The idea of bundling software has been around for quite some time. For years AOL links and icons were bundled with just about everything. Here though it was merely icons and links attached to more frivolous applications. The recent trend with Malware force installing itself is much worse. This happening hidden from view, during a regular application's install has angered just about everyone who discovered it. But now companies are targeting the basic applications that make your computer work. They are abusing the trust built up with the fact that you are not likely to pay attention when installing basic applications from reputable companies.

Yep, Apple continues to be the headlines winner all over the media outlets, and this time Dell is sharing the spotlight with the Macintosh maker. Yesterday, Dell?s Founder and Chairman Michael Dell e-mailed Fortune magazine (after being requested to comment on the situation) stating, "If Apple decides to open the Mac OS to others, we would be happy to offer it to our customers." That?s a fairly bold statement coming from Dell considering that this declaration could possibly have a negative impact on the company?s relationship with Microsoft.

After Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo unveiled their next generation of gaming consoles, people wondered whether the supposedly digital hubs of the future would be doomful to the PCs. You can?t blame them for making such an assumption after all the thrilling features and performance Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo discussed at E3 this year. Anyone slightly knowledgeable about the architecture that the console makers talked about would know that upcoming gaming consoles are undoubtedly powerful, but for obvious reasons neither PC gaming nor PCs in general are doomed.

In an attempt to put a halt to DVD copying the movie industry has now gone after the developers of DVD copying software, is this the next offensive of the greedy?

Hardware Analysis

Apple?s recent collaboration with Intel to use its microprocessors surged a great deal of interest throughout the industry. Though there are several arguments spanning the market currently, one thing is certain ? Apple has stated it will not let users install Mac OS X on non-proprietary hardware, even though the CPU will fully comply with x86 architecture. The only apparent way for Apple to achieve that is by using some form of protection technology, however, that may ultimately turn out to be a fatal strategy.

I mostly rely on my notebook computer for portable computing. It comes in quite handy when I have to write articles on the go or simply browse the Internet comfortably when I?m away from my desk. While I thoroughly enjoy the portability factor and dearly appreciate it, I find it painful to work with the built in "mouse pad".

Are sub $300 PCs the wave of the future or is this just another fad? Flexbeta examines the effects cheap PCs may have on Microsoft, hardware vendors and the rest of the computing industry.

Intel has a long history of producing excellent chipsets. They are stable, offer excellent features and are more versatile than competing chipsets. In fact, Intel?s 915/925 chipsets would?ve followed the same pattern of excellence, but combined with immature technologies at the time, high performance to price ratio and sub-par performance of its Prescott microprocessors, the platform failed to deliver. Apparently, you can?t blame the chipsets for this; maybe they would?ve been just as competitive as their predecessors, 865/875, if the aforementioned technologies didn?t hold them back. Even after that, the 915/925 chipsets has exciting technologies integrated in them for the best possible feature set.

I understand that it?s necessary for MPAA and RIAA to put an end to piracy for obvious reasons, but they have taken some extreme steps in the past. For example, I remember when the RIAA sued a 12-year old girl. Even after knowing that the girl and her divorced mother could not pay the amount RIAA was asking for out-of-court settlement, they kept pushing the family. As a result, a few online communities donated and ultimately gathered enough money to pay the fine and support the family.

Microsoft?s Internet Explorer Product Unit Manager Dean Hachamovitch recently confirmed in his weblog that Internet Explorer 7.0 would have tabbed browsing integration, a feature that?s also available in Mozilla?s Firefox browser. One of the many reasons Firefox has become popular is due to tabbed browsing. It was a different concept that let users open numerous windows in a single parent window. It?s useful, it?s popular, and it works. But I don?t see how this is a major feature in need of promotion. While Hachamovitch didn?t intentionally promote it himself, he did confirm it as if this is the next thing in browsers.

After my column "Is AMD the Next Intel?" I received more than a few e-mails from concerned readers stating that it was time for AMD to generate revenue for their fabrication facilities, and how it was beneficial to the chipmaker to have high price tags on their dual-core chips. I think I may have been unclear in my previous column, but basically, I wrote that column from a buyer?s perspective. You would never want to pay more than you have to, would you? And considering that we are talking about the enthusiast community, value is a very important proposition. In this very community, people purchase lower-clocked microprocessors on purpose just so they can overclock it in the end, thereby increasing the value per dollar.

Writing this at the time of all the new consoles being announced allows people to start thinking more closely about their purchasing decisions.

As a PC gamer, the announcement, and subsequently the launch, of new consoles horrifies me. The sound of cash registers ka-chinging in the ears of PC game developers can be heard quite easily, and often. Console gaming has a much wider audience than PC gaming, with young kids having easy access to them compared to powerful PC?s.

After I wrote my first column on "gaudy cases", I began to notice a change in the case market from various manufacturers. The majority of us already know that Cooler Master, Lian Li, Silverstone and Antec had been offering tasteful cases since they got into the business, but Thermaltake, which is supposed to be one of the largest case companies in the United States went with a product line full of gaming cases that did not appeal to the majority of us.

Intel has been falling behind ever since they introduced their new socket, processors, chipsets, and an abundance of technologies at the beginning of last year. Even before Intel?s new platform was unveiled, motherboard makers and enthusiasts stated how poor it was to put pins on the motherboard instead of the processor itself. The new technologies, such as DDR2 and PCIe, either performed equally well or lower than expected against their "last-generation" components at higher prices, in many instances. Intel?s Prescott was thermally handicapped, architecturally disabled, and retailed at immense prices.

Epic Games today announced it has snapped up the Reality Engine, and is bringing Artifical Studios founder / lead engine programmer Tim Johnson in-house. Epic will not continue sales or support of the Reality Engine, but certain aspects of the engine might find their way into the Unreal Engine. Developers who have licensed the Reality Engine will receive a discount on an Unreal Engine 3 license if they choose to upgrade.

AngryDev

Let?s take one scenario at a time. Maybe you remember how ATI stated that Shader Model 3.0 was not necessary in its X800 and X850 series graphics cards, as it wasn?t being used by game developers at the time. This is the reason that ATI gave for failing to implement this feature in its product line. Well, we now see that this statement is true, and there?s nothing wrong with leaving the feature out if you are talking about inexpensive hardware, which does not describe the high dollar X800 and X850 cards. Now, I think NVIDIA knew that SM 3.0 wasn?t likely to be utilized as well, but went ahead and implemented the feature as a means of future-proofing their cards.

We are in the verge of the next generation of console gaming and once again we hear marvelous things from Sony regarding its Cell processor: it breaks Moore?s Law, that it will take away traditional architectures from all consumer electronics, from cell phones to HDTVs, etc.

TeamXbox

Up until recently, overclocking, a practice of running your system components at higher than specified speeds, was considered only for the enthusiast community. The concept of overclocking has been popular ever since people started building their own computers instead of purchasing from the likes of Dell or HP. Thus far, the practice of overclocking was an industry taboo that the majority of companies despised, and frankly who could blame them? Purchasing a less expensive piece of hardware and cranking the speeds up with just a few BIOS settings and meeting or exceeding the performance of a much more expensive part appears to be dreadful for business.

There has to be a fundamental shift in this country. We can't keep going on with this ridiculous mindset of working faster, not smarter. And we have to tailor our educational facilities to be more in-line with what's going on in other global areas. Our higher-learning institutions are still among the best in the world. But if we don't fix the mid-and lower level grade insufficiencies, eventually the universities are going to suffer. It'll be a sad day when we have to outsource college students, as well as manufacturing jobs.