If you'll recall, we already witnessed a pre-production Wolfdale CPU outpace its competition back in August of last year, but the real deal has finally arrived. Over at Hot Hardware, the folks were able to crack open a retail Core 2 Duo E8500 processor, which comes in at 3.16GHz and features 6MB of L2 cache, a 1,333MHz FSB speed and is built on 45-nanometer technology. When put to the test, reviewers found this luscious piece of silicon to be quite the performer, noting that it was probably a better choice for gamers than a low-end quad-core chip. Still, with an expected price of just under three bills, it wasn't exactly seen as the greatest of values, but if you've got the coin and happen to fit the market, the "Recommended" badge tells you everything you need to know.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Intel's Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale gets tested
If you'll recall, we already witnessed a pre-production Wolfdale CPU outpace its competition back in August of last year, but the real deal has finally arrived. Over at Hot Hardware, the folks were able to crack open a retail Core 2 Duo E8500 processor, which comes in at 3.16GHz and features 6MB of L2 cache, a 1,333MHz FSB speed and is built on 45-nanometer technology. When put to the test, reviewers found this luscious piece of silicon to be quite the performer, noting that it was probably a better choice for gamers than a low-end quad-core chip. Still, with an expected price of just under three bills, it wasn't exactly seen as the greatest of values, but if you've got the coin and happen to fit the market, the "Recommended" badge tells you everything you need to know.
'The Big Switch': Welcome to the Worldwide Computer
A quiet revolution in computing is taking place as you read this.
It'll change the way we work, socialize and function as people, communities and nations. It will have an impact on how we make war and peace. Some say it's the biggest thing since electricity became a utility -- yet most of us won't see it coming.
According to Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch and former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, the revolution that's coming is based on the idea that the Internet, a network of computers, is becoming a gigantic computer itself. Not only will users be able to write programs to run on this "World Wide Computer," as Carr calls it, but sooner or later, this system will gain a level of artificial intelligence .
Economies of Scale
Carr takes us back 100 years, to the time when Thomas Edison and Samuel Insull built a network of wires and power-generation facilities, and transformed electricity from a specialized novelty into a broadly available utility.
Carr draws parallels between then and now. At one point, big manufacturers produced all their electricity on site, just as many corporations have on-site servers and information-technology departments today. However, electricity production, as do IT and computing, benefits from economies of scale. Like electricity, IT and computing usage follows similar peak load and capacity patterns. Unused capacity -- think of your home PC while you're at work or the corporate server when the business day is over -- can be minimized by analyzing and matching the usage patterns of many types of customers.
Like electricity, IT can function as a utility, Carr says. Corporations, instead of building, maintaining and supplying internal servers and applications, can buy these services over the Internet from companies specializing in IT -- at a lower cost than running an in-house system. As an example, Carr points to Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) , a company started by Marc Benioff, a veteran Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) employee. The company provides customer relationship management (CRM) services over the Internet to corporations that would otherwise buy and staff their own in-house CRM systems. The company's sales in 2007 topped US$500 million.
Salesforce.com isn't alone. "Employease offers a service for managing personnel. LeanLogistics has one for scheduling transportation. Oco provides a 'business intelligence' service, allowing executives to analyze corporate information and create planning reports. Digital Insight supplies a range of services to banks."
Further Into the Future
Carr spends the first half of Big Switch explaining the corporate and individual switch from computing as a box sitting in front of the user to being a utility like electricity. In the second half, Carr veers away from talk of business and utilities and steers toward territory that science-fiction fans might find appealing.
Carr warns the reader that just as electricity was heralded as a cure-all for modern society that didn't fulfill utopian promises, we should be careful making similar proclamations for utility computing.
Carr is neither a utopian nor a Luddite. In one chapter, he writes about "the unbounded possibilities that tomorrow's computing opens up for making our lives better." In another, he reveals the chilling Information Operation Roadmap put out by the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2003. He finds it "disconcerting to read military planners calmly laying out a doomsday scenario in which American forces act to 'disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors and weapons systems dependent on electromagnetic spectrum.' "
Carr is excited about where this is all going, although his optimism is tinged with restraint. With technological advances, he says, come setbacks, not to mention mismatches between the power of new tools and the knowledge of how best to use them.
Those looking to The Big Switch for advice on how to harness the power of the computing revolution will be disappointed. Carr's book is a glance at where computing has come from and where it could go in the future, with a warning about what the future can bring.
It'll change the way we work, socialize and function as people, communities and nations. It will have an impact on how we make war and peace. Some say it's the biggest thing since electricity became a utility -- yet most of us won't see it coming.
According to Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch and former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review, the revolution that's coming is based on the idea that the Internet, a network of computers, is becoming a gigantic computer itself. Not only will users be able to write programs to run on this "World Wide Computer," as Carr calls it, but sooner or later, this system will gain a level of artificial intelligence .
Economies of Scale
Carr takes us back 100 years, to the time when Thomas Edison and Samuel Insull built a network of wires and power-generation facilities, and transformed electricity from a specialized novelty into a broadly available utility.
Carr draws parallels between then and now. At one point, big manufacturers produced all their electricity on site, just as many corporations have on-site servers and information-technology departments today. However, electricity production, as do IT and computing, benefits from economies of scale. Like electricity, IT and computing usage follows similar peak load and capacity patterns. Unused capacity -- think of your home PC while you're at work or the corporate server when the business day is over -- can be minimized by analyzing and matching the usage patterns of many types of customers.
Like electricity, IT can function as a utility, Carr says. Corporations, instead of building, maintaining and supplying internal servers and applications, can buy these services over the Internet from companies specializing in IT -- at a lower cost than running an in-house system. As an example, Carr points to Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) , a company started by Marc Benioff, a veteran Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) employee. The company provides customer relationship management (CRM) services over the Internet to corporations that would otherwise buy and staff their own in-house CRM systems. The company's sales in 2007 topped US$500 million.
Salesforce.com isn't alone. "Employease offers a service for managing personnel. LeanLogistics has one for scheduling transportation. Oco provides a 'business intelligence' service, allowing executives to analyze corporate information and create planning reports. Digital Insight supplies a range of services to banks."
Further Into the Future
Carr spends the first half of Big Switch explaining the corporate and individual switch from computing as a box sitting in front of the user to being a utility like electricity. In the second half, Carr veers away from talk of business and utilities and steers toward territory that science-fiction fans might find appealing.
Carr warns the reader that just as electricity was heralded as a cure-all for modern society that didn't fulfill utopian promises, we should be careful making similar proclamations for utility computing.
Carr is neither a utopian nor a Luddite. In one chapter, he writes about "the unbounded possibilities that tomorrow's computing opens up for making our lives better." In another, he reveals the chilling Information Operation Roadmap put out by the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2003. He finds it "disconcerting to read military planners calmly laying out a doomsday scenario in which American forces act to 'disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors and weapons systems dependent on electromagnetic spectrum.' "
Carr is excited about where this is all going, although his optimism is tinged with restraint. With technological advances, he says, come setbacks, not to mention mismatches between the power of new tools and the knowledge of how best to use them.
Those looking to The Big Switch for advice on how to harness the power of the computing revolution will be disappointed. Carr's book is a glance at where computing has come from and where it could go in the future, with a warning about what the future can bring.
Rising cost of living hits Gulf IT workers
Over half of all IT workers in the GCC are planning on changing jobs within the next two years, according to the 2008 Arabianbusiness.com Salary Survey. The survey found that 55.4% of IT workers aim to move job in two years, with 71.8% of all respondents saying they are more likely to change jobs now than they were last year.
The biggest concern of IT personnel in the region, in line with most other sectors, is the growing burden of inflation in the region and the associated rising cost of living. 71.6% of respondents felt that they were underpaid, and 61.4% said they did not expect their salary to keep up with inflation.
Of those workers who said they were planning to change jobs within two years, 30.4% said it was because of the rising cost of living, and 21.9% cited lack of pay rise. 13.4% of would be job-seekers also saw an increasing number of opportunities in other markets. Opportunities for promotion (33.3%) and pay (32.8%) were the most important factors in any new job, while share options and training are considered the least important factors.
Nearly 9,000 respondents completed the Arabianbusiness.com Salary Survey online, with over 1,300 respondents working in the GCC in IT roles, or employed in the IT sector. A wide range of roles were represented in the survey, including CIOs, database, website and network administrators, consultants, engineers, IT managers, systems analysts and programmers, project managers and sale roles. All sectors were represented, including banking and finance, communications, construction, education, government, energy, real estate, healthcare, hospitality and FMCG.
In terms of ethnicity, Indian nationals made up 37% of Gulf IT respondents, with Gulf nationals making up 13.5%. Arab nationals from outside of the Gulf accounted for 20% of jobs, and Pakistanis for 9%. The majority of survey respondents were based in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.Story continues below ↓ advertisement
Average basic pay for the IT industry was lower than overall average for all sectors that were surveyed, with almost half (49.9%) of respondents paid less than $35,000 per year, compared to 39.4% for all industries, with 22.8% of Gulf IT respondents paid $20,000 or less. For the wider Middle East region, (Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Yemen and Palestine) 49% of respondents were paid less than $20,000.
The IT industry also failed to rate in the top ten best paid industries, and no IT roles outside of top level management featured in best paid positions. Just 8.7% of IT respondents said they have a basic salary of more than $100,000.
The best paid IT roles, outside of general management, were CIOs, with 40.7% of CIOs reporting basic pay of over $100,000, and sales managers, with 17% claiming the same. Among the worst paid roles, those getting less than $20,000 per year, were computer operators (53.3%), webmasters (46.4%) and database administrators (42.8%).
Qatar reported the highest percentage of top earners, with 16% of respondents paid more than $100,000 per year, while Bahrain had the highest proportion of lowest earners, with 35% earning under $20,000.
IT pay in the Gulf is somewhat behind the US, although as the survey did not measure actual salaries a true comparison is not possible. The overall average US IT salary was $74,500 according to a January 2008 survey from US IT careers website Dice, compared to only 15% of Gulf survey respondents who said they were paid more than $80,000 per year.
Project managers in the US earned on average $101,000 with only 5.56% of Gulf respondents reporting a similar or higher level of pay; for top level IT executives, levels are closer to their US counterparts, with 41.9% of Gulf respondents earning over $100,000 against a US average of $107,000.
For more on the survey, and to see where your salary fits with the industry average, see the report here.
The biggest concern of IT personnel in the region, in line with most other sectors, is the growing burden of inflation in the region and the associated rising cost of living. 71.6% of respondents felt that they were underpaid, and 61.4% said they did not expect their salary to keep up with inflation.
Of those workers who said they were planning to change jobs within two years, 30.4% said it was because of the rising cost of living, and 21.9% cited lack of pay rise. 13.4% of would be job-seekers also saw an increasing number of opportunities in other markets. Opportunities for promotion (33.3%) and pay (32.8%) were the most important factors in any new job, while share options and training are considered the least important factors.
Nearly 9,000 respondents completed the Arabianbusiness.com Salary Survey online, with over 1,300 respondents working in the GCC in IT roles, or employed in the IT sector. A wide range of roles were represented in the survey, including CIOs, database, website and network administrators, consultants, engineers, IT managers, systems analysts and programmers, project managers and sale roles. All sectors were represented, including banking and finance, communications, construction, education, government, energy, real estate, healthcare, hospitality and FMCG.
In terms of ethnicity, Indian nationals made up 37% of Gulf IT respondents, with Gulf nationals making up 13.5%. Arab nationals from outside of the Gulf accounted for 20% of jobs, and Pakistanis for 9%. The majority of survey respondents were based in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.Story continues below ↓ advertisement
Average basic pay for the IT industry was lower than overall average for all sectors that were surveyed, with almost half (49.9%) of respondents paid less than $35,000 per year, compared to 39.4% for all industries, with 22.8% of Gulf IT respondents paid $20,000 or less. For the wider Middle East region, (Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Yemen and Palestine) 49% of respondents were paid less than $20,000.
The IT industry also failed to rate in the top ten best paid industries, and no IT roles outside of top level management featured in best paid positions. Just 8.7% of IT respondents said they have a basic salary of more than $100,000.
The best paid IT roles, outside of general management, were CIOs, with 40.7% of CIOs reporting basic pay of over $100,000, and sales managers, with 17% claiming the same. Among the worst paid roles, those getting less than $20,000 per year, were computer operators (53.3%), webmasters (46.4%) and database administrators (42.8%).
Qatar reported the highest percentage of top earners, with 16% of respondents paid more than $100,000 per year, while Bahrain had the highest proportion of lowest earners, with 35% earning under $20,000.
IT pay in the Gulf is somewhat behind the US, although as the survey did not measure actual salaries a true comparison is not possible. The overall average US IT salary was $74,500 according to a January 2008 survey from US IT careers website Dice, compared to only 15% of Gulf survey respondents who said they were paid more than $80,000 per year.
Project managers in the US earned on average $101,000 with only 5.56% of Gulf respondents reporting a similar or higher level of pay; for top level IT executives, levels are closer to their US counterparts, with 41.9% of Gulf respondents earning over $100,000 against a US average of $107,000.
For more on the survey, and to see where your salary fits with the industry average, see the report here.
Was Windows XP Microsoft's Last Good OS?"
Everybody's talking today about "Drivergate" — internal Microsoft e-mails that show senior Microsoft executives personally struggling to use hardware products sporting the "Windows Vista Capable" sticker. The e-mails also show that Microsoft lowered its standard for some hardware compatibility, apparently to help Intel impress Wall Street.This revelation is simply the latest in a long series that add up to one inescapable conclusion: Windows Vista sucks.Windows Mobile, Microsoft's operating system for cell phones, suffers from a similar problem. The Windows Mobile OS isn't horrible per se, it's just that it's completely wrong for cell phones and other small screen devices.The biggest problem isn't that the company's newest products are unusable, but that Microsoft may have actually LOST THE ABILITY to make good operating systems.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
How to Make an Invisible Folder on Your Desktop or Laptop
Do any of you have certain “secretive” files that you would like kept personal but within reach? Would you enjoy playing a quick magic trick on your folks by dropping documents into an invisible folder? The how to video below quickly demonstrates an easy way to create an invisible folder on your desktop.
By having an invisible folder, you are able to have confidential files, documents, folders, movies, mp3, and more visually erased from viewers eyes. The folder is concrete and functional, but it is simply transparent.
If you are not interested watching the video, the directions are simple:
1) Create a folder on your desktop
2) Select to rename it, delete the default “new folder” title [do not hit “enter”]
3) Press and hold “alt” then “0160″, release the alt key and then press “enter”. This names the folder as a “space”. [Note: Desktops must use the number keys on the right of the keyboard and not above the letters. Laptops cannot use the regular number keys, they must use the ‘function’ numbers within the keyboard (the corresponding letters are: “m-j-o-m”= “0-1-6-0. With laptops, “numlock” must be selected. Also, you must use the “Fn” key when selecting the numbers and may also need so to turn the numlock on.]
4) Select and right click the folder. Scroll down to select “properties”, then “customize”, and then “change icon”.
5) If you scroll through the provided icons, you will see a certain area that seems a few icons are simply missing. Select one of those empty spaces, or in other words, invisible folders.
6) Hit “OK”, then “Apply”, then “OK”.
You now have an invisible folder on your desktop to place any files you want to make transparent. Please remember that this is not a secured file, just invisible to the eyes.
By having an invisible folder, you are able to have confidential files, documents, folders, movies, mp3, and more visually erased from viewers eyes. The folder is concrete and functional, but it is simply transparent.
If you are not interested watching the video, the directions are simple:
1) Create a folder on your desktop
2) Select to rename it, delete the default “new folder” title [do not hit “enter”]
3) Press and hold “alt” then “0160″, release the alt key and then press “enter”. This names the folder as a “space”. [Note: Desktops must use the number keys on the right of the keyboard and not above the letters. Laptops cannot use the regular number keys, they must use the ‘function’ numbers within the keyboard (the corresponding letters are: “m-j-o-m”= “0-1-6-0. With laptops, “numlock” must be selected. Also, you must use the “Fn” key when selecting the numbers and may also need so to turn the numlock on.]
4) Select and right click the folder. Scroll down to select “properties”, then “customize”, and then “change icon”.
5) If you scroll through the provided icons, you will see a certain area that seems a few icons are simply missing. Select one of those empty spaces, or in other words, invisible folders.
6) Hit “OK”, then “Apply”, then “OK”.
You now have an invisible folder on your desktop to place any files you want to make transparent. Please remember that this is not a secured file, just invisible to the eyes.
An All Encompassing Future by Nokia Morph
What would you like your cellphone to do? Try to come up with different ideas, solutions, and features then combine them into one cellphone concept, and you may agree with Nokia’s vision.The Morph cellphone of Nokia is not in production yet, but the ideas were put into an animated video. Basically, they envision a device using nanotechnology that enables a phone to morph for increased productivity and convenience.
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