Thursday, February 15, 2007

Build the Perfect Browser: Better Browsing Safety

Both IE 7 and Firefox 2 have welcome new built in antiphishing feature designed to block known phishing sites and to warn against unknown ones. But no single solution can spot every ill-intentioned site, especially when phishing outpost go up and down more often than a bank of elevators, in an effort to evade blacklist blocking. These are tools to provided your security:
-SiteAdvisor
-LinkScanner Lite
-Password Hash
-Noscript
-OpenDNS
-RoboForm
-NetCraft Toolbar

All of this tools can be downloaded from IE add-ons site or mozilla site.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 VS Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700

This is the result of benchmark test between AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 and Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700.

AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 specs:
AMD Athlon 64 FX-74, Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-8500C5D DDR-2 memory 4GB, two 150GB Western Digital Raptors in RAID 0, Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX SLI mode.

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 specs:
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700, Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-8500C5D DDR-2 memory 4GB, two 150GB Western Digital Raptors in RAID 0, Nvidia GeForce 7950 GX2.

Test Result:
AMD Athlon FX-74 clock speed 3GHz
3DMark06 : 11103 CPU result : 3822
PCMark05 : 8213 CPU result : 7715

Intel Core 2 Extreme Qx6700 clock speed 2.66GHz
3DMark06 : 8967 CPU result : 3830
PCMark05 : 7387 CPU result : 8406

*All test run in 1280x1024 resolution

Although Core 2 Extreme lost in overall result, they still win at CPU test result. I have seen the result of CPU test of Intel system is better than AMD system. It showed that Intel processor is better than AMD processor. Maybe because Intel processor has more cache than AMD ones.

Trailfire: Browser Extension

Trailfire is a Firefox and Internet Explorer extension with a web-based front end which combines social bookmarking, annotation, and trails (or a sequence of web pages). It’s also one of many alike social bookmarking services which feature a Firefox extension with a front end web interface to add to it - BlueOrganizer, Diigo, StumbleUpon and BlueDot are some that come to mind (although there a few others).

Trailfire enables you to discover the web through the expertise of other. Follow a trail and find what are you looking for. Or share your own expertise by making a trail of webpages.

Making trails is easy. Place a 'trail mark' (like a 'post-it' note) on a page with your comments. A trail mark can contain text, images, videos and other media types. When you give several marks the same 'trail name' you are forming your own navigation path on the web. We call this a 'Trail'. Trails can be private or public. Trails can be shared via email, by posting them on any website, or by publishing them on Trailfire.com.

Anyone with a compatible browser can follow a trail. You will need to join Trailfire to leave comments and rate to trails. To make your own trails and discover others' while browser, you will also need to download Trailfire toolbar.

More info on Trailfire.com.

Build the Perfect Browser: Social Browsing: Share Your Favorite Finds

Social browsing extensions harness the power of collective clicking to help you find and share the best of the web. You can save, tag and share it to other like small group or world at large. There are many social browsing extensions. There are:
-StumbleUpon
-Del.icio.us
-Del.icio.us Bookmark
-Trailfire toolbar
-eSnips uploader
-Clipmarks

All of the extensions above can be download in Mozilla websites for firefox and for Internet Explorer in IE add-ons website.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

ATi Radeon Dual X1950 Pro Card

One product, will attempt to bring ATi back on the high end market following the release of nvdia GeForce 8800.

Sapphire, one of the graphic card producer used Las Vegas exhibition to showed its new X1950 Pro Card, a board that features two X1950 pro GPUs on single card. This includes 512MB of memory per GPU with total 1GB per card.

Sapphire to be ready to ship this new product by mid this month. The expected price is USD 399. While nor really new product, no DX10 feature, this product will be a good option for serious gaming.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

AMD Athlon 64 FX-74: New Quad from AMD

The era of multi core has established itself in the architecture of computer hardware for everyone from average consumer to enthusiasm. Intel has released its 2.66GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6700 which really beat AMD with going forward on quad-core. Intel offers four cores with 8MB of L2 cache, but AMD first shot on quad core isn't slouch, either. The FX-74 matched with 3GHz clock speed and 4MB of L2 cache (1MB L2 cache on each core). It also has 256KB of L1 cache per processor; each core has 128KB split between instruction and data cache. It has two 2GHz HyperTransport links and support memory up to DDR2-800. AMD produce it with 90nm SOI process and this new chips are socket 1207.

Intel now is looking unbeatable by AMD with their Quad Core. I have seen in some benchmark test that Intel with its Core 2 Extreme QX6700 still win in many test, but AMD could win in some test like 3DMark06 test which the result is higher than Intel processor. I will provide specification of AMD Athlon FX-74. Here it is:
  • 3GHz clock speed
  • 2GHz HyperTransport
  • Socket 1207 organic LGA
  • 90nm SOI process
  • 4MB L2 cache (1MB on each core)
  • price $999(per matched pair)
Next time, I will give you something about hardware benchmark test results.

Friday, February 9, 2007

Windows Vista: A New Era of Operating System

29th January 2007, Microsoft launched its new version of windows called Vista. Windows Vista maybe open the new era of operating system as it will be more easier, secure, entertain, and more reliable. Windows Vista provided the user with better interface and better performance. There are several edition of Windows Vista that user can choose. There are:
  • Enterprise, designed to significantly lower IT costs and risks. Windows Vista Enterprise meets the needs of large, global organizations with complex IT infrastructure.
  • Business, the first Vista edition for small business.
  • Home Basic, ideal for homes with basic computing needs. Easy to set up and maintain. Help protect your computer from security risks.
  • Home Premium, preferred edition for home desktop and mobile PC.
  • Ultimate, is choice for people who want to have it all. All feature from all vista edition is in this ultimate edition. Vista ultimate provides the power, security, and mobility feature for work.
Windows Vista has been launched, but I still don't know if it was perfect yet. As you know, from the previous version of windows, the new windows that launched sometimes has many bug in it. So I don't think to buy it for now. Maybe later after there are many updates that Microsoft has provides for the new Windows Vista.

Windows Vista provided with new directX version, directX 10 which was said to better for gaming performance. I have tested it in my friend's computer. I try it with Microsoft Flight Simulator X and I see there are better performance and better graphics.

Now, It is up to you to buy Windows Vista now or later and don't forget to pick the right Vista edition for you.