Archive for January 2011
Where’s your computer’s bottleneck?
January 28, 2011 | 
Author I’m pretty sure that more than once we have all been working on something on our computers and noticed that for no apparent reason the computer seems to work slower than usual…
Wouldn’t it be neat to be able to see what’s draining your computer for power and not just is it hardware or software but being able to pinpoint the exact component and which software program is doing it
Moo0′s System Monitor does all of this in real-time, the component or program that is acting up gets highlighted in red and it also shows you some handy performance info about your computer, have a look at the screenshot below and you can see we managed to get a bottleneck in one of our HDD’s by random opening and closeing the Google Chrome browser
(Picture: Nordic-vikings.net)
Download Moo0′s System Monitor here…
And for those of you that have noticed the stack of pictures in the background, yes we use Bumptop and love it
Source:
Posted in Software | 
Tags: benchmark, bottleneck, hard drive info, hdd, make windows quicker, slow windows, windows lagg | 
No Comments »
AMD HD6990; a beast in more than physical size
AMD’s new flagship has been shown to the press at an Asia Pacific Fusion Tech Day gathering. The HD6990 is said to hit the stores late the first quarter and it is going to hit hard.
The monster is rumored to take the place as the champion of graphic cards, from the pictures we have seen it will at least squash it in sheer size.
Have a look for yourself:
(Pictures by: 4Gamer.net)
(Pictures by: 4Gamer.net)
As you can see it is time to start saving for a new computer case as this will most likely not fit in a regular midi tower without going at it with an angle grinder.
Update: it is 31 cm long
Tho no official specs have been released rumors are as follows:
| GPU: 2 x 775 Mhz |
| Memory: 2x 2 Gb @ 4800 Mhz (GDDR5) |
| Memory bandwith: 307,2 Gb/s |
| Idle/Load power usage: 30W/300W |
| Output ports: 2 x DVI and 3 x mDP |
| 2 x 32 ROP |
| 2 x 1920 Stream Processors |
Single precision compute performance is 6.0 TFLOPs while double precision compute performance is 1.5 TFLOPs
We hope to get our fingers on it for testing but we can’t promise anything as of yet, but if the specs above is true then there is no doubt this card is going to be awesome!
Sources:
We’re moving!
We have decided to move our blog to a new more easy to remember address since our main site Nordic-vikings.net has mostly gone out of business we have decided that it no longer needs to be hosted at the main site address and since this blog now is our main focus it’s just natural that it should get the “best” address we have!
so throughout February we will be moveing it and we hope you will join us at the new address wich will be Nordic-vikings.net, there might be some instability issues while we move the sites around and maby some downtime but bare with us and we will be up and running as fast as possible.
The next generation search engine!
This is more Jan’s field since it goes as software but we both use it so I guess it’s ok for me to write this one.
For those of you who like new and inventive ways to get information and like technology this is right up your alley, remember in the movie WALL-E (2008) where the captain asks the supercomputer to define earth and the reply is a computer made visual presentation of data collected about the subject earth? Looks neat don’t it? Not having to read all the info provided for your search term
You can get the same experience minus the voice control, a computer generated graphical presentation of the search term, at Qwiki.com. The search engine is in alpha mode right now but it is possible to apply for access at they’re site
Once you’re loged in you get your basic search engine site with a simple textbox and a search button
When you enter a search term the site generates a interactive flash movie about the subject from data collected from various sources around the web and use speech to speak to you about the subject just like in the movie but with subtitles just incase the computer pronounces something wrong you can read the text. Qwiki contains millions of search answers and grows every day.
You can read more about this on they main site qwiki.com or you can read the qwiki blog at http://blog.qwiki.com/
So does it get to go on our recommend by nordic-vikings.net? Well… No, since it’s in alpha mode and therefor invite only we can’t recommend it just now but the second it’s open for all we will
On the other hand we do recommend that you apply for access, in fact we will send an invite to two of our readers. Want one? Write a comment below, give us a good reason as to why you should get it and on monday we will pick the best two and send you invites.
The Playstation 3 that plays everything!
If you have a lot of music, pictures and movie on your computer but wish to view them on your brand new LED television, then the playstation 3 is a great place to start.
The history
The playstation 3 is know to be a great device to play media, as well as play games and view Blu-Ray movie. The PS3 has also been built to play divX movie, but that’s about it.. But to view them you need to burn them out on a disc.
PS3 Media Server
The playstation 3 is known to be able to connect to the Windows Media player, and to show ps3-supported files via the computer. This will only apply to divX files, pictures and mp3/wma.
So how do we increase the use of the playstation?
The solution is the opensource application Java Upnp Media Server called “PS3 Media server” made by A. Brochard. The PS3 Media Server is a DLNA compliant Upnp Media Server for the PS3, written in Java, with the purpose of streaming or transcoding any kind of media files, with minimum configuration. In simpler words; It is a java application installed onto your computer which connects to the Playstation 3 over Intranet (LAN) and provides it with the media that the user have chosen to be shared.
So what’s the deal?
The PS3 Media Server will be able play the content stored on your computer, and if the file you try to play is not a supported movie format (ex. quicktime MOV files), the media server will use the built-in media player called Mplayer. The Mplayer will then stream the file to the Playstation in a format which is supported and the movie will be played. It also supports disc image files stored on the computer like ISO and CUE/BIN files. You can either show the disc image as a DVD movie or browse the content that is contained in the file.
In WORST cases, if the file is not being able to be played, you are given a last resort of opportunity to recode the unsupported movie “on the fly” (while you watch). This alternative is known to have some issues as the computer trying to recode the file is not recoding fast enough.
There is also built-in a youtube feature which allows you to browse youtube clips. You also get the opportunity to listen to web radio as well as web TV. A guide on how to set this up this is found on the support forum as this is not an option that is made easy. It is recommended for the more advanced users.
The current features available on the latest release
- Ready to launch and play. No codec packs to install. No folder configuration and pre-parsing or this kind of annoying thing. All your folders are directly browsed by the PS3, there’s an automatic refresh also.
- Real-time video transcoding of MKV/FLV/OGM/AVI, etc.
- Direct streaming of DTS / DTS-HD core to the receiver
- Remux H264/MPEG2 video and all audio tracks to AC3/DTS/LPCM in real time with tsMuxer when H264 is PS3/Level4.1 compliant
- Full seeking support when transcoding
- DVD ISOs images / VIDEO_TS Folder transcoder
- OGG/FLAC/MPC/APE audio transcoding
- Thumbnail generation for Videos
- You can choose with a virtual folder system your audio/subtitle language on the PS3!
- Simple streaming of formats PS3 natively supports: MP3/JPG/PNG/GIF/TIFF, all kind of videos (AVI, MP4, TS, M2TS, MPEG)
- Display camera RAWs thumbnails (Canon / Nikon, etc.)
- ZIP/RAR files as browsable folders
- Support for pictures based feeds, such as Flickr and Picasaweb
- Internet TV / Web Radio support with VLC, MEncoder or MPlayer
- Podcasts audio/ Video feeds support
- Basic Xbox360 support
- FLAC 96kHz/24bits/5.1 support
- Windows Only: DVR-MS remuxer and AviSynth alternative transcoder support
Good to know about PS3 Media Server
Things that is worth mentioning is that it is strongly recommended to connect both the computer and the Playstation to the router/switch/Home network through Ethernet cable. By using one or both devices over WiFi you will experience some delay in loading the media. Your media will sometimes stop during a play to buffer/load in more data from the computer. It usually work over WiFi but when you try to watch big files above 1Gb in file size (like high-def avi/mkv/m2ts or DVD images), you will most likely experience some reloading during the movie.
Another thing worth mentioning is the issues with the computer. It is recommended that the computer containing the application is a computer with good specifications. If you have a slow laptop, it is not recommended that the PS3 Media server application is installed on this. When Nordic-Vikings.net tested this we found out that we got the best connection from a desktop computer or a network server.
Another great thing about the PS3 Media Server is that it’s available for Windows, Linux and OS.X
In overall, this is a highly recommended software!!
©2011 Nordic Vikings
Posted in Entertainment, Recommended by Nordic-vikings.net, Software | Tags: linux, media senter, mplayer, OS X, playstaion 3, PS3 media server, Windows | 3 Comments »
The hidden “Send to..” menu
Did you know there is a more advanced menu for you to use when you use the “send to” command in windows explorer? Here’s how to retrieve it..
When you click on a file to select it and then right click it, you have the opportunity to use the “send to” menu to quickly send the file to a destination.
This menu will only let you send to the most common destinations on your computer like bluetooth, my documents, mail and compressed zip file.
But how to expand this menu?
If you simply hold down the “Shift” key when right clicking the file, you will notice that the “send to” menu has expanded to more destinations.
Enjoy..
© Nordic Vikings
New look, same contents!
We decided to make our own template for the blog since the old one had a problem with the PHP code when linking to us on social medias like Facebook and Twitter, so your source for IT knowledge now has a new look but we will continue to enlighten you like before!
Like it? leave us a comment below!
Nvidia goes wireless with GTX460 WHDI
Are you tired of all the cables behind your computer? Or do you want to use your HD tv as a monitor for your computer without having to get a 4 meter long hdmi cable?
The guys at KFA2 have a solution to this, they have made the d
Its a standard GTX460 with 5 aerials to transmit perfect 1080p HD video from your computer to your WHDI enabled TV or to any other display you connect the bundled WHDI receiver.
The card transmits at 5GHz has a listed range of about 30 meters (100 feet)
The card is not the cheapest of the bunch but newegg.com lists it at 499.990 USD not all that bad if it’s as good as we hope… We might contact kfa2 for a review later on but for now thats all we know.
Let’s just hope that the fact that it’s on the 5GHz band helps keep the signal strong’ would hate to loose signal in the middle of a gun fight in COD Black Ops. Just cause someone walked through the room or something
Posted in Hardware | Tags: graphics card, gtx, kfa2, nvidia gtx460, wireless 1080p, wireless hd streaming | No Comments »
Captains LOG! in NotePad?? huh….
Here’s a trick you probably didn’t know about Microsoft Windows’ Notepad.. This tutorial will show you how to easily create your own “time ‘n day” logger out of a simple program as Notepad.
Say you wish to start your own personal diary on your computer, but doesn’t want to buy or install a big fancy program, then you may want to continue to read.
The solution:
First, you need to right click and create a “New Text document”
In this tutorial I will call it “My diary”, but you can name it to what ever you want.
After naming the file, you need to open it.
When it opens you simply type in the letters “.LOG” at the top of the document, and press enter so the type line drops down to the line below.
It is very important that the LOG letters are written in CAP letters (BIG) or else this will not work.
Now you should save the document, and exit the notepad application.
The next time you open your text document it will log the time and date which you open the document and types in a new message. Then you save and quit. The next time it will automatic go to the next line and enter the new time and date.
As a piece of advise, you should hit enter when you are finished writing your message. This will make it more organised the next time you open the text document.
Have fun..
©2011 Nordic Vikings
Posted in Software, Tips | Tags: logg, Logger, logging, Notepad, software tips, tips, Windows | 3 Comments »
Site down earlyer today
We apologise for our site being down half the day, the software issue has been identified and resolved.
