div class="rxbodyfield"p class="ArticleBody" page="1"Microsoft this week is proceeding with an update to a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/17/12TC-vista-versus-xp_1.html" class="regularArticleU"Windows Vista/a and Windows Server, making available a beta-level service pack featuring capabilities for virtualization and power savings./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"The company on Tuesday began offering the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2 (Service Pack 2) Beta release to MSDN and TechNet subscribers and will extend it to the public via TechNet on Thursday. Offering a single service pack minimizes deployment and testing complexity, Microsoft said./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Included in the service pack, according to the a href="http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/default.aspx" target="_blank" class="regularArticleU"Windows Server Division blog/a, are Hyper-V bits in the release-to-manufacturing stage, meaning the bits are completed. Hyper-V is Microsoft's hypervisor-based server virtualization technology enabling multiple operating systems to run on a single physical machine. This enables workload consolidation across multiple underutilized servers onto a smaller number of machines./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Also highlighted in the service pack are changes to the power profile to yield more power savings. The service pack also addresses reliability and performance issues and supports new types of hardware. The 64-bit CPU from Via Technologies is supported and performance is improved for Wi-Fi connections after resuming from sleep mode./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1""We are tracking to ship SP2 in the first half of 2009," said Justin Graham, senior product manager for Windows Server, in the blog./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"With the release, Microsoft is looking for developers and IT professionals to have an early look at the technology and offer feedback. The beta is being offered via a Microsoft Customer Preview Program (CPP)/pp class="ArticleBody" page="1""The CPP is intended for technology enthusiasts, developers, and IT pros who would like to test Service Pack 2 in their environments and with their applications prior to final release. For most customers, our best advice would be to wait until the final release prior to installing this service pack," said Mike Nash, corporate vice president for Windows Product Management at Microsoft, in The a href="http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/12/02/announcing-the-windows-vista-and-windows-server-2008-service-pack-2-customer-preview-program-cpp.aspx" target="_blank" class="regularArticleU"Windows Blog/a on Tuesday./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1""Windows Vista SP2 builds on the solid foundation of Windows Vista SP1, and represents our ongoing commitment to Windows Vista today," Nash said./p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=da2f2f6a378cf055d6513bc1bda1c370p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=da2f2f6a378cf055d6513bc1bda1c370p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=da2f2f6a378cf055d6513bc1bda1c370 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

div class="rxbodyfield"p page="1" class="ArticleBody"Is there a greener way to surf the Web? You bet, according to Robert Hansen, CEO of SecTheory: Just tweak your Web browser so it doesn#39;t run a lot of flashy Web graphics./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"In an admittedly a target="_blank" href="http://www.sectheory.com/browser-power-consumption.htm"unscientific study/a , Hansen took a look at the 100 most popular sites on the Web to see which ones burned the most power on his laptop. The winner? MySpace.com, followed closely by Gamespot.com./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"strong[ Find out more on being#160;a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/08/01/PC_owners_urged_to_manage_power_use_and_save_money_1.html?source=fssr"environmentally responsible while saving money/a. And stay/strong bup to date on green tech with a href="http://weblog.infoworld.com/sustainableit/"InfoWorld#39;s Sustainable IT blog/a, with our a href="http://www.infoworld.com/topic-center/green-tech/"Green Tech Topic Center/a, and with the a href="http://www.infoworld.com/newsletter/subscribe.html"Green Tech newsletter/a. ]/b/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"The sites that consumed the most power tended to use JavaScript or Adobe Flash animation, often cycling through a series of graphics over and over again. quot;Those technologies just were hogging all the resources on the computer,quot; he said. quot;Flash banners actually seem to be the worst,quot; he added./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"The computer#39;s CPU needs more power in order to draw the moving images created by the Web site, Hansen explained./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Even sites that appear static can sometimes quietly draw more power than expected. a target="_blank" href="http://www.apple.com/"Apple.com/a #39;s Hot News Headlines banner, for example, uses up CPU power every time a new headline is generated, Hansen said./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Though it#39;s not one of the top 100 most popular sites, and therefore not part of his study, the biggest power hog that Hansen came across was Mattel#39;s Barbie a target="_blank" href="http://barbie.everythinggirl.com/"Everythinggirl.com site/a , which easily used up a whopping 100 percent of the CPU resources on his 1.5GHz Windows XP machine with 1G byte of memory. quot;Barbie was absolutely pegging the CPU,quot; he said./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Just how much power do these sites require? Hansen said that when he used Firefox#39;s NoScript and Adblock Plus plugins to disable the moving graphics on the worst of the sites, the power consumption of his computer dropped by about 10 watts./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"That#39;s a fraction of the power used by your average lightbulb, but it#39;s still more than green computing consultant Tom Block expected. quot;Ten watts seems like a lot when all we#39;re doing is pulling a Web page,quot; said Block, who is president of a target="_blank" href="http://www.blockdata.net/blockdata/"Block Data Systems/a ./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Hansen said Web developers can be more#160;environmentally responsible#160;by reducing the amount of animation on their sites, but he admitted there may be a downside: less traffic, because Web surfers respond to flashy graphics./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Hansen isn#39;t the first to look at what Web sites can do to reduce power consumption on their visitors#39; computers. Last year the Web site a target="_blank" href="http://blackle.com/"Blackle.com/a launched, a target="_blank" href="http://www.blackle.com/about/"saying/a that people could save energy by switching their home page from Google.com to a page with a black background such as Blackle.com. The idea was that a black Web page required less energy to illuminate than a white one./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Measuring a visit to Blackle.com against Google.com, Hansen said he didn#39;t see much of a difference in power consumption, an observation that has been a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/does-a-darkened-google-really-save-electricity-104/"echoed/a by others./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"The idea that your Web browsing habits could save energy quot;sounds kind of silly,quot; said Harry McCracken, founder of a target="_blank" href="http://technologizer.com/"Technologizer/a , a Web site covering personal technology. quot;Maybe [it#39;s] something you should only worry about after you#39;ve sold your car, ensured you never leave a light on unneccesarily for even a millisecond,quot; he said via instant message./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"PC users could save much more power by simply turning off their PCs or putting them into sleep mode when they#39;re not in use, said Mark Bramfitt, a principal program manager with Pacific Gas and Electric. quot;People don#39;t recognize how much a PC uses,quot; he said. quot;It#39;s on the order of 100 watts or more. And if you#39;re leaving that on around the clock, that#39;s a big energy use.quot;/pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Corporate users could save, on average, about 200 kilowatt hours of energy per PC each year by using sleep mode, he said. Home users could save three times as much power./pp page="1" class="ArticleBody"Bramfitt called Hansen#39;s research quot;interesting,quot; but he added, quot;I think there are bigger fish to fry.quot;/p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c6790858bfb0ec5b6373bc126cc623e2p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c6790858bfb0ec5b6373bc126cc623e2p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c6790858bfb0ec5b6373bc126cc623e2 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

Category: Utilities
Released: Nov 28, 2008
Price: $2.99

Description:
NixieFx is a cool retro-style clock for your iPhone or iPod Touch. It uses 1960s-style �Nixie tube� digits which had a distinctive warm amber glow. FEATURES NixieFx lets you customize your clock display, with variable digit size, orientation and reflective glass filter. Clock options include:- * 12/24 hour display * date display on/off * seconds display on/off * auto-formatting of date display to local settings * disable auto-sleep mode INTERNATIONALIZATION The date display will automatically detect your regional settings, so for example the date 23 November 2008 will be displayed in these regions as so:- US: 11 23 08 UK/ EU: 23 11 2008 Japan: 08 11 23 NixieFx does support alternate calendars, such as Islamic and Japanese, but only if your iPhone�s Internationalization settings are correctly configured. NixieFx has no actual control over this � it will display the same calendar as the built-in iPhone clock. ALARM The iPhone has a perfectly good alarm. This can be set as normal and it will activate when NixieFx is running. HISTORY What were Nixie tubes? In the earliest days of digital technology, Nixie tubes were a kind of vacuum tube � the predecessor of the transistor � with the neat twist that the metal electrodes were shaped in the form of numbers. As each electrode was activated, the number shape would glow, and hence was born the first truly digital display. Unlike the LED displays which soon made them redundant, each number in a Nixie tube is formed in its natural, curved shape, which makes them aesthetically more pleasing than the blocky 7-segment forms we associate with the term �digital� today.

Website: http://www.daresoftware.com/widgets/
Support Website: http://www.daresoftware.com/widgets/

Note: The description above is the official one supplied by the application developer and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of this site or its staff.


Get it on iTunes: NixieFx

Category: Entertainment
Released: Nov 25, 2008
Price: $0.99

Description:
Fake My Call by Origin8. Fake My Call is a little application purposely made for you to have fun! There are multiple ways to enjoy it: * Set up a fake call on your iPhone - or even an iPod Touch - to get away from those awkward situations. * Pretend you're taking a call from a famous celebrity. You can even pre-record and play a voice audio during the call to further solidify the deception. * Play a prank on your friends by getting them to answer a fake call from someone they're not expecting or even avoiding. * Trade your fake caller creations with your friends! Fake My Call has been immaculately designed to imitate a real incoming phone call on your iPhone. Notice the level of detail from the way each button works to the way the calling screen animates. Have a look at how the application works by visiting the Origin8 website (http://www.origin8.com/FakeMyCall) Enjoy it and have fun! Features in Version 1.0.0 - Customizable timer delay. - Instant call activation as soon as the application is started. - Instant quit to gracefully exit to your Home Screen. - Vibration. - Disable sleep mode. - Customizable background; select from Apple-owned pre-set images or from your own photo library. - Customizable ringtones; select from Apple-owned pre-set ringtones to add to the authenticity. - Two waiting screen choices; FakeMyCall screen and fake sleep screen. - Customizable caller ID; edit the caller name and label or choose a contact from your address book. - Voice recorder; record a voice to play during a fake call. - Save and load profiles; have multiple caller creations on your device. - Share your fake caller creations with the world!

Website: http://www.origin8.com
Support Website: http://www.origin8.com

Note: The description above is the official one supplied by the application developer and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of this site or its staff.


Get it on iTunes: Fake My Call