Battle of the Betas

Despite the ongoing economic downturn, beta programs are spreading around like wildfire literally. I handpicked some of them to discuss here, not only because these beta programs intrigued me, but there's quite a lot of things to say about these programs.

Browsers:
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Many browsers recently have rushed their workings on the beta version of their next-generation browsers...and it's no secret why they do. Based on NetApplication's browser market share trackings, Microsoft's own Internet Explorer is losing grounds to all browsers available, with its own Internet Explorer 8 eating up market shares of its own IE6 and IE7 versions. For other browser makers, this is exactly the perfect timing for them to further extend their advantage in the browser market....
A) Firefox 3.5 Preview


I've been an avid fan of Mozilla Firefox, not just because it is way faster than IE, but it is also highly customizable (which suits somebody like me who enjoys having control over my PC). The latest Firefox v3.5 recently moved from their 4th beta into the Preview stage, right before the browser is to be released as a release candidate (RC) version. Although using it comes at the sacrifice of many incompatible firefox add-on customizations, it does load pages faster, is much lighter and (judging from the recent instabilities of Firefox v3.0.8 onwards) more stable. Mozilla plans to release this browser as a means of overcoming the market share barrier of 25%. Is it capable of doing that? I think it just might! (Again, IE is so bad that this target sounds achievable)

B) Opera 10 Beta


Opera is well-known for its innovation in browser development; i still can remember reading an article which state that Opera Labs is the pioneer in tabbed browsing before Firefox and IE stole their ideas (LOL!!!). Even until today, they are still innovative, having recently announced Opera Unite, thus becoming the first ever browser to have a built-in Web server, allowing file-sharing capabilities alongside their browsing capabilities. Opera 10 Beta was release a couple of weeks earlier, and reports have suggested that it is the fastest browser on Windows XP!! The release of this version of Opera might help boost their currently meagre market share (which comes as a surprise considering their innovative gene).

C) Google Chrome


Chrome, like a lot of Google's own products, seemed to be sticking to the Beta label like forever (a bit irresponsible IMO)...and yet their latest v3 beta is much of an improvement over their previous works. In my opinion, Chrome already has the best looks and resource management (they allocate the browser memory usage based on tabs, which makes their browser more responsive and more reliable) of all existing browsers, but they lacked extensions and privacy in comparison with Firefox. Chrome v3's biggest change is that they now allows extensions to be installed on the browser, making it very customizable. Performance-wise, they are no noticable improvements, but the browser still maintains the positive characteristics of being lightweight and responsive.
Antiviruse/Security Suites:
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In stark contrast with the browsers, there seemed to be more bad news for beta programs on security suites than good. To be honest, security suites aren't doing that well recently; malwares and security threats evolve just too fast for these companies to keep up based on their current technology.

A) Kaspersky 2010 Beta


As a fan of Kaspersky, i willingly tried out their beta program by installing it in Vista. What i got is a horrible experience; the CPU and memory resources frequently hits the peak, and it constantly crashes on me. The same thing happened when i installed it on a fresh copy of Windows 7 (be reminded that it is Windows 7-compatible) In other words, it is completely unusable. To add insult to an already obsolete beta program, its graphical interface is nothing but ugly and messy. Recent update seems to show that they improved their user interface a wee bit, but performance-wise, my first experience has already resisted the temptation to go back and try again.

B) Bitdefender 2010 Beta


Bitdefender's beta is faring a lot better than Kaspersky, even though i could hardly notice any notable changes apart from the user interface. Yes, the program looks more beautiful, and definitely the usability is there, with no crashes experienced. But overall, the beta program still feels like old technology. The scanning engine is still as slow as ever and there's no notable improvements in detection rate. For the first time, the very-much-hated Norton seems to have something really good that Bitdefender did not: a decent scanning speed...

C) IObit Security 360


The famous vendor of Advanced SystemCare recently dished out their long-awaited Antimalware program, boasting a sleek and easy-to-use interface and a so-called Digital Origin Gene Technology, collectively known as DOG by IObit personnels (LOL). They promised unique detection capabilities compared to conventional antimalware program, but after testing it out, i was being skeptical. It sure detects some unusual stuffs (so far, it detected a suspicious cookies and a trace verified as malicious on my PC), but private testings revealed that it misses quite an amount of spyware which SUPERAntispyware caught. No wonder IObit referred the program as only an additional protection to our security suites...

D) Returnil Virtual System v3 Beta


Returnil has always been my favorite technological means of protecting my system and it is thus far, the best beta security program that i've come across this year. The new Returnil spots a heavily-revamped user interface on which its skin can be customized on later releases, boasts an additional antivirus support with the integration of Scandinavian-based Frisk Antivirus solution and interestingly, added a few really useful functionality which makes extensive software-testing on the host operating system possible. If you think all of these additional stuffs come at the expenses of PC performance, you are totally wrong: Returnil v3 beta runs fine on my Virtual Windows XP and host Windows 7, being very responsive and as useful as ever. It does, however, come at the cost of having forced to eliminate a few features on which Returnil promises to resolve in time for its final release.

Laptop GMA Gaming Accelerator for Overclocking Laptop's Graphic Displays

One of the main reasons we do not encourage users who play high-end PC games on a laptop is because of its integrated graphic cards. Some of the laptops in the market have intel's graphic chipset integrated into it, and let's be honest: laptops with integrated Graphic Media Accelerator (GMA) are not capable of playing state-of-the-art high-end games such as Crysis and Call of Duty.

User Interface of an Intel GMA 950 chipset properties box.

There are some differences between Intel GMA chipsets and possibly only a handful of PC geeks knew of it: some chipsets such as the GMA 950 (the graphic card of my own Compaq Presario V3000 series laptop) support Vista's Windows Aero and QuartzGL, which both can render a solid performance in gaming experience while older chipsets do not. The reason for the shortcomings of those older chipset is because many of this Intel chipsets have been underclocked to 133/146 MHz instead of the optimum 400 MHz.

GMA Booster is a software developed by Shell City which can boost chipset clock to 400 MHz without voltage changes or affected system stability as normal hardware overclocking does. The program has been tested to be working with the following chipsets: Intel 945GM/GME/GMS/GSE and 943/940GML/GU Express featuring GMA 950

Screenshot of the effects of running GMA Booster. Click for larger image

Remember, however, that theories put down on paper does not always goes along with real-life situations. GMA Booster boasts an improvement of 240% aka 2.4 improvement in performance, but the degree of increase in performance is highly dependant on the Intel graphic chipsets on the laptop. For example, some users may have a 2.2 increase in multitexture-rendering performance and a 1.8 increase in Pixel Shader Frames per second. Having said that, it is sufficient to conclude that there is more or less, a visible improvement over graphic performance!

The only nuisance is that the developers let the software expire frequently (every 7 days if i'm not mistaken). The only option in this case is to download the latest version from the developer’s homepage again.

GMA Booster works only on a 32-bit Windows system with Microsoft.NET Framework v2.0 or higher installed. It also works with computers running a Mac OS and a Linux.

To download GMA Booster for Windows, click on the download link below:

GMA Booster for Windows (32-bit)

To learn more, visit the official website

The Power of Nanotechnology: Virus Powered Micro-Battery

This article is a good reflection on how potential nanotechnology is and how believable it is on taking over the world's operation someday, if not today....credits to Tim Conneally for the original article, with images added in for conprehensive purpose:

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Virus Power: MIT completes nanomachine battery

Using engineered viruses, MIT researchers have created a "living" battery.

By Tim Conneally | Published April 3, 2009, 4:15 PM

Angela Belcher and her team of bioengineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), have turned the concept of a virus-built battery into a reality.

For the last five years, the team has been engineering a virus known as M13 bacteriophage, which is attracted to inorganic materials. Each virus coats itself with gold and cobalt oxide, effectively turning itself into a fragment of nanowire. When these viruses are then chained together, they form a film that can be used as an anode, or the part of a battery that carries a negative ionic charge.

M13 bacteriophage (measured in micrometres), supposedly attracted to inorganic materials

But that discovery was made nearly three years ago, and was only half of the simple negative and positive elements needed to form a working battery.

Ions from the negatively-charged anode flow to the positively-charged cathode to "charge" a battery, and flow in the opposite direction to "discharge" that electricity through laptops, mobile phones, and other such devices.

To create the cathode, the team engineered viruses that would attract iron phosphate and carbon nanotubes (cylindrical carbon molecules frequently used in nanotechnology), which created a highly conductive material that had practically no weight.

With both elements in place, the team could create a micro-battery capable of around 100 charges. The prototype took this model and inflated it to the size of a button cell battery which powers a simple LED.

Micro batteries are not something new...but to create a micro battery with elements of virus activity???

You better believe it!!!

While size is still an issue for these batteries, shape is not. The team hopes to be able to create a battery that can take the shape of whatever container in which it is housed.