Posted 08/07/2008 at 12:49:29pm

I'd actually be satisfied with 4 GB DDR3 modules. I've been planning to go from my Opteron 185 system to a new Nehalem-based build sometime next year. After reading Maximum PC's excellent writeup about building a Nehalem PC, I realized that I will almost certainly want to use three DIMMs, and 12 GB should be a solid starting point for a Vista 64 PC to last me a good 3-4 years. I just hope the DDR3 prices drop significantly over the next 8-12 months. 12 GB of DDR3 at today's prices would be around $750. :(

Posted 10/04/2007 at 02:56:17pm

Actually, she took her hard drive in for replacement BEFORE the RIAA came after her. That was confirmed by a Best Buy Geek Squad dude that was called to the stand. It could maybe be argued that she suspected they were after her, but testimony indicated that she did have legitimate problems with her PC that necessitated the drive swap. To me the biggest problem for the RIAA is not that they might lose, but that they might win. Hugely punishing a music loving single mother of two (she apparently buys [or used to buy] tons of music--also confirmed by the Best Buy dude) for doing something that many people don't consider all that outrageous is certainly not going to encourage people to run out and partake of the RIAA's wares. The music industry's pyramid of artists on the bottom and suits on the top is going to be toppled sooner or later, no matter how hard they try to hang onto their clearly defunct business model. Long live eMusic and all the independent artists!

Posted 08/09/2007 at 05:42:37pm

That's like getting in your car, starting it up, and driving over a mosquito to kill it. No Windows PC is complete without a copy of Irfanview for simple photo viewing/altering/resizing duties. While you're at it, check out Paint.net for the more advanced stuff including layers and advanced selections.

Posted 08/06/2007 at 07:15:14pm

High Dynamic Range will be a great advancement in the art of photography. Getting HDR support into the JPEG standard would be an excellent step, and I'm hoping that digital camera makers will be able to come up with HDR image sensors someday soon as well.

Posted 08/06/2007 at 07:07:23pm

Now I don't have to agonize about whether to keep or recycle my old copies of the magazine. You guys always have great stuff that I want to follow up on, so now I can keep the PDFs on file instead of that archaic wood and pigment technology. Oh yes, AND I just re-upped yesterday for two more years. Love your magazine!

Posted 08/01/2007 at 10:37:54am

Well, it's *almost* impossible for it to happen here in the 'States. China, like Europe, uses 220V outlets, while we use 110V. It's pretty tough to kill yourself with only 110V, although if you're careless you could receive a nasty shock, no doubt! Nice map of outlet voltages, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Map_of_the_world_coloured_by_voltage_and_frequency.png

Posted 07/31/2007 at 10:38:14am

Unfortunately, this list is rather outdated already. Within the past week we've had: -Target announce they will only carry a Blu-Ray player this holiday season. -Close Encounters of the Third Kind is coming to Blu-Ray exclusively in November. -Denon is joining Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, and Mitsubishi in manufacturing or announcing Blu-Ray players -BJ's Wholesale and Woolworth will stock and sell Blu-Ray only Add this to the basic facts: Blu-Ray has more space per layer and a scratch-guard coating. 6/7 major studios support Blu-Ray versus 3/7 for HD DVD. Toshiba is virtually standing alone as the hardware manufacturer for HD DVD. I'm not a fanboi (I don't even own a player yet), but I can read the writing on the wall. Regardless of the fire sale going on from Toshiba, I would definitely NOT recommend anyone buy into HD DVD at this point, at any price. Of course, if you have a lot of money to burn and don't mind that your format will become orphaned sooner rather than later, then more power to you.

Posted 07/25/2007 at 05:22:36pm

I've seen this news posted on various blog sites, and it sounds good. My question, however, is how does this power consumption compare to other manufacturers' drives? If WD reduced power consumption compared to their previous generation but they're still higher than Samsung, for instance, that's not so great. I'll be looking for the lowest power components I can find for my upcoming Windows Home Server box, so this topic is of great interest to me. I really enjoyed the feature on using the Windows "deep sleep" mode for power savings. Maybe Maximum PC could also start tracking and reporting on the lowest power "power user" components.

Posted 06/28/2007 at 02:24:11pm

The AO game rating and NC-17 movie ratings ought to be abolished. What business does a corporation or government have in deciding what's safe or not for children to experience? Only the parents can decide that. Here's great opinion piece that recently ran in Entertainment Weekly, making the case for abolishing the NC-17 movie rating: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20042869,00.html

Posted 06/08/2007 at 11:03:33am

"Do we now need to operate under the assumption that anything we do could possibly be recorded unless we’re in our homes with the blinds drawn?" In a word, YES, and you should have operated under that assumption for many years now! When you're in public, there is no expectation of privacy, and that includes the windows of your house (the ones facing the street, at least), so you should keep that in mind. I applaud Google Street View for finally waking some people up to the fact that they are being recorded in public. In fact, they are probably caught on film/video virtually every single day of their lives. Google would be perfect within their rights to tell the complainers to go pound sand, but at least they're taking the high road and removing some images upon request. A picture of your cat is on Google, and you're upset? Get over yourself!