95

Even by Oppo's high standards the BDP-105 is an extraordinary Blu-ray player. Sure, it's loaded with up-to-the-second features -- 4K upscaling, 2D-to-3D conversion, and a high-quality USB 2.0 digital-to-analog converter -- but what really makes the Oppo special is the sound. Pop the cover and look inside and you'll see why. Most of the 17-pound component's chassis space is devoted to the audio circuitry. That's nice, but the audio advantages will be completely irrelevant if you connect the BDP-105 to your receiver with a HDMI cable (the digital-to-analog conversion would then be handled in … Read more

You remember the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Well, that's sort of the story of Prime95, too. This mild-mannered mathematics software lets users participate in GIMPS, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. This online project uses the distributed power of many networked PCs (like yours) to search for immense Mersenne prime numbers. Prime95 lets users donate processing power to the nonprofit research project. In the hot hands of overclockers, though, Prime95 becomes an instrument of torture, running stress tests that pinpoint weak links in your system. How you use Prime95 determines its behavior.

Prime95's setup wizard … Read more

Hitachi GST announced today that it's now shipping the Travelstar Z7K500 hard drive. The company says this is the first low-profile (7mm) 2.5-inch hard drive that spins at 7,200rpm, supports SATA 3 (6Gbps), features 32MB of cache, and can handle shock up to 400G.

The new drive uses only one platter and offers up to 500GB, meaning it has a data density of 626 gigabits per square inch. Despite being much thinner, the Z7K500 drive supports standard power and data connectors and can replace existing 9.5mm standard 2.5-inch hard drives, as well as working in … Read more

Fifty years ago Monday, a young Marine Corps fighter pilot shoe-horned himself into a cramped Mercury capsule blasted off from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas rocket to become the first American in orbit -- and one of the nation's enduring heroes.

John Glenn went on to a distinguished career in the U.S. Senate before making history again in 1998, blasting off aboard the shuttle Discovery to become, at 77, the oldest human to fly in space.

Now 90, Glenn's memories of his historic Feb. 20, 1962, flight aboard Friendship 7 remain razor sharp, "indelibly" etched … Read more

RegRun Reanimator from Greatis Software is a free tool that can help users remove malware such as Trojans, adware, spyware, and even many rootkits. It offers several kinds of scans, but inexperienced users may benefit most from its unique scan-report-fix process, which transmits data to the developers, who analyze it and create a one-click fix that they send back to you, apparently free of charge. We say "apparently" because the documentation's translations aren't always as clear as they might be, but more importantly because it's not wise to "fix" problems that don't … Read more

I get this question a lot, "Steve, what's the best-sounding Blu-ray player." Sometimes the questioner is more specific, "I have an Oppo BDP-83, but is the Oppo BDP- 95 better? What are you using at home?"

I have an Oppo BDP-95 ($999), which has a lot in common with the company's BDP-93 ($499) 3D universal Blu-ray, SACD, DVD-Audio player, but the BDP-95 is the potentially better sounding player. I say potentially because that player's upgraded digital-to-analog converter and audio circuitry won't make a nit of difference if you're using the player'… Read more

Bill Gates is scheduled to take the stand today in a Novell-versus-Microsoft antitrust case whose origins stretch back as far as 1995.

Launched in 2004 by Novell, the lawsuit alleges that Microsoft used anti-competitive tactics to hurt Novell's WordPerfect and Quattro Pro products by holding back key technical information required to make them compatible with Windows 95. Novell claims that Microsoft initially promised its support for the two applications but then pulled back to combat any potential competition against Microsoft Office.

In its suit filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, Novell is seeking $1.2 … Read more

Soluto is an unusual program. This "Anti-Frustration Software" analyzes your system and compares its findings with an online knowledge base that proposes solutions to various performance bottlenecks. It focuses on three areas: Chop Boot, which reduces your startup time; Lighten Web Browser, which shows you how to speed up your surfing by optimizing your Web browser; and Heal Crashes, which tries to fix any problems causing programs to crash.

Installing Soluto requires a reboot, during which it analyzes your system's boot process and looks for improvements. Soluto's animated graphics and flow-based layout give it a feel … Read more

Judging from the Developer Preview version of Windows 8, Microsoft has finally decided to change the Windows Start menu in a big way. And it's about time. The last time this happened was with Windows 95, when the Start menu was first introduced. Over the years, this menu has been the signature feature of the operating system, a feature that represents both the innovation and the stasis of the software giant.

In Windows 8, the Ctrl-Esc combo key, which shares the same functionality as the Windows key, now brings up something entirely different: the Metro Start Screen. This screen … Read more