News for Tuesday, 3 February 2009

Seagate just released the firmware updates required to finally fix the major problem faced by thousands of users. The last updates fix the pending problem faced by Barracuda ES owners. You will know more at the following address: http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/.../NewLang=en
Be careful to check twice the serial and model numbers of your Seagate HD before downloading and applying the patch (make a backup of the HD to be patched before upgrading the firmware).

According to the last figures of the RAM exchange market DRAMeXchange, the price of some RAM chips rocketed up by 10 t o25 %. This is directly linked to bankruptcy of Qimonda that was manufacturing 9.5% of RAM chips sold worldwide.
However, it remains unclear if this price increase will be steady or just a speculation reaction as the market remains overloaded with unsold products, stocks are still full, and the current economic slow-down should not drive and rebound for RAM needs for quite some time. This should not necessarily translate into higher prices for our RAM modules, at least in short term.

South Korea decided to deploy a ultra-fast internet network of 1 Gbits/s which should be completed in 2012. In other words the maximum transfer speed would be 100 MB/s. Unlike other fast internet network, it will rely on a technology similar to the Ethernet and not optical fiber.
Optical fiber, deployed in Japan and being deployed in most EU countries, allows 100 Mbits/s (10 MB/s) but unlike Ethernet technology (ADSL/ADSL2+) transfer speed is almost independent of the distance between end-user and the network central.

Transcend/ unveiled a new 2.5 » SSD featuring a storage capacity of 192 GB>

Performance specification in reading and writing modes are respectively of 150 and 90 MB/s. One will of course have to wait for true test, and especially the evaluation of the performance for multiple short SDD requests, and how the controller handles them. According to target price of this SSD (332 Euros), we can expect Transcend to have used the cache-free JMicron JMF602 controller known for not being competitive for managing multiple requests.
Do not get us wrong, we are not calling for more expensive SSD, simply to SSD built around good and efficient components to avoid fouling customers with performance levels only defined by pick reading and writing speed of large files.

According to information which we succeeded in obtaining, the Apple Store in rue Halevy should open at the beginning of 2010 - in a year's time precisely.

This long time is related to the work for the store must be synchronized with that of the hotel which will open later on the floors above. We must wait a few weeks for first and deep transformation of the building.

All those who tested or who use Windows Vista can testify to it. The protective system (UAC) set up to avoid the installation of malware is incredibly constraining. It is necessary to undergo a very high number of warnings and to confirm an ever higher number of times to use certain software. For some, this is the price to pay for peace of mind, but overall many have found it bothersome.
Thus, Microsoft decided to soften its position in Windows 7. But this easing is paid for in term of security and already a means of disactivation of the UAC without warning has been found. If one can disactivate it in silence, the door is then opened for any manipulation. Microsoft indicates, in the way of Apple, that this is not a bug, but a feature and they do not foresee to regulate this nonproblem (for them) in the final version.
Let us pass on the fact that this problem affects Windows, since this is just a detail. The true problem is to find the best compromise between security and ease of use. The problem is not simple because as shown with the recent alarms of Trojan horse under OS X, the largest security breach of the computers is not today with the code, but something that prompts the user to validate sometimes dangerous to the integrity of its system.
In this case, Microsoft seems to have difficulties of finding the ideal compromise between the too restrictive safety of Vista and a broader but dangerous freedom found in Windows 7.

Using the software update, Apple remembers those who have not passed to the year 09 of iWork. New versions of the three software are offered:
- Keynote 4.0.4
- Pages 3.0.3
- Numbers 1.0.3

This update solves general problems of compatibility as well as compatibility issues with Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2008.