Windows Vista SP 1

Microsoft has always been releasing service packs for its windows operating systems to fix minor glitch and add various features. A little more than a year after its release, on February 4, 2008 Microsoft released Windows Vista Service Pack 1(SP1). The newly released Service pack may solve some of the performance glitches that have annoyed Vista users. Service Pack 1 will be available to current Windows Vista users by mid-March via Windows update. The corporation is also planning to have SP1 integrated into Windows Vista at retail as well, but there is no given timeline on how quickly it will be done. Windows Vista SP1 will arrive in one of three ways. Most users will automatically receive the update via Windows Update. Users with limited or no Internet connectivity or who need to update more than one PC will be able to download a complete image of Windows Vista SP1 via DVD. And, finally, volume license customers (enterprises) will receive an integrated DVD media package for installation on new PCs.
What’s good with Windows Vista SP1 is that it improves the overall upgrade process, fixes hundreds of tiny problems, and makes it easier for third-party vendors to write stable code for Vista, but failed to significantly increase performance.
SP1 doesn't resolve some of the most annoying flaws in Vista, including slow start-ups and reboots, and a security system that nags you too much and requires add-on anti-virus software.

For further reading

Link 1

Link 2

The Big Daddy Of Internet Security Suites

Kaspersky is another one of the many anti-virus makers that’s gone the complete Internet security system way—not a Bad thing. The suite takes care of all your security worries—files, mail, system network security, etc. All the basic controls for the components can be accessed from the main two-pane layout window.
Modifying settings means you go to another window which houses all the settings for the components, and there are plenty of them. The core anti-virus feature is standard and allows you to scan files and folders along with boot sectors, Registry, memory, startup programs, etc. The Anti-spam has a nifty training feature that learns by looking at mails in your mailbox through a Wizard to provide more accurate spam protection. The firewall monitors for incoming and outgoing threats and notifies you immediately. Any attacks targeted at your computer can be set to have the attacker’s machine blocked for a set period of time. The firewall also takes care of the blocking of ad banners and pop-ups from Web sites as well. The parental control is useful in not only stopping access to inappropriate sites, but also in setting limitations on time spent at the computer and on the Internet. User accounts on Windows can be set to Parent, Teenager, or Child and by default, all users are set to Child. Strictness of all the features can be adjusted using a slider. At the same time, manual changes can be made. This is especially useful for spam filtering, parental control and the firewall. Heuristic scanning is available in most of the modules, but not enabled in all of them by default. The help file doesn’t carry any screenshots, but the explanation is adequate and easy to understand.
Kaspersky’s Internet Security Suite is a pretty good choice for anyone looking for a complete security solution—it’s right up there with the best security suites money can buy. There are no missing features, and everything is implemented well. New users might be a little confused by all the terms and huge list of options, though.
More about Kaspersky here.

Pull Her Dog Tags Mate......

XFX’s “serious gamer” Alpha Dog Edition is here, featuring all the 128 shader units it’s supposed to. The only thing that distinguishes this card from the GTX/ Ultra models is the 256 bit memory interface. The card features a core factory overclocked to 678 MHz (the default core speed is 650 MHz), and here’s where the fun begins- the core is now faster than an 8800 GTX, and the scores show it. Shader clocks are also up to 1700 MHz from the default 1625 MHz. Of course the 8800 GTS Alpha Dog still has restriction of 16 ROPs (Raster Operations), as opposed to the 24 ROPs on GTX/ Ultra cards.

Nevertheless this card has some serious horsepower, and runs noticeably cooler than 8800 GTX and Ultra cards; it’s a little shorter, too- 9.5 inches as opposed to 11 inches on the older cards. Priced lower than its older sibling, running cooler and basically having less power requirements seems like the XFX 8800GTS 512 Alpha Dog Edition has all the accolades in its kitty. Lost planet is a sweet bundle. At $ 300, the XFX is costly now. Yes its $ 125 cheaper than the GTX series of GPUs but the new 8800GT core changes things considerably. Eighty-five percent of the performance at nearly sixty percent price! This card is a mite too expensive to be of any use to the discerning gamer who will likely buy two 8800 GTs for a little more than the price of a single 8800 GTS, and use them in an SLI setup.

Specifications: Core clock: 678 MHz, Shader clock: 1700 MHz, Memory clock: 986 MHz, Memory interface: 256 bit, Memory bandwidth: 63.1 GB/s, Shader units: 128

Moulding speakers

In any sound system, the quality of audio depends on the speakers. The best recorded material encoded on the most advanced data storage device and played by top-of-line stereos/ PC and amplifier will sound awful if the system is hooked up with poor speakers. A system's speaker is the component that takes the electronic signal from media storage devices like CDs, tapes and DVDs and turns it back into actual sound.

Now when it comes to Pc speakers we have many choices, ranging from two speaker system to eight speaker system. Out of this, three speaker setup (commonly referred to as 2.1 channel) and six speaker setup (commonly referred to as 5.1 channel) are most popular. A primary consideration in deciding between 2.1 and 5.1 speaker sets is whether its music you intend to use on the one hand, or DVD movies and games on the other. 2.1 are suited more ideally for music listening than 5.1 systems. A 2.1 Channel sound uses two stereo speakers, a subwoofer and a special surround sound decoder to create an enveloping surround sound listening experience. 2.1 Channel systems use special decoders to create the illusion of multi channel surround sound effects, commonly known as Virtual Surround Sound (VSS). Various 2.1 channel speakers use 5.1 channel decoders combined with special digital circuits that simulate the sound of rear channel speakers. A good 2.1 speaker set can outperform a 5.1 set in the same price range if mp3 and audio tracks are considered. This is because most music such as on CD is encoded with two channel playback.

There are many ways to make and present a sound recording. The simplest method is called monaural or simply mono. Mono means that all the sound is recorded onto one audio track or channel, which is typically played on one speaker. Two-channel recordings, in which sound is played on speakers on either side of the listener, are often referred to as stereo. This isn't entirely accurate, as stereo (or stereophonic) actual refers to a wider range of multi-channel recordings. Surround recordings take this idea a step further, adding more audio channels so sound comes from three or more directions. While the term "surround sound" technically refers to specific multi-channel systems designed by Dolby Laboratories, it is more commonly used as a generic term for theater and home theater multi-channel sound systems. 5.1 channel sounds is for movies-DVD movies and games. DVD movies that use DTS and Dolby Pro Logic II need a 5.1 sound system for proper reproduction of sound. Top brands include Creative, Altec Lansing, Logitech. 
For further reading click here.    

Elements of Dedicated windows hosting

If you do have a big, powerful website that gets lots of visitors and has a tendency to hog resources, then you might want to have a web server all to yourself. Some companies also prefer the extra security of not having to share the server with anyone else who could do something accidentally or on purpose to crash it. Renting the use of an entire server is known as dedicated hosting. The web hosting company still owns the machine and takes responsibility for maintaining the hardware and the web hosting software, but you have greater control over the configuration and use of the server.
If you are looking for a web hosting plan and you are considering getting a Linux-based plan or a Windows-based plan, then there are a couple of things that you need to look at.
If opting for a windows-based hosting we must consider the following features:

1. ASP Support
The obvious reason for opting a windows plan is so that you are going to use languages which are Microsoft-specific.

2. .NET Support
ASP.net is the next generation of the Microsoft's Active Server Page or ASP, which is a feature of the Internet Information Server or IIS. A lot of web hosts provide this feature for free while there are some who charge an additional fee.

3. CDONTS
CDONTS or Collaboration Data Objects for Windows NT Server is a Messaging Component which comes with Windows NT/2000. A hosting plan which is Windows-based without this feature is incomplete.

4. Databases
All windows plans support Microsoft Access 2000 Database. This would do if you are a beginner. However, for the more advanced, MSSQL is a necessity.

5. Database Connection
Make sure that the host has an option in the control panel that allows you to manage and create DSNs.

6. ASP Components
Aside from the default features, there are various third-party softwares, so check the list of the features that are provided by the host.

7. PHP and ColdFusion
ColdFusion is a language web development tool which uses server-side scripting. This is an advanced option and is not provided by all web hosting providers.

8. Control Panel
This would be your website's nucleus. In the CP or Control Panel, you would be able to do anything. From the moment that you would be signing up with a hosting plan, you have to be provided with a CP so that you would be able to easily manage your website.

9. POP3 email IDs and Aliases
An example of a POP3 ID would be name@domain.com. You should be given an ample number of POP3 email IDs - this would depend on the size of your package.

10. FTP Accounts
This would be what you could use to be able to upload all of your files, as well as delete and update them.

11. Backup
Majority of the web hosts use automated backups. However, users usually do not care a great deal about this when they choose their hosting plan. This would be a feature that is just as essential as the other features mentioned here.

12. Web Statistics
The analysis of the visitors of your website plays a big role in your website's success. With a Statistics Application which runs on the backend of the server, you would be able to view this report of visitor statistics.

13. Bandwidth
Make sure that you would be selecting the hosting plan which would be able to provide sufficient bandwidth.

14. Webmail and SMTP
Check if your host would be providing you with webmail so that you would be able to check your email messages using an interface which is web-based.

15. IP
If you have a website which would be requiring SSL Support in the future, then you need to get a dedicated IP.                                         

To read more about webhosting click here                                     

War of the browsers

Web browsers have become an integral part of our life. We all use browsers to explore the richness of internet. With so many browsers around we always have doubts as which browser to use. In general, we end up using internet explorer which comes embedded with windows. Of the zillions of browsers available today, only a few of them can be considered everlasting. Some of these ‘over the top browsers’ are: Internet Explorer (with its seventh version; aka IE7.0), Opera (latest release being 9.24), Firefox (with its second version), and Netscape. Apple has just released windows version of its famous browser “Safari”.

Internet Explorer 7.0 is a good browser, for most of the part. Now the best part with internet explorer is that it comes pre-bundled with Windows. The major change with internet explorer 7 is that Microsoft finally moved to tabbed browsing. Anti-phishing technology, an RSS reader are some of the major additions. Although Internet Explorer 7 is a good browser, it still uses the old IE 6 code and doesn’t comply with the new web standards. A slightly more secure version of Internet Explorer 7 is installed in Windows Vista operating system. IE 7 has a built-in Internet search box in the top tier of the interface. The Favorites Center replaces the Favorites sidebar and includes tabs for RSS feeds and History. IE 7 includes zoom technology and the new Clear-type page technology, which Microsoft claims renders page fonts as sharp and clear as those printed on a piece of paper. Printing within IE 7 has also been enhanced; pages are automatically shrunk to fit on the printed page. IE 7 also includes increased malware protection requiring user to opt-in when using Active X components. There are also built-in code protections against Cross-Domain script attacks and malicious URL handling. The rendering engine in IE has also remained unchanged; it still uses the IE 4 web engine. IE 7 includes Microsoft's new “Antiphishing technology”, designed to prevent users from providing personal data to fraudulent Web sites. Although there are many changes with IE 7 but most of them are cosmetic.

Released within a week after the public release of Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2.0 has various enhancements over its successor Firefox 1.5. Many new features available in Firefox 2.0 were already available to user, but as extensions. The new version of Firefox has a few cosmetic changes; the icon and theme of the browser has been changed. Most notable change with the new Firefox browser is the addition of the spell check feature. So, whether it’s writing an email or posting a comment on a forum Firefox will present you with red squiggly when ever a word is misspelled or not in dictionary. Right-clicking on the word will bring up a context menu with spelling suggestions and an option to add the word to the dictionary. The built-in Antiphishing filter, which is on by default prowls pages visited for suspicious characteristics. This feature, updated every half hour, checks against a locally stored list of addresses for known phishing sites. Another great addition to the browser is the session restore feature. Now, after crashing or restarting or adding new extension, Firefox gives you the option of starting over with a new session or starting with the old session. Prior to version 2.0 this feature was available only as an extension. Session restore is smart enough to fill-in user input in some text fields. Firefox 2.0 has support for RSS and Atom and has sports feed preview. It also has the ability to subscribe to feeds as live bookmarks, or through Web services like Bloglines, My Yahoo!, and Google Reader. Opening closed tabs is just another feature added to Firefox 2.0 so if we close a tab by mistake, it can be undone. A major change has been made with the release of Firefox 2.0 and the beta release of the Firefox 3 is already available for download.You can read about Firefox's mobile version here.

Opera is one of the world’s most renowned browsers. It was the first to offer many of the browser features that we commonly use today, such as tabbed browsing and cookie management. With opera 8, again history was made as it was the first browser to embed phishing prevention tools and site security checks. Unlike Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.0, which had significant browser interface changes, Opera 9's changes are mainly in the areas of management and configuration options. The most valuable addition to the new version of Opera is its search customization feature. Another most appreciated feature of the opera 9 browser is its ability to block selected content from any site. The new site-settings feature made it possible to define controls and settings on a site-by-site basis. Bit-torrent client has also been integrated with the new version of the browser, although the drawback is that if you close the browser the download stops, in contrast to many other bit-torrent clients which are minimized to desktop when closed. A new widgets feature made it possible to download (or create for developers) small pop-up applications that run within the browser. Opera 9 includes many small interface changes and navigation enhancements that will allow users to more quickly open tabs or access specific search sites. Opera 9 also is one of the few browsers out there that can pass the “Web Standards Project's Acid2 standards test”, something that neither Firefox 2.0 nor Internet Explorer 7.0 can yet claim. With the beta release of opera 9.5 full text history search has been added in case you forgot to add bookmark the site.
With release date for internet explorer 8 and Firefox 3 nearing by it’s going to be a tough battle.

Brand New Internet Explorer

Who needs Internet Explorer 7 when you can just wait for Internet Explorer 8? According to ActiveWin, Microsoft has already been working diligently on Internet Explorer 7's successor, and there are no plans for the team to stop for a service pack. The Internet Explorer development team will supposedly have the next version ready to go out the door within the next two years.

One Microsoft official at CES has told ActiveWin.com that work has already begun for IE 8, the next version of Internet Explorer, and we can expect to see a final product within 18-24 months. In addition, there are reportedly no plans for an interim service pack, but rather focus completely on the next version, which will compete even more directly with Firefox.

ActiveWin's report is completely plausible, but we weren't able to verify the rumor. Instead, a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars that the company is not prepared to discuss future iterations of the browser.

Microsoft is committed to Internet Explorer and is actively working on the next version of the browser. We are excited about the positive reception Internet Explorer 7 has received and are currently looking at market feedback and customer needs as we work on future versions. However we are not commenting on future plans at this time.

How do you feel about Microsoft skipping out on service packs for Internet Explorer 7 and jumping straight into Internet Explorer 8? As long as the browser is kept as secure as possible, I can't see why that would be a problem. If Microsoft is listening, I'd like to see Internet Explorer 8 be a little more developer-friendly. I use Firefox because of all the wonderful Extensions, but I would consider switching back to Internet Explorer if Microsoft had something even close to comparable. I will say that Add-Ons are definitely a step in the right direction, though.

Read about browser’s ACID test here.

Audiophile: Sound Card

An obscenely large percentage of the world’s population shares the same passion - music. With the introduction of MP3 and file sharing programs most of us now have gigabytes of music collection. No one loves if the bass coming from sub woofer is not powerful enough or the mids are not clear. When it comes to good music a dedicated sound hardware is a must, and when it comes to PC hardware making a good choice becomes really feverish.

With basic PC hardware sound, the first thing we have to decide is a sound card. We get two options here, either we can go with the onboard sound or we can have a dedicated sound card. Onboard sound has improved a lot than what it used to be a few years back. All new generation motherboard comes equipped with at least 6 channel sound as a de facto standard. Latest onboard sound cards are capable of producing 8 channel audio. Intel’s new high definition audio has not only multi stream capabilities but it can also send two or more audio streams to different locations at the same time. This means we can play decent music while voice chatting on net. Another great feature is “jack retasking”, i.e. one jack can have more than once function. The card is smart enough to detect whenever a new device is plugged in. It can change its port functionality if the device is plugged into wrong one. ALC 880 and ALC 880D are also great onboard cards which provide good 7.1 sound. It provides four 24 bit, 2 channel DACs, with sound-to-noise ratio achieving up to 100 dB; making it suitable for high multimedia PCs.

Audiophiles and music lovers often opt for dedicated sound cards. These cards have higher sound-to-noise ratio, higher bit rate and takes off load from CPU. In the area of PC sound card no one beats creative. Creative has a range of dedicated sound cards for music lovers to gamers to enthusiasts. At the low end of the hierarchy we can see “Sound Blaster Live Series”, for the mid section one can opt from the “Audigy” series of cards. For extremists and audiophiles creative has launched “X-Fi” series. The Sound Blaster Live supports up to 7.1 channel surround sound and Creative’s EAX Advanced HD Technology. Audigy series has various cards in its stack from audigy value and to Audigy 4 pro. Audigy value has a sound-to-noise ratio of 100 dB has audio quality of 24 bit/96 kHz .Audigy 2 value is a minor upgrade from the audigy value series. Audigy 2 ZS boasts Ceative’s advanced HD audio quality playback and has sound-to-noise ratio of 108 dB. It is capable of producing DVD Audio at 24 bit/ 192 kHz in stereo or 24 bit/ 96 kHz in 5.1 channel surround. The premium card of the series “Audigy 4 pro” has sound-to-noise ratio of 113 dB and supports recording up to six channels at 24 bit/ 96 kHz. The latest gem in the Creative’s bag is the X-Fi series of cards. In terms of processing power X-Fi series is supposed to have twenty four times more powerful than its predecessor. X-Fi audio processor delivers an "Active Modal Architecture" that allows, to switch between one of three modes (Gaming, Entertainment & Audio Creation) available. Various variants of card are: “X-Fi Xtreme Audio”, “X-Fi Xtreme Music”, “X-Fi platinum”, “X-Fi Fatal1ty”, and “X-Fi Elite Pro”. The Fatal1ty and Elite Pro series has an onboard X-Ram of 64 Mb. Platinum, Fatal1ty and Elite Pro connects to an external hub and comes bundled with a remote control.

Whether it’s just for music or for meeting the requirements of the top end games, sound cards (both onboard and dedicated) deliver top performance whenever asked for.For more reading visit here

Windows Registry : The Ins and Outs

With the release of Windows 95, Microsoft changed the way hardware configurations, operating system software, system preferences and user settings were stored. They introduced a centralized hierarchical database which we call “the registry”. Initially it was introduced to chuck away the INI files mess. The hierarchy separates the user information, machine information and software information into various logical units so that it can be manipulated easily. When Windows starts, registry is crawled to get configuration data regarding software, hardware and other system peripherals which have been configured. Physically, the registry information is stored in multiple files in \system32\config folder of the operating system, the names of some of the registry files being Sam, Sam.log, Sam.sav, Security, Security.log, Security.sav These files cannot be directly edited and we need registry editing program like “regedit” for that, which comes bundled with windows.

The Registry is a hierarchical structure similar to directory/file tree in the computer. It is divided into six main branches called ‘hives’. Each of these hives contains keys, sub-keys and may contain further sub-keys. Each key/ sub-key contains a value. Any information regarding software is stored in these values. Key values are mainly of three types namely String, Binary, and DWORD. String values are used for human readable text entries, binary values for hardware and device settings; DWORD values are used for Boolean entries, where we have a list of choices to make.

Hives are the topmost portions of the hierarchical data tree. Each Hive contains a certain category of information. Depending on the version of Windows running there will be 5 or 6 different hives. These six hives are: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, HKEY_USERS, HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG, and HKEY_DYN_DATA. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT contains all information related to file associations, shortcuts, Windows user interface and OLE (object linking and embedding) information. HKEY_CURRENT_USER contains all information regarding preferences and configuration for the particular user who is currently logged in. it includes information such as desktop settings, logon names and other user-specific information. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE contains the configuration for the actual computer. It contains all the information regarding hardware, software and all the PC specific preferences that are common to all users who log in to that very specific machine. HKEY_USERS contains information for all the users that have ever logged onto that specific computer. Each specific user is identified by a unique security identifier called the SID. All information regarding every user who has ever logged in is stored under SID and is copied to HKEY_CURRENT_USER at login. HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG contains the information about current hardware configuration. When the system starts, this information is merged to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE hive. This information is not stored and is regenerated every time the computer boots up. HKEY_DYN_DATA contains all data regarding plug and play devices and is linked to portions of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. The information is not stored and is regenerated every time system starts up.

Hives contain keys and sub-keys which can contain values or sub-keys. Keys are the organizational part of Windows registry. They are similar to folders and can contain further sub-keys or the file which we call values. Values contain the actual data that is being stored in a Key or a Sub-key. These values are primarily of three types: string, binary and DWORD. The string type values are of three types: REG_SZ which is standard string used to display human-readable text. REG_EXPAND_SZ, which is an expandable data string, permits storage of values that can be replaced by actual values by the application calling the key. REG_MULTI_SZ is used to store lists or multiple values, each entry being separated by a NULL character. A binary value is used to store information as raw binary data and is used for hardware components. A DWORD is four bytes in length. It is used by device drivers and various services to toggle between various options.

Windows registry plays an important role in keeping the computer safe and secure. Modifying any part of the registry must be done with utmost care as a wrong value can make the computer inoperable.

RAID: what lies beneath????

RAID is the abbreviation for “Redundant Array of Independent Disks.” It refers to the technology of storing data with a higher degree of protection and/or performance than regular storage. A number of standard schemes have evolved which are also known as levels. Originally RAID was designed with five different levels, they being RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 1+0, RAID 0+1, RAID 3+0. RAID combines physical hard disks into a single logical unit by using either special hardware or software. It works on the concepts of Data Mirroring, Data Striping, and Parity Checks. Different levels use different approach like RAID 0 uses only striping, RAID 1 uses only mirroring, further levels include parity checks and/or a combination of these. The configuration affects reliability and performance in different ways. RAID systems can be designed to keep working when there is failure - disks can be hot swapped and data recovered automatically while the system keeps running. Users in general would not realize that a disk has failed, and would continue to work normally. The use of RAID allows the disk in question to be changed, and the data restored and updated, without hampering work. Although RAID can help recover and replicate the data, it cannot stop viruses or Trojan horses to enter the system, and the worst part is that these malicious codes will affect all the disks in configuration equally. Today we can see various levels of RAID ranging from RAID 0 to RAID 6. Minimum number of disk required by any of this configuration is 2, with RAID 6 requiring a minimum of 4 hard disks.
For proper functioning of the RAID array, the RAID BIOS, which controls the reads and writes of the data to the disks, must be available to the operating system. With the application of RAID increasing day by day various companies have come up with their own non-standard versions of RAID, DVRAID and RAID S being a few.

The Free Office

Everyone loves free stuff and when it comes to software everyone has its own definition of free. For most of us free actually means downloading pirated software from warez sites, but for the rest of the masses (those who doesn’t believe in piracy) Linux and OpenOffice.org are the names that comes to mind. In recent years, the popularity of OpenOffice.org has grown by leaps and bounds. With its version 3.0 set to be released in 2008, the suite is second in popularity next only to Microsoft Office.
OpenOffice.org (OO.o or OOo) is an office suite application which is available for various operating systems. As its default format OpenOffice supports OpenDocument standard for data interchange. In addition to that it also supports Office '97-2003 formats. OpenOffice is based on Sun Microsystems’s office suite package StarOffice. The source code for the suite was released in the year 2000. OpenOffice is a collection of various applications like Base, Calc, Draw, Impress, Math, and Writer. Base is a database application that will help you create and manage databases—similar to Microsoft Access. Calc is a spreadsheet application similar to Microsoft Excel. Draw is a charting application that lets you make flowcharts, network diagrams and any other organization charts. Impress is similar to Microsoft PowerPoint—it is a presentation creation tool. Math is a formula manipulation tool that can be used inside other OOo applications,
or as a standalone tool as well. Finally, there’s Writer, a word processing application that is OOo’s answer to Microsoft Word. The suite also has a small program known as QuickStarter which runs when the computer boots for the first time. It loads the core files and libraries for OpenOffice.org during computer startup and allows the suite applications to start more quickly when selected later.
API of the suite is based on a component technology known as Universal Network Objects (UNO). It has a wide range of interfaces defined in a CORBA-like interface description language. The document file format used is based on several export and import filters and XML. All external formats are converted back and forth from an internal XML representation. By using compression when saving XML to disk, files are smaller in size than the equivalent binary Microsoft office documents.

Internet Explorer 8 coming up

Microsoft Internet Explorer (most commonly known as IE) is the Microsoft’s graphical web browser. Having its debut launch in 1995 IE is one of the most widely used web browser today. With seven versions already launched, Microsoft has announced release of its eighth version in 2008. It will be Microsoft’s first major update in the browser technology since IE-7. In December 2007 Microsoft announced that Pre-Beta code for IE-8 has already passed the so-called ACID2 compatibility test (a test which determines how well a browser works with different web standards). IE-8 will have support for CSS 2.1, Data: Uri’s, CSS generated content and the HTML tag ‘abbr’. Dean Hachamovitch, the guy who runs the IE team, said that beta release of IE-8 is expected in the first half of 2008 although it is unclear when IE-8 will be officially launched.

DirectX 10 what's new???

Microsoft DirectX is a set of APIs for handling tasks related to multimedia, and gaming. It was designed to provide a much broader gaming or multimedia environment. Starting off with DirectX 3, various DirectX versions are out, namely DirectX 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. It works by giving direct access to low-level functions of a peripheral by providing a set of APIs (application programming interface).Every new version of DirectX adds support for new hardware features, allowing game developers to push the boundaries of realism a little bit further.
DirectX9 being a huge hit embedded a lot of unique and new features but due to fixed number of vertex units and pixel processing units and its huge dependability on CPU DirectX9 had to face problems like API object overhead.
With games becoming more and more realistic there was need for a newer and powerful API, and the answer came as DirectX 10.The API of DirectX 10 has been written from ground and the new and improved API reduces API overhead to a greater extent. Object overhead is also reduced so that more unique objects can be shown in a scene at one time. A new exciting feature called Geometry shader is added in the new API. So, what makes DirectX10 so powerful? The answer lies in the unified architecture of the new API. This unified API and GPU architecture sums the traditional vertex, pixel and geometry units into one processing units instead of separate ones. So the API can handle these instructions through one single instruction only. The key idea behind a unified architecture is to make the GPU from a render processor to a complete processor; i.e the GPU can now perform more functions like physics, AI, animation and many other processes improving the gaming experience. New features will also allow the possibility of new 3D effects in games.
Although power packed the only demerit with DirectX10 is that it is tied to Windows Vista, so in need to experience DirectX10 powered games we have to switch to windows vista. For now, the DirectX 10 API is a move in the right direction when it comes to gaming, and it can be easily said that it will allow future GPUs from ATI and NVIDIA to rise in the gaming arena.
The figure shows how images are rendered in DirectX10: