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Vol. 1/No. 5
05/18/1998
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Archive of
volume 1, number 5 for May 18, 1998. Go back to
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Windows NT 5.0's New Features
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Last week issue of virtual edge
covered some of the new features you will be seeing in Windows 98.
Microsoft's grand strategic vision is to have everyone using Windows NT
by the year 2000. To do this, Microsoft will be integrating Windows 98's
new features into their upcoming Windows NT 5.0.
NT 5.0 is not due until late 1998 or even the early first half of 1999.
Currently, Microsoft is about to release the beta 2 of NT 5.0 to beta
testers and developers. Here's a partial list of features users can
expect in the final release of NT 5.0. Since it is still in beta stage,
NT 5.0's complete feature set is far from being finished.
Intellimirror for NT 5.0 Server - This feature is part of
Microsoft's Zero Administration plan. Intellimirror allows users to
"roam" from one PC to another. The user is no longer chained to his or her system. If your PC crashes for whatever reason, you can
simply use another PC, login with your username, and have your personal
perferences and applications moved automatically to the new PC. This
feature really pushes the concept of NetPC forward.
Plug and Play/ACPI Support - One of the weakest part of NT 4.0
is its lack of plug and play and power management support. NT 5.0 brings
Windows 9x plug and play to users, and adds advanced configuration and
power interface (ACPI) to the core operating system. ACPI will allow
users to install NT 5.0 onto notebooks and to take full advantage of its
power management features.
IA-64 Support - NT 5.0 may be the first operating system to
have native support for Intel's IA-64 processor, Merced, which is due
out in late 1999.
Active Directory for NT 5.0 Server - This feature will allow
network administrator(s) to "flatten" multiple NT domains into a single,
unified domain, which will simplify administrating a large NT domain.
Active Directory is similar to Novell 4.x NDS (Novell Directory Services).
Very Large Memory (VLM) Support - The VLM architecture allows
NT to finally break free of the 4GB system memory limitation. Alpha
systems using NT 5.0 will be able to support up to 32GB of main memory.
This is ideal for server running a large database.
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S3's Savage3D
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In the previous issues, the current and upcoming state-of-the-art 3D
accelerators were discussed in depth. The only manufacturer who seems to
be missing is S3. The truth of the matter
is, since introducing their S3 ViRGE 2D/3D accelerator to the market,
S3's main competitors (ATI, Matrox, nVidia, 3Dfx, etc) have taken a large portion of the 3D market away
from them. Simply by offering better and faster mainstream 3D accelerators.
The Savage3D is S3's long-awaited comeback into the 3D arena. From the
initial specs of the chip, it will give the Matrox G200, nVidia Riva TNT, and
3Dfx Voodoo2 a run for their money.
So what makes the Savage3D better than all the other next generation
3D chipset out there? Two features really stand out from everything
else.
Single Pass Trilinear Filtering - If you're not familiar with
3D technologies, then this feature may just sound like technical babble
to you. But this feature will allow 3D games and graphics to look
smoother and more life-like than ever. S3 have a good whitepaper on their
site about trilinear filtering.
S3 Texture Compression (S3TC) - S3TC is more a standard API
integrated into Microsoft's upcoming DirectX 6.0 package. S3TC allows
programmers and game designers to compress their texture maps. Again,
this will mean more realistic 3D effects and environments for the end user.
Click here to read S3's S3TC whitepaper.
The Savage3D may be S3's last hope to compete in the fastpaced 3D market.
Currently 3D performance seems to be increasing twofold every eight month.
And the Savage3D is S3's answer to the Matrox G200 and nVidia Riva TNT.
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Universal Serial Bus (USB)
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Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an initiative originally proposed by
Intel, Compaq, and Microsoft back in 1995. The primary purpose of USB
was to make adding devices and peripherals to the PC easier. And to
centralized all the I/O connectors in the back of a typical PC.
Currently, there are connectors for keyboard, mouse, printer, joystick,
serial ports, etc. Why not just have one universal connector in
which user can connect all their devices?
In addition to standardizing on one port, the USB design also have the
following advantages:
Speed - The maximum bandwidth of USB is 12Mbps, which is
faster than most ethernet cards. Compare this to the maximum speed of
a typical serial port, which is 115Kbps.
Hot Swap - USB is mainly designed for external devices.
Wouldn't it be nice to add and sremove devices to your system without
having to power it off and on? USB allows user to add a device while
the system is turned on; USB will then automatically enumerate the new
device, load the driver, and allow the user to use it.
Flexibility - With traditional serial ports, users were limited
to the type of device they can add. With USB, there's almost no limitation.
A USB device may be almost anything: mouse, joystick, modem, printer,
scanner, etc. Also, a user can add up to 127 USB devices per system. Of
course, practical limitations may reduce this number, but it is still
better than having the standard "two serial ports per system."
So you're thinking, "Hey, this is a great idea! But if USB was introduced
in 1995, where are all those wonderful USB devices today?" USB suffers
from the classic chicken-and-egg problem. Peripheral makers were waiting
for system manufacturers to integrate the USB port into their system,
and PC makers were waiting for peripheral designers to create USB devices
first. And to compound the problem, Microsoft didn't release USB drivers
for Windows 95 until late 1997. If you've purchased a new computer system
in late 1997 or now, chances are you'll have two USB ports with the USB
drivers loaded.
USB devices should take off once Windows 98 hits the market. For more
information about USB, see the following links:
USB on PREMIO systems
Official USB Homepage
Official USB FAQ
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Customizing Netscape Communicator and Internet Explorer
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Here's some of my personal options I have when I'm using
Communicator or IE4.0. Even though I use IE4.0 most of the time, I still
keep the latest version Communicator on my system. Some websites seem to
like one browser more than the other. So much for the "open standards"
of the Internet...
SAVING BOOKMARKS
For people who have a long list of bookmarks, you know what a hassle it
is to recreate your bookmarks if you have to reinstall the browser, or are
installing the browser on another machine.
Communicator: Bookmarks are saved as "bookmark.htm" in \program files\netscape\user\[name].
Just make a copy of this file and all your bookmarks will be safe.
IE4.0: Microsoft saves each individual bookmark as a *.URL file in
\windows\favorites. To back them up, you'd need to get an archiving
program (like Winzip) that supports long filename.
Simply zip all the *.URL files and folders up into one file.
TURN OFF UNDERLINKING LINKS
By default, both browser will underlink all the links on a page. Personally,
I don't think web designers would like to see their page filled with
underlined text.
Communicator: Go to Edit / Perferences... / Colors, and
uncheck the "Underline Links" box.
IE4.0: Go to View / Internet Options / Advanced, and scroll
down to "Underlink Links" and select "Never."
SET DEFAULT FONT TO ARIAL
This is a purely personal choice. I always set my default font from
"Times New Roman" to "Arial." It makes reading pages easily, at least
for me.
Communicator: Go to Edit / Perferences... / Fonts and change
"Variable Width Font" to Arial.
IE4.0: Go to View / Internet Options / General / Fonts...
and change "Proportional font" to Arial.
SETTING THE DEFAULT FONT SIZE
The size of your font depends on your resolution. For screen size
1024x768 and above, I recommend setting the font size to 14 points.
At 800x600 and 640x480, set it to 12 and 11 points, respectively.
Communicator: Go to Edit / Perferences... / Fonts and change
the "Size" to the correct value.
IE4.0: You really can't set the font size in IE, but go to
View / Internet Options... / Fonts... and set the "Font size" to medium.
REMOVING TEXT FROM THE TOOLBAR
If your screen size is 1024x768 or lower, you probably want to maximize
your browser's screen real estate. One thing you can do is to remove
the text from the main toolbar.
Communicator: Go to Edit / Perferences / Appearance and
select "Show toolbar as" pictures only.
IE4.0: Go to View / Toolbars, and uncheck "Text Labels."
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Joke of the Week
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Fun With UNIX (from Infowar)
(For those who've never used UNIX before, this is similar to the DOS
prompt when you type in a bad command; DOS returns a "bad command
or file name" error message. Next time you're at a Unix system running
csh (C shell), give these commands a try!)
% make love
Make: Don't know how to make love. Stop.
% got a light?
No match.
% sleep with me
bad character
% man: Why did you get a divorce?
man:: Too many arguments.
% make 'heads or tails of all this'
Make: Don't know how to make heads or tails of all this. Stop.
% make sense
Make: Don't know how to make sense. Stop.
% date me
You are not superuser: date not set
Thu Aug 25 15:52:30 PDT 1988
% man rear
No manual entry for rear.
% If I had a ) for every dollar Clinton spent, what would I have?
Too many )'s.
% * How would you describe Clinton
*: Ambiguous.
% %Vice-President
%Vice-President: No such job.
% 'thou shalt not commit adultery'
thou shalt not commit adultery: Command not found.
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Coming up in next week's issue...
Just say no to DIVX!
Microsoft's burning Chrome technology
Firewire IEEE1394: USB's Faster Brother
Do you have an idea or a topic you'd like to see in the upcoming issue
of virtual edge? Just drop an email to calvin@premiopc.com.
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Copyright © 1998 PREMIO Computer, Inc.
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