Microsoft to continue OEM sales of XP in 2008

Microsoft announced in mid April of this year that they would cease sales of Windows XP to retail outlets and resellers by the end of January. That does not mean that sales to original equipment manufacturers would stop. That will continue. In fact Microsoft predicts good sales of Microsoft Windows XP through 2008. I suppose you have to stop and think about this in perspective. Is Microsoft Vista still not attractive enough to lure more customers to it, or perhaps customers are still waiting for service pack 1 to come along for Microsoft Vista? Christmas sales for PCs did not do as well as expected in December 2006 because Microsoft Vista was delayed. Microsoft really needs to plow ahead and have SP1 ready by Christmas (December) 2007 if they wish to persuade more XP users to change their operating systems and also provide customers with an incentive to upgrade. Many XP users are refusing to upgrade until the Vista SP1 is ready.

My 2 cents about DX10 prices

Here is a reply I made about DX10 pricing on one of the NVIDIA Developer Blogs:

http://blogs.nvidia.com/developers/2007/07/dx10-pc-price-p.html

***Shortly after I made these comments the developer blog in question was pulled or relocated. Perhaps NVIDIA was unhappy with the developers comments???***

I am going to point my finger at both sides of this argument. PC manufacturers need to better advertise just how good their midrange PCs are. The unknowing public believes or has been hyped to believe that to run a 3D game just as the upcoming Crysis you need a top of the line PC to show off the very best the game has to offer when pushed to the extreme. I'd love to see some framerates posted with a PC model to see what it can do with a specific game or benchmark. NVIDIA on the other hand needs to re-examine its logic with regards to videocards such as the 8800 ULTRA which is overpriced based on its performance to an overclocked 8800 GTX.

Creative Labs charges a fee for working EAX + Direct Sound 3D

I have had a lot of faith in the PC industry for a long time now. However my blood began to boil somewhat when I found out that Creative is going to charge $9.99 for their ALchemy support software in Microsoft Vista. I understand the fee from the manufacturer standpoint but it is quite lame to charge a fee for all users. Surely users who have bought their sound cards since the launch of MS Vista shouldn't have to pay!

http://www.buy.soundblaster.com/_creativelabsstore/cgi-bin/pd.cgi?frompage=category&page=product_detail&fromcategory=Software&category=Software&pid=F2222X767VHL73GYR38

EVGA starts their Scavenger hunt

EVGA has started a scavenger hunt on their website with over $50,000 worth of computer hardware. Read more about this contest on their website link shown here:

http://www.evga.com/scavenger/

Intel introduces the QX6850CPU at 3GHZ

Craig R. Barrett who is the CEO of Intel must be grinning from ear to ear today. AMD's Barcelona CPU is not yet launched and already Intel has made a quad core chip available than allows 4 cores to run at 3GHZ. No doubt Intel wants to steal some thunder before Barcelona is launched.

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20070716corp_a.htm?iid=search

Intel will launch the X7800 core 2 extreme

Intel is going to release the X7800 Core 2 Extreme processor for laptops. A gaming processor for laptop PCs sounds interesting especially to those users between the ages of 21 to 40 who want the best processing for games/graphics their laptops can produce. I don't know if this will be a success but if you're a professional user who needs that type of raw processing power then your wait is over.

Protecting our children who have mobile phones

The digital age has ushered in vast new advantages for our children. However, with those advantages are individuals who would possibly try and take advantage of our children. With so many children now in possession of mobile phones a friend of mine showed me a software called RADAR which alerts parents via a text message if their children receive a call not on their parents approved list. It mainly works on Blackberry devices and several various smart phones but the list of compatible phones will hopefully grow. If you wish to read about this then I refer you to this webpage for more information:

http://mymobilewatchdog.com/