Finally Gamer’s Wishes Come True for those of us using the laptop / notebook:

“NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX GPU Comes to Notebooks”

World’s Fastest Notebook GPU Brings DirectX 10 HD Gaming to Mobile Gamers

Nvidia announced yesterday (Nov 19th) the immediate release of the new 8800 series for laptops fully capable of running new games like “Unreal Tournament 3″ fantastically even at HD resolutions of 1920×1200.

In addition to serving as the core of a great, notebook gaming platform, the NVIDIA GeForce 8M Series GPUs feature the NVIDIA PureVideo® HD engine for superior quality playback of HD DVD, Blu-ray, and HD movie downloads. The GeForce 8M Series also contain NVIDIA’s PowerMizer® * technology that intelligently balances battery life and performance.

The GeForce 8800M-series consists of 2 products, 8800M GTX and 8800M GTS. Only the number of Stream Processors seams to separate the models “on paper”.

This 3 and a half minute video shows how a VERY skilled Photoshop artist draws Albert Einstein in just 4 hours.

Simply amazing!

PipeBytes is a simple service which allows you to send
a file to a friend.The unique benefits of this service are:

• No software to install.
• All you need is web browser.
• Send files of any size!
• Your buddy could start downloading file as you upload it.
  (That makes the file exchange process up to two times
  faster than other web-based file exhange services!)
• It’s private unlike BitTorrent or other P2P techologies.
  The file is not shared on Internet - it is sent directly to your recepient.
• You can watch YouTube videos while file is being transferred!

This is a very simple way to send your music, movies, presentations, executables and any type of files to anyone with just a web browser!

The service is still under development and a few common questions (and limitations) are answered in their FAQ.

AMD Unleashes Enthusiast Gaming Performance for the Masses with ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series

Incredible performance per watt and scalability with never before seen price points put enthusiast-class gaming in reach of all users.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — November 15, 2007 –AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the introduction and immediate availability of the ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series of graphics processing units (GPU). As the world’s first series of graphics processors to deliver Microsoft’s DirectX® 10.1 support, 55nm process technology and tri and quad multi-GPU support with ATI CrossFireX™, the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series ushers in a new era of enthusiast gaming performance at mainstream price points. The ATI Radeon HD 3800 series will be introduced in two variants at launch, from US $179 MSRP, the ATI Radeon™ HD 3850 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory and from US $219 MSRP, the ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 with 512MB GDDR4 memory. The launch of the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series redefines the enthusiast segment and puts high performance gaming in reach of more users than ever before. This innovative new series of graphics products also represent the first step in the launch of AMD’s upcoming enthusiast platform codenamed “Spider.”

“With the introduction of the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series we are redefining the market for enthusiast graphics with a new class of price, performance and features that have never been seen before in this industry,” said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Graphics Product Group, AMD. “Through a flawless transition to 55nm and Microsoft DirectX® 10.1, we can deliver an unprecedented level of scalable performance, image quality enhancements and power efficiency at the sub- $200 segment that rivals today’s most expensive graphics processors and opens up enthusiast gaming to more end users than ever before.”

Read the press release or visit the HD3800 Series product page for more information.

I must admit I haven’t yet upgraded my functioning versions of Windows XP to Vista, not at home nor at the office. However I’ve been helping out friends and colleagues trying desperately to get something done on a “Vista infected” PC. It appears that unless you have a state-of-the-art gaming machine you will most likely feel like you’ve been conned when upgrading from ANY previous versions of Windows.

On the positive side you might say that Vista is easy on the eyes. A nice GUI with nice fading transitions. They also store your personal files in a somewhat nice and intuitive way based on media type etc. in the Windows Explorer. BUT it takes a while to get used to the new set-up, and for the novice user this might even require a tiny course just to handle the basics. The new safety precautions (repeatedly mentioned) makes all admin tasks slower. I believe that when you’re logged on as admin you should be able to do most things without constantly verifying every little step. That’s way you can assign different user levels right…?

The main problem however is the speed, or rather lack of it (I think even my crappy old HUGE Tower from the nineties running Win98 reacts quicker). As a result you have a slow computer with a new, but fancy layout and a few renamed “used-by-everyone” applications (e.g. Outlook Express is now called Windows Mail etc.).

John C. Dvorak mentions three steps to improve Vista in his article “The Vista Death Watch” published in PC Magazine 31st October.

1. It can give up on the stupid variations and lower the price on the one good Vista, Vista Ultimate. I’d say $99 would be a price everyone can live with.
2. Microsoft can scuttle the entire product. Why not? Work on a whole new OS starting today with one team and work on SP3 for XP with another team to keep users on Windows.
3. Roll out Vista 2.0. Figure out some way to add some nifty features, perhaps stolen from the next version of the Mac OS. Bring in some outside designers if you have to. Oh, and lower the price on this one, too.

We all know this is not going to happen, but there’s actually a few good points here if you read between the lines. I think the battle for world domination against Google has moved Microsoft’s focus away from what they did well towards a mediocre position among the developers of both OS and on-line services/ads. Fortunately both Mac and Linux are doing well and availability are getting better (Linux especially).

While a wait for XP SP3 I think I’ll use the time to also get more into Linux and find the distro that suits my needs the best. If it takes another 5-6 years to get to Vista 2.0 like XP to Vista I will most definitely not be around waiting…

If you happen to have a positive impression of Vista I would be very eager to hear about it. Please also specify your PC specifications and list a few reasons why. So far I’ve yet to hear anyone I know applaud it.