11/12 - Kahuna notes:  Wow, looks like our little stint of Indian Summer is going stick around into the weekend. We might even get temps into the 60s by Saturday. Sweet. Kahunette and I are almost back to 100%. There's still a cough that hanging on to both of us.  ...  I talked with WindyC a while back. Chickie had foot surgery, on both feet!  Yikes!!  Needless to say she was immobile for a few days. I called to check on her this morning and she was at work - her first day back. JohnnyBong answered, so I talked to him for a bit. He's got a band, but they just lost their drummer, so they're looking at options. I also talked with ChiefKahuna this morning. He's doing good. Not much doing. The weather cooled off a bit and it's been windy because of Ida. Onward . . .
.°
Microsoft: MS borrowed from Mac OS X for Windows 7.  During a recent reseller's conference, a Microsoft marketing manager named Simon Aldous gave credit to Apple for creating the OS X operating system which inspired MS people. Then Aldous went one step further and said MS used that inspiration with Windows 7 to, "create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics." Needless to say, the story has spread like wildfire. Now, MS is busy doing damage control. Now that's a pretty smokin' hot story.
.
Gaming Scene News:.
Torchlight review -  4/5  Oooh !
.
Black Prophecy preview.
.
Q&A - Torchlight.
.
Modern Warfare 2 pulls $310M on day one.  If accurate, Activision's claims that Modern Warfare 2 sold $310M during its initial 24 hours would shatter day-one entertainment sales records across the board. Whoa!
.
Dragon Age: Origins review -  95%  Wow !
.
King's Bounty: Armored Princess demo.  (466.7mb)
.
Hardware Scene News:.
Kingston SSDNow V 40GB Boot Drive SSD review -  8.75/10  Oooh !
.
Microsoft disconnects Xbox 360 pirates.  MS this week banned "a small percentage" of Xbox 360 gamers from the Xbox Live online gaming network, citing violations of the company's terms of service: These gamers are known to have modified, or "modded," their consoles to play pirated game discs. BEWARE: The owners of these banned Xbox 360s are offloading then on auction and classified listing sites like Cragislist and Ebay.
.
Intel to roll out new low-cost and high-end SSDs.  Intel will release a $120 solid-state disk (SSD) drive positioned as a server "boot drive" with only 40GB of capacity, but the drive could also be used in low-end laptops PCs and netbooks. Intel is also planning a new line of enterprise-class SSDs with 50GB, 100GB and 200GB capacities.
.
AMD and Intel settle antitrust dispute.  Intel has agreee to pay AMD $1.25B. Yes, billion. Ouch!!! Intel will also agree to abide by a new set of business practices, which will be announced soon. Under terms of the agreement, AMD and Intel obtain patent rights from a new 5-year cross license agreement.
.
HP to acquire 3Com for $2.7B.  HP announced that it has entered into an agreement with network switch, router, security, and solutions company 3Com for approximately $2.7B in cash. This acquisition will not only give HP 3Com's property, but also that of network security company TippingPoint and former joint venture with Huawei, H3C - which will significantly strengthen the company's position in China, one of the world's fastest-growing markets.
.
Trendnet USB to DVI VGA Apapter review -  Gold  Oooh !
.
Tech Scene & Miscellaneous News:.
Microsoft tries to explain deceptive Win7 claims by Sophos.  Security researchers at Sophos have showed how Windows 7 failed to prevent 80% of malware attacks. MS has finally answered the charges in a blog posting by Paul Cooke, director of Windows Enterprise Client Security, who explained that the Sophos claim was bogus. Wow, nice job MS.
.
Windows security bug revealed after MS patch Tuesday.  Yep, yet another new bug. The exploit takes advantage of the operating systems’ implementation of Server Message Block (SMB ). An attacker can use the bug to remotely crash Win7 and WinServer 2008 R2 on a local area network (LAN) or via Internet Explorer. Technical details can be found here.
.
Windows 8 planning and preparation underway.  According to a job posting on Microsoft's career site, Windows 8 planning and preparation is currently taking place. With Windows 7 out of the door, MS is now gearing up Windows 8 development. Expect to see more and more hints at what's to come over the coming months.
.
Google introduces new 'Go' programming language.  Google has just introduced an entirely new programming language, taking influences from C++ and Python, and called it, quite simply, Go.
.