Monday, January 03, 2011

Net Neutrality and Intel’s New Chips in the News

Happy new year to all of you. After the Christmas/New Year’s holidays, I am back bringing you all the computer news that’s fit to print, or something like that.

Maybe with the start of the new year, I should re-explain my goals for this newsletter. I write this blog/newsletter mainly for computer non-nerds…in other words, most of us that just want to get the most out of our computers without going into all the heavy-duty tech stuff. We just want it to work! But sometimes having a little background on what is happening now in technology keeps your computing knowledge current enough to make informed decisions about the computers you buy and the best software to use to be productive.

I recommend interesting Web sites, and software (usually free) that you may find handy. And, I also report important stories that affect all of us, like the Net Neutrality stories today. Again, I hope you find this blog/newsletter to be interesting and of some use.

So, without further ado, here is this year’s first blog: - JRC    

What Do the FCC's Net Neutrality Rules Mean for You?

Net neutrality is in the headlines again, but what does it mean for you? Is this just some wonky, inside-the-Beltway chatter that won't have an impact on our daily lives or an issue that will affect how we access the Web in the future? The short answer is: both.

Most don't want the FCC to regulate the Internet

Among the 1,000 "likely U.S. voters" questioned, only 21 percent said they'd be in favor of the Federal Communication Commission regulating the Internet. A majority 54 percent said they're opposed to government control of the Net, while 25 percent were left undecided.

Intel Officially Introduces Sandy Bridge Microarchitecture

Intel’s latest design in chips is released for sale today. In Sandy Bridge, the memory controller, the PCI Express (PCIe) controller, and video functions are all located within the processor die and can share data and power much more easily than before. And the microarchitecture has been designed in such a way that it will scale all the way from the smallest netbooks to the biggest servers.

Hulu adds playlists and streamlines navigation

If you're a fan of streaming TV and movie site Hulu, you just got a little holiday present: a playlist feature and a new navigation bar. The plus symbol near each video brings up the option to add that video to your queue or add it to a playlist, and the playlist option will prompt you to create a new list or pick an existing one. At long last, watching episodes or movies back-to-back on Hulu is a relatively frictionless experience.

Disk Investigator 1.5 (Windows)

Disk Investigator helps you to discover all that is hidden on your computer hard disk. It can also help you to recover lost data. Display the true drive contents by bypassing the operating system and directly reading the raw drive sectors.

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