Rated: 100% (6 votes)
Loading ...On the possibility of 3-way SLI
Alex Watson
Transcript of an MSN Messenger conversation with a friend, also a PC hardware and gaming enthusiast, when I told him that I’m off to an Nvidia press event next week at which Nvidia may, or may not, introduce 3-way SLI.
Alex CPC: 3 way SLI?
The Unstoppable Ninja Of Doom: Can you do me a favour when you’re out there? Can you find who is responsible for 3-way SLI and hit them?
The Unstoppable Ninja Of Doom: Physically strike the man in the face.
The Unstoppable Ninja Of Doom: They deserve it. Take a picture of a motherboard inside a case, mine for instance, then ask him how he expects to fit three dual slot cards on that board, while leaving room for sound and other components. Then hit him again. Then ask him why SLI is still complete toss and ask why he felt he needed to add a third card and not fix the existing system.
Alex CPC: Sounds like quite a beating you’re asking me to dish out.
The Unstoppable Ninja Of Doom: Then point out that their single cards aren’t actually perfect either and slap him. You might want to take Vinnie Jones with you. In fact screw the reporting, don’t bother going, just pay Vinnie Jones to go instead and have him kick the crap out of the bloke behind triple SLI and menace the rest.
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...One of those days
Alex Watson
Yesterday was one of those days. Just after lunch time, my hard disk began to make loud clicking noises and the kind of gurning normally associated with Russell Brand. Its time on this mortal coil was clearly coming to an end. Fortunately, it didn’t die outright, so I was able to make a complete back-up of it. Cloning the disk using freeware apps didn’t work - possibly, Gareth thinks, due to Vista’s anti-piracy techniques - but I was able to use Vista’s own Backup and Restore centre to save the complete contents of the drive to a new one, and restore my system from that. Very cool indeed, although the sheer volume of data involved meant it took a good few hours to finish.
The only slight complication with the ‘Back up computer’ option is that the disk you backup to can only be used for the purposes of retrieving the backup data - you can’t use it as your new system disk, so you actually need two spare drives to get your system running again. Apparently, this whole PC backup feature is only in Vista Ultimate, too. Needing two spare drives and Vista Ultimate isn’t a problem when you work on Custom PC, but I can’t see the wisdom in making such a killer feature so hard and pricey to use.
I wasn’t the only one suffering hardware problems yesterday, either - just before I went home, I went down to the lab, and saw this:
One of those days.
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...Digg and the art of the headline
Alex Watson
When it comes to the web, there really aren’t many ways in which to gain readers for your site. Not that many practical and legal ones, anyway - sure, I could pay a dodgy bunch of Eastern European types to knock up a virus that sets everyone’s homepage to custompc.co.uk, and I could hire a team of skywriters to put our name above London. Increasing readership online is fairly similar to increasing readership of a magazine in real life - although at first glance this isn’t the case. The New York Times has run stories about how search engines are changing the dark art of writing newspaper headlines. Instead of witty puns, the story goes, the importance of appearing high up the Google rankings means simplicity is more important. There is a truth to this: Google drives a lot of traffic, and while humans will understand a punning, tabloid style headine when they see it on the page, when people Google, they Google in simple, explanatory language. The headline in the picture above is a good example: I know it’s about Tony Blair’s resignation announcement, but if I was searching for that story online, I wouldn’t necessarily Google “beginning of the end.”
However, while Googlers prize simplicity, the art of headline writing lives on: submit a story to online news aggregators such as Digg or Slashdot, or even to one of the big blogs such as Engadget, and you tend to find that plainly worded stories die an obscure death - unless of course, the story itself, even worded plainly, is powerful enough to draw people in.
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...If you’re going to San Francisco, speculate wildly before they make you sign an NDA
Alex Watson
The autumn is getting interesting - Intel has had its say at IDF, and now its Nvidia’s turn. At the end of the month I’m off to GeForce/nForce HQ in Santa Clara (near San Francisco, in Silicon Valley) to hear them talk about…. well, they won’t say. And before they do, I’ll have to sign an NDA. So before I do, how about a few guesses? Pictures of a new GeForce card with a single-slot cooler have been doing the rounds, but California is a long way to go for just a new mid-range card. It’s not cheap to ship journalists around the world (even though we do fly cattle class), so I’d expect more than just one new product. A successor to the 8-series (or at least a 7800 to 7900 style revision) seems a decent guess, and of course, compared to Intel, things have been quiet on the chipset front for Nvidia, so a successor to nForce 650/680i could be on the cards . Of course, it might be something far crazier than that but while AMD is capable of some real surprises, my feeling is that Nvidia is a far more focussed company…
Not yet rated
Loading ...New Oyster cards
Alex Watson
In a previous post, I complained about a lack of innovation in the UK when it comes to integrating technology in to our daily lives. One example I gave was comparing the Tube to Hong Kong’s underground; both of these use a contactless, RFID-based ticket system, but in Hong Kong, you can use a huge range of RFID-enabled products such as watches and bracelets to hold your ticket, whereas in the UK, you’re stuck with… a plastic ticket.
Well, it seems we are catching up, slightly, with our Asian neighbours. Barclays has just launched a new version of the Barclaycard credit card - called One Pulse - which integrates a chip to hold your Oyster card into your own personal debtmine. Barclays has a website devoted to the new card which makes this sound like rocket science, but at least the option is now available to us poor luddite British people. I am in the process of requesting a review sample of the card - say, £2k credit, guys? - so I’ll let you know what it’s like if they ever send me one…
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...AMD news
Alex Watson
The info in the AMD conference call I referred to earlier will go live on the site when the NDA expires at 1AM UK time*. All I can say is that it confirms a rumour that’s currently doing the rounds.
* provided all the buttons I’ve pressed work.
Not yet rated
Loading ...Intel Developer Forum
Alex Watson
Coming back from a wedding yesterday, I happened to find myself driving past Stonehenge and since I’d never been before, decided to stop and take a look. The audio tour around the prehistoric stones was a pretty frustrating affair, full of ‘we don’t know how’ and ‘we don’t know why’ statements (which I can forgive given that what we can currently see on Salisbury Plain was constructed 4,500 years ago); that said, I did learn how neatly - perfectly, in fact - some aspects of Stonehenge’s design fit into marking/observing the passing of the seasons.
It’s funny to think, as I type into a device which would be as incomprehensible to the Stonehengers as the stones are to us 21st century types, how sensitive we still are to the seasons. It’s been a bit of a slow summer, but now that it’s Autumn, things are going to get a lot busier.
Kicking off the season is Intel, as it’s staging its Autumn Developer Forum in San Francisco this week. Ben is out in California to cover IDF for us this year so there’ll be plenty of stories on the site from him. Intel has already announced it’s buying Havok, so as well as the expected stuff about Penryn/45nm, there might be some surprises in store from the show. Meanwhile, back in Blighty, like the other half of a bitterly divorced couple, AMD can’t bear to see all this attention being focussed on its rival, so I’ve got a phone briefing this morning about — ah, already signed an NDA about it, but you can probably guess. Interesting times - but then Autumn always is.
Rated: 100% (2 votes)
Loading ...Improve Vista’s interface
Alex Watson
For all its flashiness, Vista’s UI can be a distinctly underwhelming and irritating experience. Having installed Vista on my work machine, making it a better working environment has been something of a priority for me. Over the last few months, I’ve got Vista to a point where it’s no longer irritating and actually offers some real improvements over XP. I thought I’d list some of these hints and tips together in a blog post.
Not yet rated
Loading ...Been away awhile
Alex Watson
Blimey, over a month since I’ve posted to the blog. It’s been a busy summer - I squeezed in a holiday, which was nice, and have bought a house, too. On the work side of things, there’s been a bit of work behind the scenes: new homepages for the staff and reader blogs, plus a lot of work on stopping spam and a new captcha system.
I’ve also managed to get a few hours of Bioshock in - so far, I’m a bit disappointed, particularly with the combat, which seems very stodgy and outdated. Still, I’m going to give it a bit more play time before I condemn it completely.
Rated: 93.33% (3 votes)
Loading ...The Octopus Watch
Alex Watson
One of the things I find most frustrating about technology is when you can imagine a use for it but the hardware, software and real life just don’t fit together in any sensible way. Seeing how the junction between these three differs in other countries is something I always enjoy when travelling, but sometimes I do just end up feeling jealous, especially when the Far East is involved. A friend from Hong Kong is back in the UK briefly and he showed me his watch, which kicked off the latest recurrence of this despondent feeling - not because he’s got some massive, ugly chronograph but because his watch also worked as his ticket for Hong Kong’s transport system.