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1. 
   Review - wikidPad

   1.9 Beta 20 (Dec 16, 2008)

   This reminds me of an extremely light version of Microsoft OneNote or a couple of DOS era applications for stacking notes and topics of various data.
   
   It is free, so that is a plus, and it is handy.
   
   However, if you can afford OneNote (student edition is very cheap), get it instead, as you get a lot more features from integrated OS level searching to even Voice or Handwritten (ink) notes.
   
   OneNote is one of the MS Office applications that really doesn't get enough accolades, which is a crime because a lot of people would find it to be a lifesaver for storing everything from web receipts and screenshots to even using it to outline your next great project or novel.

2. 
   Review - Blender for Windows

   2.48 (Oct 15, 2008)

   Yes the UI is kind of suck. Sometimes brilliant coders are not good at creating user interfaces that make sense to users that didn't write the code. (Yes I dabble in the world of UI theory.)
   
   However, people interested in using this product, just spend an afternoon/evening at YouTube and watch the tons of 'instructional' videos people have put together that will help make sense of things.
   
   Also for what this is, it is quite powerful.

3. 
   Review - DirectX 10 Compatibility Libraries

   Pre-Alpha (Apr 25, 2007)

   Wow, this is great, except for the parts of DirectX 10 that assume the OS is using a GPU Scheduler, and the OS is capable of GPU RAM Virtualization, which XP does not do.
   
   So you have basically wrapped DirectX 10 to basic functions, but there is NO way to provide all the featurs of DirectX on an OS without the 'basic' plumbing required by DirectX 10, two of which I mention above.
   
   There is also the need for GPU Scheduling for the Physics and non Video Call to the GPU through DirectX 10, again something you cannot do on any OS other than Vista, as XP nor any other OS currently has a GPU Scheduler.
   
   (The GPU Scheduler in Vista ensures no application can fully control the GPU nor do the applications have to 'yield' control, as Vista provides a pre-emtive multi-tasking environment for GPUs, as well as scaling across multiple GPU cores without using SLI type technologies.)
   
   So if an application is written to DirectX10 guidelines and never yields the GPU as it expects the OS to do this, or if the DirectX 10 application expects the OS to virtualize the VRAM, it will simply lockup or fail on XP or any other OS.
   
   To honestly support DirectX 10 on XP, the author would also have to back port the Vista video subsystem, including the complete WDDM from Vista.
   
   So the author is well meant in their intentions, but somehow they have a serious area of misinformation as they do not fully understand why DirectX 10 can only be ran under Vista properly.

4. 
   Review - Vista Codec Package

   4.3.4 (Mar 15, 2007)

   This is a nice attempt at bundling a lot of open codecs for Vista.
   
   However, be warned, that it also includes Codecs that are ALREADY in Vista, like AC3 and MPEG2, replacing the Vista based codecs.
   
   This may not seem like a huge problem, but with ATI and NVidia drivers, they use the internal Vista codecs to accelerate video, and when these codecs from this package are installed, you lose Mpeg acceleration for movies.
   
   Now again, this may not seem big, since most people don't care about CPU usage when watching Videos, but if you are an Ultimate user and are using animated or Video desktop backgrounds, it is a massive performance difference.
   
   For example on a low/medium end system using an MPG for a background will eat 5% of the CPU, and even then it does yield nicely. However, if you install the Vista Codec Package, you will find your CPU usage at 50-80% usage just to have an animated desktop video wallpaper.
   
   I wish the person putting together this codec package would step back and look at the codecs ALREADY in Vista and make the ones that overwrite the Vista codecs an 'option' that is off by default for novice users.
   
   Even with AC3, the Vista codec version is designed with the new Vista audio subsystem in mind and therefore it does a better job handling the conversion to Dolby Stereo and Dolby Pro Logic than the free AC3 codec in the package. With the free AC3 codec, unless you have a 5.1 or up sound system, the voice can get lost and the sound volume is greatly reduced.
   
   So I applaud the effort of getting a lot of these codecs into one package, but the fact they will lower your quality and performance for standard things like DVD and HD DVD playing is bad.
   
   So be warned, especially Vista Ultimate users that like having an animated desktop with little to no CPU usage for it.

5. Comment - PDC 2009: Scuttling huge chunks of Vista architecture for a faster Windows 7

   4.3.4 (Nov 17, 2009 - 7:12 AM)

   There is a good video on Channel9 from Mark on this subject from earlier this year (late last year?) that talks about the changes in some specific and generic terms that make would help in this making more sense to the average user/developer.
   
   One example Mark gave was how SQL server on previous Windows versions had to self schedule operations aside from what the kernel was doing because of the granularity and lock speed SQL server needed. (This is why dedicated SQL Servers were significantly more efficient, as SQL was running in a special mode.)
   
   The end result is not only is Win7's kernel significantly smarter and more forgiving, it now allows for things like SQL to run as a normal application and let the OS fully handle the scheduling/threads/locking.
   
   So this is pretty impressive that the lock and scheduling efficiency has reached this level of performance, and something as specific as SQL Server no longer has to deal with this itself or run in a special mode on the Win7 kernel, and still have the same level of performance.
   
   The advances to better multi-core support is related and part of this as well, freeing up cores and threads and thus reducing the overhead of managing a 'large' amount of cores in large servers.
   
   The overhead of multi/CPU/Core processing starts to hit ceilings fairly early on where performance of the additional cores are offset by the kernel's ability to manage and schedule the threads on the cores.
   
   And this is important that Win7 is doing 1.4 at 128. A good contrast would be previous NT versions or other kernel technologies; for example in Linux you can easily define the kernel to use 256 cores/CPUs, but at about 16 CPUs/Cores you almost fully negate all the multi-core/multi-CPU advantages as the kernel overhead starts to choke the performance of the system and it ends up dealing with handing out threads to CPUs more than it deals with general processing.
   
   (This is why most multi-CPU server technologies are cluster farms because one machine running 64 or 128 or 256 CPUs with a single kernel has always been horrible in terms of performance. - There are also virtual and multi-kernel technologies that run multiple OSes on a machine to break drop in multi-CPU performance scaling.)
   
   The Win7 changes should set the stage not only for better mult-core/CPU performance for personal systems, but will greatly reduce the complexity of implementing large scale multi-processor Servers.
   
   In theory now moving to the performance of a 128 or 256 core system should be as easy as getting the supporting hardware and using a single version of Windows Server on the system. So instead of 10-20 copies of Windows Server or Linux running servers to meet this level of performance, you could have ONE SERVER with Windows Server, which in terms of mangaement is crazy simple and makes low end supercomputing available to even an average geek with the coins for the hardware.
   
   And the side effect is a very efficient and highly granular kernel for desktop users with i7 and other multi-core CPU technologies as users are already feeling with Windows 7. (The extra 'intelligence' of how Win7 handles virtual or 'HT' cores also chips in for a faster and smoother experience, that even Atom based Netbook users can feel the performance difference, as the common Atom is a HT enabled CPU.)
   
   Go find Mark's video on this on Channel 9 and any paper he has written about it in the last year. I am spitting what I write here off the top of my head, so I don't guarantee 'technical' accuracy, just a 'bigger' picture of how important this is and how it will affect the next few years in redefining both desktop and server SMP performance.

6. Comment - Apple was NOT more profitable selling cell phones than Nokia in Q3

   4.3.4 (Nov 15, 2009 - 5:31 PM)

   It still amazes me that people take this as an attack at Apple.
   
   The reality is, no matter what you think of the iPhone, it is a very tiny fraction of the Cell Phone market.

7. Comment - 'A pivot from war to peace:' The AMD + Intel armistice, in their own words

   4.3.4 (Nov 15, 2009 - 5:19 PM)

   Both sides have blood on their hands at some point, but I see this as a step in the right direction.
   
   Breaking the exclusivity deals and killing lawsuits are both good for the companies and the consumers.
   
   I like products from both companies; so hopefully, his is where the back room politics gets shoved out and competition can be a factor.
   
   This should get even more interesting as NVidia continues to shoot themselves in the foot. As they have been peeing in both Intel's cereal and AMDs while taking a stick to Microsoft in order to push their older generation of technology forward. (The whole NVidia CEO loves Apple is not so productive when they are sucking up to a small share of the market and leaving non-Apple standards as a side note - i.e. DX10.1 and DX11 technologies.)

8. Comment - iTunes Preview doesn't go far enough to create Web-based option for store

   4.3.4 (Nov 13, 2009 - 6:48 PM)

   Technically it is spyware when it is reporting back to Apple.
   
   Especially when you import movies that you didn't buy from iTunes and Apple asks your ISP to take action and you get a nice letter about illegal downloads.
   
   The sad part is that it doesn't JUST happen to users that are torrenting movies, some in our investigation were simple DVD rips, and still got a 'threat' from the ISP based on what iTunes reported as 'suspect' content.
   
   The trick is not to let iTunes see anything you didn't buy from iTunes that is Movie/TV Show related. Music or random MP3s don't create the same threats, and I assume because MP3s are too common and no way to track them even if they are 'suspect'.

9. Comment - The iTunes App Store at 100,000: Can we stop counting, already?

   4.3.4 (Nov 13, 2009 - 3:29 PM)

   "This is the same argument Mac users used for years. We don't care how many apps there are. Quality over quantity is always more important. How does it feel to sit on the other side of the fence for a change?"
   
   A valid point, except many of the 'quantity' of applications in the Windows world have been business applications that are needed, and not just 'extra numbers' of applications. Pick an industry, and they have developed applications that are Windows only and NEEDED for doing a job, and the reason these corporation choose Windows software solutions is the ease of development, especially when creating a frontend to older technology yanking and manipulating data from things like old COBOL data sources.
   
   From the airline to the insurance to the medical to the finacial industries, they use and require Windows because not of the 'Windows install base' but the ease of develop and development tools their partners choose to rapidly create and release functional software to do their industry jobs.
   
   (There is a reason why MS Development tools and compiler technology outside of the kiddies is serious and important.)
   
   PS This also applies to the Windows Mobile market, pay attention to service industries and notice the guys installing your cable or phone or doing work at your house often have Windows Mobile phones (from years ago) that they are running specific and simply developed software for their job, in addition to doing remote server access and other software access features that to this day can ONLY be found on the Windows Mobile phone platform.