Uboat tech news and reviews

Microsoft’s browser ballot

Ade00 — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:24:18 +0000

Most PC users hit the web using Internet Explorer by default, simply because that’s what came along with Windows. Now, after antitrust investigations, European users get a choice of browser to install via ballot screen, and initial reports are not good for ‘ol IE. According to Statcounter, IE use in France has dropped 2.5 percent since last month’s implementation of the ballot, 1.3 percent in Italy, and 1 percent in Britain. It’s still early days, and it’ll take more than this to chip away from IE’s 62 percent lead in the browser war, but it’s certainly not a good trend for Microsoft. With that in mind, we’re going to have to ask you to place your bets now.

April ship date for iPad

Ade00 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:25:01 +0000

When Apple unveiled the iPad earlier this year, we were told it would be available around the end of March. Rumors began to spread recently suggesting shippings had been delayed. However, today the company has put an end to all speculation and finally announced a date for the official debut of the iPad.

US reveals Internet security efforts

Ade00 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:27:05 +0000

The United States announced the declassification of a portion of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, a major part of the US’s efforts to thwart cyber warfare, on Tuesday.

The announcement came at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco, and was given by Howard Schmidt, who is the current US cyber-security coordinator, having been assigned the position in December.

While only a portion of the document was revealed at the announcement, and much remains classified material, including all material related to plans by the government for offensive cyber-warfare, the program has twelve parts, and has three main strategies:

To create a defensive mechanism against immediate threats, as well as those possible in the near future;

To create a defensive mechanism against a wide variety of threats, both present and future;

To initiate efforts to strengthen future cyber-security efforts

Steam games coming to Mac?

Ade00 — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:23:47 +0000

Valve confirmed rumors that is has plans to bring its Steam game platform to Mac OS X computers. In a teaser campaign on March 3rd featuring many characters from some of its games.

Why can’t PCs work more like iphones?

Ade00 — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:21:08 +0000

Back in the dark ages of personal computing, if you wanted to look through the programs on your machine and, say, open a Microsoft Word document from the floppy drive, you would need to type a list of arcane commands that went something like this:

DIR *.EXE MSWORD.EXE A:\REPORT.DOC

In an effort to win over less technical users, both Apple and Microsoft dumped that command-line interface for personal computers more than two decades ago, replacing it with visual icons for files, folders and applications. Over the years, they added animations and search technology and other features to make navigating a Mac or Windows PC even easier. NY Times

Graphics card vendors may raise prices soon

Ade00 — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 17:09:30 +0000

The next few weeks may not be the best time to shop for a graphics card. Although AMD’s Radeon HD 5800-series graphics processors aren’t as hard to come by as they were last year, DigiTimes writes that supply is still tight, and the situation may not improve until may. Worse, graphics card makers may increase prices to keep their margins up. Tech Report

Enabling Windows 7′s “God mode”

Ade00 — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:47:17 +0000

“God Mode” simply provides users with a centralized Control Panel for all of Windows’ settings, from changing your desktop background to setting up a VPN or partitioning your hard drive. In all, there are 46 categories and most have several entries.

Best of all it’s simple to access it.

Create a new folder, anywhere is fine.
Rename the folder to: God Mode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
The default folder icon will change to a control panel icon, and you can open it to view all of the settings

NOTE: User reports suggest that it may crash Windows Vista 64-bit, so take care.

More God modes here

Intel’s first Gulftown six-core processor listed in Europe

Ade00 — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:13:56 +0000

We are not expecting Intel’s first Gulftown processor to become available until sometime next month. But a few online stores have jumped at the oppertunity already listed it with full detailed specs and full prices. According to the listings, the Core i7 980 Extreme Edition features six 32 nanometre cores clocked at 3.33GHz, 12 threads, 12MB of L3 cache, and a maximum Turbo Boost clock speedof 3.6GHz. It features DDR3 support up to 1066MHz and will have a maximum TDP 130W. The price range should be €960-€1,099

Welcome to the uboat tech reviews website!

Ade00 — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:21:02 +0000

This is the new uboat tech reviews website. This site is now running on WordPress.

Be sure to check back for new reviews every week!