Friday Shortbread - The Tech Report

Friday Shortbread
by Ronald Hanaki — 5:57 AM on June 26, 2009

Friday

Gartner: PC sales to pick up by end of the year
DigiTimes reports AMD aims to gain back 15% share of notebook market
and Gigabyte looking to upgrade brand image as PC product vendor
ATi-Forum: Phenom II X2 to Phenom II X4 (in German)
Hardware-Infos reports AMD RV870 shall launch in October
VR-Zone reports Asus announced G51 and G60 gaming laptops
Who moved my "Delete' key? Lenovo did. Here's why.
Fudzilla reports desktop Atom starts dying in April 2010
and Skulltrail retires in Q3 2009
NordicHardware reports SSD inside 1.5% of all notebooks in 2009
Fudzilla reports Zune HD rumored to launch September 8th
DailyTech reports leading cyber czar candidate no friend of privacy
C|Net reports Obama fills FCC seats
Google slammed as China, U.S. quarrel over Internet
Crain's reports WSJ publisher calls Google 'digital vampire'
NetworkWorld: It turns out most every technology 'is like crack'
Ars Technica reports Pirate Bay retrial denied; judge declared "unbiased"
RIAA: The majority agrees with us
eWeek reports Google Voice rolling out to select invitees
AnandTech on triple buffering: Why we love it
TweakTown: Adaptec zero-maintenance cache protection explained
Techgage shares a testing hypothesis
PCPer podcast #22

Software

Ars Technica: Win a 50% off Windows 7 preorder coupon (US only)
DailyTech reports U.S., Canadian Windows 7 pre-order now available
Why is there no Windows 7 E upgrade for Europe?
VR-Zone reports Asus offers Windows 7 Upgrade to
users who purchased their PC during eligibility period
Analyst: $120 for Windows 7 'way too much'
SuperSite Blog: Clean install with Windows 7 Upgrade media? What about x64 upgrades?
The Windows Blog: Developing for the Windows 7 Taskbar - Jump into jump lists
ITReviewed on StarDock WindowBlinds v6.4
Computing on Demand shows how to perform a Dell system restore
Mac Rumors reports iPhone 3G S tops T-Mobile G1 and Palm Pre in JavaScript benchmarks
AV testing outfit: Microsoft Security Essentials makes the grade
TG Daily reports Mozilla confirms Firefox 3.5 RC 3
HardwareOC's GeForce 186.18 WHQL driver comparison (in German)
Expreview reports Intel updates drivers for 5 series chipset boards
CCleaner v2.21.940 released
TrueCrypt 6.2a released (open source disk encryption software)
WinUAE 1.6.1 - Amiga emulator

Gaming

Shacknews reports id's John Carmack explains ZeniMax acquisition, discusses future plans
Eurogamer reports Serious Sam HD also coming to PC
Shacknews reports Left 4 Dead update adds custom campaign support
Steam news: Team Fortess 2 update released
Shacknews reports Trine demo released, game gated for July 3
FiringSquad reports ARMA II demo released (minimum specs for full game here)
Gaming Heaven reviews Overlord 2 (PS3 & Xbox 360)

Systems

Storage and networking

X-bit labs review HighPoint RocketRAID 4320 SAS controller
Overclockers Online reviews HighPoint RocketRAID 3510 controller
Hardware Secrets pits 2TB Seagate Barracuda LP vs. 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green
Digital Trends reviews Seagate Replica PC backup system
PureOverclock reviews 128GB Kingston SSDNow V-Series
ITReviewed on 120GB Kingston DataTraveler 200
[OC]ModShop on Verbatim BD-R and BD-RE Blu-ray media
Boot Daily reviews Bigfoot Networks Xeno