The Tecker

The new DSi has already been on sale in Japan. However, it will be a while until it comes to the US (predicted in Q4). Is it worth the money? Is is just as good as the Lite or original? Well, the review of the DSi is right here in this article. This will be in an easy Pro-Con thing, with the final result at the bottom of the article (but please, don't go stratight down to the bottom!).

Pros (for you people who forgot, good sides):

- 12% thinner than DS Lite, the current DS on the market
- 2 digital cameras!! No more need for your current one! (unless you own one of those fancy-shmancy Nikons)
- The power switch has been replaced by a power button, like the 1st gen. DS (I could always see myself accidentally sliding it when trying to get stylus out...)
- SD card slot (put those photos you take on the digital camera onto the SD card)
- 5 brightness settings (4 on lite, on-off only on 1st gen.)
- Can play ACC audio files
- Upgradeable firmware (get ready hackers!)

Cons (for you people who forgot, bad sides):

- GBA slot taken away to make DS slimmer (Sorry Guitar Hero: On Tour people, can't use the new DS!)
- $192 price tag (comparable to ¥18,000 (yen)).
- Not coming for a while (Q4 in 2009. That's around Sept-Oct, right in time for the holidays)

GRAND TOTAL: Pros: 7 Cons: 3
MY REVIEW: Very good chance of getting this for myself! A good idea with the digital camera (but it's 0.3 megapixels).

Journalspace.com was a place for people to blog and share pictures, etc. However, their database was overwritten and they had no real backup, so their company is toast.

One might ask why they did not have a backup.

Well, they did, sorta. They relied on a RAID configuration to keep their data safe. So if one of the drives failed, they just swapped it out for it's backup drive. However, in Journalspace's case, the drive did not fail, it was overwritten which also means (because the drives are configured in a RAID format) the other one had the copy written over too!

The moral? Don't rely on any one technology to keep your data safe. In this case it was RAID, that didn't turn out the intended results. The technology didn't fail, it did its job by copying the one drive, it just had no way of knowing that it was not supposed too.

So remember people backup your data often on removable formats, and always have a backup kept off site too!

---Info for any Journalspace users---

• You can find out more information what happened. [Journalspace News]

• A blog post about how to attempt to recover your posts and pictures via Google's cache. [Andrew's Blog]
• Journalspace also has a twitter account set up so you can view the updates [jsupgrades@twitter]
• Also the company is planning to release the source code for the site to the open source community

If anything else comes up, we'll keep you posted here at The Tecker!

Microsoft had submitted a patent for a "pay to use a part" scheme that allowed users to pay a fee and temporarily use more powerful resources via a cloud-like approach.

Basically, what this meant was that if you wanted to use a more powerful processor, all you had to do was click a button in this Microsoft program and it would charge you a fee and then allow you to use a more powerful processor from a server or something similar.

However, the patent office rejected it but saying that too many parts of the patent had already been patented, and that the patent was too vague to be granted.

Tell me what you think about it!

It has been found out that shouting at hard drives while they are reading or writing severely impacts performance. The shouting (which is air waves vibrating) vibrates the disk platter, and so when the disk is working, it has to slow down or repeat the read or write to make sure it completes it with out error. This in turn, of course, negatively impacts disk performance!

So, the moral? When your hard drive is running slow, don't yell at it! It only slows things down, and actually shortens the life of the drive by wearing out the bearing quicker!



[via Engadget]

It seems as if the Atom processor (developed by Intel) which was created as a low-power processor for netbooks will possibly be available for full-sized notebooks soon!
The talks were started by HP and they seem to be doing well in convincing Intel to open up the requirements!

We here at The Tecker love to hear from you guys, so we really like contests!
This contest is going to run ALL through 2009 and the theme is FAILURES!
So basically, what this entitles you to do, is to post pics of error messages, printers exploding, or any just technology failing!

So good luck and I hope to see some good entries in the comments!

Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool has found and removed the "AntiVirus 2009" virus from 400,000 computers so far.

[via Slashdot]

If you are like most people, you get a computer that comes with a mouse and keyboard and use those til' they bite the dust. Then you go out to the store and buy a cheap no-name replacement so you can get your work done.

However, you should know that keeping yourself comfortable is very important, and so Extreme Tech has compiled a list of the best keyboards and mice to use for any type of work you do.

[Best Keyboards on Extreme Tech]
[Best Mice on Extreme Tech]

Yellowsn0w has been released to unlock your 3G iPhones via the SIM card! For instructions on how to use it, visit The iPhone Dev Team.

Along with the Supersized iPod rumor comes the rumor that a aluminum Mac Mini will be unveiled with some pretty good specs.

Here's to hoping that the rumors are true!

There is much speculation that next fall Apple will introduce a large screen iPod Touch.
Rumor has been around for a while that Apple has been developing a tablet, but until now, they have been unsure if it would sell well. I think that they have decided it will, and many sources confirm that the iPod project does exist.

I can't wait...

Not sure if this is true or not because I do not own a Zune, but it seems as if all 30gb HDD Zunes have frozen up at around 2:00 this morning or so, and have not been able to be reset or anything.

Everyone's seems to be frozen up at the loading screen, the loading bar fills up and then it just stops.

Tell me if it has happened to anybody.

UPDATE: Microsoft does know about the problem and they are working hard to fix it... Just be patient people!

We are aware that customers with the Zune 30GB are experiencing issues with their Zune device. We are actively working now to isolate the issue and develop a solution to address it. We will keep customers informed on next steps via the support page on zune.net (zune.net/support).” - Zune spokesperson

UPDATE 2: Microsoft said that this problem is to be blamed on a bug in the software due to 2008 being a leap year, and your Zunes should work next year (yes, tomorrow.) Let's hope that M$ fixes this by 2012 though!

[via... the World.... and Wall Street Journal]