Website Update: Issues with Top Technology News

. Friday, January 23, 2009
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I need to apologize due to  problem with my feed news aggregator – PostRank, the Top Technology News gadget is broken.
I am looking into alternatives to bring back this valuable (imo) gadget.

Thank you for your patience!

windows XP drivers for HP Pavilion dv-1129wm Laptop (XP “Downgrade”)

. Thursday, January 15, 2009
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Some lucky people snatched it from Walmart at $699 on Rockback and despite its current pricetag of $828 it most likely will be on sale again, let me tell you something :
at $699 this laptop is a very good deal.

Brief Tech Specs: 17” Dual core AMD Turion X2 Processor running 2.1Ghz, 4Gb of DDR2 Ram, 250Gb harddrive, MultiDVD burner, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Webcam, 8 cell battery,5-in-1 card reader, etc…

Drivers:
  1. Chipset & Video : ATI Mobility 3450/Radeon 3200
  2. For Windows SP3 – UUA HD Audio Hotfix
  3. Audio - IDT High-Definition Audio CODEC Driver – it includes SP1 and SP2 UUA drivers, but not for SP3
  4. Network Card
  5. Wireless Network Wi-Fi driver: Broadcom or Atheros
  6. Tuner ? US model might not have them… in any case:
    HP Integrated Digital TV Tuner Driver is Yuan EC300 DVB-T TV Tuner Express Card driver

Unfortunately I have to give the laptop back, so If I missed some hardware device drivers please tell me and I’ll do my best to find you locate them.

Website Updates: New Comments System

. Thursday, January 8, 2009
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I hope ya'll fancy my new news feed ;-) , but I didn’t stopped there on my rigid search for better Web 2.0 RSS reader I stumbled upon Intense Debate system with add a lot more flexible and social comments. More features to you and me as well to ease moderation and spam control.

Due to system limitation, only new comments will appear in new system, old ones will be left intact.

Enjoy and as always I’d to hear your opinions

P.S: Also I’m currently testing new way to get correct site referrals on Google analytics – more about it later then fully tested and confirmed.

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Website Updates: Technology News Feed

. Tuesday, January 6, 2009
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As you noticed yesterday I decided to add new feature to my website – Technology news feed. The news come from different technology sites based on different criteria.
The module I’m using was customized a bit to better fit the website design, and despite its far from perfect yet, its a start and I hope in future I could better deal with such feature.
For now enjoy it and let me know what do you think about it.

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ACE LMS 250 – New Under $1000 HTPC with CableCard Support

. Friday, January 2, 2009
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Can I say Alleluia? Finally a multimedia system capable of being center of all your movies, music and pictures PLUS a real replacement for Cable Company DVR.

Let me remind you – the fact is – If you got cable company and looking to replacement for the cable DVR box which cable companies lovely call a “service” and charge extra $10 monthly – doesn’t meet your standards – You my friend pretty much stuck – As the only tuner on market with support for ALL cable channels (most of them encrypted) is ATI Digital Cable Tuner – and the only way to get it is on special OEM custom pc, normally only big players like HP or DELL would get licensed to use this technology.

The reason is quite simple – Content providers pressed on device manufactures to insure protection if their precious HD content from dirty pirates :) and the way to do it is to create Secure Data path – basically making sure you can’t pigtail into the data stream.

MythTV/AppleTV/XBMC can claim same DVR functionality till tomorrow, but only for CLEAR QAM, without support for encrypted cable TV channels. This is a really unfortunate, but more about later.

ACE Computers - Small Custom PC’s company from Illinois is introducing new HTPC system target the crowd of people like you and me who hate the cable companies and the fact you required to pay monthly fee to use DVR feature. The new LMS 250 system will start at mere $999 and will offer Intel ViiV platform with Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz or and AMD Triple Core CPU, 2gb RAM, 500Gb Hard Drive and a DVD Burner and custom version of Windows Vista Home Premium.
Extra $250 will give you BlueRay Drive, Acoustically dampened case and A Second ATI Digital Cable tuner.

The price is tempting of course, especially in light, that the next runner up cost $500 more at base model, however I’d like to reminder of Broadcast Flag DRM [5C] despite being deemed optional by FCC was in fact implemented by Microsoft on their Vista Media Center application and it didn’t took long to taste the bitter taste of unable to Pause/Rewind or Record some of TV shows which content providers decided – basically rendering the DVR useless for these shows.

In the end it is we are customers will need to vote with our wallets if we need such devices and product or not. Time will tell, but let me tell you as we are Witnessing the slow but sure death of DRM on digital audio, Broadcast flags will be thing of past, like black and white TV without remote controls :) Eventually……



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