It would appear that monitor manufacturers will submit their best made panels to all the reviewers. Then after getting stellar reviews they will switch production to use 3rd party panels (usually made in China) thereby lowering their costs and increasing their profits.

The problem? As a consumer you don't know if you're getting the amazing monitor that you read about or if you're getting one of the cheaper quality versions.

Case in point is the Samsung 226bw. There are no less than four different versions containing panels made by different companies all of varying quality - and they're all sold as being the same model number!

See this link for details. Sure enough, I went down to the local FutureShop and they are selling the 'A' version. The moral of the story is that when it comes to monitors you may or may not be getting the product you thought you were buying.

Ever since Intel released their Core Duo chips they've been taking a pounding. Salvation was supposed to appear this summer with the release of their new Barcelona chips and their move to a 65nm manufacturing process.

Now dark rumours have been circulating that their new consumer chips which were pushed back to the fall now won't be available until Q1 2008! In addition to that, no one that I know has stock of any Athlons manufactured with the new process, they simply don't exist in any noticeable volume yet.

Then there's their acquisition of Canadian company ATI, which only just released their first DirectX 10 video cards to tepid reviews. All while enduring a record losing quarter with massive layoffs on the horizon.

On the plus side because Intel's chips vastly outperform theirs, they've been responding with a price war. Their fastest mainstream chip is priced less than half of Intel's offering. So as a consumer, you can get an amazing processor for dirt cheap.

Because of this I'm thinking I might bite the bullet this summer and build a new system, likely running an Athlon 5000 which can be had for even cheaper off of eBay - as much as I'd like to, I can't wait another 6 months until these new offerings become available.

Sadly with the way things are going, AMD might not even be around in six months...

For those not in the know, Facebook is a 'social networking' website. Essentially it allows you to easily keep up to date with what's happening with your online circle of friends.

Some of the site features I find to be complete wastes of time: 'Poking' people, buying people gifts (just images that get displayed on your profile) etc. But I'll admit some of it is useful - registering what High School you went to for example. Just today I got an email from someone I went to school with. So yes, in that respect it's pretty neat. It's not like you couldn't Google someone to try and find them, but this just makes it much easier.

However I usually feel like an idiot when I'm on there. I have to keep asking Chris, 'how do you do that?', 'what's this for?' and so on. To me it's not very intuitive.

I guess my biggest issue is that to be honest, I feel somewhat threatened by it. For years I was the only one in my group of friends who had my own website. I spent a lot of time designing this site from scratch. I had to learn how to use FrontPage and to a lesser extent HTML, and it takes me considerable time to do major updates such as the Honeymoon pictures.

But now anyone can do exactly the same thing without any knowledge of computers and without any real effort involved. Want to read someone's movie reviews? Easy! Want to know how they're feeling? No problem! Want to see their latest posted photos? It's a breeze! Want to watch them on their webcam? Well, ok you can't do that yet (I think) but I'm sure it won't be long before you can.

So ya, I'm pretty much feeling like a dinosaur right now. I think I need a 'Poke'...

I've thought about getting something like this in the past, but they always looked really complicated. With this one however, it's stupid simple. You pour water into the reservoir at the back, pop in one of the coffee 'discs', and press the big start button. Each disc has a barcode on it which the machine reads and adjusts itself accordingly.

How does it taste? Well to be honest I prefer my Starbucks coffee grinds in my old maker for regular coffee. But it does make terrific Latte's and Hot Chocolate. And let's face it, it's pretty neat.

The downside? Well you do seem to go through the coffee discs disturbingly fast. And while you might technically be able to recycle them, in reality most people will just end up tossing them in the garbage.

Why? Because I want to experience them on a faster computer and potentially on a wide screen monitor. It's becoming more and more apparent that my current PC needs to be replaced and I don't want it to prevent me from experiencing these games in all their maxed out glory.

So it would be simple to just go out and get a new system right? Unfortunately I'm making a conscious decision to wait until the summer. Part of it is financial, but the main reason is the timing just isn't right. AMD should be releasing their quad-core CPU's shortly, in addition to new dual-cores that use much less power. As well, the specs for PCI Express v2 have just been finalized. Motherboards will soon be coming out that integrate it and it's much faster bandwidth. Finally ATI will be coming out with their answer to Nvidia's 8800 graphics card. Essentially there will be a convergence of new CPU, motherboard, and video card designs over the next few months.

Until then, I'll have to make do with playing the NeverWinter Nights conversion of the gaming classic Eye of the Beholder.

To quote Apple's website, these are the major changes:

Specific changes in the 10.4.9 release include improvements to raw camera file support; handling of large or malformed images that could cause crashes; image capture performance; mouse scrolling and keyboard shortcuts; font handling; playback quality and bookmarks in DVD player; USB video conferencing cameras for use with iChat; Bluetooth devices; browsing AFP servers; Apple USB modem; Windows-created digital certificates; Open and Print dialogs in Rosetta-based applications on Intel-based Macs; time zone and Daylight Savings Time changes for 2006 and 2007, and security updates.

All I know is that I've applied it both on my Intel based iMac and my PPC based eMac without any issues.

So we finally went out and bought a Personal Video Recorder (PVR) from Shaw. I managed to take my old Hi-Def box back to them for a credit - a whopping $250. So in the end I still paid over $500 for this thing.

Overall I'm extremely happy with it. I must admit I didn't really 'get' it until I started using one. Now I couldn't imagine not having one. The main benefit of a PVR is the ability to record shows (up to two shows at the same time), pause live TV, and skip through commercials. Two added bonus features for me are the inclusion of a HDMI port (my previous box only had DVI) and for whatever reason Hi-Def content looks even better now.

The hard drive in this model is 160GB and the literature states it can hold many hours of recorded shows. I know we've recorded many shows on it already and we've only used a quarter of it's capacity.

I'm off to go watch the entire season of Surreal Life Season 1 in one sitting :)

Obviously technology has played a large part both in my career and in my hobbies. Originally I envisioned this as an area where I could share with everyone else my love of computers, gadgets, and all things electronic. I then went on to categorize things by games, news, hints and utilities.

Unfortunately as time went by I found this area getting updated less and less. Updating just the Tech Corner could be a full time job and I simply don't have the time. Plus with so many excellent websites already out there covering the industry why reinvent the wheel? So I've now decided to simplify things - one main page and an archival page. Rather than writing about every little announcement or development that occurs on a daily basis I instead intend on focusing on areas that I have a direct interest in or experience with. In the future I also intend on adding a page detailed my computer collection as well as one detailing my arcade and video games.

And apologies to Slashdot for my shameless theft of their icon library :)

I've been using Vista at work for the past few weeks and frankly am quite underwhelmed with it. Any possible gains such as the Aero interface, faster boot times, and the Sidebar are more than negated by numerous frustrations. Here's a sample:

• Want to click on Start, Run? Sorry, you now have to go through several folders to find the Run command buried in the Accessories folder.
• I can bring up no less than 4 different window styles within Vista. Look at a regular Vista window, then bring up a command prompt, then look at an Office 2007 app, and finally go into the Fonts application, right click and go Add Fonts. 5 years in the making for this inconsistency? Inexcusable!
• Want to map a network drive? Well in XP you can do that from any Explorer window. In Vista you MUST double click on the computer icon and do it from there. How is that an improvement?
• Have a computer with built in video and only 512MB of memory? Good luck running Vista. Anyone with a computer more than a year old will essentially need a complete hardware upgrade in order to run Vista optimally.

Vista is really going to be marketed towards gamers as XP won't run the latest gaming API, DirectX 10. This is hilarious because benchmarks show any current game runs about half as fast on Vista as it does on XP. In addition Nvidia still hasn't released a production Vista graphics driver! I'd hate to be the guy who spent thousands on a new system to run games when any Joe running XP has a better performing platform.

It's unbelievable how a company as large as Microsoft and with a R&D budget so huge and having 5 years development time could come up with such a sad offering.

What is it? Only a revolutionary device that will change the way you buy movies from now on. Essentially it's a device that connects to your TV and streams content from your PC or Mac computer. Content such as Photos, Movies etc. So in the future you'll just buy a movie off of iTunes, and be able to watch it on your TV. No more trips to the movie store, no more late fees, no more 'oh I'm sorry we're all out of that title right now'.

Best of all, if the rumours hold true, the movies will be in Hi-Def! I guess it's similar to Pay Per View (PPV) in that it's on demand movies, however it's superior because PPV isn't Hi-Def quality and doesn't come with 5.1 surround sound. Plus you will own the movie and be able to watch it either on your computer or on your TV.

Key features:

• Built-in power supply (no power brick)
• USB, Ethernet and 802.11 wireless connectivity
• HDMI, optical audio, component video and RCA (phono) audio outputs
• Works with the Apple Remote

Availability is expected in Q1 2007. It's arrival in my living room is expected around the same time.

As an interesting footnote, this is not the first Set Top device Apple has made. In the mid-90's they partnered with British Telecom to create a device that would have interfaced with televisions - imagine a similarity with the 'experience' we currently have with Digital Cable and Video on Demand. Unfortunately the project never took off and only a few prototypes were ever made. These prototypes are extremely rare and hard to find. But being the big Apple collector that I am, I of course own one :)

Maybe it's the crap colour (brown) or maybe it's the fact that it doesn't work with Vista (what the hell?!?!?) but I somehow don't think Apple is overly worried about losing their place atop the market.

Still, I do have to hand it to Microsoft for having a very um, interesting error screen. The girl is either in a lot of pain or is having the orgasm of her life. I'll leave it to you do decide which it is.

What is it with Microsoft and having poor taste? This isn’t just a small “oops, guess we messed up” mistake, and in all likeliness, it’s a conscious decision even. They are trying far too hard, apparently hoping to link the Zune with the image of raving orgasms and happy couples kissing in the grass. Is this Microsoft’s response to the general consensus that iPods are so sexy, people have commented (numerous times) they would make love to the thing?

Definitely much better than a blue screen of death :)

The explosive growth is explained in large part to the popularity of 'blogging' and the fact that it's now so much easier to create websites.............ah, back when I was a kid we didn't have your fancy Frontpage programs, we had to design using text editors - and that's the way we liked it!

In all seriousness, I do remember years ago being over at my best friends place where he was all excited over this breakthrough program called Mosaic that let you visit different places called web sites. At the time I remember not being overly impressed - I mean what was the big deal? I guess it shows how much of a visionary I'm not...

I mean, wow. How lazy are the programmers at Microsoft? They've had over 5 years to try and get Vista out the door, in the end having to jettison many of the key features just to ship the thing this century.

Now it turns out that the Add Fonts dialog which hasn't been changed since Windows 3.1 (that's 1992 people) has once again been ignored and left as is.

So think about this when you shell out $450 for the Operating System to end all Operating Systems, after having upgraded your system to have at least 1GB of RAM, oh and upgrading your video card to be DirectX 10 compatible, and not forgetting having to get a new monitor that supports it's DRM, plus having to call Microsoft every time you swap out a hardware component as they now think you're running a pirated copy.

You can comfort yourself that amidst all this wondrous, amazing technology that will improve your life in ways unimaginable, that this relic from an era gone by is still there in all it's pitiful glory.

Taking place right after the events of HL2 you find yourself once again paired with Alyx as you try and make your way out of City 17 before the whole place gets vaporized.

As this is only an 'episode', the game itself is fairly short probably lasting only 5 hours or so. All the familiar weapons and characters are they and integrate into the story very well. Apparently the graphics have been improved slightly although I couldn't really see it - what I did notice however was that everything ran as smoothly on my system as the original game did which was a pleasant surprise.

There were a number of puzzles to overcome which made you stop and think your way through, but overall I didn't find there to be any frustratingly difficult spots - the one exception being the Elevator scene. Apparently a number of players have complained that it was too hard and Valve subsequently released a patch which made it easier. I'm not sure which version I ended up playing but it was indeed very hard - however it made it such a rush and gave me a real sense of accomplishment when I did finally make it through.

If you played HL2 and loved it then getting this add-on is a no brainer. I for one can't wait for Episodes 2 and 3!

First off I played and won Call of Duty 2. I won't go into an in-depth review, but overall I'd say it was merely OK. Not that there was anything overly bad, but nothing really stood out either. Truthfully all those WWII shooter games tend to blur together for me - COD, MOH etc. Maybe I'm still ticked off that I unknowingly played the entire game at 800x600 instead of at the 1280x960 resolution I thought I had punched in.

I then bought Dungeon Siege off of eBay in order to play the newly released Ultima 5 mod - Lazarus. I was really looking forward to this. Sadly after about 10 minutes of playing I gave up on it. It's obvious a lot of time and effort (and devotion) went into the game, but in the end it's let down by using the Dungeon Siege engine. Trying to navigate around in buildings, especially down stair wells was screamingly frustrating. I'll say it again, Neverwinter Nights totally nailed the interface to use for RPGs. Any other game engine is a joke in comparison.

Finally, I recently picked up Battle For Middle-Earth II (BFMEII). This is probably the first Real Time Strategy (RTS) game I've played since I used to burn the midnight oil playing Total Annihilation back in the day. I've only spent a couple days learning it's gameplay but two things are readily apparent - I really should get a widescreen monitor and this game if maddeningly hard to play. Yet it's difficulty makes me want to play it even more - I guess I'm a masochist at heart. I will publish an in-depth review of this one as I get further along in it.

Update: I finished playing both the good and evil campaigns. I have to say it was immensely satisfying invading Hobbiton and slaughtering all the Hobbits :) I have yet to play the War of the Ring campaign as I, um, want to upgrade my computer first and get a widescreen monitor.