Hardware 2.0

August 28th, 2008

Windows 7 pricing thoughts - Is Windows too expensive?

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 1:56 pm

Categories: Windows 7

Tags: Ubuntu, Microsoft Windows 7, OEM, Microsoft Windows Vista, Pricing Strategy, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Pricing, Operating Systems, Software

I’m really hoping that Steven Sinofsky will kick off a discussion about Windows 7 pricing over on the Engineering Windows 7 blog sometime soon. I’m not holding my breath because the chances of seeing an open debate on pricing is highly unlikely, but I can dream, can’t I?

My take on the issue of Windows pricing is that as things stand, Vista (OEM, upgrade and new license) is too expensive compared to the price of hardware. When a decent PC cost $1,000+ it wasn’t unreasonable that an OEM copy of the OS system builder would set you back some $100+, but now that you can put together a good quality PC for $260, it really doesn’t make sense that buying Windows Vista should add a third again to the price.

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I think that deep down, Microsoft knows that Vista is too expensive. Back in February we saw Microsoft do something that it’s not well known for and Read the rest of this entry »

August 28th, 2008

Windows 7 must avoid the marketing trap that Vista stumbled into

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 11:06 am

Categories: Microsoft, Windows 7

Tags: Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows Vista, Home Basic, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Marketing Research, Software, Marketing, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

I’ve been following the Engineering Windows 7 blog closely and I’ve come to the conclusion that while Steven Sinofsky is a man of many words, those words don’t say an awful lot. However, the other day Sinofsky did say something quite interesting:

We heard lots on this forum about providing specific versions of Windows customized for different audiences, while we also heard quite a bit about the need to reduce the number of versions of Windows. However, there are limits to what we can provide and at the same time provide a reliable “platform” that customers and developers can count on and is robust and manageable for a broad set of customers. [emphasis added]

This is the trap that Windows Vista fell into, thanks to marketing. Here you have an OS that comes in four retail flavors (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate), but the differences between these editions comes down to little more than arbitrary decisions made for the sake of marketing and being able to sell existing users an upgrade. For example, someone made the decision that home users Read the rest of this entry »

August 27th, 2008

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 vs. Firefox 3.0.1

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 2:43 pm

Categories: Software, On the test bench

Tags: Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Beta, Web Browsers, Internet, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

So, how does Microsoft’s latest beta release of Internet Explorer 8 compare Mozilla’s Firefox 3.0.1 in terms of speed? Let’s find out in this quick head-to-head!

The tests

Two head to head tests:

• SunSpider JavaScript benchmark
• ACID 3

The results

The results speak for themselves:

The bottom line

It’s pretty clear from these basic tests that Internet Explorer 8 has a long way to go if it is to catch up with Firefox 3.0 in terms of JavaScript performance and CSS web standard compliance [UPDATE: Whoops, I meant web standards compliance, not CSS, I was still thinking in ACID 2 mode …].

However, I think that it is worth pointing out that when it comes to performance, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is three times faster than the Internet Explorer 7. ACID 3 compliance however isn’t much better than that offered by Internet Explorer 7.

IE8b2 report card: C- … Could do better, much better.

August 27th, 2008

AMD dual-core “Kuma” Phenom X2 spec in the wild

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 1:46 pm

Categories: Components, AMD

Tags: Dual-core, Pricing Strategy, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Pricing, Marketing Research, Web Site Development, Processors, Marketing, Internet, Semiconductors

German tech website Hardware-Infos claims to have discovered specs for AMD’s dual-core “Kuma” Phenom X2 processors on a pricing website.

Following AMD’s denial back in June that these processors had been axed we can be fairly confident that these are en route and that’s it more a matter of when rather than if they become available. Here’s the spec listed:

• Phenom X2 GE-6600 - 2.3GHz
• Phenom X2 GE-6500 - 2.1GHz
• Phenom X2 GE-6400 - 1.9GHz

Each of these parts are based on 65nm architecture, have 2x 512 KB L2 cache, 2MB of L3 cache and a TDP of 45W.

After a little bit of digging around I’ve found placeholders for these CPUs elsewhere on the web (ignore the pricing info on the links I’ve listed there).

How well these parts compare to Intel offerings comes down to price and performance.

August 27th, 2008

“Why do you hate Vista so much?”

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 11:57 am

Categories: Thoughts, Microsoft, Marketing, Vista

Tags: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Question from this week’s email bag:

Why do you hate Vista so much?

I don’t hate Vista, really. Honestly I don’t. I hate Garfield movies and I really hate mushy, overcooked broccoli, but can honestly say that I don’t hate Vista. I was on the beta team, I was running beta versions on my main production systems, I helped ID numerous bugs, I’d rolled out Vista onto several systems a couple of days after it went RTM and I own more Vista licenses that probably most people here do. I don’t hate Vista at all, but that said it is safe to say that there are aspects of the OS that I find underwhelming and disappointing. Allow me to explain what I mean.

There was a five-year interval between the release of Windows XP (released Oct 25, 2001) and the release of Windows Vista (RTMed Nov 8, 2006) but after all that wait what we ended up with was an OS that, by pretty much any metric that you want measure it against, was outperformed by Windows XP. Not until the release of Vista SP1 over a year later (Feb 4, 2008) did Vista get to the point where it could realistically compete with XP.

Fifteen months spent tweaking an OS so it ends up being as good as the version that it’s supposed to replace is ridiculous. In fact, I’d go further and say that people who used Vista during the time between RTM and SP1 (people like me) would have been better off downgrading to XP. Windows 7 will need to deliver a robust and compelling user experience straight from the box.

Eye-candy and tweaking –>

August 27th, 2008

AMD/ATI Catalyst 8.8 downclocks GPU on detecting FurMark

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 7:46 am

Categories: Gaming, Graphics, AMD/ATI

Tags: Cisco Catalyst, ATI Technologies Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Radeon, GPU, Performance Management, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Interesting piece over on Geeks3D - it seems that the latest Catalyst 8.8 drivers released a few days ago by AMD have a built-in feature that detects when the user has the FurMark OpenGL benchmark running and downclocks the GPU on the Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870 to keep the temperature down.

How can you spot this? Simple, just rename FurMark.exe and watch the performance change!

Even if you don’t have FurMark installed you can see this for yourself. Here etqw.exe from Quake Wars: Enemy Territory has been renamed to FurMark.exe and there’s a huge drop in performance noticed.

There’s no doubt that FurMark is a pretty brutal benchmark, especially when run in Xtreme Burning mode but I can’t understand the inclusion of this undocumented downclock.

I’ve approached AMD for comment on this issue.

August 26th, 2008

Psystar sues Apple! Claims violation of Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 1:44 pm

Categories: Apple, Legal

Tags: Antitrust, Restraint, Apple Inc., Psystar, Reports, Corporate Law, Apple Mac OS, Security, Business Operations, Operating Systems

Reports are coming in that Mac-clone maker Psystar has filed a countersuit against Apple alleging restraint of trade, unfair competition and other violations of antitrust law.

“We’re alleging restraint of trade, among other things,” said Colby Springer, one of three lawyers from the firm of Carr & Ferrell LLP representing Psystar, in a press conference held at its Palo Alto, Calif. offices today. “We’re going to let the court decide.”

The countersuit accuses Apple of violating both the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act with respect to how the company has tied the Mac OS to Apple hardware.

Court documents are not yet available. As soon as they are I will update this post.

More over on CNET News.

[FURTHER THOUGHTS: What I find interesting is the claim made by Psystar that OpenComputers are shipped with a fully licensed, unmodified copy of Mac OS X. But since the current license prohibits this, I really can’t see how that statement can be true.]

August 26th, 2008

Microsoft to tweak WGA Notifications on Windows XP

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 12:06 pm

Categories: Microsoft

Tags: Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage, Microsoft Corp., Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Microsoft is to tweak WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) Notifications on Windows XP to make it behave more like WGA on Vista.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have written about WGA before, but for those new here, here’s a refresher. WGA is a mechanism used by Microsoft to detect non-genuine installations of Windows (those carried out using stolen or fake product keys, or systems relying on some other mechanism for bypassing product activation). The problem with WGA is while it’s been good at detecting non-genuine installs of Windows, it can sometimes incorrectly flag a genuine install as non-genuine. From having talked to people who have found themselves in this situation, sorting this out can be tedious and time consuming (the most time-consuming part of getting the problem solved seems to be getting Microsoft tech support drones to acknowledge that WGA can sometimes be wrong).

Anyway, here’s what this latest update brings to WGA for Windows XP: Read the rest of this entry »

August 26th, 2008

Google Android loses Bluetooth API, Bluetooth still lives

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 11:00 am

Categories: Mobile Technology

Tags: Google Inc., Google Android, SDK, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Wireless, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Google has dropped both the Bluetooth and GTalkService IM APIs from the Android 0.9 beta SDK.

Here’s the skinny on why the GTalkService API bit the dust:

We decided to postpone GTalkService’s data-messaging functionality for the following reasons:

1 - “Repurposing” Google Talk Friends

2 - Verifying Remote Intent Senders

3 - Placing Too Much Security Burden on Developers

Note: The removal of the Bluetooth API DOES NOT AFFECT Android’s ability to connect to Bluetooth headsets or other Bluetooth devices. All it means is that programmers won’t have access to Bluetooth APIs.

The reason the Bluetooth API was dropped is pretty straightforward:

The reason is that we plain ran out of time. The Android Bluetooth API was pretty far along, but needs some clean-up before we can commit to it for the SDK. Keep in mind that putting it in the 1.0 SDK would have locked us into that API for years to come.

Both of these reasons are absolutely valid and be removing these APIs I believe that Google has made Android better since nothing harms a product more than poorly implemented ideas and serious security issues.

August 26th, 2008

Arctic Cooling Fusion 550R PSU (Payment Saving Unit)

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 8:28 am

Categories: Components, Eco-friendly

Tags: Payment, KWh, Arctic Cooling, Operational Accounting, Desktops, Finance, Hardware, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Arctic Cooling has lifted the lid on the Fusion 550R PSU, but in this case PSU stands for Payment Saving Unit.

So, what’s special about the Fusion 550R PSU? Well, according to Arctic Cooling switching to this PSU can save you 100€ over four years compared to a standard PSU (assuming it’s in service 200 days/year with 4 half days at full load and where juice costs 0.15€/kWh - you’ll have to number crunch your own kWh figures to find out how much you can save). A quick number crunch based on average kWh prices across the US suggests that over 4 years you’d save roughly the price of the unit.

Here’s the spec of the PSU:

• Ultra quiet  80mm PWM fan with low noise impeller
• 550W maximum output power, ATX 2.2
• 82-86% efficiency, 99% PFC
• 80mm ARCTIC F8 Pro fan
• Intelligent fan control (700 – 2,000 RPM)
• Controller for case ventilation
• Over-Power, Over-Voltage, Short Circuit protection
• SLI and Crossfire compatible

The externally mounted fan is certainly an interesting idea - as long as it doesn’t get fouled by anything and fry the PSU.

Personally I think that this might be worth considering if building a new PC or replacing an old PSU, but I wouldn’t bother replacing an existing PSU for those savings. Much better to switch on power management or turn your PC off when it’s not in use.

Thoughts?