GeekwithEnvy

Computers

Windows XP Users, It’s Time To Move On

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xpLogo

 

Windows XP has stood the test of time quite well and has remained one of the most popular versions of Windows for over a decade. Many personal users and businesses are still using Windows XP right now, but that needs to change, and soon.

Why? Microsoft will be killing ALL support for XP on April 8th 2014. How does that affect you? The main reason is security or lack thereof. If Microsoft isn’t providing routine security patches to the operating system then it can quickly become vulnerable to attack. There’s no doubt that once the deadline passes, Windows XP will likely become a breeding ground for malicious code like viruses and spyware since XP will basically have a target on it’s back for not having official support. For this reason alone it’s worth it to upgrade to Windows 7 or 8.1 and unfortunately for some users that may mean buying a new PC.

Of course there are other reasons to upgrade as well including driver support, live technical support from Microsoft, newer applications that won’t run on XP, website compatibility,  and not to mention the fact that a newer PC running Windows 7 or 8 will likely be many times faster. Although Windows 8 got off to a rocky start because of criticism over it’s user interface design, it’s probably one of Microsoft’s fastest versions of Windows.

So don’t wait till after the deadline to make your changes, start the upgrade now or at least put together a game plan, especially if you’re a business.

Teardown of the Playstation 4 (Video)

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This video is of Sony engineering director Yasuhiro Ootori tearing down the Playstation 4. Ootori leaves out no details as he takes the PS4 down to it’s motherboard and reveals the true guts of the system. The Playstation 4 was designed with the game programmers in-mind, that’s been the mission of the PS4 from the very beginning.

Even though the Playstation 3 was extremely powerful during it’s release, it was notoriously difficult to create games for, and that’s a problem since great games are what really make a console shine. The hardware capabilities of the Playstation have a lot of promise, especially with the inclusion of GDDR5, and it’s likely that we won’t see games utilizing the full power of the system until a few years from now but there’s still plenty to be excited about right now as trailers for some pretty rad PS4 exclusives begin to hit the web.

Thanks to WIRED for the video.

Blizzard Announces World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor

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Day one at Blizzcon 2013 has brought with it some awesome announcements including the reveal of a new World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor, which will dive deep into Warcraft history and allow players to relive the past. We will get to see the world of Draenor as it was long ago and before the orcs first invaded Azeroth. 

With the new expansion comes many new features including a new world to explore, Draenor. For those who don’t know much about World of Warcraft lore, Draenor is essentially Outland before the orc invasion.

Players will also get a chance to level up to level 100, but don’t worry if you haven’t even made it to level 90 yet as Blizzard has decided to allow you to instantly take a character to level 90 to catch up and play the new content.

Other features include:

  • New Character models.
  • New Battlegrounds.
  • New class talents and permanent ability bonuses.
  • New Heroic versions of classic dungeons.
  • New Raids and a more refined questing system.

The heroes of Azeroth are on the verge of a war that will reforge the fate of two worlds. Announced today at BlizzCon® 2013, World of Warcraft®: Warlords of Draenor™,the fifth expansion to Blizzard Entertainment’s acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game, sends players to the world of Draenor at a pivotal moment in history to fight against and alongside legends from Warcraft’s brutal past.” – Blizzard Entertainment

To get complete details on the new World of Warcraft Expansion head over to Blizzard’s Warlords of Draenor site now.

 

Apple’s Special Event October 2013 – iPad Air Revealed

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October 22, 2013 Apple hosted a live streaming event to announce new updates and products. Here are some of the highlights of this event:

Mavericks:

Added iBooks, and available to download today for FREE regardless of which Mac OS you currently have installed. For more details on OSX Mavericks head to our earlier post.

MacBooks

 

Macbook Pro 13 inch:

    • Retina display
    • 2.4 GHz dual-core i5
    • 4GB DRAM
    • Iris Graphics
    • 128GB SSD

Starting at $1299 (ships today)

Macbook Pro 15 inch:

  • Retina display
  • 2.0 GHz quad-core i7
  • 8GB DRAM
  • Iris Pro graphics
  • 256GB SSD

Starting at $1999 (ships today)

Mac Pro:

Less power consumption and very quiet with a completely new design. Available in December 2013

(click images to enlarge)
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iPad Air and iPad Mini:

An all new designed iPad was announced, and they are calling it the iPad Air. Along with the Air they added a retina display option and the new A7 chip to the iPad mini which will cost $399. iPad Air will be available November 1, 2013.

 ipad with mini

ipad thickness
iPad Air thickness compared to the latest generation iPad
ipad bezel
iPad Air bezel compared to the latest generation iPad

 

The biggest day ever for apps – Eddy Cue

Today they talked about major app updates and how they will now be useable on both Mac and iOS, free to download today.

iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, and iWork all with new features and updates to work with the new Mavericks and iOS 7.

To watch the whole key note head here, Apple.com 

Nvidia Eliminates Screen Tearing with G-Sync

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Nvidia gsync-module

Screen tearing, stutter and input lag have plagued gamers for  years, but now Nvidia claims that they have found a solution to this issue. Nvidia has created what they call G-Sync to completely eliminate all of the aforementioned issues. G-Sync is a module that forces your monitor to have the exact same refresh rate as your GPU, which is the opposite of what happens in current systems.

The biggest problem is that GPU’s don’t render at a fixed speed and by having the monitor keep up with the GPU all of your screen tearing issues will go away instead of making the graphics card compensate for a fixed refresh rate. There have been many attempts over the years to correct these issues including the introduction of VSync, which did help, but it’s not perfect as VSync often stutters and fails to make gameplay as smooth as it should be and it can also be pretty taxing you your system.

By the time PCs came to market in the early 1980s, CRT TV technology was well established and was the easiest and most cost effective technology for utilize for the creation of dedicated computer monitors. 60Hz and fixed refresh rates became standard, and system builders learned how to make the most of a less than perfect situation. Over the past three decades, even as display technology has evolved from CRTs to LCD and LEDs, no major company has challenged this thinking, and so syncing GPUs to monitor refresh rates remains the standard practice across the industry to this day.”

For complete details on this new module head over to Nvidia’s official blog. I’m surprised that its taken us this long to fix this problem, especially since monitors have evolved so much over the last decade.