ATi too slow or NVIDIA too fast?

February 7, 2007 1 minute read

In November of last year, NVIDIA released its latest flagship graphics card chipset, the 8800 / G80. This chipset featured the first full featured DirectX 10 support ever conceived and was (still is at the moment) the only DirectX 10 card on the market.

So when will the other giant, ATi, catch up? According to rumor, ATi is planning to release its latest chipset (R600) in the first quarter of 2007, more precisely an early March launch.

But did ATi push its launch too far back or did NVIDIA jump the bullet on this one? Some say that ATi is holding back for a reason so they can improve their technology and beat NVIDIA performance wise. Others say that ATi didn’t expect NVIDIA to launch this early and is trying to throw together a product too fast. The latter, I personally don’t believe.

ATi has been a major player in graphics technology for a while, so it would be a strange decision to underestimate DirectX 10 and continue focusing on their X1900 technology. I think we can safely assume that ATi is preparing its product to perform to the fullest and maybe be waiting for better software support in Vista - something that NVIDIA has been lacking.

Also, what good is a DirectX 10 card if there are no DirectX 10 games out yet? Again, some say that the 8800 is simply “the best DirectX 9 card out there that happens to have DirectX 10 support.” Yet according to hardware tests on TomsHardware.com, the ATi X1950 XTX stands above the card with full head and shoulders.

So what can we expect in the near future from these two graphics giants? In my opinion (Nostradamus style), ATi will launch the R600 chipset and will make the G80 look like something from 1999 performance wise. The 8800 GTX will get a successor soon enough that will compete with the R600 and I think that ATi will get you more value for the money, as is happening with all AMD and ATi products lately (same company).

I was eagerly looking into buying a G80 or 8800 but I have a feeling I’ll be regretting it within the span of one month. After all, the G80 is already 4 months “old”.

Microsoft.com’s Recent Update

December 18, 2006 less than 1 minute read

Conforming with the Ajax/Web 2.0 trend, Microsoft has updated their Microsoft.com homepage to a sleeker looking page stuffed with DHTML goodies. Yet as with most media-rich websites it’s very slow on older computers (probably the one you have in your office also ;) ) so it becomes quite tedious to navigate through.

One good thing about all this is that the website works well in Firefox, you’d think they’d screw it up but they didn’t. Gotta give some kudos for that one.

What the new page comes down to is a roll-over navigation system to the left side of the screen, and less links as before if I see correctly. Apart from the homepage, nothing has changed, except that instead of going to the http://www.microsoft.com/ page you get redirected to http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx which has no PageRank and I doubt the search engines will like a 302.

Microsoft.com’s new DHTML layout.

Another Saturday: Firefox, Zune and more

December 9, 2006 less than 1 minute read

First Alpha release of Firefox 3

And you can get it: Here from Mozilla.org if you’re interested in trying it out. I am, I’ll report on it later.

Zune Again

I was actually wondering if anybody has actually seen a “Zune” since the introduction on November 14th this year. I haven’t, and I’ve seen one commercial so far on the TV. Even on the internet, I haven’t seen many things yet (or maybe I’m just on the wrong sites). I have some colleagues that didn’t even know what “a Zune” is and didn’t bother to find out.

Nintendo Sued

A company named Interlink has sued Nintendo over the type of remote the Wii is using. interlink claims to have a patent on the motion technology, yet ArsTechnica claims this is not entirely true. I think that Interlink knew that Nintendo was going to use this technology long ago but just waited for the actual release so they could get lots of money out of law suits. Dontcha love how money works? ;) src

Microsoft’s Autumn Marketing

October 20, 2006 1 minute read

Is it me or has this last season been the most productive one at Microsoft in a long time? First we get the new version of the DirectX SDK and now we finally have the final version of Internet Explorer 7, not to mention the plethora of CTPs that came out the last couple of weeks..

So, what’s going on? More marketing on MS’ side? Let’s hope so since free software is great - even though most products expire next year and it’s not free in the manner of beer and speech.

Still, allowing everyone to become a “beta-tester” is a great marketing strategy. People use the products for almost a year, become dependent on it and will have to buy the product when in comes out since the CTPs expire.

Take Windows Vista RC1 for example. This version of Windows is freely download-able but will expire on June 1st 2007. For home-users this is a great way of getting a Next Generation operating system for free and even be able to work with it for quite some time. By using CTPs/Betas you are not limited in saving files etc, there’s simply a time period - similar to trial software. Now, June 1st 2007 - Vista expires. You’re stuck with your CTP and all your important data on your hard-drive. Your copy of windows has expired and the only way to get back in is to buy Vista/License key.

Now that’s how you sell products — by creating a dependency.

MSDN Event Boca Raton Review: 10/17/2006

October 17, 2006 3 minute read

Today me and one of my co-workers (not my boss as I announced earlier) went to the MSDN Event in Boca Raton. This was my first time at one of these events so think of this post as a first-timer. There were three sessions discussed at ther Event that I’d like to go over with you.

Introduction

Because me and my colleague were at the Event a tad early, we were treated with a couple of tracks from Jethro Tull’s live album at the Isle of Wight. Always nice. These tracks were chosen by our presenter. We also watched some Microsoft propaganda from http://www.escapeyesterworld.com/ .. it was funny though. Our presenter was Mr. Russ Fustino, who introduced himself to the crowd in person wearing a yellow hard-hat and red suspenders while his theme-song (yes, a song bout Russ, not by Jethro) was playing in the background. Unconventional? Maybe. But it’s an attention-getter for sure.

Session 1: Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals

After all that stuff it was time to get down to business and absorb information — after all that’s what we came for. Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals is a nice integration of Database accessibility into Visual Studio 2005. It looked fairly simple to set up a new database from within Visual Studio and some features were very nice. Features such as the ability to rename a table in MSSQL and automatically rename all its references in Stored procedures etc without losing Data. I guess this could be called Recursive renaming or something similar. Another striking feature was the ability to compare changes side-by-side in a Visual Studio window. This product could really save some time and money on a large production scale.

Session 2: Windows Workflow Foundation

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF for short) is a layer in the .NET 3.0 Framework and got a Visual Studio extension in which you can create/define applications from a diagram view. Similar to the Class Diagram tool in Visual Studio yet think bigger and more objects to drag and drop. Mr. Fustino Slapped together an asp project from which he called the xoml (same as xaml, different extension) file in which he made a litte if/else diagram to show how the extension works. I can honestly say that I didn’t see the benefit of having this ability. Maybe it’s the type of company I work for but most of it seemed quite redundant to me. Each object that you drag into the diagram holds code and from what I saw, the code beneath the if/else function was stored in its own functions which seemed strange. I’ll have to look more into this program to actually understand its benefits. Please note: I’m not bashing the program/functionality just not sure about its usefulness.

Session 3: Expression Web

All I saw of this presentation was “Expression Web Designer” which is the tool marketed as “similar to Dreamweaver” yet more similar to say.. FrontPage yet including ASP.NET support. Not long after the presentation began I got the gist of the program and became rather scared for Russ’ Safety while he was presenting a designer’s tool to a room filled with Software Developers. Though this tool I am sure about: a waste of money. People already had FrontPage, Dreamweaver and many more wysiwyg tools, no need for more. Expression Web Designer claims to be a standards compliant tool.. Like the Microsoft browser? Hm.

Concluding

Now, one tool in the Expression package seems interesting which is the “Expression Interactive Designer”. I didn’t see it in action but I will install the CTP to my machine tonight and might make a post about how it is later this week. Regardless of the software, Russ Fustino was a great presenter who was fun to listen to and watch. Kudos for that.