ZDNet has compared three Microsoft Windows siblings namely Windows XP, Vista and to be released Young kind on the block Windows 7 (Beta build) and has released the results. The results are interesting and favors Windows 7. It is interesting to see Windows 7 outperform even Windows XP with 1GB memory. The comparison does not cover systems with lesser memory where XP would run happily but its not known how windows 7 will perform, Its not worth comparing Vista in low memory system as it is known to trash a lot on low memory system.

Overall Rank is

1. Window 7 (Beta build)
2. Windows XP
3. Windows Vista

They have covered lots of areas like

1. Install OS - Time it takes to install the OS
2. Boot up - Average boot time to usable desktop
3. Shut down - Average shut down time
4. Move 100MB files - Move 100MB of JPEG files from one hard drive to another
5. Move 2.5GB files - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from one hard drive to another
6. Network transfer 100MB files - Move 100MB of JPEG files from test machine to NAS device
7. Network transfer 2.5GB files - Move 2.5GB of mixed size files (ranging from 1MB to 100MB) from test machine to NAS device
8. and more …

more here

Rockbox is an open source firmware replacement for a growing number of digital audio players. It has been in development since 2001 and receives new features, tweaks and fixes every day to provide you with the best possible music listening experience. Rockbox aims to be considerably more functional and efficient than your device’s stock firmware while remaining easy to use and customizable. We believe that you should never need to go through a series of menus for an action you perform frequently. We also believe that you should be able to configure almost anything about Rockbox you could want, pertaining to functionality. It is written by users, for users.

Another top priority of Rockbox is audio playback quality. Rockbox, for most models, includes a wider range of sound settings than that device’s original firmware. A lot of work has been put into making Rockbox sound the best it can, and improvements are constantly being made. All models have access to a large number of plugins, including many games, applications, and graphical demos.

You can load different configurations quickly for different purposes (e.g. a large font for in your car, different sound settings for at home). You can even customize your While Playing Screen to display only and exactly what you want to see when your music is playing. In addition, Rockbox features a wide range of languages, and all supported models also have the ability to talk to you - menus can be voiced and filenames spelled out or spoken.

It works on following DAP’s (Digital Audio Players)

• Apple: 1st through 5.5th generation iPod, iPod Mini and 1st generation iPod Nano
  (not the Shuffle, 2nd/3rd/4th gen Nano, Classic or Touch)
• Archos: Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio
• Cowon: iAudio X5, X5V, X5L, M5, M5L, M3 and M3L
• iriver: H100, H300 and H10 series
• Olympus: M:Robe 100
• SanDisk: Sansa c200, e200 and e200R series (not the v2 models)
• Toshiba: Gigabeat X and F series (not the S series) 

 
Latest version can be got here. 

What we have here is one set of data points for one particular system, but I think that the results are very promising. The fact that Windows 7 comes out top in three out of four of these tests at this early stage is very promising indeed. The boot time and PCMark Vantage results are particularly good.

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if you have a Sony Handycam with USB webcam feature and you misplaced the driver CD. You can get the USB Webcam driver for Windows XP from here

Fedora community has released their latest and greatest Fedora 10. It packs lot of punch and many features added are good for linux as a whole. Lets list some useful features added in fedora 10.

• faster bootup
• Wireless connection sharing enables ad hoc network sharing
• Better setup and use of printers through improved management tools
• Virtualization storage provisioning for local and remote connections now simplified
• SecTool is a new security audit and intrusion detection system
• Improved webcam support
• Better support for infrared remote controls makes them easier to connect and work with many applications
• Tools and meta-data that make it easier for anyone (ISVs, developers, OEMS, etc) to create and deploy virtual appliances
• Stream line graphical start up
• First Aid Kit is an automated recovery tool that brings together common recovery processes and applies them to a system
• Rewrite the PulseAudio sound server to use timer-based audio scheduling
• Include the Sugar Desktop (used in OLPC) in Fedora
• Make storage provisioning over libvirt connections (local and remote) virtual machines as simple as possible.

You probably know intuitively that applications have limited powers in Intel x86 computers and that only operating system code can perform certain tasks, but do you know how this really works? This post takes a look at x86 privilege levels, the mechanism whereby the OS and CPU conspire to restrict what user-mode programs can do. There are four privilege levels, numbered 0 (most privileged) to 3 (least privileged), and three main resources being protected: memory, I/O ports, and the ability to execute certain machine instructions. At any given time, an x86 CPU is running in a specific privilege level, which determines what code can and cannot do. These privilege levels are often described as protection rings, with the innermost ring corresponding to highest privilege.

more here