[H]ardNews 9th Edition

Senator Clinton On GTA:

Game Industry magazine says that Hilary Clinton is against GTA and wants $90 million to study the impact of games on the "cognitive, social, emotional and physical development" of children. That is about $2 for every male under the age of 18 in the United States. Sweet.

Former first lady aligns with hardline right-wingers to slam Grand Theft Auto New York senator and former first lady Hillary Clinton has launched an attack on violent videogames, singling out Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto titles as a "major threat" to morality.

I don’t suppose there is any chance of the government giving [H]ard|OCP $90 million dollars to study games too is there? Just checking.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

Gigabyte GA-K8VT890-9:

The Tech Report has the Gigabyte GA-K8VT890-9 VIA K8T890 powered, socket 939 motherboard on the test bench this after noon. Good inexpensive entry level board, enthusiasts will want to look elsewhere.

It's hard to expect a lot from a board with an $82 price tag, and when the GA-K8VT890-9 hits the street, prices could dip even lower. With that in mind, the GA-K8VT890-9 could be a compelling option for someone looking for the cheapest way to get in on PCI Express with Socket 939.

ATi Radeon X850XT-PE:

Doc Overclock and the crew at Motherboards.org has taken a look at the ATi Radeon X850XT-PE and offer their thoughts on the latest from ATi. You can see our review here for comparison purposes.

The X850XT PE from ATI is an enthusiast's dream card. No other card has more performance on the market unless you purchase a SLI system. In that comparison, the X850XT PE is the better buy, as an SLI system will require 2 6800GT cards to outperform the X850XT PE and cost $250 more.

GeCube X850XT Uniwise:

The oddly named GeCube X850XT Uniwise (that is “uni” not “un”) grabbed a bit of the spotlight today at Hexus. The highlight of the card is the single slot design heatpipe cooler. For more on the X850XT, you can see our review of the VisionTek branded card here.

To sum up, it's the mighty R480 core in full four quad mode with a cooler to make it all worth it, that'll do XT PE speeds without question.

[H]ardNews 7th Edition

[H]ardForum [H]appenings:

Tuesday’s edition of [H]ardForum [H]appenings is upon us and I need a free energy drink already. I must be getting old. The latest [H]ardforum poll is asking if people still stealth their CD/DVD drives. Thanks to the widespread availability black drives, I don’t worry about it anymore. You? Take the poll. Apple Mac Mini owners wanting to upgrade their RAM will want to check out this thread. There are good pictures of the Corsair RAM upgrade. While we are on the subject of RAM, make sure you check out our memory FAQ before you do your next upgrade. Just for good measures, and since we are on the subject of RAM, how about this deal of the day link for you…grab 1GB of Corsair PC3200 memory for cheap in this thread. As always, if you want something posted here, shoot me line. Until then, we’ll see you in the forums.

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

Latency Settings Explained:

Corsair Memory has a small .pdf file (601k) posted under the Ram Guy's Topics that explains memory latency settings. The information covered in the .pdf applies to all memory, no just Corsair memory, so it can be applied to any system. You gotta like free info.

Memory modules are currently available which support a wide variety of different speeds and latency settings. Speed is easy to understand - in general, faster is better. But what do the latency settings mean? And, what impact do they have on memory performance? This paper will provide a brief background on latency settings and what they mean.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

PSP Web Browsing:

I got a bunch of mail yesterday asking about that picture we posted of [H]ardOCP running on a PSP. I did some digging around and came up with this PSP web browser “how-to” page for those of you who want to know how it is done.

Yes you can use input (we googled stuff), when you enter a textbox and press X the PSP pops up the Keyboard API. After that its as simple as any other input on the PSP. The way I loaded up my own "page" is by setting up my FreeBSD machine with some DNS entries that point ingame.scea.com and webcluster.scea.com and all NS's for scea.com to my internal LAN machine. So then I changed the PSP's NameServer settings to point to the server on my local LAN (FreeBSD machine). When the Wipeout client accesses http://ingame.scea.com/wipeout/index.html it gets my LOCAL file because of the DNS mapping. It's all pretty simple after that. I made a static page with a bunch of spring-board links to access from the PSP.

eBay = Taxable Income?:

It seems that every time you turn around you are getting taxed on something, apparently the stuff you sell on eBay is no exception. The lady in the article, after giving her full name and a photo, decided she is going to pay taxes on the income she earned from eBay. Smart move.

"When you're working on the Internet, it's kind of a gray issue," said Bart Fooden, a certified public accountant in Woodbury, N.Y., who advises small businesses and individuals. "The big issue is whether you're doing it as a business or not."

My advice? If you have been selling on eBay for awhile and you have hundreds of feedback for transactions you made, you might want to report the income. You are better to err on the side of caution than to wind up owing Uncle Sam.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

Got Wood?

If you thought those snap on plastic covers for your Dell XPS were cool, how about a whole laptop completely made of wood from an old Sicilian wine case? Thank DreamCarr for the linkage.

The legnatile was built out of an old case of precious sicilian wines, given to my father years ago by the Baron Antonio Pupillo di Contrada Targia near Siracuse. Other materials use were leather, pine wood, oak and beech veneers, mahogany, shammy leather, silk and iron and brass screws, every element of which has a story to tell.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition - Mods & Ends

Cooling:

Zalman VF700 AlCu Silent VGA Cooler @ HardCoreWare - Speeze EE475B13 HSF @ Computing On Demand

Etc.:

Icemat Siberia Headphones @ Bjorn3D - 4 Port USB 2.0 Hub @ Extension Tech - Genius Wireless Netscroll+ Mouse @ HWZone - MGE XGbox Vortec 600W PSU @ InsaneTek - Icemat Siberia Headset @ AMDPower

Cases & Modding:

NZXT Nemesis Elite Case @ Controlled-Insanity - Silverstone SST-LC13 HTPC/Desktop Chassis @ ExtremeMHz

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

UC Berkeley Identities Stolen:

Somebody strolled into UC Berkeley and stole a laptop containing the personal info of 100,000 university alumni. This is the second time in 6 months that UC Berkeley has let a ton of personal info get stolen. Last time it was personal info of over a half a million people. Oops.

UC Berkeley plans to advise the 98,369 people affected by the laptop theft to check their credit reports, although there has been no indication any of he personal information has been used illegally, university spokeswoman Maria Felde said.

TiVo Pop-Up Ads?

Say it ain’t so. TiVo is testing the pop-up ad waters with a feature that will pop up an ad when you fast forward through commercials. Now there is a brilliant idea, pop up a window with an offer to watch another commercial, while I am fast forwarding through the first commercial.

The company confirmed late Monday that it released the first in a series of advertising features to a random and limited number of subscribers to the digital-video recorder service. The first test feature--a tag--pops up on the screen when a viewer is fast-forwarding through an advertisement.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition - Press Releases

BSA Lawsuit Against MindArk Dropped:

MS Statement On EU Process:

Microsoft announced today that it has agreed to adopt the European Commission’s designation for a name of the version of Windows without a media player. As part of the European Commission Decision issued on March 24, 2004, the company is required to make available a version of the Microsoft Windows operating system without Windows Media Player in Europe. Late last week the Commission instructed Microsoft to name this product "Windows XP Home Edition N" and "Windows XP Professional Edition N."

[H]ardNews 13th Edition

P2P In Supreme Court Tomorrow:

United States Supreme Court will hear the landmark P2P case the MGM Studios has brought against Grokster and StreamCast. What will the Supreme Court do? It is hard to tell but I know a lot of you compare this case to an automobile maker being sued because of the actions of a drunk driver. We’ll keep a close eye on this tomorrow.

Both file-sharing companies contend that P2P networks can be used to share legal content and they cannot control, and thus are not liable for, any piracy going on. Sharman Networks, owner of Kazaa, has mounted a similar defense in a case brought by the record industry in Australia.

Actiontec Homeplug Networking:

While home networking reviews aren’t something we cover a lot around here, this Actiontec Homeplug networking article at PCStats might be of interest to those of you looking for alternatives to traditional wired / wireless networking.

The Actiontec HomePlug Ethernet adaptor kit is somewhat of a niche product. It does its job well, effectively networking devices over existing 120V AC copper wiring, but in general circumstances it's hard to recommend using Powerline networking instead of the now common wireless networking standards.

[H]ardNews 12th Edition

VAC Finally:

For those of you that have abandoned Counter Strike due to the terrible cheating that has been allowed by Valve's lacking approach to controlling it, maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel. This is not breaking news, but suffice it to say that the Valve Anti Cheat promised for around a couple of years is making its way back to reality. Let's hope it is not neutered.

That said, you cheating bastards will need to learn to play.... or just suck at it, like me. ;)

[H]ardNews 11th Edition

Good Customer Support Story:

Here is proof positive that not all customer service stories turn out bad. You gotta see this thread started by one of our forum members who had difficulties with a video card RMA. The lightning quick response our forum member got from the manufacturer and replacement card is flat out amazing. We have found that this kind of dedication is the norm around BFG, not the exception. This is something you should keep in mind when you are plopping down your hard earned money on a new video card.

The Director of Marketing replied in my thread about a bum RMA card I was sent. He called me up right after he posted that I would be getting new replacement card. He let me know that I would be receiving my new card over-night for free. Just thought everybody should know how incredible their service really is.