Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day. Take a moment to thank the guys and gals who keep your servers running safe and sound 24/7.
We would like to give a big shout out to 53tabs’s sys admin Greg Grammon. Along with all our friends at GoDaddy.
Here’s some advice on the proper use of the System Administrator’s valuable time.
Gary Oldman has confirmed that a computer game adaptation of The Dark Knight, the second Batman film in Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of adaptations, is set for release soon.
Speaking in a G4 interview, which is currently being hosted on Gametrailers, the Dark Knight star confirmed that a game was definitely in development and that he knew an awful lot of effort had gone into getting Batman’s abilities to feel suitably smooth and fluid.
Oldman, who reprises his role as Lt. James Gordon and who is set to ascend to the role of Commissioner later in the series, did not name a developer in the interview but the current speculation is that the Dark Knight game could be the secret project of Pandemic Studios and EA.
EA and Pandemic did not announce anything regarding the game at E3 2008, which coincided with the theatrical release of the film, and have not offered official comment since then.
Pandemic’s other current titles include Mercenaries 2 and Lord of the Rings: Conquest, both of which are due out in Q4 this year.
Here’s the trailer for the upcoming film Watchmen directed by Zack Snyder and based on the limited issue DC Comics graphic novel series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. The film is scheduled for release on March 6th, 2009.
Well, it didn’t quite hit the promised June deadline, but a fix for the dreaded Windows Home Server file-swallowing bug has finally been released.
Microsoft announced on its Technet Blog for Windows Home Server yesterday that the Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 patch was finally available in finished Released to Manufacturing form.
Available for immediate download from the Microsoft Download Center, users relying on Windows Update will have to wait until August to get their hands on the much-wanted update pack – as will anyone running a Chinese or Japanese Windows Home Server install.
If you’ve been treating your Windows Home Server box with trepidation since the bug surfaced, now might be a good time to upgrade and finally get some use out of what promised to be a useful product. Unless you’d rather use something else, of course.
Ever wonder why some PSUs claiming huge wattages are so cheap? Why should you buy a branded one – or are you just paying for the name and some fancy cables?
Well, no, you’re paying for the fact that it won’t blow up! Corsair recently took it upon itself to test some of shoddiest looking power supplies we’ve seen.
Corsair put six budget units to the test at just 75 percent load and came to some explosive results – check the video to see some crazy popping action.
Sure, it’s a promotional video for Corsair PSUs and they do run them without the cover on so the airflow isn’t directed over the heatsinks, but it still goes to show that cheap PSUs would rather explode than integrate essential features like overheat protection.
It certainly is a case of “you get what you pay for”, however that statement is somewhere between untrue and ironic since Corsair aggressively undercut most of the PSU market (annoying a lot of other manufacturers) with their own products.
Intel has officially launched its next-generation Centrino platform, and it’s looking pretty darn spiffy.
The imaginatively monikered Centrino 2, previously running under the internal codename Montevina, is available in two flavours – the plain old Centrino 2 and the higher-end Centrino 2 with vPro™ Technology. No, really – that’s what it’s called. vPro is the name Intel has given to its own version of the Phoenix HyperCore embedded security system; a hardware-based virtual operating system that allows corporations remote access to perform security checks and maintenance on their laptops, even if the main operating system is hosed beyond repair.
As well as the Montevina platform itself, Intel also announced the availability of a bunch of new mobile-oriented processors based around the Core 2 technology. TrustedReviews has a full list of current and future processor ranges, but the basic upshot is that you can expect a range of ‘performance’ units from 2.26GHz to 2.53GHz running on a 1,066MHz front-side bus with an impressive thermal design profile of 25W, and a second range of chips especially designed for the small form factor market ranging from 2.4GHz with 6MB cache down to a weeny little 1.2GHz unit with 3MB cache but a frankly astonishing 5.5W TDP – which opens the door for impressive battery life in future ultra-portables.
The processor joy doesn’t end there, though: Intel has also used the launch of Centrino 2 to mention that it has beaten rival AMD to the punch and is the first chip maker to offer a range of quad-core processors for the mobile market. If you demand performance for your single-threaded applications, Intel’s got your back there, too: a mobile version of the Core 2 Extreme 3.06GHz, allegedly the world’s highest-performing dual-core mobile processor.
If you rely on Intel integrated graphics on your notebook, you’ll be aware that – excellent Linux support aside – they’ve never been at the cutting-edge when it comes to gaming. The bad news is that the new Mobile Intel Express 45 IGP that is coming part and parcel of the Centrino 2 platform still won’t set your gaming world on fire, but it does feature hardware Blu-Ray decoding and the option – at the OEM’s discretion – to switch between the integrated, energy-efficient Intel graphics chip and a discrete, power-hungry gaming chip on demand.
Centrino wouldn’t be Centrino without wireless connectivity, of course, and Intel has that covered too with the announcement of the Intel Wi-Fi Link 5000 series of wireless networking equipment. Running on the as-yet unratified 802.11n draft specification, the new cards offer five times the speed and twice the range of the 802.11a/b/g cards offered in the original Centrino platform. If you’re one of the lucky few who live in a WiMAX enabled area, check out the 5050 series – combined WiFi and WiMAX reception in a single card.
In order to get the energy efficiency points that any good mobile platform needs, Centrino 2 is set to feature a range of new power-saving technologies including Deep Power Down – in which extra cache and core clocks are completely disabled when the laptop is idling – and the aforementioned switchable graphics alongside old favourites like the SpeedStep dynamic clocking technology.
The Centrino 2 platform is due to start appearing in notebooks soon, with confirmed models including the Fujitsu Lifebook S7220, the HP Compaq 6730b, the Lenovo IdeaPad Y730, the Sony VGN-FW198UH, and the Toshiba Qosimio X305.
Now if only company’s could come up with new names for the products that people could actually understand.