Attention FIFA 11 Ultimate Team Players: Aid Japan Tomorrow
Following up on their first support initiative the week of the Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami, EA will be donating all of the proceeds from FIFA Ultimate Team pack sales for tomorrow only. The FUT packs are virtual "packs" of trading cards that translate to players you can manage and add to your team. You can also trade items and actions with other players, much like actual trading cards. EA hopes to utilize the international passion for Football (re: Soccer for all you Americans) to promote and provide further aid to Japan after the series of tragic events that befell the country last less than two weeks ago:
We know that football is a unifying force around the world, and we hope that our fans will join us in harnessing this positive force to help raise money for those that need help.
The promotion begins at 00:01 GMT Saturday March 26 and will continue for the following 24 hours. You can see the original post and learn more about how to give back with FUT on EA's blog.
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Nintendo To Host Manhattan Midnight 3DS Launch Party
New Yorkers: if you're partying around the Union Square area of Manhattan tomorrow night, you would be remiss to not consider video games and food trucks.
If you've been following us, you know that we had a chance to check out the Nintendo 3DS at both the 2011 Game Developer's Conference and the Pier 39 Nintendo Pod.
At midnight tomorrow, the 26th of March, Nintendo will go live with its brand-new hand-held game system and its active 3D engine. To celebrate the event, Nintendo is hosting a gigantic party at the Best Buy in Union Square in Manhattan, starting at noon tomorrow. Nintendo will be set up in Union Square Park during the day, providing the crowds with live music and even more opportunities to test out the 3DS before it becomes available for sale that night. Players will have the chance to play nintendogs + cats, Pilotwings Resort, Steel Diver, Super Street Fighter IV 3D, Madden NFL Football, LEGO Star Wars III, and Asphalt 3D. Nintendo has also said that they will be featuring their augmented reality games like Face Raiders. Be assured that lots of Nintendo SWAG will be given out, and I imagine even a few raffles. Who knows? Also, the first 300 people to buy a 3DS once the clock strikes midnight receive a "special" carrying case.
Food trucks? Live music? Video games? Free stuff?
I smell a cheap date night....
More details here
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Deal of the Day: Magellan RoadMate 1470 4.7" GPS Navigation with Text to Speech for Only $89.99 with Free Shipping
Our Deal of the Day today is the Newegg - Magellan RoadMate 1470 4.7" GPS Navigation with Text to Speech for Only $89.99 with Free Shipping.
Offer: A nice big 4.7" GPS navigation system with text to speech for well under $100 shipped!
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Puff Puff Pass the GTX 590; Why some have gone up in smoke!
Since the launch of the GTX 590 we've seen a number of reviewers mention that their cards had died during overclocking, and it's beginning to put doubt in peoples minds when it comes to the quality of the card. About 12 hours ago I'd taken off my reviewer cap and thrown on my investigator one.
It seems that most of the GTX 590s are dieing due to the amount of Voltage being put through the card. I spoke to MSI last night about Afterburner and asked them that if 1.2v isn't safe, how come Afterburner allows the GTX 590 to go that high? - The answer to that question was; "no, Afterburner only allow to 1.05v - 1.2v is not possible".
It came as a bit of a surprise, though, when I said that MSI Afterburner indeed did offer 1.2v on the ASUS GTX 590. Originally MSI thought only Smart Doctor allowed the voltage to go that high, but we've been told that the ASUS BIOS has been tweaked, giving the ability to push the voltage higher.
Just before the reviews went live I received an email from NVIDIA and they said that voltage adjustment shouldn't be done on reference cooling and also be no higher than +25mV. That means the maximum they recommend is 963v from the default .938v. Of course, we would expect the manufacturer to really play it safe. One company told us they've tested internally at 1.000v and achieved a core clock of 840MHz and a memory clock of 4000MHz QDR.
As always, there's a risk when it comes to adjusting the voltage and while more often than not we think manufacturers won't offer us higher than what is safe, it's of course important to remember that you do increase the voltage at your own risk.
If you know of any other GTX 590s that allow a voltage increase in MSI Afterburner above 1.05v, please let us know. The main thing you need to know is that around 1.000v which seems to be safe "unofficially", you shouldn't have a problem achieving in excess of 800MHz without causing any damage to your card.
Some websites have said the issue is isolated to the ForceWare 267.52 drivers, but this isn't true as we only tested on the FW 267.71 driver and ours did die as well when overclocking.
So, there's a few things to note :-
- Do Not increase voltage above 1.05v, even if the option is there to go higher. We've only heard as high as 1.000v has been tested.
- Ideally NVIDIA would prefer you don't increase voltage at all on reference cooling, but have recommended no higher than .963v.
- This doesn't reflect all NVIDIA GTX 590 products, nor the quality. Throwing almost +300mv on any card with air cooling will more than likely compromise the card's health.
- The issue doesn't seem to be related to any particular driver release.
- Do Not increase voltage above 1.05v, even if the option is there to go higher. We've only heard as high as 1.000v has been tested.
If we find some more information we'll update you further, but I think we've covered just about everything.
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Download of the Day: CCleaner 3.05.1408
Our Download of the Day today is CCleaner 3.05.1408.
CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! :)
Cleans the following:
آ• Internet Explorer
آ• Firefox
آ• Google Chrome
آ• Opera
آ• Safari
آ• Windows - Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
آ• Registry cleaner
آ• Third-party applications
آ• 100% Spyware FREE
The latest version includes the following changes:
Changes in Version 3.05.1408
- Added support for Internet Explorer 9.
- Added support for Firefox 4.0.
- Added Internet Explorer Cached Feeds cleaning.
- Added Internet Explorer Add-ons Statistics cleaning.
- Added iTunes cookie management.
- Added Opera cleaning for saved/opened directories paths.
- Improved Firefox/Mozilla Saved Password cleaning.
- Improved Intelligent cookie keeping functionality.
- Improved Registry cleaning for Obsolete Software.
- Improved Registry cleaning for Unused File Extensions.
- Added Registry cleaner for Windows Services.
- Added cleaning for obsolete Firewall Rules.
- Added detection of invalid Browser Helper Objects.
- Added new environment variables for user documents. (i.e. %CommonDocuments%, %CommonMusic%, %CommonPictures%, %CommonVideo%, %MyDocuments%, %Documents%, %MyMusic%, %Music%, %MyPictures%, %Pictures%, %MyVideo%, %Video%).
- Added cleaning for Adobe Air, Advanced Searchbar, Steam, Xfire, Skype, AOL Instant Messenger, Camfrog Video Chat, Miranda Instant Messenger, Pidgin, Yahoo Messenger, ooVoo, TeamSpeak, Ventrilo Client, Ventrilo Server, FrostWire, uTorrent, Shareaza, iMesh, BearShare, DC++ and Ares.
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iPhone Survives 1,000 Foot Fall From Aircraft
This is a definite "do not try this at home", kids.
"Jump Master" US Air Force Combat Controller Ron Walker was leaning out the side of a plane traveling at about 150 miles per hour when his iPhone 4 slipped out of his pocket. iLounge, to whom Walker originally emailed his testament (SPOILER ALERT: It was typed out and emailed on the same iPhone!), reported that immediately after losing the phone, Walker thought to himself,
Well, guess I'll be buying a new phone.
Yeah. I'm sure that's exactly what he was thinking after dropping his phone out of an effing plane.
Walker reportedly used the "Find My iPhone" app on a friend's phone to locate the fallen phone. Walker probably had no hope whatsoever that the phone still functioned, but evidently wanted to back up his data (is Angry Birds really that addictive? Yes, yes it is).
I'm sure Walker was delighted to find that not only was his data intact, but the rest of the phone too. Walker speculated that the trees and brush may have slowed the iPhone 4's fall (doesn't that sound like a punchline?), but it was reportedly protected by a third-party Griffin Motif TPU case as well as a metal backing.
Now tell me this isn't the best advertisement that Griffin could possibly hope for.
Even more deliciously ironic are the constant and uneventful cases of shattered iPhones. In fact, that same tragedy recently befell two of my friends. One was sitting in a Mexican restaurant and absentmindedly knocked his phone from the table (max 2 foot drop). The other dropped hers on the sidewalk while waiting for a bus (max 4 foot drop). I sent the iLounge article to both of them- figured it might cheer them up. Here's a pic of what not dropping your iPhone out of a plane does to it:
That's the bus-stop incident. Mexican Restaurant couldn't find the time in his super busy schedule to find a camera to take a picture of his cracked iPhone 4. Even though he works at a creative agency. Baffling, absolutely baffling.
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OCZ Ships One Millionth SSD: Congratulations
San Jose-based OCZ Technology Group has shipped its 1,000,000th Solid State Drive. This is exciting news for both OCZ and the general computing population, as SSD drives have the potential to run faster while being extensively more durable than our old-school spinning hard drives. SSD's have been used in the military for years now as a much more plausible alternative to something that would probably shake apart at Mach 1.
SSD drives still have a similar performance rate to Hard Disks, and are generally a lot more expensive. The 1,000,000 mark for OCZ signifies a greater interest and usage, meaning that the various hardware operating systems will begin to update more and more to accommodate SSD's.
Yay.
SAN JOSE, CA - March 24, 2011 - OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, today announced that it has shipped its one millionth solid state drive.
"Solid state drives continue to represent a game-changing technology for both consumers and enterprise clients, and we are proud to achieve this milestone," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ. "But most of all, I wanted to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of our loyal customers and partners, without whom this success would not be possible."OCZ offers a broad array of interface options for solid state drives including SATA, SAS, Fibre Channel, PCI-Express, and the proprietary High-Speed Data Link (HSDL). OCZ designs and manufactures SSD solutions to address a wide spectrum of applications from personal computers and high-performance workstations to mission critical enterprise storage arrays.About OCZ Technology Group, Inc.Founded in 2002, San Jose, CA-based OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (OCZ), is a leader in the design, manufacturing, and distribution of high performance and reliable Solid-State Drives (SSDs) and premium computer components. OCZ has built on its expertise in high-speed memory to become a leader in the SSD market, a technology that competes with traditional rotating magnetic hard disk drives (HDDs). SSDs are faster, more reliable, generate less heat and use significantly less power than the HDDs used in the majority of computers today. In addition to SSD technology, OCZ also offers high performance components for computing devices and systems, including enterprise-class power management products as well as leading-edge computer gaming solutions. For more information, please visit: www.ocztechnology.com.Forward-Looking StatementsCertain statements in this release relate to future events and expectations and as such constitute forward-looking statements involving known and unknown factors that may cause actual results of OCZ Technology Group, Inc. to be different from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. In this context, words such as "will," "would," "expect," "anticipate," "should" or other similar words and phrases often identify forward-looking statements made on behalf of OCZ. It is important to note that actual results of OCZ may differ materially from those described or implied in such forward-looking statements based on a number of factors and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, market acceptance of OCZ's products and OCZ's ability to continually develop enhanced products; adverse changes both in the general macro-economic environment as well as in the industries OCZ serves, including computer manufacturing, traditional and online retailers, information storage, internet search and content providers and computer system integrators; OCZ's ability to efficiently manage material and inventory, including integrated circuit chip costs and freight costs; and OCZ's ability to generate cash from operations, secure external funding for its operations and manage its liquidity needs. Other general economic, business and financing conditions and factors are described in more detail in "Item 1A -- Risk Factors" in Part II in OCZ's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on January 14, 2010. The filing is available both at www.sec.gov as well as via OCZ's website at www.ocztechnology.com. OCZ does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements.
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Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 Raptr Stat Breakdown
The good folks over at Raptr have designed a cool info-graphic to inform you of some nifty stats regarding everyone's favorite fighting game. I love seeing how many hours it takes on average to complete a certain task, especially if you've been playing for the past few weeks and haven't really kept track of how often.
Excited you unlocked all the achievements? It probably only took you 40 hours. Then again, I've certainly logged 3x-4x more on certain SNES & PlayStation Original RPG's. (That's right kids, RPG's existed before World of Warcraft, and you didn't play them online).
Unsurprisingly, the top team is Wolverine, X-23 and Deadpool. Wolverine has been the best Marvel fighter character since the days of Marvel Superheroes; Deadpool is the coolest character ever, comics or videogames; X-23 has novelty and she rounds out the theme.
My personal preference is Deadpool, Sentinel, Dante. What about yours?
I digress; here's the infographic:
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IBM's Watson Retrofitted By Columbia, Out-Diagnoses Dr. House
Well not really. Or rather, not yet.
Columbia doctors want to use Watson to diagnose patients, so they've been testing "him" for almost a year to see how the trivia super computer stacks up in medical problem-solving.
The project is led by Herbert Chase, a professor of clinical medicine in the Department of Biomedical Informatics. Through a series of tests, questions, inquiries, and experiments, Chase hopes to retrofit the knowledge bot with an understanding of diagnostic medicine.
"It's been impossible for probably 20 or 30 years for a human to process the information required to practice medicine at the highest, evidence-based, guideline-based level,"Chase said in the Columbia news release.
Evidently, the minute "trouble" that Watson had with some of the JEOPARDY! questions is a bonus for the researchers. During the popular game show, contestants got a live feed of Watson's logic processing in reference to the posed question (answer?). There were often two or three wrong answers with probability factors accompanying each possibility. The stakes are a much higher in medicine, as well as the vast amount of information available. Try entering in "headache" as a symptom in any web-based diagnosis site and you'll get hits on everything from Hangover to Brain Tumor. However, Watson's ability to analyze data instantly and process it into 4 or 5 "top-rated" answers is fantastic for doctors and patients. Watson is unable to learn for himself (until further notice), so the responses, correct or incorrect, are reported back to the IBM programmers.
It will probably be a good long while before medical practitioners are challenged by an omnipotent robot:
"What are you doing, Doctor."
"I'm running a series of-"
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Doctor."
But a generation or series of Watson-like computers would be an invaluable resource to hospitals and medical research labs.
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Duke Nukem Forever delayed, now has a June release
Duke Nukem Forever has been delayed. Again. Yes, after a 15 year development period, Gearbox then taking over the development, it has been delayed a month.
The above video features the Gearbox man himself Randy Pitchford talking about the release and then someone coming in and changing the release date. Tears, absolute tears. But, one month shouldn't be too bad. Let's hope that month is filled with polish, polish, polish.
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Seriously awesome GTA4 machinima - Hard Charger: Wide Open
Today I bring you a seriously in-depth machinima in the world of Grand Theft Auto 4, the video goes for around 15 minutes but is one of the best machinima clips I've ever seen. It's a hectic car chase scene where the laws of physics are completely torn apart, but hey, it's all in the name of fun!
What surprises me more is the guy behind it says he did it all from single player gaming, no mods or multiplayer - quite the achievement!!
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RumorTT: Upcoming Apple iMac's to support off the shelf GPU's?
This could be some seriously good news for Apple fans, there is news floating out there is a new update for Mac OS X bringing it up to version 10.6.7 for early 2011 MacBook Pro (Sandy Bridge).
The update appears to bring support natively for the following GPUs:
ATI Radeon HD 5630 Device ID 0x68D8
ATI Radeon HD 5630 Device ID 0x68D9ATI Radeon HD 5670 Device ID 0x68D8ATI Radeon HD 5730 Device ID 0x68D8ATI Radeon HD 5770 Device ID 0x68B8ATI Radeon HD 5850 Device ID 0أ—6899ATI Radeon HD 5870 Device ID 0أ—6898AMD Radeon HD 6850 Device ID 0أ—6739AMD Radeon HD 6870 Device ID 0أ—6738AMD Radeon HD 6970 Device ID 0أ—6718
Why would Apple be doing this? Why the support for video cards that aren't optioned in current iMac's? Could it be that Apple might support off the shelf (usually) PC video cards?
This means full QE/CI without Chameleon's GraphicsEnabler or any enabler kexts such as ATY_init." Could this mean the end of the Mac-only graphics card? Could Apple be opening up the platform more? What happens to NVIDIA? Why support for cards that aren't in Macs yet?
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 released, tries to bitch slap the HD6990
NVIDIA has had a great last 9 months, from the struggles of the initial Fermi launch with the lacklustre 400-series, they've come back very, very strong with the release of the GTX460 and the entire 500-series lineup. Today is no different with NVIDIA launching their new flagship GPU the GeForce GTX 590.
The GeForce GTX 590 is a dual-Fermi based design with two, yes two GTX580 cores on the one card. It is pretty insane but no different to other ventures like the GTX295 or AMD's Radeon HD6990. The card seems to hit and miss where it beats the HD6990, but feel free to check out a bunch of reviews:
TweakTown
TechPowerUp
Legit Reviews
Hexus
PC Perspective
Hardware Canucks
Neoseeker
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Download of the Day: Soluto 1.1.1445 Beta
Our Download of the Day today is Soluto 1.1.1445 Beta.
Soluto's goal is to bring an end to the frustrations PC users encounter. Soluto developed technology that tackles this problem from two different directions:
Frustration detection: Our patent-pending low level driver technology detects when you're frustrated by your PC and tells you which application is causing it.
Power of the crowd: Soluto harnesses the power of the crowd to learn which actions really eliminate frustrations and improve user experience, and leverages this user wisdom for the benefit of all PC users. By using Soluto's software, you're putting a whole community of PC power-users at your desk to help you improve your PC experience.
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Deal of the Day: Panasonic RP-HC700-S Noise Canceling Headphone for $49.99 with Free Shipping
Our Deal of the Day today is the Newegg - Panasonic RP-HC700-S Noise Canceling Headphone for $49.99 with Free Shipping.
Offer: Good reviews, great price and shipping is free. According to some, one of the best bang for the buck noise canceling headphones available.
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Crysis 2 launched, console gamers in love, PC gamers overlook the last 3 letters in Crysis
Crysis 2 has launched and has gotten some huge attention because of it's multi-platform release. It has been released on Xbox 360 and PS3 and of course for PC. Console gamers have bragged that it's some of the best graphics ever on consoles while PC gamers are saying the original (with mods) looks better.
The game (on PC) does not include any intricate detail adjustments apart from different "modes" of graphics. It's quite disappointing as things like motion blur on a high-refresh screen just look ridiculous. The game however has gotten some good talk about the single player campaign and the multiplayer has actually been 'dumb-fun' for me. It's an obvious Call of Duty clone, but in a world of Call of Duty clones, it stands apart.
The reason I say this is compared to the first games Multiplayer, this is an improvement.
One other thing - Crysis featured some amazing destruction of environments, where Crysis 2 has taken a major step backwards because of the obvious limitation imposed on itself from consoles. Given that Crysis 2 runs on CryENGINE 3, this is surprising to say the least. Looking forward to seeing what next-gen consoles can do with companies like Crytek.
It won't be long until we have an in-house review of Crysis 2, patience!
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Steam could be on the train toward iOS and Android - full Steam ahead?
Rumor has it that Valve is considering bringing its ever-so-popular gaming download portal, Steam, to iOS and Android-based devices. The rumors started when a meeting between Valve lead Gabe Newell and a steampowered.com forum member.
During this chat he confirmed that Steam will get a video recorder very soon, also he said they were looking into the iOS/Android platform for possible expansions with Steam.
Valve has already broken out of the Windows-only environment and have a Mac version that was released last May. Steam for Mac has bought a world of gaming to the Apple OS which before was not considered a serious gaming platform. If Valve do intend on releasing Steam for iOS/Android it would bring an entire new dimension to smartphones and tablets.
The reply of to42366 to the thread pretty much sums it up:
HOLY CRAP SO EPIC
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British man jailed for two years after hacking Zynga Poker servers and stealing $11 million worth of virtual currency
Five letter word for this man? Idiot. A British man has been sentenced to two years in prison for hacking Zynga Poker servers and stealing $11.4 million worth of virtual currency for Zynga Poker.
Ashley Mitchell, from Devon, hacked into the Zynga mainframe and stole the identity of two Zynga employees to transfer millions of dollars of in-game currency to accounts that were in his name. He then sold the chips on the "black market" for cheap chips for the game. After selling roughly one third of the chips, he had made آ£53,612. Not too shabby and for only a portion of the real "value" of the chips.
He was caught because he used his own Facebook profile in one of his attempts to break into Zynga's system despite being connected to his neighbours Wi-Fi connection in a lame attempt to somehow make the dots unable to be connected back to him.
Mitchell's lawyer said he had spent most of the money from the sale of the chips on other online gambling sites and said gambling had controlled his life.
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GeoHot flees to South America, Sony can't turn their frown from the upside down position
The case of George "geohot" Hotz has taken a turn that could not have been predicted with him fleeing to South America to escape the clutches of Sony. Big changes for the case! Sony didn't stop there, according to their court document they've been quoted as saying:
Hotz had deliberately removed integral components of his impounded hard drives prior to delivering them to a third party neutral andآ…Hotz is now in South America, an excuse for why he will not immediately provide the components of his hard drives as requested by the neutral. Hotz's attempts to dodge this Court's authority raise very serious questions.
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Microsoft release Windows Phone 7 updates, includes copy and paste
Better late than never is what Microsoft are probably thinking with this update for Windows 7. For the life of me, I don't understand how all of these features were not included in the stock release of WP7. But, who cares now, right? The release is here and has plenty of goodies to keep WP7 owners happy.
The biggest feature change is Copy & Paste, this was a huge debacle with the Apple iPhone when it came out and Microsoft have sorted this out quick smart in comparison. Below is a list of the full changelog.
Copy & paste. You asked for itآ—now it's here. Just tap a word and drag the arrows to copy and paste it on your phone. You can copy text from emails, text messages, web pages, and Office Mobile documents, and paste it anywhere you can type. To learn more, see Copy & paste.
Faster apps and games. Nobody likes to wait. That's why we've whittled down the time it takes for apps and games to start up and resume. It's all part of our focus on getting you to the things you love, easier and faster.Better Marketplace search. We've streamlined Marketplace search to make it easier to find specific apps, games, or music. Press the Search button in the Apps or Games section of Marketplace and you'll see only apps or games in the results. Press Search in the Music section of Marketplace to search just the music catalog.Other Marketplace improvements. We've improved the stability of Marketplace while you download apps. We've also improved the experience of downloading apps larger than 20 megabytes, upgrading from trial apps to paid apps, using a credit card with an address outside the United States, sharing links to apps via email, sorting Xbox LIVE games by release date, and creating an Xbox LIVE account from within the Games Hub.Wi-Fi improvements. We now display your phone's Media Access Control (MAC) address in Settings. (You might need this info if you try to connect to a Wi-Fi network that uses MAC address filtering. To learn more, see Connect to a Wi-Fi network.) We've also removed the limit on the number of Wi-Fi profiles that you can store and reduced the time it takes to start your phone if you've stored lots of Wi-Fi profiles.Outlook improvements. We've improved the experience of viewing iPhone photo attachments you receive from a non-Exchange-based email account (such as a Google Mail, Hotmail, or Yahoo! Mail account), using the Global Address List (GAL) when connecting to Exchange Server 2003 using Exchange ActiveSync, and working with email display names that contain brackets (for example, "David Alexander [Contoso]").Messaging improvements. We've improved the experience of receiving Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) messages if your phone uses a PIN-locked SIM.Facebook integration. We've improved the experience of syncing Facebook accounts.Camera improvements. We've improved the stability of switching between camera and video modes.Audio improvements. We've improved the experience of using a Bluetooth headset to make calls when you're playing music or videos.Other performance improvements. This month's update also includes software from several phone manufacturers that improves the performance of specific models. Naturally, if you don't have one of the affected models, we won't install this portion of the update on your phone.
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CITA 2011; Gazelle shows off a new way to Recycle
Ok so it is not terribly new but it is a very cool way to recycle. While at the CITA Mobile Focus event I had the chance to speak with Gazelle's Anthony Scarsella, known as the Chief Gadget Officer. Anthony started our talk with the usual statistics (almost everyone does). It was interesting in that his statistics really do show what a "throw away" society we have become when it comes to our gadgets. For example, the recent launch of the iPad 2 has triggered a massive wave of people selling their older iPads, Laptops, and other tablet systems. You can see these on E-bay, Craig's List and even at Gazelle where it resulted in the highest single day trade-in rate in Gazelle's history.
The really cool thing about reselling your things through Gazelle is that you know the amount you are going to get, you do not have to worry about shipping and there is no chance of fraud or some creepy guy showing up with "other thoughts" on their minds.
The interface is very simple; you find the product category then the brand of the device. From there you chose the type of device and answer a couple of easy questions about the condition and you have your offer right away. It is very simple and while you might get a little less than what you could on on E-bay or Craig's list you do not have to deal with some of the other hassles.
Gazelle is also working with a few bigger box stores to allow for local drop off points. This will remove some of the delay in getting your funds. It also can eliminate the need to ship your device across the country to their facility in Boston. In all it sounded like a pretty good deal to us, maybe it is time to clean up the office...
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HP Press Release Takes a Stab At Oracle
You'd think Oracle would have seen this coming.
HP Supports Customers Despite Oracle's Anti-customer Actions
Amid plummeting SPARC server market share, Oracle seeks to force customers to buy their serversPALO ALTO, Calif., March 23, 2011HP today reiterated that it will continue the development and innovation of Itaniumآ®-based Integrity server platforms with its HP-UX operating system using a roadmap that extends more than 10 years.In addition, HP will continue to support customers running existing versions of Oracle software on Itanium-based Integrity servers, both existing and future platforms, during the same timeframe. Last year, HP launched the industry's most modern mission-critical architecture in more than a decade. This constitutes the longest published roadmap of any UNIX vendor in the industry."Oracle continues to show a pattern of anti-customer behavior as they move to shore up their failing Sun server business," said Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking, HP. "HP believes in fair and honest competition. Competition is good for customers, innovation and the marketplace. We are shocked that Oracle would put enterprises and governments at risk while costing them hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity in a shameless gambit to limit fair competition."In a direct contradiction to a statement made yesterday by Oracle, Paul Otellini, president and chief executive officer, Intel Corporation said, "Intel's work on Intel Itanium processors and platforms continues unabated with multiple generations of chips currently in development and on schedule. We remain firmly committed to delivering a competitive, multi-generational roadmap for HP-UX and other operating system customers that run the Itanium architecture."Poulson is Intel's next-generation 32-nm, 8-core-based Itanium chip, and is on track to more than double the performance of the existing Tukwila architecture. Kittson is an officially committed roadmap product for Itanium beyond Poulson and also is in active development. Intelآ® Itanium processor industry momentum will be highlighted in a keynote at the upcoming Beijing Intel Developer's Forum.HP moved ahead into second position in the Unix market while Sun lost share and fell back into third since Oracle announced it would acquire Sun in April of 2009.(1) It is clear that Oracle customers are voting with their purchasing decisions against the Sun platform. This latest Oracle action of disinformation is clearly an attempt to force customers into purchasing Sun servers in a desperate move to slow their declining market share.HP remains committed to supporting its customers and their applications through the next decade and beyond. Customers who wish to preserve a fair and competitive marketplace can email Oracle at gcp-customerfeedback_us@oracle.com.About HPHP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world's largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure at the convergence of the cloud and connectivity, creating seamless, secure, context-aware experiences for a connected world. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.[/QUOTE]
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Firefox 4 Is Out: Join The Party
You probably saw it on our Download of the Day, but just in case you were suspicious of what 9 million users and counting have confidently downloaded, here are some initial observations from using Firefox 4 all day today to write the last few posts.
Upon downloading, I was greeted with a wonderfully and aesthetically pleasing tutorial set-up (not that I really needed it, I just watched it because I was curious). If you're just now getting on the Firefox Train (like, if you were born in the late 1990's), it's a helpful introduction. You can also totally join the party by being part of Mozilla's Twitter Party feature, in which your Twitter Avatar is somehow algorithm'd into a pixellated version of their well-known browser logo. There's even a nifty search function once you've tweeted the #fx4 hashtag to see your tweet amongst the 67,000 others.
What I've Noticed So Far
Overall, very pleased. I used to use Firefox (and I still do for some sites), but as soon as Chrome came out I was instantly hooked. Since downloading Firefox 4 this morning, I think I'm going to have to run both regularly.
Setting up Firefox 4 was interesting- I didn't import any of my browser settings for a couple of reasons: 1) I don't really use Safari anyway, so why bother(?), 2) I wanted the set-up to be as organic as possible from start to finish. Not that it matters much; I'm one of those browser users that opens multiple windows with multiple tabs in multiple browsers- my ADD prevents me from bookmarking anything. Once it's not on the screen in plain sight, it's gone forever from my radar, bookmarked or not. This is one of the reasons I was so excited about Firefox, because of the built in Tab Candy/Panorama feature that let's you group tabs into organized, easily accessed little thematic multitasking hubs. Drool. I haven't used that function much (as I've just downloaded the browser and have yet to be running +20 tabs) but I'm thoroughly thrilled that I have the option when I need it.
Pinned tabs- also a multitasker's dream. Pinning a tab gives you the option of minimizing it within your tab-bar. Firefox reduces the tab so about 1/16 of its original size, maintaining only the icon. This way, tabs that you have open all the time (Social Media Sites, Email Clients, RSS Clients etc) won't infringe upon the summaries/titles of all the new tabs you open. I've been doing it all day with TweakTown posting admin, right next to the main site for easy cross-referencing of articles.
One question though: Why can't I duplicate Tabs, Firefox? It seems like first world problems, but I really enjoy being able to right click and clone tabs, especially when opening multiple pages in a single site at the same time. Its an open-source program, so I can wait.
Other issues:
-Panorama and the Add-ons Manager took a bit of poking around to find. Not a huge deal, but one would think with all of the fanfare surrounding both of those options, the browser would launch the first time with them automatically loaded.
-Flash does not come pre-installed, of course, so I went to YouTube to trigger the download. I got the traditional puzzle-piece "Plug-In Required" icon, but upon clicking the "search for plug-ins" button, Firefox sadly informed me that "No Plug-Ins Existed". Uh, what? I tried searching in the Add-ons Manager for "Flash", only to get a bunch of third party apps (one of which actually disables Flash), but no standard Flash download! Finally, I just went to the Adobe site and downloaded the plug-in. It works great, but why the above shenanigans?
Overall, this browser is very user-friendly, especially for people that use Browsers as tools and not just portals to the internet. Site uploads are extraordinarily speedy, including CPU/GPU draining sites like Netflix and Hulu.
The browser war is afoot! With the 24 hour download record already under their hat, and a nothing-to-sneeze-at 5 million downloads in the first 24 hours for Firefox 4, expect this Open-Source Not-So-Dark Horse to fair very well in the upcoming battles.
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