IDF Attendees

Craig Barrett Having Fun

Renee James Keynote

Intel OCC Bike

Wow - pure excitement is buzzing here on the show floor of the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco!  Come by booth 102 to see Gunjan Rawal and I in person and to chat a bit about Intel Software Network!

Show attendees - leave your blog comments below!  We'd love to hear from you about how much fun you're having, what cool things you're seeing, and how you're looking forward to using all our nifty resources on ISN!

I was lucky enough to be able to preview some of the booths in the technology showcase tonight and you are really in for a treat if you are here in San Francisco.  Craig Barrett will give the opening keynote tomorrow morning at 8:15AM - and I think that will set the tone for the week perfectly.  I am looking forward to seeing both of the keynotes tomorrow and am very excited about the opening of the technology showcase tomorrow night at 6PM.  Make sure you come by and see us at booth 102!

SIGGRAPH LA Convention Center

Intel Software Network Kiosk

Intel SIGGRAPH Demos

Intel Theatre Crowds

The SIGGRAPH Exhibition is open from Tuesday through Thursday this week, and we are lucky to have a machine at the Intel booth collecting all the thoughts and comments from SIGGRAPH attendees. If you're not at SIGGRAPH, enjoy reading the comments and seeing what everyone is up to; and if you are here, let us know what you're up to at the conference and what you think about the Intel booth!

Come out to meet your favorite Intel Software Network personalities (myself included!) at some of the upcoming conferences we will be participating in.  We'd love to hear about how you use our Intel Software Network website & services - bring your ideas and comments to share with us!

• SIGGRAPH (Los Angeles, CA) - August 11-15, 2008
  This show will be all about visual computing and graphics; an animator's heaven!  Stop by our large Intel booth to meet us, walk through our demos, and talk with Intel experts. 
   
• Intel Developer Forum (San Francisco, CA) - August 19-21, 2008
  Visit the site above for a complimentary one-day pass or a discounted 3-day pass courtesy of the Intel Software Solutions Group (SSG).  Once you arrive, stop by our Intel Software Network booth at the show to leave us a comment on our blog and receive a free thank you gift.
   
• Games Convention Developers Conference (Leipzig, Germany) - August 18-20, 2008
    
• Austin Game Developer Conference (Austin, TX) - September 15-17, 2008
  We enjoyed seeing everyone at San Francisco at Game Developer Conference earlier this year; I hope to see a lot of you again!  Stop by our lounge area in the conference center to surf the web, play games, and post comments on our ISN blogs.  After that, visit our Intel booth to see our Intel Game Demo Contest winners and see several demonstrations of our technology.
   
• Adobe MAX (San Francisco, CA) - November 16-19, 2008

It's so cool to have this interest becoming more mainstream - I can actually talk with people who play the games I play and I don't get weird looks like I'm from Mars.  Well, of course sometimes I still do - but that's because I'm a geek and not just because I play PC games.

Gamers are always so interesting to speak with since most of them build their own machines with the best & fastest components to ensure they have the ultimate gaming experience.  I have several rigs that I've built myself - my main one has an Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor (QX6700) and the performance just blows me away (and I'm not just saying that because I work at Intel!).  

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined how far this industry would come -- I still remember my first gaming PC (an Atari 800XL) where I played David's Midnight Magic late into the night!

Gamers - and game developers - shouldn't miss some of the cool things that Intel is offering right now for game fanatics!:

• For starters we have our "$1,000,000 Intel Make Something Unreal" contest where you can submit your mods for Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3).  I am a total noob to UT3, but one of these weekends I will try my hand at some example mods and post here in my blog for everyone to laugh at. 
• Along the same lines, we also have an Intel Crysis Mapping contest with some cool PC component prizes (Intel® processors & motherboards) and a chance to win a trip to the Crytek headquarters.
• For aspiring game developers, check out our Intel Game Demo Contest -- your game could be the next big hit that I stay up waaay too late playing!
• Just need a fix on the latest gaming news?  Make sure you check out our new Intel Game On portal.
• And finally, our in-person gaming events in the second half of this year will be loads of fun.  I hope you'll make plans to join us at SIGGRAPH and GDC Austin to say hello!

Do you have a burning question you've always wondered about and wanted to ask someone at Intel? 
Well now is your chance! 

I'm opening up this blog to gather customer questions about the Intel Software Network, Intel Software Products, or general Intel questions that I will try and answer for you.  No technical questions please - these can be answered in our ISN forums or through our Intel Software Products customer support pages or at our Intel Hardware Support form.  I'm looking for your questions about Intel that might be hard to find or that are general questions you found yourself wondering about. 

Just imagine that I'm your next door neighbor who works for Intel that you just ran into on the sidewalk for a casual chat - what would you ask me?  What are you curious about?

Post your questions in the 'What do you think?' comments section below and I will edit the post to add the questions that I've received.

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ISN Customer Support Q&A:

What was your first experience with an Intel processor?

My first experience with Intel was with the Intel 386™ processor when I was 9 years old in my IBM PS/1 model 2121.  It had a 20MB hard drive and ran Windows 3.11 for Workgroups.  :)  It is a fond memory!  Prior to that, I had an Atari 800XL, which was super cool in it's day.

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Why doesn't Intel allow software developers access to its processor BIOS Writer's Guides
 
BIOS Writer's Guides (BWG) are Intel restricted access documents.  They are available for approved BIOS vendors and OEMs developing BIOS under NDA (non-disclosure agreements) through Intel.  Publicly available documents that may help you are our Software Developer's Guides and our processor documentation guides (choose a processor, then click its 'Technical Documents' tab).

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Why does Intel charge money for software development products?

This answer comes from James Reinders, Intel Software Products Director of Business Development and Marketing:
"Intel produces software in many forms, some are sold for a price, some are free and/or open source, some are available to non-commercial users for free and to commercial users for a price.  While it is very important to support our processors, it is also not our desire to destroy the market for independent innovations.  In cases where we charge a price, we are asking a fair payment for our work at a competitive price. We battle to earn our business, and this makes us a better supplier.  Most important of all - this helps create an opportunity for others to compete with our tools and make a fair price. It would be unfortunate if we extinguished competition for supporting our processors by giving away all our software. Intel is fortunate to have the richest array of support for our processors of any processor vendor – we are not interested in destroying that."

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How can I find more information about the Intel-powered Classmate PC?

Please see our Classmate PC site at http://www.classmatepc.com for more information.

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Does Intel make a CPU that fits an AM2 socket?
Date answered:  June 24, 2008
 
This is an interesting question for those of you 'stuck' with AM2 motherboards.  I'm sorry to say that the answer is no, and there are no socket adapters available for this type of configuration - the number of pins are different and so is the entire architecture of the motherboard.  No fear, though - you can still go Intel!  The easiest thing to do would be to upgrade your motherboard to an Intel Socket 775 (or Socket T) configuration - you can get some as cheap as $50 these days!  See this Amazon.com search page for examples.
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HOW DO I FIND CUSTOMER SUPPORT AT INTEL?

INTEL SOFTWARE NETWORK  If you have questions about any Intel Software Network product or service, feel free to drop us a line by using our support contact form.  Before you send us a message though, we encourage customers browse our ISN Forums at http://www.intel.com/software/forums to see if the question has already been asked & answered.  Want to become a forum member and post your question?  Click the JOIN link at the top and fill out the form for your free account.

HARDWARE PRODUCTS  If you have questions about an Intel Hardware product (such as motherboards, processors, chipsets, and wireless devices), use this form and choose your product from the drop-down boxes.

SOFTWARE PRODUCTS  If you have questions about the Intel Registration Center or our Intel Software Products (that are not answered by our ISN forums), see the Intel Software Help Center.  You can also find specific Intel Software Product Support pages here.  For more in-depth questions, Intel product owners can sign up for our free Intel Premier Support for Intel Software Products (but make sure you register your product at the Intel Registration Center first!). 

DRIVERS  & DOWNLOADS  If you need to download drivers or software for your Intel product (chipsets, motherboards, wireless products, Intel utilities), please see our Intel Download Center at http://downloadcenter.intel.com/. 

EVALUATION VERSIONS  If you want to download trial versions of our Intel Software Products, visit our Intel Software Evaluation Center at http://www.intel.com/software/products/eval.  You can also find information about our discounts through the Intel Academic Developer Program.  Additionally, you can download certain Intel Software Products for non-commercial use. 

INTEL HISTORY  Curious about Intel Microprocessor History?  Visit our Intel Museum 'Microprocessor Hall of Fame' at http://www.intel.com/museum/online/hist_micro/hof/index.htm. 

INTEL SUBSCRIPTIONS  If you'd like to sign up for the Intel Software Network Newsletter or the Intel Insight magazine, please visit http://softwaredispatch.intel.com/Welcome.aspx.  Want to unsubscribe?  Visit http://remove.intelmktg.com/isn/ for the ISN Newsletter and visit http://remove.intelmktg.com/isd/ for the Intel Insight magazine.

SOFTWARE MANUALS  Are you looking for Intel Software Architecture manuals?  You can find those in PDF format at http://www.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/. 

WEBINARS  Find links to our Intel Software Network Webinars here. 

WHERE TO BUY  If you'd like to find out where to buy Intel products, visit http://www.intel.com/buy.  They have a cool PC Buying Guide (linked in the right column) that walks you through finding a PC that meets your needs and lets you know where to buy it.

Feel free to comment on this blog and let us know if you found these links useful and tell us how we're doing with our ISN Customer Support!
 

Welcome to the second part of my blog series on the cool software offerings at Letmebemobile.com!

In my previous blog, I talked about Tazti, the useful voice recognition software that's easy to install and use - and takes up oh-so-little space on your hard drive.  This blog is about the three other software products you can try at Letmebemobile.com - Jajah, Talkhouse, and Elephant Drive.

Jajah lets you make international calls as cheaply and easily as you make local calls.  If you have a friend in India and you live in the United States, the long-distance bills would be huge - but not with Jajah!  Create a free user account at Letmebemobile.com by dragging the Jajah icon to the Launch Pad and then start dialing all your international pals!

Talkhouse is another type of voice recognition software - but instead of always having a microphone always listening to you (as with Tazti), you hold a button and then tell Talkhouse what you'd like it to do or find.  This is such a fun tool for a MID (Mobile Internet Device) or a mobile device where you'd like to save keystrokes while using.  Download the 30-day free trial at Letmebemobile.com by dragging the Talkhouse icon to the Launch Pad.

Elephant Drive enables you to access your data anywhere you have an internet connection.  This is a must for MIDs with limited storage space!  Take your MID with you but leave your files on Elephant Drive for fast, easy access that won't clog up your mobile system.   Try it today with a 15-day free trial at Letmebemobile.com.

After you're done trying things out, make sure you let the world what you think by entering comments below.  :)

I'm sure all of you game development aficionados already know about our Intel® Game Demo Contest going on now, but what you might not know about is our special Game Development Tips & Tricks prizes!  From now through July 25, 2008, enter a special coding or game design tip into the contest as an entry and be eligible for special judges' prizes.  These prizes include a super sweet Dell* Alienware* high-end gaming laptop (estimated value $2,000) and an Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme quad-core 45nm processor (estimated value $1,000).

 So put your thinking cap on and enter your best tip into the contest today!

I'm reaching out to you, my dear blog readers, to see if anyone out there has ANY suggestions for our Intel® Software Network Siggraph 2008 event planning team. Here are a few questions to get you started; make your comments at the end of this blog post! 

Questions to think about:

• What topics would YOU like to hear Intel talk about at Siggraph 2008?
• What would draw you into the Intel booth? Cool prizes and giveaways? Chances to talk 1:1 with our Intel experts?
• Have you visited an Intel booth at any past event? What did you like or dislike about that experience? (Be honest!)
• What demos would you like to see at the Intel booth at this event?