MSI Wind review and specs

MSI Wind is the new netbook or more precisely a subnotebook from Micro Star International. WIND is not just a brand name given to this 'ultra portable notebook'. It stands for Wi-Fi network Device. Wind is likely to cost at around 700$ in market. Both Windows XP and Linux versions will be available.

8 and 10 inch versions are available with a screen resolution of 1024 x 600. Unlike a Flash drive from segment competitors, MSI has included a 80GB Hard Disk with the Wind.
I test operated the white 1GB version for which I will certainly give a rating above Asus eePC in comparable range.

Other tech specs:

Chipset:
ICH7-M, Intel 945GMS
10"W (1024*600) LCD - LED backlit.
VGA:
UMA 950
1GB DDR2 Memory

Technical Analysis and review of MSI WIND.

Open office 3 review

Open office 3 is striking hard at Microsoft office already. With the release of Open office.org version 3, the hit is being more severe. I just reviewed the windows version of open office 3.

The pack comes with 6 applications:

• Writer - word processor
• Calc - Spread sheet
• Impress - Presentation maker
• Base - Database application
• Math - Equation Editor
• Draw - Graphics program

It makes an almost perfect substitute for the costly Microsoft office. It has improved a lot this time. Start centre is a good addition which enables users to select the document they need to make from the welcome screen itself.

There is no other major changes to the total program. But there are numerous changes in each of individual applications. Overall changes are worth trying out.

Review Yourself and comment here

Intel Nehalem processor review

Intel is all set to release their next generation processor Intel Nehalem boasting 8 cores. The speculations are so high that is is considered as "over" requirement for the current processor market. Nehalem is competing with the AMD Shanghai in the field. Both are set to be released around same date as per reports, this time no one is going to get the time advantage. ;-)

A Nehalem processor with 1GB DDR3 memory is said to posses same processing capabilityas a Intel penryn processor with 3GB DDR3. memory manufacturers are planning 3GB DDR3 for Nehalem based 32 bit OS and 12GB for 64bit. Nehalem samples ahve been showing good performances too, Intels claims seems right.

Major features of Nehalem summerised from Intels wesite are

• Dynamic scalability
• Design and performance scalability
• Simultaneous multi-threading
• Scalable shared memory

Nehalem , processor microarchitecture is was displayed in Computex 2008.

Intel atom processor performance review

Intel atom is the new processor from Intel specially manufactured for mobile internet devices(MIDs). Previously codenamed Silverthorne and Diamondville, it is now given the new name atom. Major fields of application include Smartphones and ultramobile PCs which
are of relatively smaller size. The mobile technology which incorporates this processor is called Centrino Atom. Actually this is the first X86, a bit old I have to say, based processor after Intel Pentium.

At the cost of speed, Intel has made significant improvements in power consumption and cost. Average battery life is significantly extended by decreasing idle powen consumption. In short, Intel Atom processors are aimed at devices which need smallest power consumption as their primary feature. Power consumption problems had always been there with all intel mobile processors and this is not the first attempt to rectify it. But now Intel has significantly improved, if their technicalclaims are going to be true.

• Having two versions, silverthorne will be called the Atom Z series and Diamondville will be called the Atom N series, according to Intel. Intel and Lenovo jointly announced new IdeaPad series notebooks based on Atom processor.
• Intel atom is a 45 nm processor.
• Intel is having a series of of competiters in the field. The major ones are Nvidia Tegra based line of processors for MIDs and the mobile platforms like Puma from AMD. Tegra is claimed to have more processing efficiency than Intel atom processor.
• Intel has also announced the next generation atom processors based on Lincroft Architecture. It is codenamed Pineview. Intel will officially launch it in 2009.
  

Intel atom processor review

KDE 4.1 Desktop review

This review focuses on KDE 4.1, the latest release the K Desktop Environment series. It was officially released on July 29th, 2008. There is no much hype regarding the new release since the older 4.0 was full of bugs. Still KDE remains one of the favorite desktop environment for GNU/Linux OS till date.

KDE 4.1 comes with significant positive changes in graphics and desktop experience. But still its not error free which is disappointing. The entire set of desktops, frames and panels are collectively called plasma in the new version(KDE4). This replaces the old Kdesktop in the older version. A new multimedia interface called Phonon has been added.This makes the KDE desktop enviornment independent of any particular media backend. Decibel is a new applicaition framework introduced in KDE to incorporate all the communication protocols in general to the K desktop. The amjor technologies introduced in KDE 4 could be summarised as follows:

• 
  

1. Plasma : A desktop and panel widget engine
2. Phonon : A multimedia framework
3. Solid : A device integration framework
4. Sonnet : A spell checker
5. ThreadWeaver : A library to more effectively use multiprocessor systems

The release of KDE 4 and 4.1 invited mixed response from the web community. It was criticized on the grounds of instability of desktop and applications. But there are a lot of revolutionary changes made to KDE 4 for which it was praised by the KDE fans.

What are interrupts and interrupt handling?

Interrupting is a mechanism by which the input or output devices of a computer informs the processor that it is ready to do its operation by raising a signal called interrupts.

It is highly related to the internal working of a computer. The input or output devices of a computer are connected to a processor by means of a bus. It is necessary to check the status of all input or output devices repeatedly to know if the device is ready to do its operation(read or write). This consumes lot of CPU time which can be used more effectively in doing other operations. Interrupts are used to avoid this.When an input device raises an interrupt signal processor comes to know that the device is ready. Then the processor will stop the current operation that is being executed by it and will begin to process the I/O device that caused interrupt signal. After knowing which device caused the interrupt, it will call a subroutine in response to it. This is called an interrupt service routine.

When an interrupt occurs, the current routine that was being executed by the processor, will be put into a stack in a known location. Later after servicing the interrupt the processor will come back to this routine. There can be interrupts in between interrupts. These are called nested interrupts. When a nested interrupt occurs, the last interrupt will be pushed to the stack again. Likewise, after servicing the last interrupt like that, the processor will 'run back' by popping previous routines that was saved in the stack. The process of saving instructions are done automatically by saving

When an interrupt occurs, the processor must inform the I/O device that it had identified the interrupt after doing so. This is done by an interrupt acknowledge signal that is sent back to it through the BUS.

Following is the typical scenario when an interrupt signal is raised:

• The I/O device raises an interrupt request.
• The processor stops(interrupts) the routine currently being executed.
• Further interrupts are disabled.
• The I/O device is informed that the interrupt is recognized. In response the I/O device deactivates the interrupt request signal.
• The action required by the interrupt is performed by the interrupt service routine.
• After completion, the interrupts are enabled and execution of the program that was previously interrupted was continued.

Vectored interrupts

Once a device raises an interrupt signal, the processor just knows that an interrupt is raised and not which device raised the interrupt. So it is necessary for processor to poll all the devices to know which device raised the interrupt. To avoid this, the interrupt signal itself can include the address of device raising the interrupt. Such interrupts are called vectored interrupts. The code supplied by the device will represent the starting address of the interrupt service routine for that device.