If you're one of the (apparently) many out there scared half to death not over what's residing in your closet at night, but that your recently purchased SSD will wear itself out in no time flat, here's a little reassurance. According to Michael Yang, flash marketing manager at Samsung, a flash device rated at 100,000 write cycles can write 100,000 times "to every single (memory) cell within the device," and of course, it won't continuously write to the same cell over and over thanks to a process dubbed wear leveling. In case you still needed a tad more evidence, he also stated that "a pattern could be perpetually repeated in which a 64GB SSD is completely filled with data, erased, filled again, then erased again every hour of every day for years, and the user still wouldn't reach the theoretical write limit." So, now that we've had that cleared up, why not tell us more about those 250GB MLC-based SSDs that could land before 2009 dawns?

LCD and plasma TVs are far more reliable than older rear-projection types, according to a report by Consumer Reports. On average, only 3 percent of flat panel TVs need repairs, with the majority of those repairs being free thanks to warranties. Rear projection TVs had a far higher repair rate of 18 percent, probably due to the limited life of the bulbs contained in these TVs. When flat panels TVs did need an out of warranty repair, they cost around $260 for LCDs, and nearly $400 for plasmas, with rear projection TV repairs costing around $300. The report also called out expensive extended warranties, saying that they're only worth it if you're particularly paranoid and they're cheaper than any possible repairs.

Don't look now, but Microsoft is apparently readying a Vista Performance and Reliability Pack for release, and while it's certainly not available through Windows Update just yet, that doesn't mean it's not hiding elsewhere. Reportedly, the aforementioned pack and the Vista Compatibility and Reliability Pack will institute a number of welcome fixes and performance increases in a variety of areas, and though the list is indeed lengthy, a few notables include:

• Increased compatibility with many video drivers.
  
• Improved visual appearance of games with high intensity graphics.
  
• Improved quality of playback for HD DVD and Blu-ray disks on large monitors.
  
• Improved reliability for Internet Explorer when some third party toolbars are installed on Vista.
  
• Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from XP to Vista.
  
• Resolves an issue where creating AVI files on Vista may get corrupted.
  
• Improves the performance of Vista's Memory Manager in specific customer scenarios and prevents some issues which may lead to memory corruption.

So if all the red flags prove correct, Vista users can eagerly await an official release of the updates, or if you're the adventurous type, you can bypass the whole "waiting" thing altogether and get your download on immediately.

[Via TechSpot]