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ColumnsWhy Does Hollywood Give Nerds a Bad Rap?

Posted 09/23/08 at 04:51:30 PM by Will Smith

Will Smith I just returned from a special theater screening of War Games—quite possibly the only good film Hollywood has ever produced about computers, computer nerds, or hacker culture. Shockingly, the movie, which was first released in 1983, holds up quite well, despite the use of archaic hardware (acoustic couplers and vocoder boxes), a laughable sentient military supercomputer, and an occasional lapse into typical Hollywood lingo.

The abundance of 8-inch floppy discs also gave people in the theater a laugh, as did the fact that characters were practically chain-smoking throughout the entire movie. But none of the showing’s pervasive air of yestertech could take away from the fact that War Games remains awesome.

More nostalgia after the jump!

Comments: 7
TAGS: column, will smith, release notes, ed word, columns, hollywood, nerds, war games, geeks

FeaturesWhat Microsoft Must Change for Windows 7

Posted 09/11/08 at 12:45:30 PM by Will Smith

By now, we’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s working and what isn’t in Vista. Here are our recommendations for how Microsoft should proceed with Windows 7.

Fight Piracy in a New Way

Face it, activation is a failure. For power users who frequently upgrade their PCs, dialing in to reactivate the OS is beyond irritating. Instead, Microsoft must come up with a novel way to punish pirates without annoying its paying customers. (May we suggest displaying massive popup ads in pirate copies of Windows?) For legitimate customers, a realistic home-licensing program—buy one copy at full price, get four more upgrades for $50 to $100 each—would go a long way toward creating goodwill.

More of our genius plotting after the jump!

Comments: 10
TAGS: vista, windows, microsoft, Software, will smith, features, windows 7, operation system

FeaturesExclusive Interview: Microsoft Admits What Went Wrong with Vista, and How They Fixed It

Posted 09/10/08 at 12:15:00 PM by Will Smith

We sat down with Microsoft to hear the company’s side of the Vista story. What lessons have been learned following the worst Windows launch in the company’s history? Is Microsoft doing enough to regain PC users’ faith?

Way back in January 2007, after years of hype and anticipation, Microsoft unveiled Windows Vista to a decidedly lukewarm reception by the PC community, IT pros, and tech journalists alike. Instead of a revolutionary next-generation OS that was chock-full of new features, the Windows community got an underwhelming rehash with very little going for it. Oh, and Vista was plagued with performance and incompatibility problems to boot.

Since then, the PC community has taken the idea that Vista is underwhelming and turned it into a mantra. We’ve all heard about Vista’s poor network transfer speeds, low frame rates in games, and driver issues—shoot, we’ve experienced the problems ourselves. But over the last 18 months, Vista has undergone myriad changes, including the release of Service Pack 1, making the OS worth a second look. It’s time we determine once and for all whether we should stick with XP for the next 18 months while we wait for Windows 7. But before we answer that question, let’s review exactly what’s wrong with Windows Vista.

Hit 'Read More' for the rest of this story

Comments: 32
TAGS: vista, windows, microsoft, operating system, Software, will smith, interview, Windows Vista, features, failure

ColumnsWaiting for a Windows Renaissance

Posted 07/17/08 at 02:55:52 PM by Will Smith

Will Smith I’ve written about Apple’s OS X many times before, and it’s no secret that I’ve long been impressed with Apple’s operating systems. This month, I reviewed the MacBook Air, which gave me the opportunity to spend some quality time with Apple’s latest OS, Leopard, and I had an epiphany: Windows users are in the same exact position that Mac users were in 1999.

Hit Read More for the scoop.

Comments: 0
TAGS: windows, will smith, release notes, ed word, columns, windows 7

NewsMaximum PC turns 10! To Celebrate, Editor-in-Chief Will Smith Cuts Cake, Not Cheese

Posted 07/03/08 at 05:34:03 PM by Norman Chan

We just finished producing our September 2008 issue, which marks the 10-year anniversary of our magazine. The very first issue of Maximum PC was the September 1998 edition, which featured the Dream Machine ’98 on its cover. To celebrate the occasion (and the successful launch of the new website), the staff took a break from building rigs and benchmarking to enjoy some devilishly delicious cake and champagne.

The September issue will also feature a nostalgic retrospective of the past 10 years of Maximum PC, highlighting predictions we got right (and wrong), the amazing tech trends we witnessed develop, and first-hand recollections from past staff members. Gordon shares his favorite lab memories, and ex-intern Brian Lam (of Gizmodo) reveals what he learned from his tenure.

Here’s to the next 10 years!

Hit the jump for another look at the cake -- it's not a lie!

Comments: 13
TAGS: maximum pc, will smith, anniversary, celebration, cake

ColumnsWhere Lies the Point of Diminishing Returns?

Posted 06/27/08 at 01:55:33 PM by Will Smith

Will Smith In the July issue, I tested HP’s Mini-Note—the small, cheap notebook is HP’s answer to the subcompact, sub-$500 Asus Eee PC. HP’s tiny notebook got me thinking about the point of diminishing PC returns—the point at which adding more hardware oomph doesn’t deliver a perceptible performance boost to the user.

I didn’t have any major complaints with its performance in my most common activities: web browsing, checking email, writing documents, and listening to music. Is this Mini-Note’s 1.2GHz VIA C7-M CPU fast enough for me?

Hit the jump for my conclusions.

Comments: 0
TAGS: gaming, hp, will smith, asus, Crysis, call of duty 4, columns, from the magazine, eee PC, diminishing returns, mini-note

NewsAmazon's Bezos Invests In and Advises Twitter

Posted 06/25/08 at 01:42:09 PM by Chris Moody

Amazon.com founder, president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board, Jeff Bezos through Bezos Expeditions (his investment company) has invested in Twitter and just accepted a seat on their board of directors. readwriteweb.com says, “the money will be spent on building up its infrastructure and reliability to become the communications utility it needs to be before it can become profitable.”
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The addition of Jeff Bezos as an advisor is a big deal for Twitter. On their blog, they says he is more than “an investor and advisor because he is also an inspiration.” They go on to say that, “Jeff's attention to business process details and distinctive, "honk-like laugh" are similarly admirable traits as far as we're concerned.”

If you’d like to see Twitter in action, visit Maximum PC Editor in Chief Will Smith’s Twitter site.