Digg Surfin’

Well, since Mr. Cabralda is shoving more homework in our faces than we can handle, I better get started now, only got an hour here. Time for the formal crap:

So the first story that I be diggin’ would be that of the brand spankin’ awesome “ATI HD Radeon 5870” http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/ati_radeon_5870_fastest_videocard_ever_ps_its_380. From one of the best in the graphics division, AMD seems to deliver a strong message with this new piece of Heaven, with this new video card being claimed to be the “fastest videocard ever”. AMD has been conquering the crap out of their archrival, Nvidia’s technology in video cards, and they seem to be still doing so. So I tip my hat to them. Also, it’s only $380!

Now, why I chose this story. Well, my life’s problems right now have been revolving around picking up a new video card ’cause what I’ve got going for me right now isn’t gonna work. I can’t run crap on my little rig here. So maybe a $380 top of the line ATI HD Radeon 5870 just might be the thing for me? Or I could settle for something cheaper. ‘Cause what I’ve got now is stock, and honetly anything could take it’s place.

Onto the second story, hoorah! Now, being a total Facebook junkie, this just completely grasped my attention. Little Facebook cheats and secrets, just great. I love Facebook as much as the next guy, but this crap is just awesome, haha. Some if it old, some of it new to me though. So, rather than explaining each little thing, just go see for yourselves. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-facebook-hack-codes-and-tips-to-show-off-your-geeky-skills/ Now it says “hacks” in the link, but there really isn’t a way to hack Facebook, unless you’re one of those total HxC guys, then yeah. (My personal fave is the lens flare effect).

Yay, the third story. And then we’ll have some fun with definitions, alright? “Google Releases A Nuke. Apple Won’t Win This Fight.” Well, some controversial crap is going down between Goggle, Apple, and the Google Voice application and we can see some messy stuff going on behind the scenes here. I mean, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal I guess, but with this total he said/she said thing goin’ down, and a  war of companies underway, it get’s big. Now Google and Apple both released statements about the rejection of the Google Voice app., which totally contradicted eachother about the rejection of the app. So one of these chumps is just straight up lying at this point, and being a government investigation and all, we’ll find out soon? Either way, Google has a weapon cocked and loaded ready to knock out Apple in this fight. Either way, it ultimately is just a stupid application, and whether or not it hits the iPhone don’t matter to moi. I’m still stuck in the dinosaur ages with my piece of crap phone anyways.

Definitions!

Hard Drive:

The mechanism that reads and writes data on a hard disk. Hard disk drives (HDDs) for PCs generally have seek times of about 12 milliseconds or less. Many disk drives improve their performance through a technique called caching. 

CPU:

Abbreviation for central processing unit, and pronounced as separate letters. The CPU is the brains of the computer. Sometimes referred to simply as the central processor,but more commonly called processor, the CPU is where most calculations take place. In terms of computing power, the CPU is the most important element of a computer system.

Motherboard:

The main circuit board of a microcomputer. The motherboard contains the connectors for attaching additional boards. Typically, the motherboard contains the CPU, BIOS, memory, mass storage interfaces, serial and parallel ports, expansion slots, and all the controllers required to control standard peripheral devices, such as the display screen, keyboard, and disk drive. Collectively, all these chips that reside on the motherboard are known as the motherboard’s chipset.

Power Supply:

Also called a power supply unit or PSU, the component that supplies power to a computer. Most personal computers can be plugged into standard electrical outlets. The power supply then pulls the required amount of electricity and converts the AC  current to DC current. It also regulates the voltage to eliminate spikes and surges common in most electrical systems. Not all power supplies, however, do an adequate voltage-regulation job, so a computer is always susceptible to large voltage fluctuations.

PCI:

Short for Peripheral Component Interconnect, a local bus standard developed by Intel Corporation. Most modern PCs include a PCI bus in addition to a more general ISA expansion bus. PCI is also used on some versions of the Macintosh computer. PCI is a 64-bit bus, though it is usually implemented as a 32-bit bus. It can run at clock speeds of 33 or 66 MHz. At 32 bits and 33 MHz, it yields a throughput rate of 133 MBps. Although it was developed by Intel, PCI is not tied to any particular family of microprocessors.

PCI Express:

An I/O interconnect bus standard (which includes a protocol and a layered architecture) that expands on and doubles the data transfer  rates of original PCI. PCI Express is a two-way, serial connection that carries data in packets along two pairs of point-to-point data lanes, compared to the single parallel data bus of traditional PCI that routes data at a set rate. Initial bit rates for PCI Express reach 2.5Gb/s per lane direction, which equate to data transfer rates of approximately 200MB/s. PCI Express was developed so that high-speed interconnects such as 1394b, USB 2.0, InfiniBand and Gigabit Ethernet would have an I/O architecture suitable for their transfer high speeds.

USB:

Short for Universal Serial Bus, an external bus standard that supports data transfer rates of 12 Mbps. A single USB port can be used to connect up to 127 peripheral devices, such as mice, modems, and keyboards. USB also supports Plug-and-Play installation and hot plugging.

Firewire/IEEE-1394:

A very fast external bus standard that supports data transfer rates of up to 400Mbps (in 1394a) and 800Mbps (in 1394b). Products supporting the 1394 standard go under different names, depending on the company. Apple, which originally developed the technology, uses the trademarked name FireWire. Other companies use other names, such as i.link and Lynx, to describe their 1394 products.

LCD:

Short for liquid crystal display, a type of display used in digital watches and many portable computers. LCD displays utilize two sheets of polarizing material with a liquid crystal solution between them. An electric current passed through the liquid causes the crystals to align so that light cannot pass through them. Each crystal, therefore, is like a shutter, either allowing light to pass through or blocking the light.

Plasma (Screens):

Plasma is usuall in reference to plasma screens or displays. These devices use the equivalent of tiny florescent light bulbs for each pixel of the screen. These are turned on and off a thousand times a second to allow the creation of movement and colour change on the screen.

 

HDMI:

Short for High-Definition Multimedia Interface, it is the first industry-supported uncompressed, all-digital audio/video interface. It’s a single cable and user-friendly connector that replaces the maze of cabling behind the home entertainment center. HDMI provides an interface between any audio/video source, such as a set-top box, DVD player, or A/V receiver and an audio and/or video monitor, such as a digital television (DTV), over a single cable.  HDMI supports standard, enhanced, or high-definition video, plus multi-channel digital audio on a single cable. It transmits all ATSC HDTV standards and supports 8-channel digital audio with bandwidth to spare to accommodate future enhancements and requirements.

RAM:

Pronounced ramm, acronym for random access memory, a type of computer memory that can be accessed randomly; that is, any byte of memory can be accessed without touching the preceding bytes. RAM is the most common type of memory found in computers and other devices, such as printers.

Flash Memory:

A special type of EEPROM that can be erased and reprogrammed in blocks instead of one byte at a time. Many modern PCs have their BIOS stored on a flash memory chip so that it can easily be updated if necessary. Such a BIOS is sometimes called a flash BIOS. Flash memory is also popular in modems because it enables the modem manufacturer to support new protocols as they become standardized. Flash memory is also called flash RAM.

AGP:

Short for Accelerated Graphics Port, an interface specification developed by Intel Corporation. AGP is based on PCI, but is designed especially for the throughput demands of 3-D graphics. Rather than using the PCI bus for graphics data, AGP introduces a dedicated point-to-point channel so that the graphics controller can directly access main memory. The AGP channel is 32 bits wide and runs at 66 MHz. This translates into a total bandwidth of 266 MBps, as opposed to the PCI bandwidth of 133 MBps. AGP also supports two optional faster modes, with throughputs of 533 MBps and 1.07 GBps. In addition, AGP allows 3-D textures to be stored in main memory rather than video memory.

DVD:

Short for digital versatile disc or digital video disc, a type of optical disk technology similar to the CD-ROM. A DVD holds a minimum of 4.7GB of data, enough for a full-length movie. DVDs are commonly used as a medium for digital representation of movies and other multimedia presentations that combine sound with graphics.

FIRE WIRE!

USB STICK!

~ by theangrygentleman on 09/24/2009.