1/8 - Kahuna notes: I had a bunch of stuff to do this morning: a couple errands, hit a gas station, a grocery store, unload, and clear the driveway and sidewalk. Yep, more snow. It's been snowing every damn day. Geez. Huntster reported in today that he encountered a major snafu with his guitar order - placed over the internet with a store in Texas. For some convoluted reason,  after confirming his order, they refunded the purchase to his credit card and put the guitar back in stock. Huntster is still trying to untangle the mess today. Due to the waning availability of those Gibson Limited Edition Robot SGs, Huntster is freaking.  ...  Welp, the big night is here. The BCS National Championship game between #1 Oklahoma and #2 Florida kicks off at 8:00pm on FOX. I'm lookin' for a good game and hopefully it will be. Enjoy the game.
.°
Gaming Scene News:.
King's Bounty: The Legend review -  4/5  Oooh !
.
Empire: Total War preview.
.
Q&A - Cities XL.
.
2008: The Year in Lists...  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27   Blue's News puts together some nice lists - Best Games of 2008, etc.
.
Fallout 3 review -  4.8/5  Wow !
.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky v1.5.08 patch.  (58mb)
.
Hardware Scene News:.
Nvidia GeForce 3D Vision Glasses review -  Very impressive  Oooh !
Kahuna notes: Long time readers known I've got a soft spot for 3D gaming. Yes, the GeForce 3D Vision glasses are cool, but require a monitor/TV with a 120Hz refresh rate that can be split in half - so that each lens of the 3D glasses can receive its own 60Hz image from the screen. We're talking pricey. Samsung has the SyncMaster  2233RZ and Viewsonic has the FuHzion VX2265wm (100Hz and higher CRTs will work too). Mitsubishi's 1080p DLP Home Theater TVs will work, including models: WD-57833, WD-60735, WD-60C8, WD-65735, WD-65736, WD-65C8, WD-65833, WD-65835, WD-73735, WD-73736, WD-73833, WD-73835, WD-73C8, L65-A90. And, LightSpeed Design's DepthQ HD 3D Projector will work too. Of course your Nvidia GPU must support the technology - here's a list (many of the 8800 x, 9800 x, and 2xx GPU's will work). Oh yeah, here's a list of games certified to work with the technology. Quite a sizable investment for 3D gaming. Nvidia, in cooperation with Samsung, is offering a bundle that includes the Samsung SyncMaster  2233RZ ($399) and the GeForce 3D Vision package ($199?), all for a total of $598. Ouch!
.
AMD 'Dragon' goes after Intel.  It's a value based performance platform, at the center of which are AMD's new Phenom II X4 processors. Those will be coupled with AMD Radeon HD 4800 graphics cards, and AMD 7-series chipsets on the motherboard. The target is to break the 3GHz barrier and pull market share back from Intel. AMD is boasting 'headroom': refers to the speed the processor will run when it runs according to specification, versus the speed it can run when enthusiasts take advantage of Dragon's on-board overclocking tools.
.
New SDXC storage card has up to 2 TB storage.  Holy frickin' shit!?! The next generation of the SD card has arrived in the form of the SDXC (extended capacity.) Announced at CES 2009, the new SDXC cards provide up to 2 TB of storage and have write speeds from 104 MB to 300 MB per second. Whoa!
.
Dell Studio XPS notebooks launch early.  The 13-inch Studio XPS 13 and 16-inch Studio XPS 16 are both treated as Dell's new upscale competition against the MacBook and come with a new black-and-silver trim as well as new, edge-to-edge display and a revamped keyboard unlike the company's other models.
.
Beta News' CES 2009 coverage.  Beta News is doing a great job covering CES 2009. Check it.
.
eVGA X58 SLi LGA 1366 (i7) Motherboard review -  Damn good  Oooh !
.
Tech Scene & Miscellaneous News:.
Apple dominates the mobile Web.  The latest data from AdMob, the world's largest mobile advertising marketplace, shows that Apple now dominates the mobile web in the US with a 48% market share. This growth, interestingly enough, does not just come from the iPhone, but the iPod touch also saw a meteoric rise in usage during the last month. Traffic from the iPod touch to AdMob's network in the US increased 3.4 times from November to December.
.
Microsoft: Windows 7 not a lock for '09.  It's not clear whether Microsoft is just trying to be overly cautious, but top Windows executive Bill Veghte said the company is telling PC makers that Windows 7 might or might not be ready in time for this year's holiday season. Veghte says, ""We will ship it when the quality is right, and earlier is always better, but not at the cost of ecosystem support and not at the cost of quality." Boy, is that a load of crap. The last three OSs MS shipped were no better than a buggy beta, each taking a year or more to get straighten out.
.
Six Vista annoyances fixed in Windows 7.  ZDNet has a interesting article up on Win7 fixes for Vista fuckups. We'll, 'fixes' may be to good to be true. 'Improvements' is more like it. Anyway, this article is worth checking out.
.
Tax office phishing scam snags thousands.  A warning was released by HM Revenue and Customs alerting those who receive a tax rebate email from HMRC that it is a phishing scam. The scam is not unusual in the sense that it claims to be communication from a trusted company and asks for your credit/debit card details. What is unusual about it is its effectiveness in snagging people - its genuine look and perfect timing is pulling unsuspecting tax payers in by the minute.
.
Unemployment claims crash state Web sites.  A huge surge in filings for unemployment benefits has crashed online application systems in four states this week. Web sites in Ohio, New York, Kentucky and North Carolina have been knocked offline by unusually high volumes of jobless claims, and a couple other states had problems keeping their Web sites working properly. Phone applications systems aren't faring any better in many states.
.