedly sports a LED in combination with wide angle lenses, instead of a laser diode. In this context, despite the attempt to build anticipation with consumers, the Blue Track mouse is by no means reinventing the wheel. Read more

Free Games at Windows Live

To compete with Apple’s successful iPhone and iPod App Store, Microsoft announced today that Windows Live will have free games for its PC users. What used to be only available to Xbox users is now available across the entire Windows platform.

Microsoft’s press release states “the launch of Games for Windows  LIVE marks a major expansion of the Xbox LIVE service across multiple platforms, uniting gamers with a single identity, a single gamertag, a single friends list and a single list of achievements attainable on the Xbox 360 and a Windows-based PC.” Read more

Top Ten Notebooks You Couldn’t Do Without

Mobile computing has conquered both the high-end and the mainstream markets and analysts claim that the number of sold notebooks will outpace desktop systems by 2010. Mobile gaming is still a niche market, dominated by bulky notebooks with significant price tags, but most of the general-purpose laptops deliver optimal performance at a reasonable price tag.

The first entry in the mainstream notebook line-up is the Acer Aspire 5920 model, that comes rigged with an Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 chip running at 1.6 GHz. The system also packs 2 GB of DDR2 memory and runs Windows Vista Home Premium. The 15.4-inch LCD display sports anti-glare technology that boosts the video output and offers a comfortable computer experience. The system sells for about $910 via the company’s retail outlets. Read more

Vista Price Changes on the Way?

Microsoft raised a few eyebrows late last week with an announcement that it is planning significant price cuts for some versions of the Vista operating system. So far we only have details of the US changes, which apply to the upgrade versions of Ultimate (down from $299 to $219) and Home Premium (drops from $159 down to $129), but according to a CNET News report the company also has plans to reduce prices in other ‘developed’ markets which presumably means Europe and Japan. There will also be changes too for emerging markets, where the distinction between full and upgrade versions will be eliminated. Read more

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