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1029usr078198
Forum Admin
USA
333 Posts |
 Posted - February 09 2011 : 07:50:55
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Listen now. or Download the archive.
Question: James asks, "What's this I hear about a problem with Intel processors?"
Answer: Great question, James. The 6-series chipset for the just-released, second-generation Core processors and the C200 chipset for the Xeon processors have a bit of a problem. In some cases, the hard drive controller can degrade over time, causing your hard drive to slow down. A fix has been created and is being sent out. The processor is not affected by this issue. If you've bought a new computer since January 9th, then check out our link in the show notes to determine whether or not your computer is impacted by this issue. If your computer is older than that, you're in good shape.
Cool Site: UJam.com: This week, we have a site for folks who would like to make music, but don't have anything but a voice and a microphone. The site requires you to set up an account before you can do anything, and this is a pain in the neck, but the form is very simple to fill out and you get instant feedback whether your entries are OK or not. Your login confirmation is sent back in email. After you confirm, you log in and you can start making music. Use your voice and sing, hum, or whistle a melody into the computer. You can upload a melody from an audio file on your computer. Or you can take a song that already exists and change it in UJam. By the way, if you play an instrument, it can also be used for recording the music. Sessions you've saved can be reloaded to continue working. You can also change your voice into an instrument, like an electric piano, change the style of the music, give it a different genre, or what have you. Finally, you can share your creations by downloading them as mp3 files. In just a few minutes, I was able to doodle-dee-doo a little bit and turn it into a tune.
Cool Gadget: The Skin Gun: This week, the SyFy channel's DVICE site has a story that was just too cool to pass up. Medical science just continues to get better and better. There's a new, still experimental, procedure that can be used to treat burn victims. It's called the skin gun, and how it works is that the doctor extracts adult stem cells from a patch of the victim's good skin; then they spray the stem cells over the burned area. The guy in the video that's in the article has second degree burns over a large part of his arm. They did the treatment on Friday and the burn center declared the burns healed the next Tuesday. All this was done without scarring or readily noticeable discoloration of the affected area. Take a look at the video from National Geographic. It's amazing!
It's All "Geek" To Me: Slashdot: This week's term is Slashdot. Rush Limbaugh claims that he can bring down any website just by mentioning it on his show, because then too many people will try to access the site at once. This is called slashdotting the site. The term originated in 1998 when a press release was published at Slashdot.org. Worldwide interest in that particular topic (couldn't find out what that topic was) was so great that the web server at Slashdot couldn't keep up with the demand, causing the site to become unavailable for a time. So when a site is slashdotted, it becomes unavailable due to excessive traffic.
Links
Tech Tip Friday's Show Notes RSS Feed:
http://www.daconsult.com/downloads/rss.xml
Chipset Problem with Intel 6 Series:
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-032263.htm
UJam:
http://www.ujam.com
The Stem Cell Gun:
http://dvice.com/archives/2011/02/healing-burns-i.php
Slashdot at TechTerms:
http://www.techterms.com/definition/slashdot |
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2/4/2011-Intel Processors?,UJam,SkinGun,"Slashdot"
