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News

This is our 2nd IT and Tech news page released for April 2009. Please enjoy and email me if you have any questions.
            Doug@djtech.ca

Top Stories

  • iPhone 3.0 softwareiPhone 3.0 Software
    Announcement
    Although this is an IT and Tech blog I can't help but put in another phone related news item. On March 17th Apple announced the 3rd major release of the iPhone firmware boasting... "The most advanced mobile Operating System." Now I`m not so sure about all the major advances but there are some long awaited features and some of my favourite include:

        1) Copy and Paste.
    Great, at last a feature that iPhone users have been begging for since the 1st generation iPhones. But at least it`s here.

        2) Read and compose email and text messages in landscape.
    If you`re a heavy iPhone user like myself you`ll no doubt be frustrated with missing the key you want or pressing two keys at the same time. Although this isn`t the physical keyboard we`ve been wanting, being able to use the phone in landscape mode to email and text certainly helps making use of a wider screen area and hence a bigger keyboard.

        3) Turn-by-turn navigation.
    This will not be provided with the new 3.0 software, but Apple have allowed developers to create their own turn-by-turn navigation software. A feature that has up till now been prohibited under the terms of the Apple iPhone Software Developers Kit (SDK). There is one catch though, Turn-by-Turn navigation will be limited to what Apple called `BYOM`(Bring Your Own Maps). Developers will not be able to use the Google maps for their applications, but then again all the best navigation applications already use their own maps. This opens the door for companies like Tom-Tom and Garmin to release their software to the iPhone platform. FYI apparently Tom-Tom already has a working beta of their software running on iPhone 3.0

        4) Stereo Bluetooth support.
    This is great for Bluetooth enabled headphones and car stereos. If you`ve ever tried to use the iPhone FM transmitters you know how frustrating it can be to have to change the frequency every 20 minuets, well now you can have clear digital music all the time.

        5) Native tethering support.
    This is perhaps my most anticipated upgrade. Apple now allows you to tether your iPhone to your PC to use the 3G connection to connect to the internet from your PC. Once again though there is a catch, usage of this ability will be controlled by you wireless provider, so if your provider says no then you're out of luck. I use Rogers in Canada and as yet they have refused to tell me if they will or will not support this. I have been tethering using an application called PdaNet on my Jail broken 2.2 iPhone for months and can say that it`s well worth the $40 I paid for it.
    Learn more here at Apples iPhone 3.0 web page.

  • Windows 7 beta testing ContinuedWindows 7
    Near RC1 Release (22/04/2009)
    A quick update on Windows 7 beta testing. Rumours are circulating that we may be near a Release Candidate 1 (RC1) release of Microsoft's Windows 7. As of this writing the latest version is build 7077. I have just installed this on my HP/Compaq NC4400 laptop and have to say I'm very pleased.

  • Intel Core 2 QuadIntel Core 2 Quad
    Review
    Even IT pros like myself sometimes have PC problems and this last month was no exception. Along with a few other items I had to buy a new CPU for my workstation. I decided on the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550, so here are the specs...
    - Frequency 2.83 GHz
    - Quad Core
    - Core 45nm
    - FSB 1333 MHz
    - Socket LGA775
    - L2 Cache 12MB (Shared)
    My first impressions are that you don't get a lot for your money. With pricing coming in at around the $390 mark there aren't many other products that you pay so much for but physically get such a small device back. With that aside I installed it into my PC. The LGA775 form factor really makes it easy, taking me only 5 minutes to install from power down to power up. Now I could post a whole array of CPU benchmarking graphs but you really don't want or need that. So let me tell you what you need to know.
    - 4 x 2.83 GHz is blazingly fast! Even 1 2.83 GHz processor is quick but with 4 to do the work it churns through processing with no real troubles. Video rendering, a delight. Switching between applications, no lag at all. Playing full HD games, no skipping or jumping whatsoever.
    - Quad Core, let me explain why more cores is better. Say for example that I had a database that needs to be scanned and I had a single core 3.0 GHz processor. Now it may take 45 seconds to scan this database with a single core CPU. With a quad core CPU it wouldn't be 4 times quicker, it would still take 45 seconds to scan the database but you could scan 4 databases at the same time.... So with that said, 2.83 GHz is super fast but having 4 times the processing power. Complex renderings and games run quick and smooth.
    - Socket LGA775 means it will fit most modern PCs but do check with your vendor before rushing out to buy yours.
    - L2 Cache 12MB (Shared). This spec doesn't often mean much to people but having this much memory so "close" to the CPU core means there is a huge speed increase for storing and retrieving small amounts of critical data.

    So if you're looking for a little more get-up-and-go in your PC consider upgrading your CPU to one of Intel's new quad core processors. I'd be happy to help you choose and install it.

    For more information check out Intel's page here.

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