Saturday, July 26, 2008

Gizmo - Call US for free from anywhere in the world

If you are using a PC connected to the net, having the Gizmo application, you can call any US numbers for free from anywhere in the world as long as you are connected to the net and logged in to the app.
But, first check if the number called for free using this link - http://gizmo5.com/pc/backdoor/

The number displayed on the receivers phone can be used to call back, condition being that you are logged into the app and connected to net.

You can download the app to your mobile and use it the same way.

Have fun :)

Sunday, July 13, 2008

How to buy a computer

If you wanted to upgrade and with rising price thought 'let me defer the decision and the below article would be a good one to read'
I like to read such articles because they are not just written with imagination, but with practical use
Cubic: How to buy a computer

Monday, July 07, 2008

AMD PUMA Platform (for laptops)

Till now playing games or watching HD Videos on ones laptop was not such an exciting thing to do due to lack of graphic capability on the laptops.
The IGP (Integrated Graphics Platform) which typically means that the cpu also doubles up for all the graphics work, has been bane to the gaming community, the reason why IGP are choosen for the laptops is that they consume less power, less heat and hence elongated battery life as compared to a discrete graphics card and the industry thinking is that (read Intel) is that since laptops is mostly used by people to work on word documents, surf the web, watch you tube, it is ok to have a weak IGP solution.
But now its a thing of the part, AMD has broken the mold and the new 780G motherboard chipset contacins a HD3200 GPU integrated and has a Turion Ultra processor, this is the PUMA platform and is going to chage the way laptops will be percieved, if you arent satisfied with the improved graphic performance, there is a provision of an port to plug-in an external GPU which was not practical till date.

Read more about AMD's PUMA

The following video compares the AMD 780G chipset with intel G35








See the difference :)

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Buying a Motherboard Simplified

I always wondered how does one decide what to buy when you are assembling a PC, One of the biggest concern is choosing the motherboard, since a lot of compatibility issue arises with what processor, graphic cards it supports.
I was never a tech enthusiast on the intricacies of the mobo (this I picked up offlate, short term for motherboard), but reading this article on techworld.nl has helped gain a good insight on motherboards and how to choose the right one for your pc.

Read the complete article at
How to Buy a Motherboard

ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series - Redefine the way you play

All the gaming and graphic development enthusiasts need not wait longer, they can have the state of art graphics card at a throw away price compared to all the competition available, AMD has releases the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series cards.
With more than twice the processing power of previous generation discrete graphics cards, ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series graphics cards deliver a cinematic gaming experience and unprecedented performance made possible through the TeraScale graphics engine, with this card in PC, one can watch Blu-ray movies and play HD content with incredible visual fidelity or take your experience to another level with new multimedia capabilities all this without any compromise in the performance.

ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series – Key Features (Source : AMD website)

  • TeraScale Graphics Engine - The new TeraScale graphics engine features over one teraFLOPS, nearly one billion transistors and 800 stream processors so you can enjoy the high resolutions and fast frame rates previously only available with dual-card systems.
  • Advanced Memory - GDDR5 memory provides twice the bandwidth per pin of GDDR3.
  • Enhanced Anti-Aliasing & Anisotropic Filtering - High performance anisotropic filtering and 24x custom filter anti-aliasing (CFAA) smooth jagged edges and create true-to-life graphics, for everything from grass to facial features.
  • DirectX® 10.1 - Play today while preparing for tomorrow with state-of-the-art DirectX 10.1 graphics capabilities.
  • ATI CrossFireX™ Technology - ATI CrossFireX™ technology with up to quad GPU support offers superior scalability so your system is ready to level up when you are.
  • PCI Express 2.0 - Support for PCI Express 2.0 will prepare you for bandwidth-hungry games and 3D applications.
  • Unified Video Decoder 2 (UVD 2) - UVD 2 frees up your CPU for other tasks so you get The Ultimate Visual Experience™ for even the most processing-intensive content, including VC-1, H.264 and now MPEG-2. Also, take full advantage of Blu-ray functionality with dual-stream, picture in picture (PIP) capabilities.
  • Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT) - AVT allows you to convert videos to H.264 and MPEG-2 formats up to 19x faster than when using a just CPU.3 Full 1080p files can be converted to H.264 and MPEG-2 up to 1.8x faster than real-time.3
  • Upscale Beyond 1080p - Watch the hottest Blu-ray movies or other HD content at full 1080p display resolution and beyond.
  • Enhanced DVD Upscaling - Watch standard DVD movies in near high-definition quality with DVD upscaling. The GPU uses post processing algorithms to enhance standard and low resolution videos and movies on your HD display.
  • Dynamic Contrast - Dynamic Contrast automatically adjusts the contrast and brightness during scenes to consistently deliver a crisp, vibrant picture.
  • HDMI - Enjoy the latest audio technologies using HDMI with 7.1 digital surround sound support. Also, xvYCC support allows the user to enjoy a wider range of color when connected to a capable HDTV.
  • Dynamic Power Management - ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series graphics cards deliver high performance when needed and conserve power when the demand on the graphics processor is low.
  • More Performance Per Watt - ATI Radeon HD 4800 series delivers up to 2x the performance per watt of AMD’s previous generation
    GPUs.
Read the complete review of HD 4850 done by Anandtech

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Smart PC buying

With good planning, this article tell one how one can buy a very good PC with a limited budget, the choice is obvious - AMD.
I found the article a very nice read and gives one an insight that with proper planning and making the right choice you can have a very good PC.

Read the entire article