quick start THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL
Let Your Web Browser Do the Walking
Opera 9.2’s Speed Dial feature offers users a novel way to access their favorite sites
Velocity Micro Buys
Overdrive PC
Why shouldn’t a modest-size company benefit
from a boutique shop, just like the big boys?I
n a move that echoes Dell’s acquisition of Alienware
and HP’s purchase of Voodoo, semi-boutique PC
maker Velocity Micro is looking to up its street cred by
buying Overdrive PC.
Velocity Micro has always catered to the top end of
the mainstream market, but its acquisition of boutique
seller Overdrive should give both brands a better shot
at high-end enthusiasts. Overdrive PC will continue to
function as a separate unit, but its staff will relocate to
Velocity Micro’s headquarters.
Overdrive PC is less well known than ultra-high-
end vendors Falcon Northwest and Voodoo, but its
reputation has been
skyrocketing. Velocity
Micro no doubt hopes to
capitalize on Overdrive’s
“Hyperclocking” tech-
nology, a method for
producing fast yet reli-
able overclocked PCs.
While it might seem
to be a growing trend,
there are few boutiques
out there left to be pur-
chased—we just wonder
who’s next.Opera 9.2’s Speed Dial feature offers users a novel way to access their favorite sites
Up, Up, and
Online
“If you can’t beat ’em, join
’em” is the resounding mes-
sage coming from the TV
networks these days as they
shift their online efforts from
their own websites to portals
that have more resonance
with webizens. In the case of
the NBC/News Corp. venture
announced in April, that
means featuring broadcast
content on MSN, Yahoo,
MySpace, and other sites.
For CBS, which just
recently announced its
own web strategy, it means
partnering with forward-
looking upstarts such as
Joost, Sling, and Brightcove
and emphasizing interac-
tivity. The P2P Internet TV
site Joost (still in beta),
for instance, incorporates
search, chat, and IM features
into its video player; Sling’s
Clip + Sling site (also in
beta) works with a Slingbox
streaming device to allow
you to record and share
content with others, and
Brightcove lets users edit
and comment on video clips.july 2007 MAXIMUMPC 09
Overdrive’s Core2.GX2 won our $2,500 gaming
rig roundup in December 2006.In the latest version of Opera’s free browser, a new tab launches a
thumbnail grid of nine websites that you’ve either chosen from your
existing favorites or entered manually.H
ow can you turn a big, fast computer into a
small, slow computer? Upgrade Windows!
Unfortunately, there’s always a dark side to
upgrading. Code bloat in each new version of
Windows erodes our precious RAM and hard-
disk space. I still have my Windows 1.0 install
disks: two 5.25-inch floppies. Each disk holds
360KB, so the whole installer is less than one
megabyte. Nowadays, one megabyte isn’t
enough for the splash screen.
But never mind that I’m a pack rat. My
point is to assure you that it’s OK not to
upgrade to Windows Vista—not immediately,
at least. Although long-term resistance to
Vista is futile, there are good reasons to wait a
while. Your status as a power user need not be
threatened. Real power users aren’t reckless
lemmings. Only insecure users succumb to
peer pressure and marketing hype by roboti-
cally upgrading their systems with the latest
of everything. Real power users know when
to upgrade.
Corporations know, too. They usually wait
at least a year after a new version of Windows
is released before updating, by which time
Microsoft has released Service Hack 1. That’s
the collection of patches that fixes the worst
bugs, security holes, and shortcomings. Plus,
delaying adoption gives the IT folks enough
time to test the new OS with all their apps and
upgrade the creakiest PCs in the company.
My day job is at a 38,000-employee inter-
national corporation that only last year began
broadly upgrading from Windows 2000 to
Windows XP. No joke. When I sent my company-
loaner laptop to the IT department for repair,
it came back with XP Pro—but still with only
128MB of RAM. Now it takes 10 minutes to
boot, and it runs like a drunken slug.
Maybe you crave Vista for its allegedly
tighter security, airhead user interface, or
DirectSeX-10 graphics. Whatever. That’s fine
for your primary power machine. But most
people these days have one or more older
machines, too. Maybe your previous PC is now
a media server, backup system, or hand-me-
down to someone. You have my permission to
keep running XP, Windows 2000, or even (in
extreme cases) Windows 98. I promise that
Maximum PC won’t cancel your subscription.Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor for Byte magazine
and is now an analyst for Microprocessor Report.Being Smart
about Vista
FAST FORWARD
TOM
HALFHILL