Micron, in partnership with Intel announced a new technology that should make it possible to significantly increase the performance of NAND Flash memory chips. Both firms authorizes the production of memory chips offering speeds of the order of 200 MB / second in reading and 100 MB per second write.

To achieve this speed, the two manufacturers had turned to the new ONFI 2.0 (Open NAND Flash Interface), which advocates a new architecture and operating frequencies faster. Micron said that the chips using this technology will be produced from the second half of 2008. Therefore, we will begin to dream of a DSS based on these chips that could deliver excellent performance out of the ordinary … But at what price?

Note finally that the next evolution of the ONFI specification should achieve data rates of 400-2009 to verify these claims!

Nvidia now opens the possibility for GeForce 8800M GTX in SLI mode. 8800M GTX is inly meant for laptops and they run on a G80 graphic processor. 8800M GTX operates with a core speed on 500 MHz and a memory speed of 1,6 GHz. This cars also gives support for DirecX 10.The first machine that will be available with GeForce 8800M GTX in SLI is Dell XPS M1730. The price for the cards are on 700$. There are also many other producers that will make gaming laptops with Geforce 8800M GTX in SLI in the near future, i am excited to see Alienware do this.

Yesterdays launch of Radeon HD 3870 X2 makes AMD the king graphic cards once again. Radeon HD 3870 X2 offers extreme performance but it eats a lot of Watt with the 2 processors. Watt does also means more heat for the card but now ATI have a solution for this problem too. CoolIT has been working together with AMD about their newest graphic card cooler. Together they made a so called waterblock which cools down the graphic processors and the memory. With this cooler the card will only obtain 1 card slot on you mainboard, not 2 like the normal Radeon HD 3870 X2 does. According to AMD the cards with this cooler will be able to run at 900MHz core and 2 GHz memory while the standard is 825/1800 MHz. When CoolIT tested the card with their cooler they got 23500 scores on 3DMark06, twice as much as a GeForce 8800GTX. So far it is still unknown what this cooler will cost. Watch the 3DMark video here for proof.

Vispa is a small and free program which you can use to deactivate programs and services in Vista, you can configure Vista to use less memory and run faster. The program does not require any installation. When you run the program file vispa.exe you will be able to change the following things:

• General - You will be able to deactivate the user panel.
• Services - Configure services in Vista.
• Internet Explorer - Decide how IE will work.
• Windows Media Player - Adjust your multimedia player.
• Usability - Change the availability for programs.
• Delete Windows Fax and Scan Shortcut

There are however many other ways to optimize Windows Vista, but Vispa makes the process a lot easier. Be aware about that certain anti-virus programs will react on Vispa. Vispa is being stamped as a dangerous program by your anti-virus, i can however tell you that it is not any dangerous to use it and it will optimize your Vista speed a lot.

You can download Vispa for free here

Visual Studio 2008 was ready in November and Microsoft makes Windows Server 2008 ready for sale in the end of February. SQL Server 2008 will not be released before late this year. The launch will happen togehter with Windows Server 2008, but Microsoft will only make a so called “feature complete” version which can be used as a test. It was no secret that SQL Server would be released later then the other products, but now we have to wait atleast a few months more then originally planned. Because of this i believe many SQL customers will wait until Windows Server 2008 is out.