More Beta and Updates
04.13.06 - 09:13pm
I was amazed at what happened over the last two days with the Firefox article flashing around the internet, thank you for your support and I am glad I could provide all those bits of information for you in a concise package. I have been busy running back and forth from various hardware stores and appliance shops for my next article which should be out around 3pm EST if I am lucky and get everything up and running, otherwise I’ll be working non-stop to get that thing out. With that said, let’s dive into some news, nothing original, but all together interesting.
Perpetual Beta
That just about sums up the machine that is known as Google. Yesterday Google released yet another Beta program, Google Calendar. In a nutshell this Calendar program takes everything that 30boxes.com gives you, and links it to your Google account. In case you never checked out 30boxes.com, I highly recommend it. While I haven’t had a lot of time to experiment with Google Calendar, it looks like you can share your calendar with your friends, link your calendar to iCal and Outlook, and receive phone updates about you are your friends calendars. I really like the idea of receiving phone messages to remind me of important events that I would normally have forgotten about.
Besides Google Calendar, Google has many other programs in Beta that are worth checking out. Google’s free online traffic monitoring program, Analytics, offers similar performance to Urchin but with much cleaner graphics and easier to understand charts. In a previous article, I performed a comparison of Google Analytics and Performancing Metrics if you want to see what your options are for free data tracking. One last great Beta from Google, just in case you have been living under a rock and didn’t know this, is Google Video. If you are ever bored at work and need some cheap and quick entertainment, I highly suggest browsing over the “Popular” videos, some of them can be hilarious. One video that I really like is this one, pardon my crude taste in humor.
Firefox update
Yesterday Mozilla released an update for their browser Firefox. Version 1.5.0.2 released with native support for Macs with Core Solo/Duo processors, few more code corrections, better ad control, and a few bug fixes. I can’t rave about Firefox too much, but if you are using Internet Explorer, and I know a few of you guys are (15% of my viewers at this moment) I would just like to say try out Firefox and Thunderbird. I used to be a diehard IE/Outlook fan till I tried out Firefox, back when Internet Explorer didn’t have tabbed browsing and Firefox did. My productivity shot through the roof. Just try it.
Price Wars
With AM2 and the Core Architecture on the verge of being let loose upon the public, AMD and Intel have already begun the price wars. Both companies have released some pricing information with the desktop market being the primary target. The AMD AM2 price breakdown can be found here while the Intel Conroe price breakdown can be found here. As of right now, with the dismal performance of AM2, which barely tied up with its s939 counterparts, and the phenomenal performance of Conroe, I can’t suggest purchasing a new motherboard and processor until these two new processors release. In the near future I’ll be evaluating how the desktop and laptop sectors have been progressing and I’ll try to include some recommendations that I believe would be wise.
Yonah Update
I am sure you are sick of hearing about Yonah this, Merom that, but I am sure this will be welcomed news. AOpen has released their newest desktop motherboard supporting Yonah. The link to the XtremeSystems.org thread with information can be found here. Some semi-Yonah news would be the recent success of the Yonah based Celeron-M on the new AOpen board. At 3.1GHz, the Celeron-M recorded a 21 second Super Pi 1M. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, trust me that is way fast, especially from a budget chip. The link for the thread containing all this information can be found here.
Well that is it for right now, I haven’t got a lot of time on my hands and Easter is rolling around the corner. Look for something more interesting within the next 24 hours though. Let me know if you know of some interesting news that should be posted.
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