End of support means, unsupported versions of Windows will no longer receive software updates from Windows Update. These include security updates that can help protect your PC from harmful viruses, spyware, and other malicious software, which can steal your personal information.

Microsoft recommends that you upgrade to Windows 7 or install Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3), a free update. Note that there is no SP3 for the 64-bit version of Windows XP. So, if you’re running the 64-bit version of Windows XP with SP2, you will continue to be eligible for support and receive updates until April 8, 2014.

Businesses with Software Assurance on their Microsoft Office licenses will be able to start downloading the Office 2010 RTM bits in English via the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center starting on April 27th. On the other hand, those without Software Assurance will be able to start ordering Microsoft Office 2010 through the Microsoft Volume Licensing programs from May 1st. The Retail Box version of Microsoft Office 2010 will be available in retail stores in June.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is perfect for:

• Donation and pledge management
• Basic membership management
• Basic volunteer tracking
• Campaign management
• Excel dashboard reports
• Payment solution for online donations

For nonprofits and NGOs interested in the on-demand deployment, the solution is available through Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Currently it is available in the U.S. and Canada. Pricing for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online for qualifying nonprofits and NGOs is $9.99 per user, per month. Customizations for nonprofits and NGOs are offered free of charge. Those interested in more information and starting a free trial can visit http://crm.dynamics.com/ngo.

The Reactor Series, including 60GB and 120GB drive capacities, is built using the new JMicron JMF612 controller. This second-generation controller from JMicron incorporates 128MB of DDR2 cache memory for stutter-free performance. The 120GB Reactor Series SSD delivers speeds of up to 250MB/s read and 170MB/s write, while the 60GB Reactor Series SSD features speeds up to 250MB/s read and 110 MB/s write.

The Nova Series is built using the popular Indilinx Barefoot controller with 64MB of cache memory, and is offered in drive sizes of 64GB and 128GB. The 128GB Nova Series SSD is able to achieve speeds of up to 270MB/second read and 190MB/second write, while the 64GB Nova Series SSD delivers speeds up to 270MB/s read and 130MB/s write.

The Reactor Series and Nova Series are available immediately from Corsair’s authorized distributors and resellers worldwide. They comes with a Two-Year Limited Warranty. Complete customer support via telephone, email, forum and Tech Support Express is also available.

]]> http://www.technogadge.com/corsair-launches-reactor-series-and-nova-series-ssds/feed/ 0 http://www.technogadge.com/nvidia-and-microsoft-join-forces-on-gpu-computing/ http://www.technogadge.com/nvidia-and-microsoft-join-forces-on-gpu-computing/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:32:42 +0000 Sandy http://www.technogadge.com/?p=1011 Read more »]]> NVIDIA, the leader in GPU computing, today announced that it will work with Microsoft to promote NVIDIA Tesla graphics processing units (GPUs) for high performance parallel computing using the Windows HPC Server 2008 operating system.

“The coupling of GPUs and CPUs illustrates the enormous power and opportunity of multicore co-processing,” said Dan Reed, corporate vice president of Extreme Computing at Microsoft. “NVIDIA’s work with Microsoft and the Windows HPC Server platform, is helping enable scientists and researchers in many fields achieve supercomputer performance on diverse applications.”

NVIDIA Research developed several GPU-enabled applications on the Windows HPC Server 2008 platform, such as a ray tracing application that can be used for advanced photo-realistic modeling of automobiles. Related to this, NVIDIA worked with Microsoft Research to install a large Tesla GPU computing cluster and is studying applications that are optimized for the GPU.

In addition, a whole range of enterprise applications – such as data mining, machine learning and business intelligence, as well as scientific applications like molecular dynamics, financial computing and seismic processing – are taking advantage of the massively parallel CUDA(TM) architecture on which NVIDIA’s GPUs are based to achieve higher levels of productivity.

The CUDA architecture enables developers to use the CPU and the GPU together in a co-processing model. Compute-intensive sections of an application use the parallel computing capabilities of the GPU, while the sequential part of an application’s code runs on the CPU.

NVIDIA Tesla high-performance GPU computing products support Windows XP and Windows Vista in the workstation and Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 in the data center. Tesla C1060 and S1070 GPU computing products are available from most major system vendors including Cray, Dell, HP and Lenovo.

The ASP is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together to host, scale, and manage web applications on the internet. Microsoft will offer Windows Azure, SQL Azure and .NET Services for purchase through a consumption-based pricing model. It means consumers and partners will have to pay only for the services that they consume.

“With the Windows Azure platform, we’re focused on delivering the best services platform to create compelling Web applications and services — which enables our customers and partners to quickly develop and deploy compelling solutions,” said Bob Muglia, president of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft.

Windows Azure, SQL Azure and .NET Services will become commercially available in October at the Professional Developers Conference 2009. Windows Azure will cost $0.12 per hour, while per gigabyte of storage will cost $0.15 per month. Web version of SQL Azure is priced at $9.99 per month for a 1GB database, while a Business edition of SQl Azure with 10 GB database will cost $99.99 per month. The .Net services will cost $0.15 per 100,000 message operation. Microsoft partners will receive an additional 5 percent promotional discount on Windows Azure compute, SQL Azure and .NET Services.

Silverlight 3 offers a new set of features for building light-weight, sandboxed companion experiences for the Web that run on the desktop. Silverlight out of browser allows websites to build even closer, persistent relationships with customers. It enables the application to be placed in a restricted store on the user’s machine; and then provide a link directly to it from the user’s desktop or start menu. This is all enabled within Silverlight 3 without any additional download of runtime or the need to write applications in a different way.

Smooth Streaming feature dynamically detects and seamlessly switches, in real time, the video quality of a media file that a Silverlight player receives based on local bandwidth and CPU conditions. Consumers with high bandwidth connections can experience HD quality streaming while others with lower bandwidth speeds receive the appropriate stream for their connectivity, allowing consumers across the board to enjoy a compelling, uninterrupted streaming experience which leads to extended audience engagement.

With support for native H.264/Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) Audio, live and on-demand IIS7 Smooth Streaming, full HD (720p+) playback, and an extensible decoder pipeline, Silverlight 3 brings rich, full-screen, stutter-free media experiences to the desktop. It also contains new 3D graphics, animation features, hardware accelerated effects and text improvements that enable designers and developers to create next generation Web visuals.

Now, Sliverlight comes packed with over 60 high-quality, fully skinnable and customizable out-of-the-box controls: charting and media, new layout containers including dock and viewbox, and autocomplete, treeview, and datagrid are a few highlights. The controls come with nine professional designed themes.

Project Natal is a fully hands-free control system, which is actually powered by a new 3D motion capture camera that integrates full-body motion into the Xbox 360 game console. The product will work on all versions of Xbox 360 console. Although still in the early stages of development, Microsoft has sent prototypes of the technology to all the main game developers.

Movie director Steven Spielberg is a fan of Project Natal. “This is a technology that recognizes not only your thumb or wrist but recognizes your entire being,” Spielberg said in an interview with the BBC. “The technology knows who you are and instantly personalizes the gaming experience.” Spielberg, who is currently making video games for EA, said he also writing games for the new platform.

Want to know more about Project Natal? Take a look at the following video which demonstrates the usability of the technology:

According to Advertising Age, the new advertising campaign will not attack Google by name but will instead highlight what Microsoft believes are some key advantages of its new system over the dominant search engine. The $100 million figure sounds good when compared to $25 million that Microsoft’s rival Google spent on advertising last year.

Microsoft has been developing and testing Bing under the name Kumo and plans to issue details about it later this week at a technology conference. The new search engine is expected to offer some advanced features such as a navigation window to move between different types of searches, and a section devoted to related queries.

How to get the Windows 7 RC? It is very simple. Visit the official Windows 7 page. The 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 RC are available in five languages: English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish. Select the version and your language preference and click go to register for and download the RC.

You can install the Windows 7 RC on a PC running Windows Vista without backing up the PC. But Microsoft recommends you to keep a backup. On the other hand, if you’re running Windows XP or the Windows 7 Beta, first you need to backup your data. Once you have the backup, do a clean installation of the RC and then reinstall your applications and restore your data.

The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. So, starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will notify you two weeks before the bi-hourly shutdowns start. If you want to get rid of that problem, you need to install a valid version of Windows before March 1, 2010. So, don’t forget about it!

More info: Windows 7