Chad Weirick
Chad Weirick
Recent posts
$7,000,000,000. Can you guess what in the wonderful world of IT that number refers to? If you guessed the weekly allowance that Bill Gates gives his children, you’re probably close, but not quite on target.It is actually the amount of market value that Apple declined on news that iPhone activations were far behind the expected sales numbers....
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Whenever Microsoft releases a new version of its Windows OS, people generally line up to buy. They often go so far as to just buy a whole new PC to replace their aging rig, or because they don’t feel comfortable installing the OS themselves. Generally the industry sees a large surge in sales that immediately follow the release of a new OS.President...
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AMD may have signed on with TSMC to outsource production of their upcoming Fusion technology. At present it seems that Fusion will be produced on TSMC’s 45nm process. “JPMorgan projects that TSMC can further expand its technology to CPU manufacturing in the first quarter of 2008 after this field qualification is completed, though any meaningful...
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There has been a lot of confusion recently concerning upcoming AMD sockets dubbed AM2+ and AM3. Since AMD hasn’t released anything official, all we really have to go on is speculation.Current speculation has yet to settle on exactly which CPUs will fit into which sockets, with some people/sites claiming any AMx CPU will work in any AM series...
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Computers have gotten to the point where they can routinely decimate the best human players at many games, but most of those games can be boiled down to simply analyzing x number of moves in advance and seeing which move(s) result in the highest probability of success. What about games that might use a bit of instinct and intuition, especially...
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While Gordon Gekko (from the movie Wall Street) might have argued that greed is good, excessive amounts of it aren’t always conducive to effective business relationships.Enter Steve Jobs and Sony CEO Howard Stringer. Both of them are running corporations that sell music, and it appears that friction has developed as a result. Jobs called...
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If you’re an Xbox 360 owner and you’re looking for a place to download more of your favorite shows and movies, then you may want to look into CinemaNow. A recent update to their software package has enabled more than 7000 videos to be downloaded and viewed by Xbox 360 owners: “CinemaNow Inc., the premier online destination for downloadable...
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While Intel has been touting the energy efficiency of their Core series of CPUs, there have been a few recent tests that suggest certain AMD CPUs might come out on top when compared with similar Intel CPUs. The results of the latest test show a savings of nearly $100 a year: “Specifically, the independent computer-testing firm announced...
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Microsoft is finally starting to let a few details about their next OS, dubbed “Windows 7”, slip. While the new features are still under wraps for now, MS did reveal that they plan on adopting a more incremental development approach somewhat similar to that of Apple. It could be argued that MS has already tried this approach as Windows 98...
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Have you ever wondered why there are so many viruses and other malware out there just waiting to infect your PC(s)? Is it really possible that there are so many people these days who have the intelligence and the lack of scruples required to make so many viruses? Or is it more probable that there are a few bright people out there who have...
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Vista. The name makes most people either smile or cringe, depending on whether or not they’ve run into compatibility issues. So how does Vista stack up on the whole? “Nearly six months after it launched, gripes over what doesn't work with Vista continue, eclipsing positive buzz over the program's improved desktop search, graphics and security.With...
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Do you have some extremely old hardware in your home or office? Maybe you still have that 286 laying around someplace or perhaps a TRS-80? As antiquated as these things might seem next to todays quad-core CPUs with gigabytes of memory, they’re nothing compared to the Meccano Differential Anaylser No. 2: “That machine was bought for £100...
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It's been only years after a combination of powerful hardware and software allowed Deep Blue to defeat World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov, and now researchers have announced the completion of an ‘unbeatable’ checkers program. “After 18-and-a-half years and sifting through 500 billion billion (a five followed by 20 zeroes) checkers positions,...
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Pirate sites are here and Microsoft might have a new scheme to make use of them. The idea is that Zunes transfering pirated files to others will give them only 3 plays before the song has to be purchased: “The technology proposed by Microsoft would essentially allow them to capitalize on this by "encrypting" songs transferred offline (in...
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It wasn’t that long ago that the loss of a laptop or hard disk containing sensitive information about consumers was big news. Sadly, it’s becoming much more common these days. In fact, it’s so common that U.K. Information Commissioner Richard Thomas and his staff have looked into some 6000 complaints. "The roll call of banks, retailers,...
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It might seem like a foregone conclusion that using personal electronics during a lightning storm isn’t the brightest of ideas, but apparently nobody told these guys: “Listen to an iPod during a storm and you may get more than electrifying tunes. A Canadian jogger suffered wishbone-shaped chest and neck burns, ruptured eardrums and a broken...
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EA is perhaps one of the most influential companies in the modern software entertainment industry. The company owns some of the most popular gaming franchises on the market today: Sims, Madden, C & C, and the list just goes on. When EA speaks, the industry as a whole listens.What is EA talking about these days? Innovation, or rather...
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According to this article on DailyTech, AMD is preparing a chipset that will be the basis for future high-end motherboard, the RD790. The RD790 is supposedly going to support not only dual CPU sockets, but also up to 4 graphics cards. This could be the very platform for the next generation “Quadfather”, or “Quadfather 2.0” if you will. “The...
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It’s not really a big surprise that MS is working on a service pack (SP) for Vista. The two things that may come as a surprise to many are how soon after launching the SP might be released (November, less than a year after launch) and of course, why: “Windows Vista is not even a year old, but Microsoft is already orchestrating the launch...
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The price cuts we told you about yesterday are now official. Sorry, no Barcelona pricing just yet. We'll keep an eye out though, as we'd expect that information to be released at about the same time the first CPUs from that family get ready to ship. Here's just a few of prices, representing the fastest CPUs AMD has to offer in some of the...
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If you’re looking to build an AMD powered system, you might want to hold out a short while as we are very likely to see revised CPU prices from the Sunnyvale based chip maker. “AMD Monday will slash prices by as much as 30 percent on its Athlon 64 X2 dual-core microprocessor series, according to a system builder with a long-standing business...
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If somebody stole your credit card information and intends to use it online, it’s not all bad news. You could end up with a very small tax-deduction, or at least that’s what Symantec is claiming.The latest trend for people who steal credit card information (carders) is that they test the stolen information by making small donations. Whether...
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