Gigabyte Intros New Dual-Socket Server Motherboards –

All new boards can carry 1.35 volt, 1600 MHz RDIMMs. The company says that the boards may especially appeal to HPC or finance applications areas.

The GA-7PESL and GA-7PESLX motherboard models are offered as flagship models; the GA-7PESE3 and GA-7PESE4 address the needs of processing efficiency and low power consumption with a grouped position of the socket as well as a high-end dual GbE LAN controller; and the GA-7PCSL marks the entry-level model for applications “do not require particularly large memory and expansion platforms.”

On the bottom-end, The GA-7PCSL features eight RDIMM/UDIMM ECC DIMM slots with a maximum memory (1066/1333/1600 MHz) support of 256 GB, as well as PCIe Gen3 and integrated SATA III 6 Gb/s and SAS 3 Gb/s. The higher-end models have twelve RDIMM/UDIMM ECC DIMM slots for a maximum of 384 GB of memory.

By Douglas Perry May 29, 2012 2:46 PM, www.tomsitpro.com

-5/15 Microsoft to Offer New Win7 Users Win8 Pro Upgrade at

$15

The official Windows 8 launch is widely rumored to be scheduled for October. However, with its new OS due in less than six months, Microsoft wants to make sure customers don’t hold off on purchasing computers in the mean time. As a solution, Paul Thurrott reports that Microsoft is offering those that purchase a Windows 7 laptop in the run up to the launch an upgrade to Windows 8 for just $15.

This isn’t anything new for Microsoft — the company has offered a similar promotion for previous iterations of Windows in an effort to keep PC sales steady and Mary Jo Foley reported last week that Redmond was preparing to make the same offer for Windows 8. However, there is a difference this year: Thurrott is reporting that Microsoft’s upgrade will cost $15. What’s more, it is for Windows 8 Pro, and not plain old Windows 8.

Microsoft hasn’t formally announced the offer, which will reportedly come into play for machines purchased after June 2, so it’s hard to know why the company is offering an upgrade for Windows 8 Pro for $15 instead of an upgrade to Windows 8 for free. It could be because the entry-level version of Windows 8 skips out on Windows Media Center, among other things. It’s possible Microsoft knows that people running Windows 7 will expect to have the same features when they upgrade to the newer version of the OS and is therefore offering an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $15 as opposed to a free upgrade that will take away features they had just gotten accustomed to using.

The timing of the deal is thought to coincide with the Release Preview, which is due in the beginning of June. We’ll keep you posted on any official announcement.

-5/7 AT&T CEO ‘Regrets’ Offering Unlimited Data with

iPhone

Unlimited data plans are becoming something of an endangered species. Though most networks offered them five years ago, as smartphones and tablets have become more common-place, networks have started capping plans or charging significantly more for the privilege of unlimited data. The reasoning is pretty simple: Now that the world and its dog has a smartphone packed with apps that are capable of guzzling tons of data, networks are under more strain than ever.

Despite the costs associated with offering unlimited data, some networks recognize the value customers place on these all-you-can-eat plans and are willing to offer them in an effort to get one up on the competition. However, AT&T clearly isn’t one of them. CEO Randall Stephenson recently said that he regrets ever offering an unlimited data plan with Apple’s iPhone. Speaking at a conference last week, Stephenson described unlimited data for the iPhone as his ‘only regret.’

“My only regret was how we introduced pricing in the beginning, because how did we introduce pricing? Thirty dollars and you get all you can eat,” the New York Times quotes him as saying. “And it’s a variable cost model. Every additional megabyte you use in this network, I have to invest capital.”

AT&T ditched unlimited data in 2010, three years after the iPhone came out, and currently offers tiered data plans depending on your device and your usage. These range from $14.99 a month for 250MB (tablet only), $50 for 5GB of data. In fact, the only unlimited plan the company now offers costs $10 per month and only applies to those with ‘standard phones’ (in other words, no smartphones allowed).

So, while Sprint has said the new iPhone (whenever Apple decides to launch it) will come with unlimited data, anyone hoping that AT&T would match that offer is probably going to be disappointed. Boo.

-5/3 HP Surpasses Apple in PC Sales Thanks to iPad

Shipment Dip –

According to Canalys, a drop of iPad shipments from 15.8 million to 11.8 million between Q4 2011 and Q1 2012 allowed HP to surpass Apple again by approximately 40,000 units. Canalys noted that tablets showed about 200 percent annual growth in Q1, but esktops and notebooks were climbing as well. The only category that lost was the netbook, which was down 34 percent year over year. The total PC client market, including tablets, was 107 million units in Q1 (up 21 percent from Q1 2011), Canalys said.

“Most of the leading PC vendors have done a reasonable job of offsetting the declines in their netbook shipments over the past year with increased pad business,” said Canalys analyst Tom Evans. “Samsung and Lenovo are two that stand out in terms of substantially increasing overall volume, though Asus has performed well too. The challenge is breaking out into the really big volumes to challenge the leaders – Apple and Amazon. So far, only Samsung has shown it can routinely ship more than a million pads a quarter.”

Canalys said that tablets make up about 19 percent of all client PC shipments. Netbooks are down to 5 percent.

-4/27 Dropbox Strikes Back: Adds Auto-Uploading,

More Capacity

It’s nothing but a huge win for Web surfers as the cloud storage companies duke it out for your allegiance.

At the beginning of the week, Dropbox added a file sharing feature that allows users to link their files and send them to anyone, whether they’re a Dropbox member or not. Microsoft followed up by cranking up the capacity for current users to 25 GB while adding three paid plans. Then Google unleashed its own cloud solution, serving up 5 GB and renaming Google Docs to Google Drive.

After all that, the busy cloud-themed week wasn’t over, allowing one more shot at consumers before the bell sounds and everyone goes home to play Farmville. Dropbox has taken that end-of-the-week jab, adding an additional 3 GB in 500 MB increments and expanding its automated photo and video upload feature to work on most devices, even cameras.

“Now with Dropbox you can automatically upload from just about any camera, tablet, SD card or smartphone — pretty much anything that takes photos or videos,” the company said in a blog. “With the newest version for Mac or Windows, you can just plug your camera, phone, or SD card into your computer and with a few clicks of the mouse all your photos and videos are in your Dropbox!”

“Automatic uploading from the desktop is designed to work perfectly with the Dropbox Android app,” the company added. “Your photos are copied from your camera to your Dropbox and uploaded, in full-quality and at their original size, to your private Camera Uploads folder. As your photos upload, you can access them from anywhere and move and share them as you see fit.”

According to Dropbox, the company will give users an extra 500 MB of virtual space for the first automatic upload. As users take and upload more photos and videos, the company will grant 500 MB more until the user receives a total of 3 GB on top of their current base capacity of 2 GB.

“On the web, we’ve made the pictures you’ve uploaded shine on our new Photos page, with nice large thumbnails, grouped by month,” Dropbox said on Friday. “You can hover over each to find the date, or click to see them full-size and then download or share them with a link.”

To get started, download the new version of Dropbox here.