| Forum Feature: Still Alive Posted: 19 Aug 2011 06:33 PM PDT |
| No BS Podcast #177: Is This Thing On? Posted: 19 Aug 2011 03:05 PM PDT 
Oh, are we back on? With several mostly sincere apologies, the Maximum PC cast returns to the podcasting room in the basement of our secret volcano lair to record the 177th Episode (176th, if you don't count the 150th episode) of the No BS Podcast. Join Alex, Alan, Nathan, and Gordon as they discuss Google's buyout of Motorola Mobility, conspiracy theories, the ever-expanding range of Intel CPU sockets, bank errors in your favor, and alien invasions. Plus: answers to your questions, another Rant of the Week, and absolutely no mention of HP leaving the PC business, which hadn't happened when we recorded. Do you have a tech question? A comment? A tale of technological triumph? Just need to get something off your chest? A secret to share? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our 24-hour No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337--operators are not standing by. Subscribe: http://feeds.feedburner.com/maximumpc/1337    
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| German State Declares Facebook Like Button Illegal Posted: 19 Aug 2011 02:34 PM PDT  Facebook's pervasive web presence can be a little creepy at times, but one German state is apparently fed up with Zuckerberg's shenanigans. Thilo Weichert, head of the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, says that the 'Like' button is illegal and sites based in the state must remove it or be fined up to 50,000 Euros.
The objection Weichert cites is the data transmission and tracking that Facebook does when users click the Like button. Facebook uses Likes to build profiles of people for use in advertising. Weichert says this practice is illegal because the user is not sufficiently informed of this. Sites that are found to be using the ubiquitous Like button after the end of September face possible legal action. This only applies to Schleswig-Holstein, but we have to wonder if other regions will follow. |
| Wordpress Powers 15% Of Websites, Makes Freelance Developers Millions of Dollars Posted: 19 Aug 2011 11:37 AM PDT  The state of the union may not be looking so hot, but the State of the Word couldn't be brighter. No, we're not talking about "Sexting" being added to the Oxford English Dictionary; we're talking about Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg's annual State of the Word address. The blogging platform continues to dominate the Web, and hey – if you're one of those un- or underemployed individuals who've been hit hard by the recession, you may want to consider becoming a Wordpress developer.
Mullenweg reports that Wordpress now powers 14.7 percent of the top million sites on the Web – a six percent increase over last year – and 22 percent of all new domains in the US run on the platform. Impressive numbers, sure, but we can already hear you asking "How's that help me get that paper?" You see, Wordpress also conducted a user and developer survey, and over 18,000 people responded. Of those 18,000 respondents, over 6,800 people were self-employed Wordpress developers responsible for the creation of 170,000-plus Wordpress websites. That's a lot of CMS ninja-ry. The better part? Those 6,800 freelancers charged an average hourly rate of $50. Mullenweg helpfully points out that if each site took 3 hours to create, that's $29.5 million worth of work. With numbers like that, we may stop tuning in to the State of the Union and focus on the much more positive (and apparently job creating!) State of the Word. |
| Cool Site of the Week: Museum of Online Museums Posted: 19 Aug 2011 11:11 AM PDT  As vast as the internet can be, there comes a time in every web surfer's life when there's just nothing left to browse. Well, nothing interesting at least. After visiting your favourite online haunts, playing a few web games, chatting it up on Twitter or Google+ and seeking out behind-the-scenes dirt and spoilers for a few of your favorite films, it's easy to run out of ideas as to what you should scope out next. In such a dire situation, you could take the quitter's way out and head outside to enjoy everything that Mother Earth has to offer, or you can buckle in for a trip to the Museum of Online Museums, our Cool Site of the Week.
The Museum of Online Museums is a lazy web surfer's dream. Curating a collection of some of the most random fare on the internet, MoOM is constantly updated with some of the most awesomely random stuff on offer anywhere online today. No matter whether you're interested in some high-brow content from the The Smithsonian Art Museum or have a hankering to fill your hours with a trip to the Pong Museum, Adult Movie Posters From the 60's &70's, or want to get geared up at the Water Gun Armory, MoOM has something for everyone--even if that something was something that you never knew you wanted. 
Oh, and just like an actual museum, MoOM also features a new collection very quarter, just to keep things interesting. Be sure to check back every Friday for another edition of Maximum PC's Cool site of the Week. |
| Report: Intel To Delay Cedar Trail-M Netbook Platform, Atom CPUs Posted: 19 Aug 2011 11:07 AM PDT  People talk about tablets signaling the death of PCs – heck, look at HP shopping around its PC operation if you want a hot, fresh example – but the segment that's really getting kicked in the family jewels are netbooks. The iPad and its Android brethren have just decimated netbook sales. Intel may be delivering another bit of bad news for the small-form laptops; reports say the chip maker's delaying the launch of the new Cedar Trail-M netbook platform and pushing back the release of its new Atom CPUs.
Cedar Trail-M was originally supposed to ship next month, but DigiTimes and its as always anonymous sources say that graphics driver problems and delayed Windows 7 certification has lead Intel to push back the launch date back until November. The Cedar Trail-M platform includes two new Atom CPUs (the N2800 and N2600) that pack integrated GPUs and DirectX 10.1 support. The netbook-friendly Atom D2700 and D2500 CPUs are also rumored to have been pushed back to November. DigiTimes' sources don't seem to think the delays are a big deal, since netbooks aren't really selling and AMD offers netbooks with similar capabilities. To be honest, we'd kind of forgotten about Cedar Trail-M thanks to all the Ultrabook news Intel's tossing around these days. |
| Firefox 7 (And Its Improved Memory Usage) Hits Beta Channel Posted: 19 Aug 2011 10:38 AM PDT  "Leaner and meaner" are two terms you may use to describe a malnourished lion suffering through a drought, but the same phrase also applies to a cornered Firefox. Google's Chrome took a bit of the luster away from Mozilla's star browser. Rather than simply shrug their shoulders, Firefox's developers rolled up their sleeves and got hard at work on the MemShrink program, an initiative to reduce the browser's horrible memory leaks. Members of the team have reported great successes; now, with the release of Firefox 7 Beta, you can check out the memory improvements for yourself.
The Future of Firefox blog says it achieved the reported 20 to 50 percent memory improvement using a couple of different tactics: - Optimized Memory Use: Reduces memory use and improves performance areas including responsiveness, startup and page load time, even in complex websites and Web apps
- Improved memory management: The JavaScript garbage collector works more frequently to free up memory and improve performance when you have many tabs open or keep Firefox running for a long time
Firefox 7 Beta also includes a number of additional tweaks and changes. Most of them help back end work, but everyday users should noticed faster Firefox Sync times and quicker HTML5 Canvas-based animation rendering. Intrigued? Want to help test drive Firefox 7? Head over to the Firefox Beta Channel to give the browser a whirl. The final release is expected to launch September 27. |
| Canonical's Ubuntu Server 11.10 to Flex ARM Support Posted: 19 Aug 2011 09:56 AM PDT  Canonical hasn't been bashful about backing ARM, injecting support for the alternative processor into its desktop Ubuntu platform nearly three years ago before tablets and 1GHz smartphones made ARM the talk of the town. Now comes word that Ubuntu Server 11.10 will support ARM processors and ship simultaneously with x86 and x86-64 platforms.
"With Ubuntu Server becoming the de-facto standard for cloud infrastructure and big data solutions, we recognize that power consumption is key to efficient scaling. Building on four years of working with ARM, we are now taking the step of supporting Ubuntu Server on ARM. We expect these processors to be used in a variety of use cases including microservers," Chris Kenyon, VP of OEM services at Canonical, said in a blog post. Kenyon says the base image of all three releases will be the same regardless of architecture, with all three versions sharing a common kernel baseline. And lest anyone thinks Canonical is simply dipping its server toes in ARM's waters, the open source software maker intends to make the ARM architecture part of the long term support (LTS) version of Ubuntu Server in 12.04 and other future releases. |
| HP Explains Decision to Shop Its PC Business Posted: 19 Aug 2011 09:28 AM PDT  Hewlett Packard created more waves than a tsunami yesterday when the OEM confirmed rumors that it plans to dump its PC business, yet still managed to surprise industry analysts by announcing the end of operations for webOS devices, and specifically the slow selling TouchPad and webOS phones. Now that the the dust has settled, it's time to look at why HP thinks reinventing itself is a good idea.
In one of several press releases issued late yesterday, HP said it has the full support of its board of directors to evaluate "strategic alternatives" to its Personal Systems Group, "including the exploration of the separation of its PC business into a separate company through a spin-off or other transaction." In the same breath, HP makes the claim that PSG is the leading manufacturer of PCs in the world with revenues topping $41 billion in 2010. If that's the case, why even consider moving away from PCs? The answer, according to HP, is evolution. "The personal computing market is evolving with new form factors and application ecosystems," HP explains. "Given these realities, HP believes it is in the best interests of the company and its shareholders to explore ways for PSG to position itself to address these rapid changes and maintain its technological and market leadership positions." With tablets and smartphones and who knows what else threatening the PC landscape, HP is betting big on software, so much so that it's spending billions on Autonomy, a major player in infrastructure software for the enterprise. "In March we outlined a strategy for HP, built on cloud, solutions and software to address the changing requirements of our customers, shaped heavily by secular market trends that are redefining how technology is consumed and deployed. Since then, we have observed the acceleration of these market trends, which has led us to evaluate additional steps to transform HP to meet emerging opportunities," said Léo Apotheker, HP president and chief executive officer. "We believe the acquisition of Autonomy, combined with the exploration of alternatives for PSG, would allow HP to more effectively compete and better execute its focused strategy." In sort, HP is threatened by the move to mobile devices, and in particular tablets. In speaking with The Wall Street Journal, Apotheker said, "The tablet effect is real, and sales of the TouchPad are not meeting our expectations." Had the TouchPad sold better, or been able to sell at all, perhaps HP could have held onto its market share lead for mobile PCs (which includes tablets), but it yielded the No. 1 spot to Apple. On top of it all, WSJ reports that even though HP's PC division still makes a profit, it's a low margin business. Rather than wait until things get really bad, HP would rather shop around its PC business while it still has value, and expects a deal to be done within the next 12-18 months. |
| Gelid's Tries Rearranging Heatpipes in New GX-7 Cooler for Gamers Posted: 19 Aug 2011 08:44 AM PDT  Gelid believes the key to improving air cooling performance lies in the orientation of heatpipes. The company's latest cooler, the GX-7 (or CC-GX7-01-A, if you prefer), falls under Gelid's Gamer branding and utilizes seven heatpiples arranged in a way the company claims facilitates better heatflow than most traditional heatsinks.
"Traditional heatpipe arrangement of high-end heatsink heatpipes are usually soldered on one row. Therefore the heat absorption capacity of the outer heatpipe will be negatively affected when there are more than 5 heatpipes," Gelid explains. "To solve this problem a special array of heatpipes was used on GX-7 to take full advantage of all 7 heatpipe heat transfer capacity. On GX-7 two heatpipes were soldered on top of three middle heatpipes." In addition to clumping the heatpipes together (see our photo gallery below for a visual of what Gelid's talking about), Gelid talks up the V-shaped aluminum fins used in the center of the GX-7. According to Gelid, this allows air to reach the heatsink more evenly and eliminates the creation of hotspots. The GX-7 comes with a single 120mm fan and optionally supports a second one. Like everything else about the GX-7, Gelid talks up the included fan, pointing out that the "fan blade winglets were designed to achieve larger airflow and greater static pressure." You can purchase the GX-7 for $65 effectively immediately. Image Credit: Gelid |
