Finally, the mobile quad core technology starts to be affordable: Acer introduces a quad core gaming laptop Aspire 8930-7665 for just around 1300 € (1800 US$). There have been some other quad core experiments around before, like the Xtreme 917V by Xtreme Notebooks introduced in August 2007, but the price of around 3300 € will stop most people from buying it.

The Acer Aspire 8930-7665 utilizes the Intel® Core™2 Quad Mobile Processor Q9000 with four 2.53 GHz cores. This processor should finally bring extreme computing power to laptops so that high-end gaming is possible. The Q9000 processor also features 12MB of Level2 cache, 1066 MHz Front Side Bus and is thus equipped with the most modern technology.

Beside the processor, 4 GB of DDR3 RAM and a Geforce 9700M GT graphics card enable it to run almost all cutting-edge computer games.

In addition, a 18.4″ widescreen display with a Full-HD resolution of 1920×1080, Dolby audio and a Blu-Ray drive bring a really cinematic experience into this laptop.

“By incorporating the latest capabilities of Intel’s Coreâ„¢ 2 Quad mobile processors into the Aspire 8930G-7665, Acer is delivering a perfect combination of mobility, innovation and extreme gaming capabilities, Gamers and enthusiasts who enjoy HD multimedia entertainment will find the performance benefits of quad core mobile performance in the Aspire 8930G unrivalled to other multimedia notebooks on the market.”
Sumit Agnihotry, vice president of product marketing for Acer America

In my opinion, this laptop is awesome for the price, you can see lots of more expensive laptops out there that just have half of these system specifications. It is not really mobile any more, considering the size, but still perfect as Desktop Replacement. And this is a great step towards the laptop I wish, equipped with a quad core i7-processor and a DirectX 11 graphics card, although this may still take some time to be developed.

Aspire 8930-7665 Specifications and Pricing

• Intel® Coreâ„¢2 Quad Mobile Processor Q9000 (12MB L2 Cache | 2.53 GHz | 1066MHz FSB)
• 18.4″ WUXGA Acer CrystalBriteâ„¢ TFT LCD (1920 x 1080)
• 4GB DDR3 1066 MHz Dual Channel Memory
• NVIDIA® GeForce® 9700M GT with 512MB dedicated video memory
• 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
• Blu-ray Discâ„¢/DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive
• 6-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader
• 802.11a/g/Draft-N Wi-Fi CERTIFIED®
• Acer Crystal Eye Webcam
• Dolby Home Theater®
• Windows Vista® Premium 64-bit
• MSRP $1799.99

Now that the results are out, I can upload my submission for the Bundeswettbewerb Informatik 2008, the German computing competition.

Download the Pizzaprofi application here!

Download the Pizzaprofi source code here!

This was the task:

Task 1: Pizzavision
Many people visiting a pizza restaurant enjoy to choose the ingredients of their pizza. It would be nice to see a preview of the created pizza on a computer screen. Every guest should be able to choose from 12 given ingredients. Always after adding or removing something, the image of the pizza should be regenerated.
The pizza images should avoid ordering mistakes, be a pleasure for the guest and encourage him to add more ingredients.

1. Realize such a system
2. Document the ordering procedure with the shown pizza images.

I created an application that has got an ingredients list on the right side and shows you a randomly generated image on the left. All the algorithms are based on an initial number that can be set in the bottom left hand corner. Thus you can regenerate every image exactly the way it was if you remember the number.

The application can also save the generated image and shows you the price of your current pizza configuration. It’s all in German since the competition is a German one.

You can find the complete documentation and explanation here.

This tutorial will show you how to install Microsoft Windows 7 on the Asus Eee PC 900. Except for the last part (configuring boot devices), this tutorial works for every other netbook out there! Just follow the instructions to create your bootable Windows 7 USB thumbdrive, plug it into your netbook and start!

If the image doesn’t satisfy you, see this video proof:

(In this video, I am running Build 6956, although the startup animation is not the correct one. I guess that the graphics card is not good enough to display the 3D animation. This way of installing Windows 7 will work with any version of Windows 7)

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I wrote a tutorial earlier how to bypass the Windows Geniune Advantage (WGA) check for installing Windows Media Player 11 or Internet Explorer 8 by using a registry hack, but this will go even further and make your copy of Windows look completely genuine so you can even do Windows Updates and use the Office Online templates.

All the software is from CT Forums, so please refer to them if you have questions or there are any legal issues.

You may only use this tutorial and the software provided if you own an original version of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office! Check the legal situation in your country before following this tutorial! I am not responsible for any crimes commited with the information provided!

Download WGA Patcher 2.0

Download Office 2007 Patcher 1.6

Please scroll down for the Office 2007 tutorial. If there are any questions, post them as comments please!

Make Windows genuine for Windows Update

First of all, download the WGA Patcher from the link above or from CT Forums and extract all the files to your hard disk.

Generate Windows XP key

Then open Windows XP Keygen.exe, select “Windows XP Pro VLK” in the Product Family dropdown menu, and click “generate”. In the box below, it will generate a Windows XP license key. Don’t close the program, you will need it later!

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Here is how you can run StarCraft, the most sold real-time strategy game ever, on modern computers with Windows XP or Vista. Originally, the game is designed to run on Windows 95 or 98, but with a few tricks, it will also work on new machines!

In contrast to modern games, StarCraft uses the IPX protocol instead of the TCP/IP protocol. Luckily even Windows XP and Vista include this protocol, but they don’t have it installed usually.

First of all, go to your Control Panel -> Network and Internet connections -> Network Connections, right-click on your LAN connection and select properties.

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