Hardware

Microsoft’s Win8 Secure Boot

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Since most of my readers are Windows people this is an issue worth bring up. It seems Microsoft wants to build in a feature named Secure Boot. It will be an integral part of the coming Windows 8. It sounds like a good reason to upgrade to Windows 7 and hold off Win8 as long as possible.

Booting

Everything seems to have a boot process. Booting takes time and is prone to root kit attacks. Microsoft is looking at redoing the boot process. With this rethink they are including phones, tablets, pads, laptops, and desktops.

What will all the rethinking look like to the end user? They have a cool video, about a minute long.

The Challenges

Think about how the process might work on phones, pads, and tablets. All seems pretty straight forward, until you think about when a device has problems. If you’re on a smart phone you do not want to see Press F1 when there is some problem. So, using a similar process across a wide range of devices can get complex.

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KirstenLee GPU Awards

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I think most Second Life residents have some interest in graphic cards for their computer. I see and hear of people with various graphics problems in #SL. Problems are related to various cards and driver versions. There are so many variables it is hard to know which card would be a good one to upgrade to. Tuesday morning I saw that KirstenLee had published information on which cards were doing well with S21 viewer.

Check out: Kirstens GPU Awards 2011 !

Video Card
Video Card

Other Ratings

There are other sources of good information on video cards. Only Kirsten’s is specifically targeted at Second Life. Others are more about the geeky pure performance factors. If you are interested in knowing the muscle a card has, check these sources;

Tom’s Hardware – This site reviews computer hardware. There are sections on the individual components, like graphics cards. For those that need single slot cards (space limited) see: Single-Slot Graphics: Whose Card Is Fastest? Most high performance graphics cards plug into one slot but are so thick they use up two slots. For the best overall see: Best Graphics Cards For The Money: May 2011. Of course this article will become out dated. So, check down the left side of the home page for the latest reviews.

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