Radeons 7950 $ 7970 should undergo price drops

If you're planning to upgrade your GPU in the near future wait just a bit more. It seems that AMD is going to drop prices of their high-end products. It will be the AMD's response for the nVidia's GTX 680.

Price drops that we can expect are as follow:
Radeon HD 7970: 549$ -> 489$
Radeon HD 7950: 449$ -> 394$

What is more, Radeon HD 7770 should also be less expensive by almost 15$.

Godmode in Windows 7

Not much time today to write a long post. However, I hope it will be useful for you, at least for Windows 7 users.

Have you heard about Godmode? No? It's a way to obtain quick access to major Windows' settings.

Here's how you do it:

1. Create a new folder

2. Change the name of this folder to: X.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} where X can be replaced with any text, for example Godmode. The icon should change itself.

3. You can now open your new command center to view options or drag&drop them on desktop to make shotcuts.

Enjoy!

Jack Tramiel - founder of Commodore - passed away

In 8th April Jack Tramiel, father of personal computing, at the age of 83, passed away.

Jack, born as Jacek Trzmiel in Łódź, Poland, had tough childhood. When he was ten, he with his family was imprisoned in a ghetto, then moved to Auschwitz and finally taken to a labor camp near Hannover, from where he was freed.

In 1947, he emigrated to the USA, where his bussiness career started and flourished. He soon joined US army, where his main job was repairing office hardware. From this experience came idea for establishing his first company, which he named Commodore Portable Typewriter. It was involved in repairing and importing typewriters. Due to competition from Japan he shifted his company's area of interest to digital calculators in the perfect for that time. Next great step was purchase of semiconductor manufacturer, which allowed Commodore to start producing computers.

First machine was, shown in 1977, Commodore PET. It achieved moderate success, especially in education sector thanks to its compactness. There was, however, need for quick upgreads, because other producers, such as Apple and Atari, were a constant threat. So next models came: VIC-20, which offered rendering of color image and, finally, the greatest hit, Commodore 64.

Commodore 64 (C64) contained 64 kb of RAM, microprocessor MOS Technology 6510 with clock frequency about 1 MHz, great sound chipsets and graphic unit, which could display 16 colors and had three modes:

1. text mode: 40 columns x 25 lines3

2. hi-res mode: resolution: 320x200 pixels with 1 bit per pixel

3. multicolor mode: 160x200 pixels with 2 bits per pixel

C64 was introduced in 1982 by Commodore International. Soon there will be 30th anniversary. Low price and good hardware made this machine most popular and best selling personal computer (PC) of all time with the number of more than 15 units sold, outclassing all competition by far.

Advertisements of C64:

Sadly, not much later, in 1984, due to quarrel with shareholders Jack Tamriel was forced to leave his company. A few months later he bought Atari and began war with corporation he had founded. There were no winners. Both Atari and Commodore went bancrupt in the middle of 90's.

Fun fact: Jack Tramiel considered buying Apple, but price set by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computers, was too high.

Last image for those of you who had C64. I hope you'll get nostalgic.

iPhone&iPad > kidney ?

Recently there has been news about Chinese high school student he sold his kidney on a black market to pay off his gambling debts, but not only that. Even more disturbing is the story how this operation has been revealed. When he got back home, his mother asked him how had he got new iPhone and iPad. So he told her.

Let's forget about the whole case with black market. What I'm interested in right now is the situation when gadgets are getting more important than own live organs. I mean, he risks his whole life when the other kidney fails. Another thing is he was given approximately 3,500$ while the cost of operation for recipient gave ten times more money.

What are your thoughts?

source: Associated Press

Easter and football

Today, I'm going to take a sidestep from (is this correct expression?) IT business and tell you short story.

As it's Easter I was at my family get-together. Sadly, we don't keep in touch with our close family (such as uncle, aunt and two cousins) very often, other than someone's birthday. We meet, oh let's say, less than 1 time/month. In my country there's going to be major football (soccer ;) ) tournament this year and discussion, as it often happens lately, drifted to the topic of safety. Bad luck is that my brother works sometimes as security guard at the stadium, where plays my cousin's favourite team. Both of them had totally different attitude toward the behaviour of football fans as they are on the opposite side of fence. In my opinion both of them exaggerated a lot and the truth lied, as it often does, in the middle.
Everything would be ok, if my brother wasn't hit recently, after one of the matches, with a bottle and if not for his today's harsh words directed to my (and his) cousin: "Maybe it was you, who throw that".
Even know, while I am writing this, can't believe this has happened. For me, it was very sad, because there always has been peace among us.

Sorry for today's personal drift. What's your opinions about safety during mass sport events? I ask especially fellow bloggers from Europe, as football (soccer) seems to be high risk in this matter. Others' comments are, of course, also appreciated.

Happy peaceful Easter to everyone!

Internet - to entartain and inform

I've decided to make one more post today before sleep. This one will be similar to the last one, becouse it was well recieved.

It is fine example that internet has many uses. Browsing a site which prime focus is entertaining people (or providing space for them to entartain each other) can also teach you useful tricks.

My favourite is one about elevators? I haven't checked it myself and I'm curious whether this works or not? Have you tried it? Which one could be useful for you?





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Prepare yourself!

Today's topic is also about future. Not so bright as before, however.
Have you seen this? If not I encourage you to visit here,
What would be your set? If you want choose another weapon or anything not shown here, feel free to.

Write in the comments. Here's template you can use:
1. Primary weapon:
2. Secondary weapon:
3. Melee weapon:
4. Gadget:
5. Vehicle:
6. Terrain:
7. Teammate:


Mine would be: 1c 2b 3b 4b 5c 6c 7 Brian Mills (Liam Neeson in Taken (2008))