Mozilla just wrapped up its Extend Firefox 3 contest and, after reviewing over 100 entries, its team of judges has announced the winners for Best Add-ons, Best Updated Add-on, and Best Music Add-on. In the Best New Add-on category, the winners were Pencil by Dương Thành An, Tagmarks by Felipe Tassario Gomes, and HandyTag by Rémi Szymkowiak, while the Best Music Add-on category was won by Fire.fm from Jorge Villalobos and Jose Enrique Bolaños.

The contest was meant to showcase extensions that made use of the new capabilities Mozilla introduced in Firefox 3 and managed to combine this with excellent usability and the use of open standards.
Grand Prize Winners

pencil_firefox.jpgPencil, one of the three Grand Prize winners, is an easy to use tool for GUI prototyping and diagramming, which makes uses of Firefox’s SVG support for rendering and scripting. It’s obviously not the most exciting of applications, but it works as advertised and is a great tool for anybody who needs to draw up a GUI prototype quickly.

tagmarks_firefox.pngThe second Grand Prize winner, Tagmarks, adds a set of icons to your URL bar that allows you to easily add tags to your bookmarks or to quickly bookmark and tag a page at the same time. Out of all the plugins in the contest, this one is probably the most immediately useful. Adding tags to a bookmark can be useful, but few people make use of this capability. Tagmarks also allows you to safe your links to Delicious in addition to your local bookmarks.

The third Grand Prize winner is also a tagging extension: HandyTag. HandyTag suggests tags for your bookmarks based on the tags you have already used, tags given by Delicious users, and tags HandyTag’s keyword extractor suggests.
Fire.fm

firefox_firefm.pngFire.fm, the best new music add-on, gives you easy access to your stations on our favorite streaming music site, Last.fm. Fire.fm works exactly as advertised and provides a nice way to play music through Last.fm without having to keep a browser window open. You can also easily access your favorite stations by just typing in a few letters into the URL bar.

 

DDR3 memory promises a power consumption reduction of 30% compared to current commercial DDR2 modules due to DDR3’s 1.5 V supply voltage, compared to DDR2’s 1.8 V or DDR’s 2.5 V. The 1.5 V supply voltage works well with the 90 nanometer fabrication technology used for most DDR3 chips. Some manufacturers further propose using “dual-gate” transistors to reduce leakage of current.^[1]

According to JEDEC^[2] the maximum recommended voltage is 1.575 volts and should be considered the absolute maximum when memory stability is the foremost consideration, such as in servers or other mission critical devices. In addition, JEDEC states that memory modules must withstand up to 1.975 volts before incurring permanent damage, although they are not required to function correctly at that level.

The main benefit of DDR3 comes from the higher bandwidth made possible by DDR3’s 8 bit deep prefetch buffer, in contrast to DDR2’s 4 bit prefetch buffer or DDR’s 2 bit buffer.

DDR3 modules can transfer data at the effective clock rate of 800–1600 MHz using both rising and falling edges of a 400–800 MHz I/O clock. In comparison, DDR2’s current range of effective data transfer rate is 400–800 MHz using a 200–400 MHz I/O clock, and DDR’s range is 200–400 MHz based on a 100–200 MHz I/O clock. To date, the graphics card market has been the driver of such bandwidth requirements, where fast data transfer between framebuffers is required.

DDR3 prototypes were announced in early 2005. Products in the form of motherboards are appearing on the market as of mid-2007^[3] based on Intel’s P35 “Bearlake” chipset and memory DIMMs at speeds up to DDR3-1600 (PC3-12800).^[4] AMD’s roadmap indicates their own adoption of DDR3 in 2008.

DDR3 DIMMs have 240 pins, the same number as DDR2, and are the same size, but are electrically incompatible and have a different key notch location.^[5] DDR3 SO-DIMMs have 204 pins.^[6]

   Wikipedia.

 

A fresh take on the browser

At Google, we spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And like all of you, in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends - all using a browser. People are spending an increasing amount of time online, and they’re doing things never imagined when the web first appeared about 15 years ago.

Since we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if you started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.

So today we’re releasing the beta version of a new open source browser: Google Chrome.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff - the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better . By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built V8, a more powerful JavaScript engine, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

This is just the beginning - Google Chrome is far from done. We’ve released this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We’re hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and we’ll continue to make it even faster and more robust.

We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we’re committed to continuing on their path. We’ve used components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, among others - and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better.

But enough from us. The best test of Google Chrome is to try it yourself.

   Download

Basic Security and WEP

Once the foundation is laid down, we will start taking a look at basic security measures available to WLAN users to help secure their networks. We start with a look at MAC filtering, RF natural jamming, and the move into a detailed explanation of WEP. To illustrate the dangers of using WEP, we will start a live WEP cracking process just to demonstrate the dangers of relying on this unsafe form of protection.

• MAC Filtering
• Natural Jamming
• WEP
• Authentication
• ICVs

WPA

This section focuses on the internals of WPA. We look at TKIP, Michael, and MIC and how they work to help repair the holes found in WEP.

• TKIP
• MIC
• Michael

WPA2 (802.11i)

Next we look at the current Wi-Fi protection standards and break them down to help you understand how they work and what they do. From the initial EAP handshake, to AES and all points in between, you will learn how WPA2 has helped to make wireless networking more secure.

• RSN and AES-CCMP
• PMK/PTK/GMK/GTK
• RADIUS
• 802.1x
• EAP - EAP/EAP-TLS/LEAP/PEAP/etc.

 The majority of the Computer Forums does not count on webmaster so present as this, with certainty goes is always looking for to help you, then it thought about Computer Forum, remembered Computalk.

 
 

by Keith R. Wheeler

11/14/2006

Intel has formally launched the first quad-core microprocessors giving them the current edge in their race with Advanced Micro Devices for the chip speed and efficiency crown. The Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processor 5300 series is designed for use in mainstream servers. The most obvious benefit of the new quad-core processors is their inherent performance improvement. Prior to this launch, the fastest processors were dual-core meaning that the single microprocessor actually had two separate processors inside the chip that the operating system saw as a single processor. Now Intel has raised the bar to four internal processors. Due to the overhead of such processing, Intel claims these new quad-core chips are about 50% faster than the current performance of their dual core line, a Dual-Core Intel Xeon 5100 series processor. Intel has another benefit it is claiming for the quad-core chips: power savings. Since the new processors use roughly the same amount of power as their dual-core siblings, the amount of power consumed compared to processing accomplished is, naturally, a better ratio. So, how much effect does quad-core technology have on the small business community? In the short term, the effects of quad-core will be relegated to improving server performance. Since most small businesses have a single server to manage their centralized data, email and security, quad-core servers will just improve the responsiveness of that single server. A minority of small businesses which have three or more servers may see an immediate use for quad-core servers if their goal is to consolidate their current servers into a single server system due to quad-core’s improvement in speed and efficiency. While quad-core offers another leap forward in microprocessor technology, there will be a lag time before that improvement is demonstrated for most small businesses. However, everyone in small business appreciates advances in performance which new quad-core offerings will ultimately bring.

Dual core is simply a generic term referring to any processor package with two physical CPUs in one.

The Pentium D is simply two Pentium 4 Prescott cpus inefficiently paired together and ran as dual core.

The Core Duo is Intel’s first generation dual core processor based upon the Pentium M (a Pentium III-4 hybrid) made mostly for laptops (though a few motherboard manufacturers have released desktop boards supporting the Core Duo CPU), and is much more efficiently than Pentium D.

The Core 2 Duo is Intel’s second generation (hence, Core 2) processor made for desktops and laptops designed from the ground up to be fast while not consuming nearly as much power as previous CPUs.

The Pentium D, Core Duo, Core 2 Duo and Athlon X2 are all current CPUs that have dual cores in one package.

SATA Technology

In computer hardware, Serial ATA (SATA or S-ATA) is a computer bus technology primarily designed for transfer of data to and from a hard disk. It is the successor to the legacy Advanced Technology Attachment standard (ATA, also known as IDE). This older technology was retroactively renamed Parallel ATA (PATA) to distinguish it from Serial ATA.
SATA 1 (SATA I)
The First Generation of Serial ATA interfaces is also known as SATA 150. This name is given because SATA 1 runs at 1.5 gigahertz. SATA1 has a data transfer rate of 1.2 gigatbits per second.
SATA 2 (SATA II)

The latest SATA technolgy now runs at 3 gigahertz per second. SATA2 is backwards compatable with SATA1 so a SATA 1 hardware interface can be used with a SATA 2 hard drive, and visa versa.
SATA2 is approximately the same price as SATA1. 

 

An explanation of “dual core” CPU / Processors

One of the latest trends in CPU / processor technology is “dual core” or “multi core” processors. Processors previously designed all sit on one chip, with one core. The core does all the logic and thinking while the “chip” connects the core to the rest of the system and handles the requests, houses the cache (onboard memory), and other logic activities. Dual Core means there is litterally 2 cores sitting on a single chip. Intel was the first to accomplish this feat with the release of the Pentium D series. The Pentium D was labeled by the tech community to be a very inelegant way of implementing dual core as it essentially was 2 Pentium 4 cores slapped together on a single to form Pentium D. This meant that very little was done to optimize the process. AMD soon followed up with its Athlon X2 series which was regarded as a much more elegant and true to purpose Dual Core design.

Dual Core CPU’s usually run slightly lower clockspeeds (per core) then the higher end single core processors. This is generally to help cut costs as well as maintain a safe thermal envelope. Having 2 cores in such close proximity creates significantly more heat and as such, the first dual core processors had significantly lower clockspeeds (per core).

 

An explanation of DDR versus DDR2

Article Technical Level: Intermediate

RAM: Vendors randomly decide to list their ram speeds based on a “PCXXXX” standard or a MHz standard, they convert based on a formula related to data transfer rates. PC2100 = 266 MHz, PC3200 = 400 MHz, PC4200 = 533 MHz, PC5300 = 667 MHz, PC6400 = 800 MHz. There is of course more divisions inbetween, before, and after but these are the big ones. Something that needs to be considered though is there is also DDR(1) and DDR2. The original DDR has “latency” (time for data to get from one point to another) significantly lower then DDR2. This is sort of like how cache differences work. DDR2 was designed with higher latencies (bad) but higher bandwidth as well (good). DDR(1) generally ends at PC3200 (highest official bandwidth of DDR) and DDR2 generally starts at PC4200. The PC4200 / 533 MHz, again, refers to bandwidth. This is how many megabytes (MB) per second are possible to transfer across the memory bus. Again though, DDR2 has significantly higher latencies so it takes longer for that larger amount of data to get where it’s going. The industry can’t seem to decide on a standard but over the last few years it has migrated to DDR2 due to lower costs. DDR2 also uses less energy as compared to DDR due to higher efficiencies, a smaller manufacturing process and less power intensive design. Very extreme performance nuts still tend to prefer DDR(1) due to its significantly lower latencies.