Tech Olive

Welcome to Tech Olive version 1.5. As you can see, the look of the website has a changed a little bit. We’ve been tweaking the site and creating a cleaner, yet sleeker look for several months off and on. We’re finally happy to be putting this new look to use. We’ll guide you through some of the bigger changes:

• “Tip Us” and “Ask the Olive” – We’ve added these buttons to the top of the sidebar. Here you can easily contact us by tipping us on news (“Tip Us”) and we’ll also be spreading the word more of our “Ask the Olive” feature, which is basically answering our readers’ questions about PC issues and/or recommendations. You can see an example of a past Ask the Olive here.
• As far as graphics, we have a new look to our banner that shows off more of our infamous olive logo. Our navigation bar also has a new look and the sidebar titles are way spiffier.
• Probably the most important change though is our new slogan: “PC News for Enthusiasts and Gamers Alike.” Tech Olive is now moving more towards PC-oriented content with a hint of HDTV content as well, since PCs and HDTVs have a strong connection (HTPCs, etc.) No more console news, no more gadget news, no more mobile/smartphone news. You can easily go elsewhere for that. We decided to make this move because there are very few PC-based websites out there and we’re hoping that this will give us a little more “market share,” if you will.

We’re still working on getting the kinks and small bugs worked out and we’re also working on getting a Related Posts thinga-ma-jig added to the bottom of posts. Stay tuned for that.

Please, please, please if you have any feedback, let us know!

If you’re new to the whole USB 3.0 deal, don’t worry too much. You have plenty of time to hit the books and learn more about it, but right now we’ll hopefully help you out a little because Seagate sent over their first USB 3.0 device, the BlackArmor PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance Kit. Frankly, we’re really excited to finally have our grubby little hands on USB 3.0 and we were dying to find out just how fast it was in a real-world scenario.

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Google has announced a Twitter competitor, dubbed Google Buzz. It’s completely integrated into the Gmail service and uses your Gmail contacts as “followers.” Buzz can connect with other web services, like Twitter, Picasa and Flickr, and will eventually support Facebook Connect. One of the cool things is that anything in Buzz can turn into a conversation. Comments and activity show up in your inbox in real-time. You can also give an item the “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to either show more of it or hide it for future reference. In other words, Buzz will learn what preferences you want and what kind of items you like most. Of course, Google Buzz will also be fully functional on mobile devices.

Google is rolling out Buzz today and should hit everyone by the end of the week.

[Google Buzz]

Through an FCC filing, Dell will apparently upgrade their Mini 10 netbook to include the Intel WiFi-Link 6250, which has 4G WiMAX and 802.11n on a single chipset. This upgrade will be replacing the current 3G and 802.11g. No other details have been given yet and we’re not sure what other upgrades the Mini 10 will have, but we’ll hopefully find out real soon.

via [Wireless Goodness]

Barnes & Noble have opened pre-orders for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and their list-price is alarmingly low. For a mere $19.95 ($30 less than any other site), you get yourself a brand new game. Be warned, this listing is possibly a price error and your order(s) could be canceled once they catch it.

Unsurprisingly, we have just gotten word that there will be a pre-release demo for Just Cause 2. However, the information that was a pleasant surprise was the fact that the demo will release for every platform: PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. There are no details yet on what we should expect to see in the demo or even when the demo will release, but we do know that the PC demo will be exclusive to Steam. We’ll keep you informed when more details arrive.

via [Panau Island]

Dell has unveiled a newer version of their Precision M6500. It now can sport dual-core i5 or i7 processors and comes equipped with USB 3.0. The M6500 also houses a 3.2-megapixel webcam, 64GB SSD mini card, 17-inch LED display, 3G modem and Nvidia Quadro graphics.

The dual-core versions are said to be available later this month, but price details have yet to be announced.

via [Electronista]

Six years ago yesterday, Facebook was started at Harvard University by Mark Zuckerberg and a few of his college mates. It was then available to other universities and eventually anyone with internet access could get a Facebook account. 400 million people, in fact, are using Facebook. They’re also celebrating their birthday by rolling out a new redesign of the homepage, which, if you’re like me, probably won’t go over too well, seeing how the last redesign pissed a lot of users off.

Happy Birthday Facebook! You’re now one of the most popular time-killers on the internet.

[Mashable]

Splinter Cell: Conviction has seen many delays in the past, but it seems Ubisoft is serious about keeping their newest set date. The game will launch on PC and Xbox 360 on April 13th in the US, the 15th in Europe and Australia, and the 16th in the UK. Here’s hoping that they actually make this release date.

via [VG Arabia]

So we all know what uTorrent is, right? It’s only the most popular BitTorrent client out there. Today, the devs have released a stable 2.0 version of uTorrent. So, if you’re one that absolutely has to have the latest of everything, uTorrent 2.0 should be your next download.

[uTorrent 2.0]