Friday July 03, 2009
According to this article, Windows 7 release to manufacturing is reportedly on track for July 13th. Thanks to everyone that sent this one in.
Get out your Bill Gates commemorative calendars folks, 'cause it looks like we now have a few more dates to mark off on the road to Windows 7 availability. While Microsoft still isn't saying anything official itself just yet, a number of different sources are reporting that the company has set July 10th as the date for the final gold build of Windows 7, while the big release to manufacturing date is apparently on track for July 13th.
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Posted by
Steve 6:00 PM (CST)
Proof positive that owning an Apple computer is far more dangerous than a PC. Alright, alright, all joking aside, I’m glad the lady that was shot is okay and let us all hope the suspect is caught and gets what he has coming.
An employee of an Apple store in Arlington was shot and wounded this morning during an attempted armed robbery in a back storeroom as more than three-dozen shoppers and other employees milled about the showroom.
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Posted by
Steve 5:06 PM (CST)
After months of speculation, the U.S. Department of Justice has finally confirmed that it is investigating a settlement involving Google Book Search for possible antitrust violations.
In a filing to the judge overseeing the settlement of a lawsuit filed by The Authors Guild against Google, the DOJ informed the court that it has opened an investigation into the proposed settlement after reviewing public comments of concern. Those comments suggest that the agreement might violate the Sherman Act, a U.S. antitrust law, the DOJ said.
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Posted by
Steve 4:19 PM (CST)
Apparently the fireworks have started early in Seattle, a fire has interrupted service at Microsoft's Bing Travel and other major web sites.
It's a little unclear exactly when the fire at the Fisher Plaza data center started--some reports say Thursday night, others say just after midnight Friday. A message on Bing Travel pins the problems on a blown transformer. "The blown transformer knocked out power to the entire building, which is home to the Bing Travel servers," a message on the site says. "This is isolated to Bing Travel only, and there is no impact to any other aspect of Bing."
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Posted by
Steve 3:49 PM (CST)
Alpha Protocol Dev Diary Explores Its Options @ Shacknews
L4D2 Pre-Order Sales Already Double The Original @ Joystiq
Left 4 Dead 2 Interview @ VE3D
Sesame Street Says Video Games Are OK @ Kotaku
Posted by
Steve 1:56 PM (CST)
In the [H]ot deal section today we have this RaidMax ARES ATX case for only $49.99. Make sure you use the exclusive [H] promo code to get the instant rebate and free shipping. You can also get $20 off and free shipping on this SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4850 1GB as well. Also, we still have that deal on RatPadz GS or RatPadz XT for $5 off with free shipping (in North America). Show your [H] pride and grab one today!
Posted by
Steve 1:28 PM (CST)
What is the true cost of online privacy? Any time an article asks what is the "true" amount of something, you know for a fact the answer isn’t going to be what you want to hear.
Do you like your privacy? I bet you do. What about being able to read all kinds of stuff on the internet without having to hand over your credit card number -- do you like that, too? I bet that's another yes. But which do you like more? You'd better figure that out quickly, because, if you don't, Congress just might decide for you.
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Posted by
Steve 12:23 PM (CST)
Researchers at ESET have issued a warning against opening e-mail or video attachments that have a 4th of July theme. As always, I know you guys wouldn't open attachments or click links to "fireworks show" but we all know friends and relatives that would. Pass the word.
Researchers at ESET have reliable intelligence that the Waledac botnet is currently being prepared for a spam campaign around the Independence Day theme. They have registered at least 18 domain names all related to the theme of video, fireworks, and Independence Day.
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Posted by
Steve 11:44 AM (CST)
Cooling
Thermaltake ISGC-400 CPU Cooler @ HiTech Legion
Motherboards
ASUS Maximus II GENE P45 mATX @ Hardware Canucks
Video
Asus GeForce ENGTX275 @ Neoseeker
ASUS Radeon EAH 4770 @ Overclockers Club
Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 Atomic @ PCG&H
Posted by
Steve 10:36 AM (CST)
While the rest of the world is worrying about fireworks, large pyrotechnic shows and generally just setting stuff on fire tomorrow, Legit Reviews went the total. other. direction.
The CPU-LN2 operates on heat exchange with cold substances like dry ice and liquid nitrogen and the nickle plated copper evaporator. For reference, dry ice sublimates at -78.5 Celsius and liquid nitrogen evaporates at -195.7 Celsius. By pouring liquid nitrogen or dry ice and a solvent into the CPU-LN2 the end-user can achieve base temperatures that permit substantial overclocks.
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Posted by
Steve 10:06 AM (CST)
I wish the new owners of the Pirate Bay well but I just don’t know how they are going to do any of the stuff they say they are going to do. Paying people cash for seeding paid content they download? Really?
"Some file-sharers don’t like all this money talk, and they’re leaving," acknowledged Hans Pandeya, chief executive of the Global Gaming Factory, in a telephone interview with Wired.com on Wednesday. But "the user experience is going to be the same. From the user’s point of view, they’re doing a search, they’re finding the song or the movie, and they’re downloading it."
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Posted by
Steve 9:29 AM (CST)
I’ll bet you didn’t know all these things about fireworks! If you follow the link there is also a bonus slideshow with handy little nuggets of info as well.
A typical pyrotechnics display incorporates elements of chemistry, physics, aerospace engineering, materials science, fire science, psychology, neuroscience, and risk management. The fact that millions of people across America celebrate the political independence of our nation by watching a choreographed multidisciplinary collaboration of basic scientific and engineering principles that result in pleasing visual, auditory, and olfactory stimulation is nothing short of revolutionary (pun intended).
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Posted by
Steve 8:48 AM (CST)
It looks like Mozilla has set July 7 as a community "bug day" to address the problems in Firefox 3.5. There have been more than 55 known issues / bugs found in the last two days so it looks like the Firefox team has its work cut out for it.
Mozilla is scrambling to fix bugs in its just-released Firefox 3.5 browser. Users are posting complaints about problems across the Web. Those problems include longer load times and crashes linked to the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. The browser also reportedly has problems with Windows XP.
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Posted by
Steve 7:48 AM (CST)
All of you running web applications on Google App Engine should notice that the company is having problems today. A post on the Google App Engine Downtime Notify group says that the company is aware of the problem and working on it.
We're currently seeing elevated Datastore latency and error-rates, as well as elevated serving error-rates. This problem began around 6:30am Pacific time. All applications accessing the Datastore are affected. Our team is investigating this issue and will post more information as soon as it becomes available.
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Posted by
Steve 7:17 AM (CST)
IBM said today it is offering special finance packages through the remainder of 2009 for its System x family of servers that bundle the newly released VMware vSphereTM 4 virtualization platform. Qualified customers are eligible for financing on purchases as small as $5,000. IBM’s System x lineup includes BladeCenter servers, System x rack and tower models, and the System x3950 M2 enterprise server, the single-system "reference platform" for the development of VMware vSphere 4 scalability.
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Posted by
Steve 7:02 AM (CST)
Thursday July 02, 2009
States trying to cash in by taxing online purchases are finding out the hard way that, instead of paying online sales tax, companies will simply avoid doing business in that state. Heh, that's what you get for being greedy.
Several states say the Internet retailers should charge sales taxes in states where those affiliates are based. The financial benefits may not be quite what the states anticipate, though. Rather than gearing up to collect taxes, Amazon and other Web retailers are simply shutting down their affiliate marketing programs. As the small businesses that participate in these programs get cut off, a state could lose tax revenue rather than add to it.
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Posted by
Steve 6:20 PM (CST)
A judge has overturned the guilty verdicts against the lady that, along with other adults, harassed a 13 year old girl on MySpace until she committed suicide. Although convicted by a jury of her peers on three counts, the judge said he based his decision on the fact that she was convicted of misdemeanors, not a felony
wait, what? Read this:
Wu told Krause that if Drew had been convicted of felonies he would already have sentenced her in May when her sentencing had initially been scheduled. But the misdemeanor convictions gave him trouble. "I don’t see how the misdemeanor aspect would be constitutional," he said, telling Krause that he had problems with the "vagueness" of the federal statute.
Comments
Posted by
Steve 5:02 PM (CST)
Cases & Modding
NZXT Khaos Aluminum Gaming Chassis @ TechwareLabs
Thermaltake Element G Case @ Hardware Secrets
Cooling
Nexus TDD-9000 Liquid Cooling Pad Laptop Cooler @ Tech-Reviews
ETC.
Lenovo ThinkPad T500 Laptop @ Driver Heaven
PCPer Podcast #63 @ PC Perspective
Power Supply
Corsair CX400W PSU @ Hardware Secrets
Posted by
Steve 4:44 PM (CST)
Who needs outdoor fireworks on the 4th of July when you can have this amazing device! It’s just like being there! After watching this video, I was convinced
.and if you act now, the company will throw in a View-Master and a Lite-Brite absolutely free!
Comments
Posted by
Steve 4:05 PM (CST)
Apple could face problems launching the iPhone in China because another company owns the trademark on the name iPhone. Then again, it probably isn't a problem at all, it has never mattered to Apple in the past.
Apparently, Apple applied for the iPhone trademark in China in late 2002, but its application only covered computer hardware and softwarenot phones, according to the Web site of China’s trademark office. Two years later, the Chinese company, called Hanwang Technology, which makes electronic devices and Chinese handwriting recognition systems, registered the i-phone trademark covering phones.
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Posted by
Steve 3:16 PM (CST)
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has ordered the members of an international spam ring to give up $3.7 million they made off of illegal spam. Woo hoo, let’s celebrate! Because you know scammers always pay the fines levied against them by the courts (or, in this case, restitution).
The operation, with key players located in Canada and St. Kitts, used spammers to drive traffic to Web sites selling an extract of the hoodia gordonii plant that the sellers claimed would cause significant weight loss and a "natural human growth hormone enhancer" that sellers claimed would reverse the aging process, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Thursday.
Comments
Posted by
Steve 2:27 PM (CST)
Major Nelson has posted a little info on the pseudo-controversy over Microsoft’s plans to bring Silverlight ads to LIVE.
I’ve seen quite a bit of discussion today about how we’re bringing Silverlight ads to LIVE in the future. I need to let you know that you don’t need to worry about a huge influx of ads across the dashboard. One of our core principles is to enhance, not interfere with the gaming experience, and we work directly with our partners to only deliver experiences that are relevant to the LIVE community. Silverlight will help make those ads a more organic part of the dashboard, like we’ve done with some of the NXE slots in the past. No one on the team wants to turn the dashboard into something that looks like Shibuya Crossing. That’s just not good for anyone.
Comments
Posted by
Steve 1:52 PM (CST)
Asteroids to Become Blockbuster Hollywood Flick @ Shacknews
Left 4 Dead DLC By End of Summer @ Joystiq
Person Wins Messed Up Xbox 360 @ Kotaku
UFC Banning Fighters Who Sign On With EA's MMA Game? @ VE3D
Posted by
Steve 1:17 PM (CST)
If you need a good PSU without breaking the bank, you might want to give our evaluation of the Enermax Liberty Eco 620W a look. You get a lot of power for not a lot of dough, you can’t beat that.
The Liberty Eco 620W is the fifth power supply we have reviewed from Enermax and to be blunt, Enermax is one of the few brands to waltz up to the craps table and not throw snake eyes in some way with this many rolls of the dice. As such the Liberty Eco 620W had a lot to live up to, and to make things more difficult Enermax is pitching this unit as a value oriented one. And typically value oriented units have not exactly been the best in our testing for many reasons. So, with all that in mind was Enermax able to come away with another Editors Choice award? Or did they push their luck and let it ride just a bit too long with the Liberty Eco 620W?
Comments
Posted by
Steve 11:57 AM (CST)
Got child pornography on your iPhone? If you bought this iPhone app you might. This whole thing with developers being able to add content after approval is going to seriously bite Apple in the ass eventually.
Less than a week after the iPhone app developer behind Hottest Girls was busted for distributing pornographic material on the iPhone, another perpetrator sneaked in and posted what is purported to be a photo of a nude 15-year-old girl to its iPhone app. The app, named BeautyMeter, has been removed in line with Apple's policy against pornographic material.
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Posted by
Steve 11:17 AM (CST)
Those new IE 8 ads featuring Dean Cain are pretty damn funny but it seems that the latest installment went a little too far for Microsoft’s taste. We're not sure if the company pulled the OMGIGP ad because of the vomit or because of what was bleeped. Either way, the ad was funny
a little gross, but funny.
Earlier this week, we were all rather intrigued by the appearance of a Microsoft ad, in which a wife borrows her husband's laptop and suffers a technicolor nightmare when she espies a site that he has been, um, enjoying. By Wednesday night, however, Microsoft had second thoughts about the pulling power of puke.
Comments
Posted by
Steve 10:27 AM (CST)
Cases & Modding
Maxcube Amoris 6010 Case @ Overclockers Club
Cooling
CoolIT Domino A.L.C Watercooling Kit @ Tech-Reviews
Evercool Buffalo Heatpipe HSF @ PureOC
Video
Sparkle GeForce GTX 275 @ Legit Reviews
Posted by
Steve 9:56 AM (CST)
That blind kid that got himself sent to prison for "swatting" has renewed the debate over caller-ID spoofing. My question is this
what is a legitimate use for caller-ID spoofing? Can anyone think of a legit use?
Two years ago I wrote a post scoffing at members of Congress who were pushing legislation to outlaw caller-ID spoofing. I was wrong; they were right. People who abuse caller-ID need to know they're breaking the law.
Comments
Posted by
Steve 9:36 AM (CST)
And the award for "biggest sucker for punishment" goes to these guys. The sad part is that they went from dumb to having brass balls for their fight with Apple...now their just being stupid. Coming out of bankruptcy, having not learned a damned thing, they are launching a new product that looks just like the one that put them in bankruptcy in the first place.
A superquick recap: Psystar releases the OpenMac, a $400 desktop Mac clone; people debate if this is possible, technically or legally, and if Psystar is a scam; the hackintoshes turn out to be real; they ship; Apple gets upset; Psystar grandstands; Apple continues to be upset; Psystar gets murdered. To death.
Comments
Posted by
Steve 8:58 AM (CST)
The Second District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles has ruled that MySpace and other social network sites cannot be held liable for crimes its users commit. Too bad there is no court ruling that forces parents to actually pay attention to what their children are doing online.
The appellate court consolidated several similar lawsuits brought by minor girls dubbed "Julie Does" and their parents or guardians, claiming that MySpace failed to implement available age-verification software or set the default security on the girls' accounts to "private."
Comments
Posted by
Steve 8:19 AM (CST)