So its been a very busy week and a sad one at work.

One of our co-workers Ronald Smith passed away suddenly and without cause at the moment.  I'm not sure if the family will release what happened to him or not.  It's their right.  I am curious as to why someone would fall over dead.  In that curious would like to know not creepy way.  Still he always had a smile, was always early and was a great guy to work with.  Ronald Smith you will be missed.

Now on to the news events.

Personal Stuff:

We were treated to an early snow This Tuesday ( 11-18-08 )  It kept the kids out of school and they were happy for it.  We got to play outside for a bit but the wind was too strong to stay out for long.  So we cut it short after 15 minutes and came in for Hot cocoa.  Mmmm..   After that the kids kept inside and played various video games throughout the day.

Tech Stuff:

Ok here's what i have been saving up for a week or so.  There is a lot of technology coming out in the next year or so to keep things really interesting in the computer world.  First! Intel's Core i7 is now out in full force at all your favorite vendors and retailers; Newegg, TigerDirect Dell and so on.  Prices on machines and equipment are still a bit steep but hell if you have the cash and want to buy something that will stay viable for at least the next 2 years then I will direct you to the Core i7.  ExtremeTech has a good write up about the improvements over the Core 2 Duo EE the Core i7's are making.  Its almost not fair to bash on a processor like that.  And yes all you people out there that have been putting off getting a new computer because of price, the prices on the current Intel chips will come down eventually to help clear out old stock of Core 2 Duo's  There is nothing wrong with Core 2 Duo's and Core 2 Quad's I like mine just fine.  It has been the best performing processor I have ever had and does a good job.  I really can't wait to see this put into the server platform.  As my budget is getting tighter I may have to consider going back to AMD for my home PC needs.  Not for a couple of years yet but I will be keeping an eye on AMD's performance and seeing if they become a bang for the buck processor again.  I know the Phenom hasn't even held a candle to the performance of the Core 2 Duo and the Core i7's have taken a page from the AMD group by adding the memory controller onto the processor (increasing the number of pins to 1013), but I have always had a soft spot for the AMD chipsets.  And the fact that they work really good with nvidia equipment.  Coupled with the fact that they also have nvidia making chipsets for them still.  I have never had a better performer then an nvidia chipset with an AMD processor.  I can't sing accolades enough.  I'm sure there have been some turdburglers out there but I have had good luck with mine.  nuf said.

OK, In other tech news, there's an interesting article over at PCWorld about how Windows 7 is Windows Vista under the hood.  Well duh.  We knew that there would be no major overhaul of Windows 7 as they have tried really hard to get the Vista platform down and all the bug's worked out of it.  And I am running Vista Business on my laptop now and I have to say that it is doing a good job at not fscking up!  That said the article goes into the ins and outs of Windows 7 and how it is with a few questionable additions that may doom the damn thing the same as vista..  Didn't vista have some new features that didn't take off well?  This article was really good at getting under the 'hood' so to speak of Windows 7 and comparing it to Vista. 

Bottom line: So far, Windows 7 looks, behaves, and performs almost exactly like Windows Vista. And it breaks all sorts of things that used to work just fine under Vista. In other words, Microsoft's follow-up to its most unpopular OS release since Windows Me threatens to deliver zero measurable performance benefits while introducing new and potentially crippling compatibility issues.  PCWorld - Under the hood of Windows 7

One of the interesting things in this article is a Windows 7 Compatibility Calculator so you can avoid that whole Vista Capable Snafu that also plagued Windows Vista.You have to jump through some hoops to get it to work and install but the results will be helpful in determining if it's time to upgrade to a new computer or hang on to what you have.

The long and short of it? eh  I'm taking a wait and see stance;  Which means that when Windows 7 comes out I will give it 6-8 months before upgrading to it on a test machine.   I might even wait longer then that.  You know the old saying no matter how much you polish a turd its still a turd.  But if you set on it for awhile it may be a worm shiny turd LOL  I'm starting to develop some love for the google interface.  Now if Yahoo would do something like copy Google's documents and Excel stuff and give everybody 5 Gb of online storage yeah then we would have something. 

Moving on.  The next big thing in hardware I believe is this little tidbit from Sandisk.  Explaining in basic terms the updates they have come up for SSD File systems. Calling it the Extreme FFS  (Flash File System)  Let me see if I can dumb this down a bit.  ALL file systems in existence are designed for 'ROTATING' Media!  Every single one.  FAT, FAT16, FAT32,NTFS ext2, ext3 ALL OF THEM!!!
But Brian?  So what?  It can't matter that much right?  LOL  yeah it can. If you have a SSD (Solid State Drive) that is using Rotational file systems it will be inherently slow.  SSD's don't rotate!  This Extreme FFS takes into account that its not rotating and uses the most efficient means possible to store and retrieve data.  In theory you should see random write speeds increase by a factor of 100 over rotational media.!  I have long thought that the hard drive was the last bottleneck in computer technology.  They also have created a new term you can expect to see more and more as SSD drives become cheaper and more available.  vRPM which is the 'Virtual' Revolutions Per Minute.  As RPM's were a way to judge speed of a drive in the past vRPM will convey the same information for Solid State Drives.  See?  I see a bunch o glazed over looks.  HAHA just nod and keep on reading.

Now, if I said you could transfer 25 GB to your USB Hard Drive in say... oh 70 seconds.  Would that be worth anything to you?  Go ahead I wait for you to see how long it would take with your USB 2.0 devices (13.9 minutes) or your Fire-wire 1200 systems(MAC People)  Ok Fire-wire 1200 may be decent but I see a lot of vapor and not much physical hardware.  OK.  USB 3.0 is due out in the near future and will be an update for Vista and be in Windows 7 by it's ship date.  USB 3.0 will be backwards compatible with all your old USB 2.0 and 1.1 devices so there is o special ports or anything.  The USB 3.0 cable will look a little different (they can be seen at TFOT) There were some problems with spec availability.  Basically Intel was dragging its feet in showing its hand and the other vendors (AMD & nvidia) were getting a little testy about the lack of details about the new update to USB.  There was some dirt thrown around about that. ars technica has a nice writeup on the details of the whole thing.  So we should start seeing things around or after Christmas.  I can't wait until consoles like the PS3 start popping out consoles with USB 3.0 and SSD's  that would be a helluva box eh?

To sum up, what it comes down to is with the advent of SSD drives eliminating the bottleneck in hard drives, Intel's new Core i7 Processors, Vista as it is, Windows 7 to come, and USB 3.0 you are going to see a solid jump in the performance of all new computers coming out.  Should you wait to buy that computer?  eh  It depends on how future proof, which is a little lie we all tell ourselves so that we feel better about chucking out $2,000 on a new computer!  Will it be fast and amazing?  oh hell yea.  but you have to ask yourself that all important deal killing question...

DO

I

NEED

IT?

Well do you? In most cases, unless you are a heavy gamer or like to render your on animated sequences then probably not really.  This technology will only improve the industry and make things more reliable, especially the Solid State Drives.  But if all you are going to do is write stuff in blogs and emails to family and friends and do a little work then well maybe you want something like this.

Asus - Eee PC Netbook with Intel® Atom™ Processor N270 - White

First I do not work for BesBest Buy get anything from them for this.  I just find cool stuff and post it.

These little Atom Processors go a long way in making ultra portable devices very very powerful with a small power penalty.  They will run for hours on current technology.

And with new technology coming out of Korea you can expect to see Lithium Batteries that are 90% efficient.

more efficient = longer battery life

So instead of that little EeePC running for say oh 4 hours try something like 8 or 12 hours.  That is longer then you can stay in one place without suffering some severe back pain. :)  I don't care where you work even the Lazy-z-Boy store. 

Who knows maybe batteries will become obsolete one day.  Mojo Mobility has done some great work with induction charging.  What is really great to notice about these devices is the size.  They have gotten them this small and at 70% efficiency. Can you imagine induction charging stations in your house and car?  Instead of having a tangle of cables and wires hanging all over the place you could just throw your phone on a table (special table of course) and it charge from there.  I'm sure the proponents of induction energy will complain, radiation blargh blargh. But such a small field should pose any possible long term effects.  I could see cars maybe as a detractor but we will have to wait 10-20 years to find out if we start growing extra parts we don't need.  It would be really cool if we could apply this technology to laptops and just have the batteries or the laptops recharge while we work on them at our desks.  

You know what's better then an Atom processor powering your little EeePC? A Dual-Core Atom Processor!  That's right, Intel in its wisdom has decided to make a Dual-Core Atom processor.  Dubbed the Atom 330 this little bundle of joy addresses all the shortcomings of the original Atom 1.6 GHZ processor.  Check out the benchmarks over here at pcpro.com.  Its a good write-up and doesn't pull any punches about the abilities of the 330 when compared to the N270 (the single core Atom Processor)  They mention the Via C7-D for good measure as it's the only other mobile processor on the market besides Intel's ARM processors.  It's good to note that the reviewer does point out how the single core Atom eeks ahead of the Dual core Atom.  Of course the reviewer does say it could be the result of the new chipset that is running the Atom 330.  We would have to wait and see on that.  I am sure it's something like that and will have to wait for all the benefits of the Dual Core Atom to be filled out.  In all other areas besides the office department the Atom 330 performs better then the Single core N270 and the Via C7-D.  It may not be super stellar but I think we can expect some good things from this budget little processor.

Now we come to the:
Software of the week!

This weeks mention is FreeRinger.  A web based calling service which allows you to make Free calls to Telephone numbers in more then 30 countries throughout the world!  Skip on over and check it out.

Robots among us:

It should say something about a society or their shopping complex rather, if you have to have little directory robots to help you find your way around the place.  hmm...This little guy seems ready to do the job!

And you may have noticed that the spam coming to your inbox has decreased.  If you are like me I rarely notice the spam count in my folder.  I just dump it when it gets ridiculous, apparently A security company has been monitoring a shady Internet Provider by the name McColo Corp and as of Nov 10 over 75% of spam was shut off.  It was like someone turned off the fire hydrant and all the spam dried up.  If you are interested head over to the article at the Washington Post for more info.