On The Net - Computing News

with Chris Goh

All aboard PCI Express

As mentioned last week, Intel has a new chipset that will bring about significant changes, including replacement of the bus.

Not the Kirklands kind - in PCs the bus is where information is passed between various components. For the last six years it was on a platform called PCI, although recent heavy video demands saw the development of AGP. Both standards are now merging into PCI Express. The 915 and 925 chipsets are best with the former having more support for older components.

The new chipsets come with a new socket for the CPU, the 775, which will be on the motherboard.

Intel also announced a new memory type, DDR2, which doesn't add any significant speed from the old version, but it does double the bandwidth capacity to take advantage of the new chipset (at twice the price!). The 915 supports both DDR2 and earlier DDR memory. The 925 and subsequent releases will only support later memory types, which has caused a bit of a stink with vendors.

Server buffs would know about RAID, which delivers fault tolerance for hard drives by mirroring and striping of data across multiple hard disks. It means that if one drive goes bung, the data isn't lost - it's also on other disks. Support for ATA devices with RAID is part of the new chipset, but the really cool thing is that RAID can run across a partitioned hard drive so you can turn two hard disks into four separate volumes and have redundancy across all four.

One of the worst parts of a PC has always been an audio. As an old Amiga DSP forced to use PCs, I loathed the sound quality of PCs (the alternative was expensive add-ons). The new support for 24-bit, 8-channel sound at a sampling range of 192kHz is a welcome improvement in the audio support (though still deficient). But it means both DTS and Dolby decoding is worth something on a PC - although I'd still recommend specialised cards for better sound quality.

The new graphics chipset will support DirectX 9, giving significant performance boosts and better refresh rates, but those who want to use their own advanced video cards will sneeze at this contribution.

On the networking side, the new motherboards support Gigabit Ethernet (so 100Mb is history). Wireless support is a bit iffy. The architecture has support for a wireless LAN controller, but it's obvious that Intel is hedging its bets as wireless technology matures.

Overall, these significant changes should make you ask your dealer (especially if it seems to be a bargain) whether your new Pentium has the right chipset.

Choose the 915 if you want compatibility and minimal upgrading costs, but bear in mind you'll have a half-baked chipset.

Hotnews

The Olympics are over, but a discovery by the Howard Hughes Medical Centre may change the rules on catching cheats. The centre found that an injection of a protein called PPAR-delta, which is attached to a short DNA sequence, allows mice to run twice as far as normal mice before exhaustion (the average is 900m). The genetic change is transgenic, meaning that offspring will inherit this genetic change. Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline is already developing an oral drug that activates this protein in humans. Apart from improving muscle growth, it minimises weight gain and is an insulin sensitiser.

The Australian Communications Authority, which had been trumpeting its success in shutting down spam operators in Australia, said that it will not be investigating the spam activities of John Howard's son, busted last week for sending out Liberal Party spam through his company Net Harbour, because the act excludes government bodies.

Microsoft has announced that its newly released Service Pack 2 for XP has problems with AMD's 64-bit processors. To date, the pack has had software incompatibilities with some 50 programs. So much for better security.

Bill Gates thought the internet was a passing fad, but managed to come from behind to dominate once again after Netscape had a commanding lead in the browser market. He did it again in the Palm Pilot/Pocket PCs. This week Microsoft, through MSN, released its online version of iTunes, Apple's successful online music store. Microsoft has spent the last two years developing partnerships with international bodies and media empires to establish a special range of digital music codes as international standards, so I think we're just seeing the start of Bill's multimedia empire.

Apple released its new G5 iMac design on Tuesday night. It looks like nothing more than a screen on a stand (how far the world has come!). The entry level will cost just over $2000.

Hotsites

www.resexcellence.com

Well if you're a Mac customising junkie, then this site will have you changing icons, wall paper, fonts and even adding new skins for your iPod. Enjoy.

Emulation.net

Most true Mac compatriots don't ever want to emulate another computer system. Why change when you have the best? But if you want to emulate a Gameboy, an old Spectrum or even an earlier Apple, here's the place to find it.

www.macmail.com

If you want to get away from Hotmail domains and fancy you want to show the world you're a real Mac person, maybe changing your online email account to macmail will satisfy that craving.

www.macupdate.com

For anyone familiar with the other famous Mac site, Version Tracker, this site is up there in providing the latest on new free and shareware software for Macs, providing excellent reviews, especially the changes in versions.