Since I have been with the verizon network for years and didn't feel like switching, I never ventured into the world of the iphone.  I do have extensive experience with them as I know several people that own them.  Up to now the only real smartphone that had all the features and apps with the power and functionality to boot was the iphone.  However, with the release of the Droid by Motorola.  The Droid functions on the Google based adroid OS as the iphone uses its own versions of OS X.

As far as the operating systems go, both OS's are slick, fast and functional.  The major difference is the Android OS is more open, more customizable, (thus more prone to user created problems) where as the iphone OS is more self contained and doesn't allow for extensive customization or system file manipulation (thus less tweakable).  Therefore the difference lies in if you want to tweak and customize your OS and its applications or if you want a more fool proof solution.

The Droid is significantly larger than the iphone, mainly due to the hardware slide-out keyboard.  Now any iphone user or anyone who hasn't taken the time to get use to the hardware keyboard will say the keys are too flat, or its too hard to use in comparison to the virtual keyboard, but after you use it for a while and get acustomed to it, it actually functions better than the virtual keyboard and I personaly have gotten quite proficient with it.

The Droid sports a 5mp camera as opposed to the iphone's 3mp, however currently the software supporting the iphones camera is better, thus the iphone pictures can look better than the Droids pictures.  However the hardware is in place, and with the proper software updates I expect this problem to be remedied in the future.

I won't go into the AT&T vs. Verizon network debate as that is a topic all in itself.  All in all the Droid and the iphone are both great phones.  Is the Droid an iphone killer? probably not.  Is it an iphone competitor? definitely.  I don't forsee either of these devices going anywhere anytime soon.

One month after setting a new processiong speed record at a supercomputing contest earlier in the year, the new Larrabee processor has been put on hold "indefinitely".   Intel has not completely ended plans of developing Larrabee-based chips as a spokesperson states "additional plans for discrete graphics products will be discussed sometime in 2010"

The new Larrabee is a microarchitecture was developed to meet the increasing computing and memory demands of the latest PC games and high-performance computing applications . The new chip is highly programmable, with multicore throughput letting developers seemlessly implement various 3-D graphics pipelines such as rasterization, volumetric rendering and tracing.

At the supercomputing conference SC09 held in Portland, Ore., earlier this year, the Larrabee chip passed the 1-TFLOP barrier. This set a new record, easily surpassing graphics processors from Nvidia and AMD.

AMD recently ended its expensively drawn-out 5yr anti-trust lawsuit against its biggest competitor and the biggest PC chipmaker in the world; Intel, for a meager 1.25 billion.  Obviously this is a significant turn of events in the business world, but the general public shouldn't feel any ripple effects from the settlement.  If anything we may see a slight rise in prices due to the fact that Intel and AMD aren't butting heads for the same marketshare as much.

Recently AMD has been struggling to keep pace with Intel, and as Intel has been releasing new products on a regular basis leaving AMD to catch up.  The $1.25 billion received from Intel should go a long way to speed up research and design, and the ability to bring new products to market faster.  The settlement also allows both parties to re-allocate all the resources it was using to keep up the 5yr. lawsuit, primarily money.

In the end, most people won't notice any effects from the lawsuit or settlement outside of those in the industry, and if anything we may see a few products make it to market faster.  Intel or AMD? now the fight is left between the consumers and users, as it should...

We've decided to dive into the world of social networking, so now you can find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, & Twitter!  In the ever evolving world wide web, social media has become a useful tool for individuals and enties to reach more people, share information, and create a more immersive web experience.

Help us get our custom facebook url by going over to facebook and click on "become a fan"!

Well, we've been trying out the new Windows 7 for about 2 months now and had a pretty good experience with it so far.   I wanted to let everyone know some of the things I've noticed so far from an end-user point of view.  Working in this industry I use XP & Vista all the time, and have had my bouts with each of them.  Windows XP is tried and true and as comfortable as a good pair of shoes.  We've used XP longer than most any other software we own, and it just works, and if something does happen to go wrong its easy to fix.  The only thing with XP is after a few years of use, you have so much 3rd party software running behind the scenes, its hardly Windows XP any more.

When Vista initially launched we immediately made the transfer, and found it to be a fairly powerful and solid operating system with plenty of glossy eye candy, but pretty much had to beat it into submission to get it to play nicely.  They had the right idea, but instead drowned it out with too many negatives for some people such as messy account security protocols, missing device drivers, hardware incompatability, heavy impact on system resources, and too many redundant menu functions.  After you managed to navigate your way through all that it was actually a visually pleasing more immersive OS than XP.

Enter Windows 7

As soon as Windows 7 became available to us we were eager to see if Microsoft had listened to its users.   Unlike Vista, we found it to be amazingly compatable out of the box.  It integrated new components well, and doesn't require an onslaught of drivers to get all the hardware up and running unlike XP, or hours of multiple driver updates as with Vista.  I'm still a manual driver installation kind of guy, but its nice to have an ethernet driver that actually works without having to break out the driver disk.

As expected Windows 7 is also much "lighter" than its predecessor.  They definitely boiled down all the unnecessary processes in Vista to produce a solid and efficient operating system that is as immersive and playful as Vista.  Furthermore, Winows 7 can be run on XP system that didn't have the hardware to effectively run Vista.  Windows 7 just might be able to prolong the life of that old laptop that sits in the closet.  Furthermore,  7 also runs suprisingly well on netbooks, which are becoming more and more popular.

Usability was a big factor they addressed in this release.  MS has expaned the usability of Windows 7 through the use of shortcuts, drag and drop operations, taskbar jumplists, the new Aero Peek interface, as well as other helpful functions.

Conclusion

Windows 7 is everything it is billed to be.  Even though its based on Vista core technology, its a faster, cleaner, and more stable operating system.  Microsoft did what they set out to do and took all the problems people had with Vista (personally I didn't think it was that bad) and created what should be a solid OS for years to come.

As it has only been a few months, we are still becoming fully familiar with 7 and I will give an update as we delve deeper into its more complex features.

As people become more and more familiar with computer components through upgrades, repairs, and other channels, they are starting to venture in to the world of custom computers. Custom PCs are becoming increasingly popular as part manufacturer's produce new and improved components often not found in off-the-shelf systems.

Building a custom computer generally allows you to select only the parts you want, and helps avoid the design traps implemented by the big builders (Dell, HP) that ensure you must buy most of your parts from them. Often the off-the-shelf systems don't allow for much expansion or upgrade and as your PC ages, and reaches the limit of its performance, you won't be able to adequately upgrade your existing PC and will have to buy a new one from them. (crazy how that works....)

Perhaps one of the biggest questions when building your own system is: what are the costs differences between OEM and DYI? Typically a lower priced OEM PC is built from cheaper, generic components. The OEM Dell and the custom pc may share the same type of processor, but that's usually where the similarities end. They will list the specs. of their components but usually not the brands they use, and it does make a difference. The motherboard, RAM, power supply, and video card(s) of the cheaper OEM PC usually will not compare to quality custom components.  Custom computers may cost a little bit more for increase in quality of components but in the end you get more performance for your money. Another thing to take into consideration is if you have the time to invest into building your own computer. Some people decide that they just don't have the time to put into it and would rather buy a pre-built PC. If you want the performance of a custom computer but don't have the time to invest then custom PCs may be right for you.

In the end it comes down to what you as the consumer want to do. You can buy an off the shelf system, with quality support and warranty coverage, but it will probably lack capability for expansion or upgrading leaving you with no option but to purchase another cheaper system few years down the road. (BTW: all those obsolete PCs are creating an environmental disaster) Furthermore, it will usually contain some generic components and will not perform as well as the custom pc. The other option is you can spend a little more, build your own PC, or purchase a custom computer from a custom pc builder and have a system that will perform well for years to come and has the capability to upgrade in the future to keep your system relevant for several years.