|
July 25, 1998
News
- Yet more goodies to give away today, including a copy of Windows 98, Plus for 98 and
more.
- News about a nasty, new BIOS Virus called either CIH, or CIH95 hit the streets this week
and, not surprisingly, got lots of people upset. What’s unusual about this virus is
that it is supposedly the first one that attempts to go after your hardware by trying to
overwrite your BIOS. Most new computers introduced over the last few years have Flash
BIOSes, which allow them to be updated in the event of bug fixes, feature improvements and
what have you, but this new virus attempts to take advantage of this capability to
overwrite your PC’s BIOS. Luckily, many BIOSes have physical jumpers which prevent
this from occurring, so the risk is somewhat small of suffering this fate. But if you do,
it will cause major problems. In fact, you won’t be able to boot the computer at
all—not even with a floppy disk—because the BIOS is the first piece of software
that loads when your computer turns on. So, without it, you’re stuck—you need to
physically replace your machine’s BIOS chip to get your computer functioning again.
And if that’s not bad enough, if it can’t get to the BIOS, the CIH virus will
also infect and destroy your computer’s files and applications and will overwrite
your hard disk’s boot sector, preventing it from booting (and making data recovery
very difficult). Fortunately, it seems the CIH virus is relatively rare—it’s
apparently been found at certain warez sites on the Internet—and most current virus
checkers can eradicate it. If you don’t have a virus checker, you can also check a
free command line utility available from Symantec’s Anti-Virus Research Center at
www.symantec.com/avcenter.
- There was lots of interesting news and developments in the microprocessor business this
week, including word of new chips, new technologies, price cuts and more. Early in the
week, AMD and Motorola announced a partnership to further develop copper-based
microprocessors. All of today’s processors, such as the Pentium II and current G3s
use aluminum, but many people are predicting that the only way to get to faster chips
(like in the 1 GHz range) is to go to copper. So, the development should give some help to
AMD in their quest to take on the Intel juggernaut. In related news, IBM is apparently
ready to release its first copper-based chips and guess where they’re going? Into
Macintoshes. New 333 and 366 MHz G3 chips destined for some faster Power Mac G3s to be
released in September will apparently be the first commercial computers with copper
processors.
- In related news, Intel has said they are significantly pushing forward the release of
the second-generation Celeron processors. The new chips, codenamed Mendocino, and systems
based around them will now be released in August. These Celerons should be significantly
faster than their predecessors because of one minor, but incredibly important change: they
will have 128 K of L2 cache built into the chip itself. In some ways this is even better
than the current Pentium IIs because although they have 512K, or four times as much, L2
cache, it sits outside the processor and runs at one half the processor’s speed. On
the new 300 and 333 MHz Celerons, the L2 cache will run at the same speed as the
processor, which should give them very nice performance boosts. By the way, don’t get
confused, there will be 300 MHz Celerons with and without out the L2 cache—the ones
with the cache will apparently be labelled with an "a" to distinguish them. In
other Intel chip news—and probably related to this introduction moving forward from
the fall—the company will be reducing prices as of tomorrow on their existing
Celerons as well as all the desktop Pentium II processors. Expect to see some system price
cuts—though not huge ones—as a result.
- Not to be outdone, AMD also announced a new version of the K6 processor with 256K of L2
cache built into the chip itself. These new processors, dubbed K6-3s, are expected by the
end of this year for desktops and mobile versions are expected by the beginning of next
year. Initial speeds for the processors, which will fit into Socket 7 slots, will be 400
MHz. In other news, AMD has starting shipping 350 MHz versions of its current K6-IIs.
- Apple is apparently planning to reduce prices on some of its existing Power Mac G3
systems in the next week or so. According to some reports I read, you can expect to see
prices drops of as much as $800 or more on some higher-prices systems. This is
anticipation of the new line of faster G3s due around the end of September. The company is
also apparently working on a portable iMac-like product for release after the beginning of
the year.
- Speaking of portables, Acer has introduced the TravelMate 312T, the latest introduction
into the world of small-sized notebooks. Unlike some of the superthin machines, like
Sony’s slick new Vaio 505—which is apparently now available in stores—the
2.8-pound TravelMate 312T is about 1 ½" thick, but it’s only 9" wide and
7" deep. As a result, it’s sized closer to Toshiba’s Libretto line. The
$1,799 TravelMate 312T includes a 233 MHz MMX processor, 32 MB of SDRAM, 8.4" active
matrix display, 3.2 GB hard drive, USB port, built-in 56K modem, and an external 24x
CD-ROM.
- Toshiba introduced a new low-cost portable this week. The Satellite 2505 CDS, which
retails for $1,399, includes a 233 MHz Pentium MMX, 2 GB drive and 12.1 dual-scan screen.
Next week, Toshiba is expected to introduce some new Librettos and its first US entries
into the ultrathin market.
- Mac users looking to do digital video editing have a new software option to
consider—that is, as long as you’re working with a DV camera and have access to
a FireWire card. Radius EditDV Unplugged, which is being offered for free for a limited
time and will be $99 thereafter, is a cut down version of the company’s professional
EditDV. EditDV Unplugged, which is suggested for G3-based Power Macs only, offers a single
video track for editing and one additional track for effects—versus unlimited tracks
on the professional version—but it includes titling, drag-and-drop and many of the
other features found in its more expensive brethren.
- AOL users with 56K modems now have more options on where they can dial into as a result
of the fact that the world’s most popular online service has upgraded to full V.90
support. All the company’s 56K lines now support V.90, which means you no longer have
to just dial into a special x2 or K56Flex numbers. So, if you’re an AOL user and
you’ve been holding off on upgrading your x2 to K56Flex modem to the new standard,
now might be a good time to do that.
- Finally, this week Microsoft revealed some details about the next version of its popular
web authoring package. Front Page 2000, which is due after the first of next year, will
link directly with the company’s forthcoming Office 2000. As a result, you’ll be
to save Office 2000 documents directly onto a Front Page 2000-based site. In addition,
Front Page 2000 will support XML to guarantee that you can even take those documents back
into Office 2000 apps and edit them, without losing any formatting whatsoever. The new
version will also have an Office-like interface and have support for creating sites with
multiple languages.
|
|
