Pioneer Ships First Blu-ray Computer Drive (Article)

Pioneer Electronics recently announced that it is shipping the industry's first Blu-ray computer drive (BDR-101A). This drive can burn up to 25GB of data onto a single-layer Blu-ray disc. The drive will ships with Roxio Blu-ray Disc software and a blank TDK Blu-ray discs. You can have all this for only $1,000.

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For informational purposes, I have included a brief breakdown of all the types of media (CD, DVD, BD) that are available.

Compact Disks

• CD-R (650MB, write once)
• CD-RW (650MB, rewriteable)

DVD Disks

• DVD+R SL (4.7GB, write once, single-layer)
• DVD+RW SL (4.7GB, rewriteable, single-layer)
• DVD-R SL (4.7GB, write once, single-layer)
• DVD-RW SL (4.7GB, rewriteable, single-layer)
• DVD+R DL (9GB, write once, double-layer)
• DVD+RW DL (9GB, rewriteable, double-layer)
• DVD-R DL (9GB, write once, double-layer)
• DVD-RW DL (9GB, rewriteable, double-layer)

Blu-Ray Disks

• BD-R (25GB, write once)
• BD-RE (25GB, rewriteable)

What is Microsoft Max?

Do you like trying out the latest technologies, well here is a new one from Microsoft codenamed: Microsoft Max. If you're curious what it is, here is excerpt from the web site: "Max lets you make beautiful photo slideshows to share with your family and friends. And it recently began showing you the latest news updates from around the world."

With Max you can get the latest news on technology, health, sports, and etc. You can manage your photos, share and annotate them.

Here are some screen shots of the application. You can download the program from here.

Microsoft unveils new betas for Office, Vista

Cnet reports, "The software maker announced Tuesday that it is ready with broader test versions of both Windows Vista and Office 2007. The company also has an updated test version of Longhorn Server, the next version of its server operating system."

This article contains the latest news about Microsoft's upcoming versions of Office and Windows. If you want to see a lot of screen shots of Windows Vista, check out this article from ExtremeTech.

Vista Gets Support for IEEE 1394b (AKA FireWire 800).

I thought this was interesting, Microsoft announced Windows Vista support for the IEEE 1394b (AKA FireWire 800) standard. If you do any digital video editing then you're probably familiar with the IEEE1394 connection.

If you don't know what the IEEE1394, then let me briefly explain. This is a popular connection used by several digital video cameras, to transfer video from the camera to the computer. The use of this port is not limited to digital video cameras, but those are the devices that primarily use it. Just to be fair, I need to note some hard drives support this connection.

The older standard IEEE1394 (AKA FireWire or FireWire 400) was able to support data transfers rates as fast as 400Mbps. The newer IEEE1384b is designed to support data transfer rates as fast as 800Mbps. In comparison, USB v1.0 supports a data transfer rate up 12Mbps, while USB v2.0 supports data transfer rate as fast as 480Mbps.

The 1394 Trade Association has estimated that by the end of 2006, there will be more than five million 1394b equipped Windows and Macintosh computers. For more information read the following press release.

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor (BETA)

The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor is a small application that checks your current computer to see if it can be upgraded to Windows Vista. The program is designed to run under Windows XP, so if you have an older Windows OS (i.e.: Windows 95/98/ME/2000) it may not run.

When you run the Upgrade Advisor, it will scan your system and generate a report of all devices that are attached to your computer that it can recognize. The report will list compatibility issues, along with recommendations on how to get your computer and its hardware ready to run Vista.

The current version of the program only checks the compatibility of your hardware. In later versions of this program, it will be able to check the Vista compatibility of the applications on your hard drive.

Note: Before you run this program, make sure all your USB peripheral devices (such as: external hard drives, scanners, printers, etc.) are attached to your computer and turned on.

System Requirements to Run Windows Vista

When a new operating system is released, it always comes with a 'minimum' set of hardware system requirements. For example you have a CPU that is ...GHz, and you have ...GB of RAM, etc.

Minimum system requirements generally only enough to basically allow the OS to boot. If you want the system to be usable, then you will need more hardware. For example, minimum system hardware requirements to run the basic version of Windows Vista are:

• 800MHz or faster CPU
• 512MB of RAM or more
• Your graphics card needs to support DirectX v9.

If you want to run Aero, which is part of the Windows Vista's Premium version. Then the minimum system requirements are different:

• 1GHz or faster CPU [32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64)]
• 1GB of RAM or more
• DirectX v9 capable 3D graphics card, with 128MB of graphics memory.
• 15GB free space on your hard drive.
• DVD-ROM Drive

If you don't know what Aero is, it's the new Windows Vista subsystem that offers an extra graphic rich environment, such as transparent menus and 3D looking graphical elements.

Personally I would recommend the following hardware requirements to get the best experience from Windows Vista:

• 3GHz or faster 64-bit CPU
• 2GB of RAM or more
• DirectX v9 capable 3D graphics card, with 256MB or more of graphics memory.
• 30GB free space on your hard drive.
• DVD-ROM Drive
• Broadband Internet access.
• Sound card w/speakers

Must Have Free System Administrator Tools

Here is my list of free must have system administrator tools for performing system tasks and troubleshooting. These tools can perform different functions, for example: checking your hard drive's S.M.A.R.T. counters to see if its healthy, backup your Windows registry, manage the system processes that are running, etc.

All of these tools can be stored and run from a USB flash drive. So that you can always have them with you when you need them most.

• Autoruns: Allows you to view and manage which programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you login.
• Process Explorer: Allows you to view and manage system process. Here is a brief excerpt from the Sysinternals site, explaining what this program can do: "shows a list of the currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, ... you'll see the DLLs and memory-mapped files that the process has loaded."
• EURNT: Backs up the Windows Registry on your local computer.
• If you don't want to use EURNT, check out MSKB 322756: How to back up, edit, and restore the registry in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003
• Ethereal: Great for network diagnostics and troubleshooting.
• HDTune: View the S.M.A.R.T. information on your hard disk. S.M.A.R.T. is a technology that tracks the current condition of your drive (such as temperature, hours used, etc.).
• PsTools suite: Contains great tools like: PsExec, PsUptime, PsShutdown, PsLoggedOn, and more.