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May 30, 1998
News
- Pacific Bell took the wraps off of their plans to offer relatively low-cost, high-speed
DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, Service to many residents of California. That’s good
news for those of us clamoring for faster Internet access because DSL is specifically
intended for higher-speed ‘net access. In fact, it’s basically the phone
company’s answer to the high-speed cable modem connections being offered by cable TV
providers. The beauty of DSL is that it supports data transfer rates—which is what
determines how fast your Internet connection is—similar to very expensive T1 lines,
but for a fraction of the cost. To give you an idea, PacBell’s newly announced
service—which the company says will start to be available around July in some
areas—offers transfer rates of 384 Kbits/sec for $89/month. This cost includes both
the monthly line charge as well as unlimited Internet access. Now, there are other costs
involved. The install fee will be $125, plus you need to purchase a DSL modem for $300
(Alcatel is making the modems for Pac Bell), and you need to have an Ethernet card inside
your PC or purchase one from PacBell for $50. But once you’re past those initial
costs, it’s $89 a month for 384 Kbps downstream and 128 Kbps upstream, which means
you can receive data from the Internet about 7 times faster than a 56K modem and 14 times
faster than a 28K modem, and upload data more than twice as fast as a 56K modem and more
than four times as fast as a 28K modem. If you’re willing to pop for the next step
up, it’s $399 a month for T1-equivalent speeds of 1.5 Mbits per second. Now that may
be a lot for you and me, but compared to the $2,000 or so that many companies pay for T1
access, it’s a bargain. However, it still isn’t as good as the $40/month for 1.5
Mbits/second or better transfer rates and no modem purchase required offered by the cable
companies with cable modems, but at least it’s competitive. Look for other companies
already offering DSL services to drop their prices as well.
- Gateway had some interesting news this week when it announced a program called Your Ware
that lets you buy a PC from the company and then trade it in for a better model two years
from now. The Gateway program lets you finance your purchase and make monthly
installments, but it is not a lease, the company says, because the purchaser owns the
computer from day one. At any point between two years and four years after you purchase
the computer, you can trade it in for a new, faster machine. Of course, the company will
only pay the Orion Blue Book rate for the average value of the computer at the
time—which probably won’t be very much, but it’s certainly an interesting
option for folks who are worried about spending a large chunk of money on a computer that
they know will eventually be out of date. And in related news, the company confirmed that
they got some concessions from Microsoft on Windows 98 and will be allowed to install
Netscape Navigator on their new machines, as well as providing their ISP service (for
$14.95/month) as an option on the Windows 98 desktop.
- IBM this week also announced that they plan to offer Netscape Navigator with the new
computers they sell with Win98 pre-installed.
- Staying true to the recent promise they made, Packard Bell this week introduced a brand
new computer based on a 233 MHz version of the Cyrix MediaGX processor for only $699,
without a monitor. The Packard Bell 550 includes 24 MB of RAM, a 2 GB hard drive, CD-ROM
drive and a 56K modem. The Packard Bell 750, priced at $999 without a monitor, includes a
266 MHz Cyrix MII (formerly 6x86MX) processor, 48 MB of RAM, a 4.3 GB drive, CD-ROM drive
and a 56K modem.
- Speaking of alternative processors, AMD made big news this week with the introduction of
their K6-2 processor, which is available in 266, 300 and 333 MHz versions. The new chip,
which, like its predecessor, is a Pentium-compatible CPU that fits into the Socket 7
processor slot instead of Intel’s proprietary Slot One used for Pentium IIs, offers
performance similar to equivalent speed Intel Pentium IIs in some benchmark tests
I’ve seen. The K6-2 is the first AMD to chip to be able to use a 100 MHz system bus
and it benefits by being able to get faster access both to L2 cache—which is a
special type of memory that the processor uses to store recently used data and program
instructions—and normal system memory. The K6-2 also incorporates the company’s
3D Now extensions, which are similar in concept but differ in specifics to Intel’s
MMX instructions, which it first added to its Pentium line of processors early last year.
In addition to AMD, other Intel competitors Cyrix and IDT also plan to support the 21
extra instructions that make up 3D Now. Again, as with MMX, the 3D Now
instructions—which are designed to speed the creation of 3D graphics and therefore
improve game and other multimedia software performance—will only be beneficial if
programs are specifically written to take advantage of them. Luckily, it seems Microsoft
plans to support them in a forthcoming update to DirectX 6.0, as well as in some of their
games, and several other game companies have pledged their support as well. Several
companies, including CTX, CyberMax and Polywell have all announced and begun selling
systems based on the new K6-2 processor, but apparently not all of them are offering 100
MHz system bus support yet, so be sure to ask.
- The other big bit of processor news this week won’t really have much of an impact
on us for a while, but Intel announced that their 64-bit Merced chip—which was
scheduled for release in the last half of 1999 will now not be available until the year
2000. That chip is primarily intended for workstations and servers when it does come out,
but it’s been talked about a lot because it is the company’s first 64-bit
processor.
- If you’re interested in doing video editing on your PC, you may want to check out
the new VideoStudio 400 from Pinnacle. An updated version of the VideoDirector 200
product, the $200 (after $30 rebate) VideoStudio 400 lets you edit videos on your PC and
add titles, special effects, such as wipes and dissolves, and music. The system consists
of a hardware box that attaches to your PC’s parallel port and a software package
that you use to edit the recorded footage. The way the system works is it records a
low-resolution version of the video on your hard disk, where you then make edits, and then
builds a master tape by controlling your attached camcorder. The software shuttles the
tape in your camcorder to the appropriate point, applies any special effects or titles you
created via the hardware box through which the video signal is sent, and then controls a
separate recording VCR onto which the master tape is made at full video quality. The
reason it does it this way is for storage purposes, because the low-resolution digitized
clip using the VideoStudio 400 takes up only about 150 MB per hour of video versus the 4
to 8 GB/hour that high-resolution video can take up. The program eases the process of
digitizing the video by automatically determining different scenes on the tape—you
can just hit the Play button on your camcorder and walk away. Pinnacle claims it’s
the first video editing product to take advantage of Microsoft’s DirectShow
technology, which allows the VideoStudio 400 to instantly playback video from any point
without having to wait to build a preview.
- Finally, if you’re a travelling salesperson or executive who needs access to the
most recent versions of files stored on your company’s servers, you may want to check
out a new product from Symantec called Mobile Update. What Mobile Update does is transfers
via e-mail only the changes that have been made to a file—such as quarterly sales
figures, a large slide show-style presentation, or what have you—and then lets you
update the versions of the files you have on your notebook by simply double-clicking on
the attachment Mobile Update sends. The idea of the product is to save time because by
only sending the changes that have been made to a document, you can save yourself lots of
downloading time. It also simplifies the process of keeping your files up to date. To find
out more, head over to my site, click on This Week’s Links and look for the Symantec
Mobile Update link.
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