Welcome to the Weekly Wire, fun packed with this week’s news from the wide world of computer technology.  You will be hit with quotes, links, and opinions on the best, and the worst, in the industry.  And don’t worry, you won’t have to be a computer buff or “cyber genius” to comprehend the events being described in this article.  Just make sure you’re ready for some new and exciting information every week!

To get started, how about some news involving one of the most commonly known companies in the computer industry, Microsoft.  Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft) announced Tuesday that they are in the process of creating online enhancements to the Windows OS as well as other popular programs.  He is hoping that moving hard drive contained programs online with “Windows Live” will help Microsoft move ahead with competitors such as Google.  With new abilities to run your favorite programs any place at any time, you will be able to “blur the lines between the home and the office”.  This is to be considered this businesses’ most aggressive push into rapidly growing online services.  Also mentioned is the upcoming service “Office Live” which will give users the ability to run Microsoft Office enhancements online.  This is good news for small companies who could benefit from this complex technology being inexpensive and easily obtainable.  Windows Live is going to be free for all users as the expanding online advertising market will provide the funding for this program (just as Google and Yahoo do).  However, Live Office will be aimed at small businesses and have monthly fees for some of its features.  Just keep an eye out for these new features appearing at Live.com in the near future.

Source: Yahoo News
———————————————————————————–

In other news, Intel finally teams up with ATI to produce a newer, less expensive motherboard.  Seeing as Intel has almost always teamed up with Nvidia (ATI’s rival company) in their motherboards sector, this is very shocking news.  However, this is also good news for ATI, Intel, and even the consumers due to the low cost and high performance balance of the new product.  The D101GCC motherboard will be aimed at Intel’s Pentium 4 and Celeron D processors and will fix Intel’s problem of not having enough low cost/entry level chipsets for their customers.  I am very interested to see where this goes next; will ATI replace Nvidia in Intel’s line of motherboards, or will they slowly retreat back into the rest of the competitive market?  Only time can tell.

Source: Hardware Secrets
Motherboard homepage:  http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/d101ggc/index.htm
———————————————————————————–

If you haven’t heard the words “Dude You Got A Dell” before, then you definitely need to watch more television.  However, that may be all the change you want to make because this huge company’s sales are starting to go down.  This Tuesday, Dell’s stock shares dropped a whopping 8.3 percent!  Though the company seemed as though their profits would continue to rise for years to come, the market is finally starting to catch up to them.  With only $13.9 Billion in profits for the 3rd quarter, they have a long way to go to reach their goal of $80 Billion in the next three to four years.  However, they are moving more towards selling higher-end computers as opposed to the budget machines that oh so eloquently pummeled the competition.  As quoted from an article, “It just seems like they had a formula that worked for them for a long time.  They need to adapt their formula for the environment.”  Because of the continuously evolving world of technology, Dell has been put in a situation where their only choice is to become more competitive in their ideas and performance computers rather than prices.

Source: Yahoo News
———————————————————————————–

WARNING ALL AOL INSTANT MESSENGER USERS!  There is a new worm targeting users of this popular chat program.  I have always hated worms, and the more I grow hateful of them, the more they seem to appear.  This “Frankenstein” worm is one that you don’t want burrowing in your computer.  Not only does this little bugger try to remove traces of its existence, but it also can do enough damage to force you to have to completely reformat (erase everything and reinstall your OS) your computer’s hard drive.  This worm is easily obtained if the recipient clicks on a link in a “friendly” instant message sent by one of the attackers.  Once the link is clicked, the page it takes you to automatically starts downloading adware and other malicious files to your computer that slow it down, destroy files, and allow access to your computer for the hackers who put out the worm.  Just make sure never to click a link in an instant message unless you know who it’s from and exactly where it sends you.  If you do accidentally receive this worm, you’d better have a Windows Recovery CD on hand.

Source: Yahoo News
———————————————————————————–

If you have cable internet, you might have heard something about fibre-optic cables by now.  These cables allow large amounts of data to be sent through a small round or flat cord comprised of a rubber sleeve around thousands of mini fibre-optic strands.  This also allows an extremely fast rate of transfer, such as when you change the channel on your TV and almost instantly you the new channel shows up.  Well what if you could increase that speed even more?  A company in Japan has just developed technology to transmit a two-hour movie in half a second!  That is in fact the world’s fastest transfer speed using fibre-optics at almost 100 times faster than today’s average rate of transfer.  They do not know what use this is going to have yet, but say that it will be put into use somewhere around the year 2010.  I can only imagine the possibilities that could come out of this; instant high-quality streaming videos, news, and anything else that web users view when surfing.

Source: ABC News
———————————————————————————–

Wow, I must say that some exciting things have happened this week in the technology industry.  From worms to live versions of windows, you can tell that there has been a lot stirring up.  Because of this, you will be getting more tech news every single week in this section known as the Weekly Wire.  Don’t forget to read the Editor’s Perspective in the PC Mechanic Newsletter to find more interesting topics and insight.  As always, feel free to e-mail me at Jdillio12@aol.com with any outstanding article links, opinions, etc. Hope you all enjoy the weekend!