IPad 3 To Sport A Quad Core Processor?

Posted By On The 15-1-2012 In the Category Tablets And Accessories

Rumour has it that the iPad 3 ( rumored for march 2012 ) will sport a quad core processor dubbed by Apple the A6. This will keep the company at the cutting edge of the processor manufacturing technology.

Although the processor won’t be the first piece tablet based quad core hardware to go on sale, it is rumored to be one of the first manufactured using just 28nm technology. This will make the processor smaller, faster and more efficient than its predecessors.

The iPad 3 is also rumored to be sporting a retina display and a smaller lighter and longer lasting battery.

As always Apple are keeping very quiet about any official features of the device, but the above rumors are very strong, and have some very reliable sources, but Apple could always be feeding false information, I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.

Do you think Apple will give me one to review??

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We Are Back

Posted By On The 15-1-2012 In the Category News And Reviews

We have not updated this site for far too long, but expect big things such as a complete redesign, a large return to posting the latest in technology news and reviews and perhaps even a forum or a discussion board to enable this site to reach its potential.

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Adobe CS5 is Here

Posted By On The 13-4-2010 In the Category Software, Web Development

Along with any top notch computer, you need top notch software to back it all up!

Well Adobe has entered the prelaunch of the much anticipated CS5 range. You can now Pre-Order the CS5 range from Adobe Special Offers And until the end of April, they are offering free shipping.

Over the next week or so i will be reviewing the big three, Dreamweaver, Flash and Photoshop individually and in detail. But for now here is a rundown of the features:

Dreamweaver CS5:

  • CSS inspection – The updates to Dreamweavers CSS inspection in CS5 will allow you to Visually display the CSS box model in detail, and easily toggle CSS properties without reading code or needing to use a separate utility.
  • Integration with Adobe BrowserLab – This powerful new feature will allow you to preview dynamic web pages and local content with multiple viewing, diagnostic, and comparison tools.
  • PHP custom class code hinting – Another powerful new feature will allow you to display proper syntax for custom PHP functions to help you write code more accurately.
  • CSS starter pages – This feature has been greatly updated, with prebuilt CSS setups making it much faster and easier to build your clients or yourself a top quality website.
  • Integration with Business Catalyst – this will allow you to leverage integration between Dreamweaver and the Adobe Business Catalyst® service (available separately) to deliver powerful online businesses without programming.
  • Subversion support – This will allow you to Manage site files more effectively in collaborative, version-controlled environments with enhanced support for Subversion® software.
  • Site-specific code hinting – This will let you Benefit from code hinting on nonstandard files and directories in Dreamweaver such as wordpress and Joomla.
  • Simple site setup – Set up websites faster than ever, even with multiple servers for staged or networked sites.

Photoshop CS5

  • Design interactive content without writing code – Start with artwork created in Photoshop Extended, import it into Adobe Flash® Catalyst™, and deliver it as an interactive prototype or as finished content for viewing in Adobe Flash Player.
  • Extraordinary painting effects – Achieve natural and realistic painting effects with the Mixer Brush, which offers on-canvas color blending; Bristle Tips, which let you create lifelike, textured brush strokes; an onscreen color picker; and more.
  • Content-Aware Fill – Remove any image detail or object and watch as Content-Aware Fill magically fills in the space left behind. This breakthrough technology matches lighting, tone, and noise so it looks as if the removed content never existed.
  • Complex selections made easy – Easily select intricate image elements, such as hair, for refinements, compositing, or placing in layout. Eliminate background color around selection edges, and automatically vary selection edges and perfect masks using new refinement tools.
  • Puppet Warp – Precisely warp or stretch graphics, text, or image elements to create unique new looks for your designs.
  • Superior HDR imaging – Create photo-realistic or surreal HDR images with unprecedented speed, control, and accuracy. Get better-than-ever results thanks to automatic ghost removal and greater control with tone mapping and adjustments, and even give single-exposure photos the look of HDR.
  • Efficient Workflow – Enjoy productivity and creativity boosts thanks to dozens of features and enhancements requested by Photoshop users. Straighten images automatically, choose colors from an onscreen color picker, adjust the opacity of many layers at once, and more.
  • Better media management – Easily manage media with more flexible batch renaming, and access your assets in the context of what you’re working on by using the customizable Adobe Mini Bridge panel in Photoshop Extended.
  • 3D extrusions with Adobe Repoussé – Create 3D logos and artwork from any text layer, selection, path, or layer mask with Adobe Repoussé technology. Twist, rotate, extrude, bevel, and inflate your designs.
  • State-of-the-art raw image processing – Use the Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 6 plug-in to nondestructively remove image noise while preserving color and detail; add grain to make digital photos look more organic; enjoy more control when performing post-crop vignetting; and more.
  • Enhanced 3D realism and rich materials – Enhance 3D objects and designs with easy shadow creation, image-based lights, and materials like glass and chrome. Explore with different focus points in your 3D scene by adjusting the range for depth of field.
  • Faster performance across platforms – Speed up day-to-day imaging tasks and process very large images up to 10 times faster by taking advantage of cross-platform 64-bit support. (Requires a 64-bit-capable computer with a 64-bit version of Mac OS, Microsoft® Windows® 7, or Windows Vista®. Actual performance varies depending on amount of RAM, driver types, and other factors.)

Flash CS5

  • Text engine – Take complete control over your text with print-quality typography via the new Text Layout Framework.
  • Code Snippets panel – Reduce the ActionScript® 3.0 learning curve and enable greater creativity by injecting prebuilt code into projects.
  • ActionScript editor – Speed the development process with an improved ActionScript editor, including custom class code hinting and code completion.
  • Creative Suite integration – Enhance productivity when using Adobe Creative Suite® components such as Adobe Photoshop®, Illustrator®, InDesign®, and Flash Builder™.
  • Flash Builder integration – Use Flash Builder as your primary ActionScript editor for Flash Professional projects.
  • Video improvements – Streamline video processes with on-stage video scrubbing and a new cue points property inspector.
  • XML-based FLA source files – Manage and modify projects using source control systems and collaborate on files more easily.
  • Wide content distribution – Publish content virtually anywhere, using Adobe AIR® for desktop applications and mobile platforms including the iPhone®*, or Adobe Flash Player for browser-based experiences.
  • Spring for Bones – Create more realistic inverse kinematic effects with new motion attributes added to the Bones tool.
  • Deco drawing tools – Add advanced animation effects with a new comprehensive set of brushes for the Deco tool.

So as you can see, adobe has been working very hard to bring you the very cutting edge in high quality software, it should be well worth the price tag.

Don’t forget to check out Adobe Special Offers and see what all the fuss is about for yourself.

I will be bringing you much more about these exciting products over the coming weeks.

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The AMD Phenom Range

Posted By On The 26-2-2010 In the Category AMD

The AMD phenom range of processors has been around for a since 2007 and the range of their processors include dual, triple and quad core processors.

These include the single and dual core versions as well as the x3 and x4.

Today I will be focusing on the x3 and x4 processors for my review.

The Phenom x3

This powerful triple core processor has an L1 cache of 64 KB data and 64 KB of instruction per core, An L2 cache of 512 KB per core and an L3 cache of 2 MB, which is shared between all the cores.

It has a dual channel DDR2-1066 MHz memory controller with unganging option, sits in an AM2+ socket and runs at 2.1 to 2.5 Ghz.

These are well priced, retailing on ebay for just $24 at the time of writing this.

The Phenom x4

These little suckers are essentially the same as the x3 with the l1 cache of 64 KB data and instruction, L2 cache of 512 KB per core and an L3 cache of 2 MB. The only major difference is that it has 4 cores instead of just 3.

These are retailing for around the $100 mark at the time of writing this article.

While they aren’t as good as the Intel chips, they are very cheap and if you have an AMD Motherboard, sorry but unless you are willing to buy a new MOBO, you are stuck with one of these.

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i3 vs i5 vs i7

Posted By On The 09-2-2010 In the Category Intel

While these are certainly great little chips, the have some key differences in the chip architecture which leads on to speed and capabilities as well as the all important price!
I3 :
the i3-xxx series processor chips run on an LGA-1156 socket and have a factory clock speed of 2.4 to 3.0g Ghz, and while they are only dual core processors, they certainly still pack a punch with an L3 cache of 3-4 Mb and at the time of writing this, they are retailing on ebay for as little as $124 ,Thats is not a whole heap for a powerful little processor!

I5:

The I5 6xx and I57xx processors come in either dual or quad core and certainly pack a punch with a FSB speed of 2.5 Gt/s, an L2 cache of 256 MB and an L3 cache of 4 to 8 Mb and also run on an LGA-1156 socket.

At the time of writing, these little powerhouses are retailing on ebay for as little as $170

I7:

The i7 6xx, 7xx, 8xx and 9xx processors sit in either an LGA 1156 or 1366 socket and are all quad core. They pack a serious punch with a FSB speed of either 4.8 or 6.4 Gt/s, an L2 cache of 4×256 Mb and an L3 cache of 6-8 Mb!

At the time of writing these babies are retailing for as little as $255 on Ebay!

If you want the ultimate performance though, the I7 9xx(x) processors are 6 core powerhouses, they sit in an LGA 1366 socket with a FSB speed of 12.8 GT/s an L2 cache of 6×256 KB and an L3 cache of 12 MB these retail in excess of 2G so you are going to need to shell out for one of these, but think of the competition you are going to crush!

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The intel 2010 Core Processor Family

Posted By On The 09-2-2010 In the Category Intel

The New 2010 Core Processor family is shaping up to be some interesting little gadgets which have been cooked up by Intel’s engineers to bring you only the best of the latest technology in the Processor market, please see the following videos for details on what these babies can do!

all I can say is “wow, cant wait to get my hands on one of these!”

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Dual Core Or Quad Core?

Posted By On The 08-2-2010 In the Category News And Reviews, Processors

Well, This one is at the moment a tough one to answer, It all depends on the use and abuse you are going to put your system through and of course, like everything else, it all boils down to price.

If you want to check your emails once a week then there really is no need to buy a PC at all, just $2 to your local internet cafe will do the trick, But on the other end of the spectrum if you are going to spend your time playing the latest games and need a machine that is going to keep up to the ever increasing demand from game developers, you are definately going to need to invest in the latest Intel i7 or AMD phenom!

Read on for a quick guide to dual and quad core processors.

Pre Dual Core:

Well you can pick up a 3ghz Pentium 4 for almost nothing nowadays, find an auction on eBay and its all yours, that will still run a PC, check emails, surf the web, all the basics not a problem just don’t expect it to make you a coffee in the morning, in fact don’t expect it to do much without at least 5 to 10 minutes to startup (a Bit like me!)

Dual Core

These are still very decent processors to use and will run nearly any application you can throw at it, even half decent games if you have an upper market one, As I write this these range in price from $20 to $280 on ebay depending on exact specs.

Quad Core

These are top of the line processors and will run any software that is available today, top of the line games and will damn near make a coffee in the morning (but if there is coffee pouring out of the CD-Rom drive, I’m pretty sure you have major problems!).
As I write this, they range in price on Ebay from around $200 to $1400, If you want to future proof your PC for as long as possible, it is highly recommended that you go for one of these bad boys!

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