What the HELL - x16/x16 vs. x8/x8 crossfire

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crossfire-pci-express,2095.html

I don't have any revelations about this. What I can tell you is there is about a 5% performance loss with x8/x8. However there is a rule of thumb that might work.

As you increase the graphics processing requirements such as higher resolutions usually above 1600 x 1200 or as you turn up the shader and AA as your FPS drops the gap between x8 and x16 will grow larger. Now understand this is with both cards running at x8 or both at x16. A single card of the same model will never out pace a crossfire setup.

If your above 60fps on x16 you won't see much change. You might see 58fps on x8

At 50fps you will see about 45fps on x8. At 40fps you will see about 25fps at x8.

So this basically tells us the harder the cards work the bigger the gap. If you aren't pushing the limits of the cards you will likely only see your best performance gains with crossfire at very high resolutions.

Mock Me with Mockingbird

http://gomockingbird.com/

Mockingbird is an online tool that makes it easy for you to create, link together, preview, and share mockups of your website or application.

No flash is needed to run this.

Windows 7 can't fail? Well back it up anyways for free.

Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Edition

NEW 10.2 Edition - Total PC Protection for Serious Users!

Take complete control of your PC’s safety. Based on solid commercial backup and recovery software from Paragon, the new Backup & Recovery 10.2 Free Edition will give you a rich set of features that you can trust.

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A professional backup solution for home/non-commercial use for free and it supports Windows 7.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/

Watching Grass Grow or Video Conversion

So you spent a truck load of cash to build the worlds most powerful home super computer but your not a gamer. You managed to convince your wife somehow you need this kind of power for touching up family pictures or creating that musical master piece. You won't be able to prove this me. The only other reason you need this kind of horsepower is for video conversion.

Express video conversion software MediaShow Espresso is for converting your videos for playback on your smart phone, iPhone, iPad, PSP, Xbox 360, on YouTube, and more.

I'm only going to write about how this new software is taking advantage of the capability of the investment you made making your PC a virtual super computer. Many of the other features available can be seen at the web site.

http://www.cyberlink.com/products/mediashow-espresso/overview_en_US.html

The software uses multi core CPU's processing muscle to transcode videos. Support for multi-threading allows MediaShow Espresso to utilize up to 4 processing cores at once.

They also utilize the stream processors in your GPU to convert your videos faster than ever with optimization for hardware acceleration technologies from Intel® Core™ i3, i5, and i7; NVIDIA® CUDA™; and ATI® Stream™.

CyberLink is leveraging ATI's Unified Video Decoder (UVD) in its MediaShow Espresso video converter application. This allows it to quickly convert digital video files for use on portable devices like Apple's iPhone and Sony PSP. CyberLink has also optimized its PowerDirector 7 video editing software to take advantage of ATI Stream.

Tests conducted by ATI showed a reduction in transcoding time of at least 50% in most applications. For example, a 94 second 1920x1080 video encoded at 24 frames per second using H.264 took 131 seconds to transcode to a format suitable for the iPhone using just the CPU. It took just 46 seconds using a mid-range Radeon HD 4670 video card, reducing the time needed by almost 65%. Results would be even more dramatic using a higher end Radeon 4870 or Radeon 4890 GPU. Addition GPUs through CrossFire would provide even greater performance improvements.

So at $40 this might not be High Tech on a Budget but with $1000 dollars or more into a high end system this by comparison not only makes good sense but it is a steal.

We are being force fed HDCP

Flat Screen, PC & CRT monitor, HDTV, Plasma, Projectors
It is with great regret that we inform you of the ways in which the industry wishes to ruin your enjoyment of high definition movies or gaming at home. If you’ve ever watched 720p or 1080p games or movies, you know how amazing it is. At 5 times the resolution of normal television, it looks fantastic. And the quality of the movies on a Blu-ray or HD-DVD disc is even better, because of less compression. We want it, and you want it. Right?

Well, there’s just one problem. The movie and gaming industry assumes you are a criminal, and has added technologies to PS3, Blu-ray and HD-DVD player’s digital output that vastly restrict your potential enjoyment of their HD content.

Reasons to be outraged and furious :

How old is your HDTV? If you bought it prior to 2005, and there are many millions of you who did, the MPAA thinks you shouldn’t be able to watch HD movies in high definition. They are insisting that your TV supports digital encryption via an HDMI port or an HDCP-compliant DVI port, which these earlier TV’s lack. If you have to stoop so low as to hook up your shiny new player or ps3 via, God forbid, analog (component), the industry thinks you’re not worthy. There’s a fun little surprise they built in to Blu-ray and HD-DVD for people just like you, and it’s called the Image Constaint Token. If it’s enabled on a movie, and your connection does not support HDCP, then the movie is downsampled to 1/4 its native resolution, which is essentially the same as a standard DVD if not a black screen.
Thinking about buying a new HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive for your computer? Or a Full HD (hdmi) graphic card ? If you want to use them to watch movies, think again. You’ll need to buy a lot more than just the drive and the graphic card. You’ll need to open up that wallet of yours for a brand new HDCP-compliant monitor. Notice the word compliant. That is very important. There are some products that just claim to be HDCP “compatible”, but they will NOT work for viewing high definition movies.
Even if your RGB display (PC monitor, LCD, Plasma, Projector, HDTV) is technically able to display 720p or 1080p. Blu-Ray Player, HDMI graphic card or PS3 will refuse to output any HD content on it. The specifications of your bought display are “downscaled” by the industry, and it won’t change till you buy a new one. Finally, while we’re all in lynch mode, let us add the last anti-hurrah. Any RGB displays without HDCP, also known as most TV/HDTV/Monitors/Projectors in the World, are subject to the exact same problem.
In 2004, HDTV penetration in the US was estimated at 10 percent. Of those TVs, most of them do not support HDCP (although TVs sold today do, by and large). Estimate for HDTV just in the U.S is around 3 to 6.6 millions units. World estimate for RGB displays that are technically able to display 720p or 1080p including PC monitors would be near hundred of millions!
The fact that the industry is pushing hundred of millions of displays in a trashcan is against any environmental logic!
However, if you’re heading out this weekend to drop US$3,000 on a TV, chances are high that it will support HDCP. The same can’t be said of monitors, sadly. Apple’s US$2999.99 30″ display doesn’t support HDCP, and only a handful of Dell’s various options do. If you’re in the market for a new display, you might want to wait until some units are shipping with HDCP support.

The revolution will be televised, only it won’t be in HD unless your pockets have paid for a brand new display.

What Dreams May Become - Make your own Iphone and Droid Apps

http://www.appcelerator.com/

We all have that one idea that we hold on to because we are affraid it will get stolen yet it will never hit the market because we don't have the skills to build it. You still likely don't have the skills but this might be your chance to give it a try without having to be a expert programmer.

This is free with free community support or you can get better support packages for a fee.

Titanium makes cross-platform native application development easy.

A free and open source application development platform, Titanium let’s you create native mobile and desktop application experiences using existing web skills like Javascript, HTML, CSS, Python, Ruby, and PHP. Learn More.

Rich Multimedia

Titanium offers music, photo and video streaming/storing on a user’s device as well as custom video playback controls.

Flexible Storage: Filesystem, Database On Device

Store user preferences, save data files, or implement the mobile version of a cookie using SQL Lite and the iPhone / Android’s native file system.

Unlimited Extensibility

Titanium’s plug-in architecture allows you code modules in Objective-C or Java to extend your mobile app with custom native functionality and then call those modules using Javascript in Titanium.

Your Best Shot: Access the Camera or Video Camera

Snap a photo or video, store it on the phone, and push it to Flickr, Youtube, or your website.

Cloud-Connected Apps

RESTful web services are easy to tap into with Titanium. We’ve also included a full SOAP client for making SOAP API requests. And we’ve bundled in support for over 300 APIs via Yahoo YQL.

Code like it’s the year 2020: HTML5 and CSS3 support

Built on top of the latest Webkit rendering engine, Titanium lets you develop advanced animations and sophisticated interface




You can also check out this site that is iphone only:
http://gamesalad.com/products/creator

The Sky is the Limit - Not Really

http://www.stellarium.org/

Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.
It is being used in planetarium projectors. Just set your coordinates and go.



sky

* default catalogue of over 600,000 stars
* extra catalogues with more than 210 million stars
* asterisms and illustrations of the constellations
* constellations for twelve different cultures
* images of nebulae (full Messier catalogue)
* realistic Milky Way
* very realistic atmosphere, sunrise and sunset
* the planets and their satellites




interface

* a powerful zoom
* time control
* multilingual interface
* fisheye projection for planetarium domes
* spheric mirror projection for your own low-cost dome
* all new graphical interface and extensive keyboard control
* telescope control



visualisation

* equatorial and azimuthal grids
* star twinkling
* shooting stars
* eclipse simulation
* skinnable landscapes, now with spheric panorama projection

customisability

* plugin system adding artifical satellites, ocular simulation, telescrope configuration and more
* add your own deep sky objects, landscapes, constellation images, scripts...