I really do love it when a new OS comes out. It is a time for experimentation. Finding the hidden tweaks to make the OS run faster, more secure and generally exactly the way you want it too.

As always there are numerous articles that give you ideas on how to get the most from your installs. But what about getting the most out of the features offered?

With the inclusion of Windows Media Center in Windows Vista many people (myself included) have used Microsoft's OS as a front end for a Home Theatre PC. The problem with Vista was that it was sort of clunky and slow. granted it was light years ahead of XP MCE but still not exactly what most were looking for.

With the recent announcement of the XP Mode for Windows 7 hitting the release candidate stage people are eager to check this out to see what, if any, advantage it will have.

But all is not good for the world as has already been commented on (both for good and for bad) XP mode requires a some form of CPU based Virtualization technology. This comes as either Intel's VT or AMD-V. But no matter the flavor you have to have one or the other. Of course not all CPUs have this. But you can always make sure that the CPU you have does support the virtualization technology.

So what happens when your CPU supports it, but the OEM that built your system has it turned off and does not give you the option to turn it on?

There are a lot of cool things about the new ZuneHD. One of the biggest is that it is going to use nVidia's Tegra under the hood. It should also have native support for Flash and a few other Codecs that are commonly used for media playback.

These differences have propelled it into the mantle of "iPod Killer" This is really quite a possibility as it certainly has the hardware and the Codec support to back up its bid for the throne. The problem is, how to beat Apple Marketing.

But all that aside one of the things that people are looking to see if can MS improve the interface on the Zune HD. Well someone has managed to get a sneaky little video of the new Zune HD in action. If nothing else we can see some of what we can expect from the new PMP from MS.

The dream of SLI on a non-nVidia chipset has been the dream of many. It was finally realized for the Core i7 and Core i5 (X58 and P55) when nVidia and Intel came into a licensing agreement.

But that left everyone else on the Intel side of the market out in the cold unless they were lucky (or unlucky) enough to have a board with an NF200 bridge.

Well there is hope for all the others out there. It looks like someone over at Expreview found a way around this through software. They were able to use this software in Directory Services Restore Mode to enable SLI on both an X38 and a P45 chipset.

Ok this seems like a line from about two years ago, but nVidia's CEO and all around top guy Jensen Huang says that DX10.1 is not important. No, what's important is that two stood against...Oh sorry slipped into a movie there.

Basically Huang feels that incremental updates to DX are not enough to get excited about. This is interesting as ATi's support of DX 10.1 allowed them to outperform nVidia DX10 cards in Assassin's Creed. This was enough to prompt Ubisoft to pull the DX 10.1 support; at least according to the rumors at the time.

Still Huang says that nVidia is very excited about DX 11. They are working hard to support these features but feel that DX 11 games are probably about two years away. This is due to the lack of acceptance of DX 10 by many game developers who are still coding for XP to keep the majority happy.

If you are looking forward to the six core Gulftown but are concerned that you will need a new socket there might be some good news.

According to a blurb at Tech Power Up the new Gulftowns are seamlessly compatible with the existing X58 chipset. Yep that is right, they are making Gulftown 1366 compatible. This means that many existing X58 based mainboards could support these new CPUs with as little as a BIOS update.

The TDP is also the same as the Core i7 900 series so t should run at 130 Watts. The Gulftown will also be one of the first CPUs from Intel to be made under the 32nm HKMG process. This will be ahead of AMD's entry from Globalfoundries who will not have 32nm HKMG ready until sometime late next year.

With the release of the RTM to Technet you have to wonder how people are going to make the move from their existing OS to Windows 7. In the past (especially with Vista) Microsoft pushed for a full upgrade from one retail product to another.

However we were all told that Windows 7 upgrades would be much easier.

I am not sure if that is true but I am looking forward to checking out just how easy an upgrade is in the next few days. One issue for many people is going to be the move from any of the Beta or RC versions to the retail or even the RTM. According to existing information if you are running one of these you will have to backup your personal files and start from scratch with a clean install.

With the lifting of the NDA on the 785 is not s surprise to see everyone announcing mainboards with this new chipset from AMD on it.

So it is no surprise at all that Asus has let slip what they have planned.

According to the Asus Website (and a small blur on Fudzilla) There will be three 785 boards that have support for the AM3 and one with AM2+ support two of the boards are the same model except for the memory and CPU support.

Yesterday we covered a tale of Apple and the Dictionary. This is a harrowing tale of an intrepid developer against the mongering troll.

Nah not really, it is a story about a developer getting the shaft from Apple and after the internet press got a hold the story Apple back peddling.

The complete story is very long and can be found at Daring Fireball as can the follow on part of this particular drama.

Developing new and interesting ways of charging phones is going to be a booming business in the near future. After we saw the birth of the Palm Touchstone we knew that there would be other companies that would do their own take on this concept.

Of course, who better to get the contact charging system than the Apple iPhone. After all if you believe Apple, the iPhone charges everything it touches so it stands to reason that this phone should pull power from the very air itself.

Now while the WildCharge contact charging system for the iPhone 3G S does not pull power from the air. It does enable contact charging. There are a couple of cons to this. The first is the pad itself; it is not the most attractive item out there. The next is that you have to use the iPhone case they provide. So, if you have one you already use (like my OtterBox Defender for iPhone) you either have to give it up or constantly swap cases when you want to charge your phone. The case has small "nubs" embedded into the back that need to make contact with the charging pad to work.