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 Gameguru Mania News - Nov,11 2003 - tech 
Nightly Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 04:08 AM CET - Nov,11 2003 - Post a comment / read (5)
  • Windows XP Game Advisor Launched - Today Microsoft launched its Windows XP Game Advisor, a new Web-based tool that sorts through a variety of genres and age-group choices to present the best matches for them from more than 100 of the hottest games including TRON 2.0, Final Fantasy XI and Half-Life 2.
  • Computer viruses now 20 years old - This week computer viruses celebrate 20 years of causing trouble and strife to all types of computer users. US student Fred Cohen was behind the first documented virus that was created as an experiment in computer security. Now there are almost 60,000 viruses in existence and they have gone from being a nuisance to a permanent menace.
  • FBI on look-out for foreign government hackers - How seriously does the U.S. government take computer intrusion? Seriously enough for the threat of foreign hacking to take a prominent role in new rules governing the FBI's national security investigations issued by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft this week.
  • Internet Explorer to stomp pop-ups - Microsoft plans to add pop-up blocking features to Internet Explorer next year as part of its Service Pack 2 update for Windows XP, a move that would go far toward stamping out the Web advertisements. Darin Linnman, a Microsoft spokesman, said that the company plans to add the pop-up blocking feature to an updated version of Explorer with Service Pack 2 (SP2) when it's released in the first half of next year. But one caveat, he said, is that Microsoft will be gathering customer feedback that will be weighed as part of the final decision to add the feature. "I can confirm SP2 will include an update to IE that adds pop-up blocking," Linnman said.
  • Sony Music Sings New Copy-Protection Tune  - Sony Music on Monday said it plans to introduce new CD technology in Germany that prevents users from copying songs to file-sharing sites, but allows them to make copies for their personal use. The disc can be played on almost any device conventionally, said Sony Music Chief Technology Officer Phil Wiser.
  • New verification platform is based on Jeda language -  Bringing to market a new approach to verification, startup Jeda Technologies this week will release Jeda-X, a commercial product based on the Jeda hardware verification language. An earlier version of Jeda, created by one of the company's founders, is available on an open-source basis.
  • Off-topic: Apple G5 Ads Banned In UK - The Independent Television Commission has quietly banned Apple from airing an advertisement (in QuickTime here) for the Power Mac G5 in the UK (thanks Slashdot.org)
  • Off-topic: Ten most overpaid jobs in the U.S. - Almost no one in America would admit to being overpaid, but many of us take home bloated paychecks far beyond what we deserve. For example, Stock-fund managers can easily earn $500,000 to $1 million a year including bonuses -- even though only 3 in 10 beat the market in the last 10 years.
  • Off-topic: Can You Hear the Sound of Computing Silence? - Finding it harder to concentrate at your desk? Maybe it's the constant drone of your personal computer. A small but growing niche of users fed up with office noise pollution are turning to very quiet PCs to take back the sound of computing silence. While the first computers, especially those that used punch cards, made a racket, the advent of microchips and standardized components helped make computers silent and small enough to put on every desk. But recently, PCs have started to become noisier again as they become more powerful.
  • Off-topic: Big clue to human pheromone mystery - Animals secrete pheromones to communicate to others of their species information about their gender or reproductive state. The chemical signals are detected by a specialised sensory system called the vomeronasal organ (VMO). But scientists have never been able to identify a VMO in humans, despite evidence that they do respond to pheromones. Now, researchers from Duke University, North Carolina, have found that pheromones can also activate the main olfactory system in mice. This suggests humans could respond to pheromones through the regular system they use to smell.
  • Microsoft to become chip company with Xbox - Rather than take standard chips from suppliers for its next Xbox, Microsoft Corp. is planning to license intellectual property from suppliers and actively participate in the design of chips that would be forwarded to foundries, according to a report by ZDNet..
  • Open-and-shut case for new transistor gates? - Researchers at the company's Austin, Texas, laboratory said Monday that they have developed a dual-gate transistor in which the two gates can act independently, a first according to the company. Ideally, this will simultaneously increase performance and reduce power consumption.
  • Virtual TV studio gets real -  A virtual studio that allows actors to interact with computer-generated characters and creatures in real time has been developed by the BBC. It should lead to a new generation of programmes and films made with advanced special effects at relatively low cost. The system, called Origami, has been developed over the past two years with researchers from Germany and Italy. The virtual studio is set up at the BBC's research headquarters at Kingswood Warren in Surrey, UK.
  • Multiplying Virtual Servers With New VMware Tools  - VMware Inc. on Monday began shipping VirtualCenter, an expanded management tool that handles provisioning, monitoring, and security access controls for virtual servers across multiple physical servers. VirtualCenter, unveiled in June as VMware Control Center, also feeds the data it collects to more comprehensive management suites such as IBM Tivoli and Computer Associates Unicenter. VMware is working on integration with Hewlett-Packard OpenView.
  • Microsoft Launches Virtual PC Software - Virtual PC 2004 has been shipped to manufacturers and should be commercially available by the end of the year. Key components come from virtual machine specialist Connectix, a company purchased by Microsoft last February.
  • Iomega Storage Hits 35GB  - The new storage format for consumers is Digital Capture Technology (DCT). It will be launched in the first half of next year, Scott Sheehan, vice president of business development at Iomega, said at a news conference in Tokyo. DCT disks are about 2 inches in diameter and look similar to the company's now-defunct Pocket Zip, or Clik, disks but can hold much more data. First-generation versions will have a capacity of 1.5GB, compared with the 100MB of the Pocket Zip.
  • Apple PowerBook G4 (15-Inch) First Look - For those who found the ultraportable12-inch Apple PowerBook too small and the 17-inch too large, chances are the new Apple PowerBook G4 15-Inch ($1,999 or $2,599 direct, depending on configuration) will feel just right. Serious road-warriors had the ultraportable, desk-bound creative-types were covered by the larger notebook, and now the new laptop makes the perfect choice for business professionals, nicely rounding out Apple's lineup.
  • Cooler and Quieter Barebones PCs?  - THG tested seven of the latest barebones systems based on P4 and Athlon 64 chipsets to see.
  • EZ/CD 5700 CD printer review - This unit delivers the promise of providing affordable cd-printing. The printer can be used with regular paper using the normal paper feeder like any other Epson inkjet, and used for cd printing when need arises. 2. Good print quality. The printer buttons, marked in a "stealth" way on original Epson printers using icons embedded in the plastic case, are identified using clear, big text descriptions on a colorful sticker placed over the original markings. Nice touch!
  • Solarism Flex-View LM-1730 17in LCD review - Seeing as how this is a gamer-oriented display, I couldn't go on without playing. In fear of anti-CS flames I decided to post a random Diablo II screenshot instead. When playing any FPS ghosting is all but gone. 16ms is a huge improvement over 25. I tried playing CS on my laptop (which has a GeForce 440Go card so it's not weak by any means) and the results were horrid: any quick turns and you lose all track of where you are, the ghosting is so bad. None of this was noticeable on the LM-1730. That's not to say it's entirely eliminated though.
  • AOpen DRW4410 4x DVD+R/RW review - Those looking for fast DVD reading and writing speeds will probably gravitate towards some of the newer 8x DVD writers or one of the faster 4x drives like the Lite-On LDW-401S. On the other hand, if you're someone on a budget, the DRW4410 just might be the answer. Currently going for less than $ 110 on Pricewatch, it's one of the more affordable 4x DVD+R/RW drives currently available.
  • GeForceFX 5700 Go - First performance numbers!  - Elite Bastards have posted the first leaked numbers for nVidia's soon to be announced GeForceFX 5700 Go, nVidia's attempt to answer ATi's Mobility Radeon 9600 (otherwise known as M10).
  • Securing A Wireless Network Guide - PCStats has posted a new guide about securing a wireless network.
  • Comparison of Extra & High Textures in Call of Duty - Neodark, has made a flash file so you can see the differences in the extra, and the high textures in Call of Duty on a 9800 Pro 256 MB, and a 9800 Non-Pro 128 MB video card. (thanks PCKiller)
  • America's Army: Special Forces Tweak Guide - TweakTown has published an updated America's Army: Special Forces Tweak Guide.
  • Longhorn Transformation Pack 4.0 - This is the most flexible patch and the best one of WindowsX Longhorn Transformation that he has ever created. The one that will fullfil your dreams for Windows XP to convert into Longhorn and Windows Server 2003.
  • VirtualDub 1.5.9 - VirtualDub (download) is a video capture and processing program. It features fast capturing, process files larger than the 2 gigabyte limit, optimized for linear editing, support for Motion-JPEG, MPEG-1 video and layer 3 audio, real-time and near-realtime video processing, video job queues, and much more.
  • CPUCool 7.2.9 - CPUCooL (download) is a program that monitors temperature, fan speed, and voltages for many motherboards. It provides Cpu cooling under Win9x/2000/XP/NT, allows FrontSideBus changing, optimizes your memory and CPU.
  • Media Player Classic 6.4.6.8 - Media Player Classic (Win9x/ME ~ WinXP/2k) is similar to windows media player 6.4 but with features pertained to minimalist advanced users. It also supports DirectX 9 and VFW drivers for capture. It supports viewing through ActiveX controls of Real and QuickTime files.
  • AutoPatcher 4.1 (November Update) - AutoPatcher XP is a comprehensive collection of patches & registry tweaks that give you peace of mind in the knowledge that your Windows XP is up to date.
  • Samurize 0.98b  - Samurize is the successor to the quite popular program CureInfo. It is a system monitoring utility with awesome configuration power. The configuration program is totally separated from the client for minimal memory usage.
  • BlindWrite Suite 5.0.2 - Blindwrite Suite (download) is the best set of tools to reproduce or clone any CD, even protected ones. Blindwrite Suite is the most powerfull tool to create a perfect copy from your original CD for personal private copy. Blindwrite Suite can also create CD audio from MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, WMA, monkey`s audio and be use with an cd-rom emulator like Daemon Tools.
  • New BIOSes - PCTunning.cz has posted a list of BIOS updates for ABIT, ASRock, ASUSTeK, DFI, ECS, EPoX, Jetway, Leadtek, MSI, Shuttle, Soltek and more. Another batch of new drivers can be found at Station-Drivers.
 Gameguru Mania News - Nov,09 2003 - tech
Weekend Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:26 AM CET - Nov,09 2003 - Post a comment / read (3)
  • New Flaws Found in Wireless Security  - A new paper by a leading security expert says that the new Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) security standard may be less secure, in certain scenarios, than WEP, the wireless standard it was designed to replace. In the paper, "Weakness in Passphrase Choice in WPA Interface," Robert Moskowitz, a senior technical director at ICSA Labs, part of TruSecure, describes a number of problems with the new WPA standard, including the ability of attackers to "sniff" critical information from wireless traffic and to discover the value of a wireless network's security key.
  • Cisco to add SSL networking to products - The company confirmed that it plans to announce that it will offer an upgrade to the Cisco VPN 3000 Concentrator to add SSL network functionality. The news appeared in a release posted briefly to the company's Web site but has been removed. The WebVPN feature will be offered as part of the basic configuration for the concentrator, network hardware that acts as a central connection point for virtual private networks.
  • NVIDIA nForce2 400 Squares up Against VIA KT600 - With its dual-channel RAM interface, NVIDIA's nForce2 Ultra 400 is still the performance champion. But not everyone can afford to spring for a new processor, a motherboard and two DIMMs in one fell swoop. We tell you how to cut costs by using a cheaper single-channel platform.
  • High-End P4: Better, Not Best - With the unexpected announcement of the company's first gaming-oriented processor--the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition--Intel obviously hoped to steal some thunder from AMD's Athlon 64 launch. But while PC World tests show that the new P4 EE outruns a standard Pentium 4, AMD's shipping Athlon 64 FX-51 outperforms both.
  • Hercules 3D Prophet All-In-Wonder 9800SE review - Do you remember the Celeron 300a? The 2.4C? The TwinMOS with Winbond BH5? all of these kicked some serious ass because you could use them at a higher spec, or mod them - B21 on the old Celerons for forced 100FSB loving.... Anyway we have found a new one the 9800SE which you can open up the 4 extra pipelines easily - get the performance of a 500$ card for 230$... This is just crazy, and you have the AIW features for free! So here is a weekend project for all of you - go grab one from your local retailer and see how you get on, buy 2, 'cos for sure they will sell fast.
  • Leadtek A360TD review - The A360TD did remarkably well in our benchmarks and if you look at the numbers you'll see that it's very close to the FX5600Ultra as mentioned earlier. It also manages to beat the Radeon 9600Pro and even the Radeon 9600XT in some of the tests. This is indeed very impressive and in all honesty I didn't expect the A360TD to perform quite this well.
  • OCZ PC3200 Dual Channel DDR 512MB RAM Review - NextGen Electronics has posted a review of OCZ PC3200 Dual Channel DDR 512MB RAM.
  • XGI Volari First Look  - Should they be successful, XGI's cards may well become serious alternatives to ATi's and NVIDIA's offerings, especially considering their comparatively low prices. XGI is aiming for a street price of about $300 (plus tax), which is rather inexpensive. This makes XGI's top model a good $100-200 less expensive than the flagship models of NVIDIA or ATi. As far as the other versions of the cards are concerned, XGI has so far declined to comment.
  • Zippy, the New Illuminated Keyboard review  - Electro-luminescent (EL) backlit keyboards continue to attract LAN Party goers interest, but the cost until now has kept many away. Now, a new player enters the backlit keyboard market that beats frontrunner EluminX's price: the EL-715, which maker Zippy says puts a new twist on the EL keyboard concept. THG put it through the test to see how it would stand up to the punishment of a gamer's pounding.
  • Networking X-Micro Style ­ Cheap, Stylish and Simple - X-Micro is a company we know for producing a whole range of graphics cards. TweakTown take a look at their complete and new range of networking products including 802.11b wireless gear.
  • Overclocking the AMD Athlon64 3200+ - ASUS K8V Deluxe - After the somewhat disappointing overclocking experience with the initial BIOS revision of the ASUS K8V and the Athlon64 3200+, LostCircuits used the latest production BIOS Rev. 1003 that, amongst other new features allows manual changing of the frequency and voltage ID (FID and VID). Overall, the new BIOS greatly increases stability as well as overclocking potential, after all, they were able to crank up the speed to 240 MHz and run 100% stable at 235 MHz.
  • VisualBoy Advance 1.7 Beta 3 - Visual Boy Advance is a Game Boy Advance and Game Boy emulator that runs with Windows systems.
  • foobar2000 v0.7.3 Final - Foobar2000 (changelog ~ download) is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include ReplayGain support, low memory footprint and native support for several popular audio formats.
  • NetCaptor 7.3.0 Beta 4 - NetCaptor (download) is powerful web browser. "Other browsers only show one page at a time or squish them together in an overlapping mess. NetCaptor gives each web site its own tab."
  • Nero Burning Rom 6.0.0.23 - Nero (Nero 6.0.0.23 | Nero Vision Express 2.0.1.19 | Nero Media Player 1.4.0.11 | Nero Mix 1.4.0.13) is a flexible, reliable, and easy-to-use application designed to write both data and CD audio to CD-R and CD-RW discs. It supports ISO 9660 images as well as ISO mode 1 and XA mode 2, and allows for on-the-fly disc recording in addition to overburning (if supported by hardware). Nero also supports multisession and mixed-mode recording, HFS, ISO/HFS hybrid, UDF, PSX, OFAS (optimal file access speed), track-at-once (TAO) and disc-at-once (DAO) writing, digital audio extraction, and more.
  • Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility 6.0 - The Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility was developed by Intel Corporation to enable consumers the ability to identify and, in some circumstances, determine if their Intel processor is operating at the correct and rated frequency intended by Intel Corporation. Beginning with the Pentium processor, this utility provides consumers with the ability to determine standard CPU identification of Intel processors. This version of the Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility has been updated to support the new Intel Xeon Processor, Pentium 4 processors, Mobile Intel Pentium 4 processors, Pentium III processors, Mobile Pentium III processors with Intel SpeedStep technology, Pentium III Xeon processors and Intel Celeron processors with 66, 100, 133, 400, 533 , and 800 MHz system memory bus products, as well as adding new processor identification functionality (CPUID). 
  • Radeon Omega Drivers 2.4.96c for Win2k/XP - Omegadrive has released his new set of Radeon Omega Drivers 2.4.96c for windows 2000/XP based on cat 3.9.
 Gameguru Mania News - Nov,07 2003 - tech
Friday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 12:52 PM CET - Nov,07 2003 - Post a comment / read (1)
  • Digital TV flags 'will not stop piracy'  - The US "broadcast flag" system aiming to prevent online piracy of digital TV programming will not work, say computer experts. On Tuesday, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that all hardware digital TV receivers built after 2005 must be capable of responding to a copyright protection mechanism embedded in digital broadcasts. But computer scientists say that injecting a string of bits called a broadcast flag into the signal will not stop widespread redistribution of TV shows on the internet.
  • Could Antivirus Apps Become Law? - One lawmaker has a possible solution to the increasing problem of computer viruses: requiring all computer users in the United States to install antivirus software on their PCs. At a congressional committee hearing on computer viruses Thursday, Representative Charles Bass (R-New Hampshire) discussed this possibility as a way to counter the billions of dollars in damage done by viruses and worms in 2003 alone. IT security experts disagreed with his suggestion, and with other ways for the government to encourage cybersecurity among private companies and individual users.
  • Attempted attack on Linux kernel foiled - An unknown intruder attempted to insert a Trojan horse program into the code of the next version of the Linux kernel, stored at a publicly accessible database. Security features of the source-code repository, known as BitKeeper, detected the illicit change within 24 hours, and the public database was shut down, a key developer said Thursday. The public database was used only to provide the latest beta, or test version, of the Linux kernel to users of the Concurrent Versions System (CVS), a program designed to manage source code. The changes, which would have introduced a security flaw to the kernel, never became a part of the Linux code and, thus, were never a threat, said Larry McVoy, founder of software company BitMover and primary architect of the source code database BitKeeper.
  • Napster to give students music - The newly relaunched Napster music service announced a deal with Pennsylvania State University on Thursday to give students access to music funded by student fees, in an attempt to replace campus file swapping with legal listening.
  • AMD processor roadmaps show chips up to 2006  - And some of the changes aren't for the better, it appears. A chip codenamed Paris will be a 32-bit silicon on insulator processor, but it will be built on a .13µ (micron) process, rather than a 90 nanometer version, which is now slated for the second half of 2005 – an aeon away in microprocessor terms. And chips called Venus, San Diego, Winchester, Paris, Odessa and Dublin are slated for the second half of 2004. The San Diego is a 90nano SOI Athlon 64FX, Winchester a 90 nano Athlon 64, while Paris is a 130 nano SOI chip. Odessa and Dublin are Athlon 64s and XP-Ms at 90 nano and 130 nano respectively. Further down the line, AMD will introduce an Oakville 90 nanometer SOI chip in the first half of 2005. In the second half of 2005, we'll see Opteron "Egypt" 90 nano SOI, Italy, and Denmark.
  • Wi-Fi at the Speed of Ethernet? - The WGT624 router and WG511T PC Card, both based on the 54-mbps 802.11g standard, boost performance by using compression and by simultaneously broadcasting over 2 of the 11 channels in the 2.4-GHz band that 802.11b and 802.11g products use. But just as obstructions, distance, and encryption prevent an 802.11g network from truly moving data at 54 mbps, Netgear's new line doesn't work at anything like 108 mbps.
  • Toshiba Boosts Small Storage - Toshiba's new 1.8-inch hard drives for personal music players can store as much data as hard drives on some low-end PCs, the company announced Wednesday. The 1.8-inch drives now come in 20GB and 40GB varieties, Toshiba said in a statement. The company's hard drives are used in ultraportable notebook PCs and automotive applications, a Toshiba spokesperson said in a statement.
  • SiS launches second RDRAM chipset - the R659 - Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) yesterday announced the immediate availability of its second Rambus DRAM (RDRAM)-based chipset, the R659. The chipset supports PC1200 direct RDRAM and delivers memory bandwidth of 9.6GB/sec for systems using four channels of 1,200MHz RDRAM memory. The R659 will be paired with SiS's SiS964 south bridge chip to support eight USB 2.0 ports and Serial ATA (SATA) architecture. The company expects monthly shipments of the R659 will reach 100,000 units in 2004.
  • Verbatim to deliver 8x DataLifePlus DVD+R media this month - Verbatim Corporation announced that it will begin shipping 8x-speed DataLifePlus 4.7GB DVD+R media this month as higher-speed DVD multi-format burners become widely available. At 8x speed, a 4.7GB DVD+R disc can be filled to capacity in less than 10 minutes. Verbatim 8x DVD+R media has been tested and approved by major original equipment manufacturers of 8x burners such as BenQ DW800A, LiteOn LDW-841S, NEC ND-2100A and Plextor PX-708A, as well as the 8x DVD+R burners announced by HP, Philips and Dell.
  • Mustek DV3000 digital camera review - Like all toy-cams, the DV3000 isn't the camera for everybody. If you need better image quality than a toy-cam can provide (this one's good, but it's still not up there with "real" digicams), if you need faster response, if you need zoom, if you need autofocus, if you need more resolution - then don't buy a DV3000. Better you should save your money for a camera that'll do what you need, or pick up a second hand digicam that suits your current budget, than buy something cheap new that won't be useful to you.
  • LG GSA-4040B triple format DVD-Writer review - The GSA-4040B records data up to 4.7GB per side on DVD media and writes in all kinds of formats: DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, DVD-RAM and CD-R/-RW. The Super-Multi also reads most DVD and CD formats, including DVD+R/+RW. Compared to must of its competitors it seems like a clear winner, although there is a few drives that supports faster CD reading and writing speeds, these do lack the support of the DVD-RAM format.
  • Hercules ProphetView 920 PRO review - The Hercules isn't a 22" inch wide, wallet busting behemoth, with questionable gaming attributes. It slots right in to the sub L325 gamer oriented LCD market with notable aplomb. 17 inches, 1280x1024 pixel array and excellent fast motion performance, combined with a low price, make it hard for me to say much bad about it.
  • 17" LCDs Panels Compared  - At the time of the Tom IV 17" Comparative, only AU and HyDis were on the screen. HyDis won. The advent of two new challengers has changed nothing. HyDis is still the winner, despite its response time of only 20 ms compared to 16 ms for the others.
  • SanDisk SD Wi-Fi Card review - SanDisk's SD WiFi card is an impressive technical feat - a complete 802.11b client adapter the size of two postage stamps. But looks aren't everything and our latest review will give you the 411 on whether its performance is as impressive as its size.
  • nVidia's New ForceWare Drivers Review - ExtremeTech has posted a review on nVidia's New ForceWare Drivers. The 52.16 series marks the biggest driver release nVidia has made in a long time. We compare them to their previous release, examining performance, stability, and image quality.
  • ATi Catalyst Installation Guide - The chaps at TweakTown take a look at the correct methods of ATi Catalyst graphics card driver installation and tidying up.
  • DVD Media Guide - Designtechnica has posted a DVD Media guide. The ability to hold a movie or several episodes of your favorite television with crystal clear picture and full surround sound has transformed how we enjoy our entertainment centers. Unfortunately, the specifications of this media are not as clear as the picture it provides. There are numerous, non-compatible, often conflicting formats currently in use. One of the problems here is the merger of the home theater with the computer. DVD is the central point between the two and has to accommodate both types of systems.
  • Introduction To Serial ATA Article - Just what is Serial ATA? How does it differ from Parallel ATA? What does it mean to us? So many questions. If you are confused about Serial ATA, this is the article for you!
  • Win2000 Patch: Computer Stops Responding (Hangs) When It Tries to Mount an NTFS Volume After You Restart the Computer - download patch.
  • Warcraft III Art Tools - Blizzard have now released the Art Tools for Warcraft III. These tools allow advanced users to create, modify, and quickly preview models and animations, including particle and ribbon effects, that can be used in custom maps created with Warcraft III’s World Editor. A valid license for Discreet’s 3ds max 4.0 is required in order to use the Warcraft III Art Tools. They highly recommend that 3ds max version 4.26 is used, with the service pack 1 fixes.
  • Sonique v2.0 Alpha (November 6) - Sonique is a windows audio player capable of handling Microsoft Windows Media files, MP3 files, audio CDs, and more. It supports many audio formats, including MP3, MP2, WAV, MOD, XM, IT, S3M, and CD audio and all MS Windows Media audio formats. Version 1.0 adds skin support, an improved MPEG Audio decoder, a contextual help system, full-screen visual mode and much more.
  • Tweak-XP Pro 3.0.1 - The original Tweak-XP Pro - unlike other tweaking utilities, Tweak-XP Pro bundles more than 48 different utilities in one: it was developed to combine both tweaking and optimizing features to increase the speed of your Windows XP system. With Tweak-XP Pro v3 we have added lots of new useful features to improve the performance of your Windows XP system.
  • Fresh UI 6.60 - Fresh UI (download) is the fresh solution for configuring and optimizing Windows. Loaded with hundreds of useful hidden settings, this software covers the customizing and optimizing technique that you'll be glad to know: Customizing Windows User Interface, Optimizing system settings, Optimizing hardware settings, Customizing Windows application settings, and Control user environment with policies.
  • DivX Pro 5.1.1 Beta 2 - DivX (download ~ changelog) is a package that includes all the DivX codec, player, utilities, and documentation that you need to play DivX files. DivX codec is based on the MPEG-4 compression standard.
  • EAX 4.0 Advanced HD Driver Update For Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2/Audigy 2 - Creative Labs Asia has released a new driver update for their Audigy 2 lineup of soundcards. This driver update contains enhancements and fixes to improve the performance of your Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 or Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS product.
  • Neutral Catalyst ATIPOWER Pack v2.7.0.1 Based On Catalyst 3.9 - New Neutral Catalyst ATIPOWER pack v2.7.0.1 based on Catalyst 3.9 are available to download. (thanks Warp2Search)
  • Lite-On IT Firmware - Last week, Lite-On IT has released several new firmware versions: Lite-On LDW-811S - HS06, Lite-On LDW-411S - FS0B, Lite-On LTC-48161H - KH0P, Lite-On LTD-166S - DS31.
 Gameguru Mania News - Nov,06 2003 - tech
Thursday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 12:26 PM CET - Nov,06 2003 - Post a comment / read (2)
  • Are PCs next in Hollywood piracy battle? - Starting in mid-2005, it will become illegal to sell or distribute any product that can receive certain digital TV streams--unless it includes government-approved copy protection. What FCC officials did not stress, but their regulations do, is that the product definitions are broad enough to cover not just TV tuners but also PCs. "This necessarily includes PC and (information technology) products that are used for off-air DTV (digital television) reception," the FCC's order says.
  • Italian charged in porn dialler virus scam -  39-year-old Italian man accused of running a porn dialler scam has been charged with fraud and virus distribution. Italian police say the unnamed suspect stood to net 104,000 Euro from a scam which tricked users into running a virus, called Marq-A, which altered the Internet dial-up number used by victims to a premium rate line, La Repubblica reports.
  • Intel pushes Alderwood as Canterwood's successor - Intel early this week updated its chipset roadmap and decided to add a new Alderwood chipset to its Grantsdale family. Positioned as the flagship product in the Grantsdale line, the Alderwood chipset will be the successor to the 875P (Canterwood). The new chipset will be available in the second quarter of next year. It will support an 800MHz FSB (front-side bus) and DDR2 dual-channel memory, in common with the 875P. Intel launched the 875P in April. The chipset is the company's most expensive desktop chipset to date, priced at US$53 for a version with integrated software RAID and US$50 for a non-RAID version. The FOB (free on board) price of an 875P motherboard is over US$150 per unit, with some priced at over US$200.
  • Sony Cell CPU to deliver two teraflops in 64-core config - "Cell", the massively parallel processing chip currently being designed by Sony and IBM, will scale from single-chip systems through to entire server rooms packed with thousands of them, Sony's executive deputy president Ken Kutaragi told attendees of the company's Transformation 60 conference yesterday. A four-core chip home server system will be able to deliver one billion floating-point operations per second, apparently. Move up to a 32-core chip - in, say, a blade server module - and you'd get 32 gigaflops of processing power, while a 64-core slab of silicon inside a rack-mount unit doing graphics work would churn out two teraflops, according to Kutaragi's presentation foils.
  • New Hitchhiker's Guide Radio Series Announced - It's now become clear that three of the Hitchhikers' novels are indeed getting their first radio adaptation. A six-part adaptation of Life, the Universe and Everything will be up first in the spring. This will be followed towards the end of 2004 by an eight-week serialisation combining So Long and Thanks for All the Fish with Mostly Harmless.
  • Intel announces development of new chip material - The new Intel technology would not come into effect until about 2007, still perhaps three generations of chip advances into the future. The industry is just now making the transition to 90 nanometers. After that it hopes to scale down to 65 nanometers first, followed by a leap to just 45 nanometers, where the new material, which Intel refuses to identify, would come into play. The semiconductor industry has been searching intensely for a new material to replace silicon dioxide, which is used as an insulator between the gate and the channel through which current flows when a transistor is switched on.
  • Elpida Memory Ships Samples of Industry's First 2 Gigabyte DDR2 Registered DIMMs - Elpida Memory announced that it has shipped samples of the industry's first 2 Gigabyte DDR2 registered dual in-line memory modules. The modules also support 1.8V operation, thus offering a 50% power reduction over DDR at 400 Megabits per second (Mbps) operation. The new 2 Gigabyte module (PC2-4300) is the latest addition to Elpida's comprehensive DDR2 registered DIMM product family that also includes 512 Megabyte and 1 Gigabyte densities.
  • New Longhorn Graphics Tool Called "Flashkiller"  - Top developers at Microsoft are working on a new graphics and animation toolset for Longhorn (the next generation of Windows) that could spell trouble for Macromedia's popular Flash MX and Director MX animation tools, sources familiar with the situation told internetnews.com. Code-named "Sparkle," the tools under development would be integrated with Microsoft's .NET (define) runtime environment. That would ultimately mean developers could have Flash- and Director-like animation and graphics tools ready-built for them soon after Longhorn hits the marketplace.
  • Gigabyte M1600A Multimedia DVD-ROM review - The M1600A from Gigabyte is both DVD player and audio console combined, and what's more, it will run with the rest of the PC turned off. Dial in your favourite FM radio station while slugging it through a long word document, or after a hard day when the last thing you want to do hear is noisy cooling fans. The M1600A plays CD's and MP3 CD's, with or without the computer powered up, and features FM radio presets and a very cool.
  • ATI Radeon 9800 XT Visual Gaming Performance - Half a grand is a lot of money to spend on a graphics cards. In this article TweakTown examine visual gaming performance of ATI's latest GPU, the Radeon 9800 XT, in Counter-Strike, NHL 2004, Max Payne 2, Midnight Club II and Halo PC to work out if it is really worth spending all those dollars.
  • Abit 5900 Siluro FX review - From the results shown the ABIT Siluro FX wins 3 of the benchmark test and the ATI card wins 2 of them. With lastly the Splinter Cell Benchmark being a tie between the 2 cards. Based on the test results the Siluro is the winner when put up against a 9700 Pro. However the Siluro’s main competition now is the ATI 9800 based on an even price/performance comparison. When taking that into consideration a winner is not so easy to pick. As the ABIT card is one of the top Nvidia FX cards out there it still performance and IQ wise cannot beat the 9800 when compared in today’s and tomorrows graphics tests.
  • Highpoint e.SATA Kit V2.0 review - Serial ATA drives are great. They are quick, use thin cables and don't break the bank account in the process. Though what happens if you want to run drives external to your case? You turn to Highpoint with their e.SATA Kit V.2.0, of course.
  • Shuttle SB65G2 SFF System - In summary, the Shuttle SB65G2 is an effortlessly competent barebones unit that'll appeal to many potential buyers on the basis of performance, portability, features, stability and overclocking potential. It's not perfect by any means, but you can do a whole lot worse than have the SB65G2 sit on your desk. Ironically enough, the SB65G2's main threat isn't from powerful, full-size PCs, it's from other SFF PCs and Shuttle's very own SB6xxx and SN85G4 cubes. If you're determined to go down the Intel route, the SB65G2 is a classy performer in most respects.
  • Office 2003 Critical patch - Microsoft has released an update for Microsoft Office 2003. This update fixes a problem that occurs when you try to open or to save a Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 file, a Microsoft Office Word 2003 file, or a Microsoft Office Excel 2003 file that includes an OfficeArt shape that was previously modified and saved in an earlier version of Microsoft Office. When a PowerPoint 2003 file, a Word 2003 file, or a Excel 2003 file is opened in an earlier version of Office, empty "complex" properties may be introduced into the file and a bit may be changed in the file record that describes these properties. Earlier version of Office will ignore this bit value but when this bit value is detected in Office 2003, you may experience the following symptoms:The document may not open completely, The document may be corrupted, The document may open but with missing content, You might receive an error message.
  • MSIE  6 SP1 Update: Internet Explorer Unexpectedly Quits When You Use It to View a Web Page That Contains VML - When you use Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 to view a Web page that contains Vector Markup Language (VML), Internet Explorer may unexpectedly quit (crash) -> download patch
  • MSIE  6 SP1 Update: Internet Explorer May Unexpectedly Close When You Leave the Pointer on the Text in the DHTML Editor - In the DHTML editor of Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 (SP1), when the text in the DHTML editor is a link, and the pointer is at the end of the link text, Internet Explorer may unexpectedly close (crash) when you try to exit the page. You may also receive a "General Protection Fault" error message on the Dhtmled.ocx file.  ->download patch
  • Fedora Core 1, aka Yarrow  (formerly Red Hat Linux 10) - The first release of Fedora Core is now being made available. The goal of The Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from free software. Development will be done in a public forum. The project will produce time-based releases of Fedora Core about 2-3 times a year with a public release schedule.
  • Apache HTTP Server 2.0.48 for Win32 - Apache HTTP Server 2.0.48 for Win32  (Win32 Source: httpd-2.0.48-win32-src.zip [PGP] [MD5] ~ Win32 Binary (MSI Installer): apache_2.0.48-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi) is available for download. This version of Apache is principally a bug fix release. A summary of the bug fixes is given at the end of this document. Of particular note is that 2.0.48 addresses two security vulnerabilities.
  • Qwik-Fix Beta 0.41 - Qwik-Fix is designed to pro-actively prevent known software vulnerabilities in Windows & Internet Explorer from being exploited by malicious hackers, virus writers and worm writers. Qwik-Fix is simple to use, Qwik-Fix is easy to download and install. Qwik-Fix is dynamic in that it serves as a temporary fix to known vulnerabilities until Microsoft releases a periodic monthly cumulative patch or a new Service Pack. As we find new vulnerabilities our subscribers will be updated immediately, thus staying 1 step ahead of the bad guys.
  • Opera v7.22 - Opera (Win32 with Java / Win32 w/o Java / Linux / Unix)  is faster, smaller and more standards-compliant than other browsers
  • Real 3D Matrix - v1.0 of Isotope244 Graphics' latest screensaver has been released, titled "Real 3D Matrix".  As expected from the title this screensaver emulates the falling code found in the hit movie "The Matrix". What sets this screensaver apart from all the other matrix screensavers out there is this is the first one to use real 3D objects for the falling glyphs, creating a more 3D feel and environment than ever before.
  • CPU-Z 1.20a - CPU-Z is a diagnostic tool that provides information on your CPU, including: processor name and vendor, core stepping and process, processor package, internal and external clocks, clock multiplier, partial overclock detection, processor features, supported instructions sets, L1 and L2 cache information, location, size, speed, and technology. CPU-Z 1.20 has been upgraded to the 1.20a version. This new release adds the full support of nVidia nForce2 chipsets based boards. It also fully supports VIA KT600 chipset.
 Gameguru Mania News - Nov,05 2003 - tech
ATI CATALYST Drivers v3.9 - tech
(hx) 10:59 PM CET - Nov,05 2003 - Post a comment / read (8)
ATI has released new ATi Catalyst drivers bringing them up to version 3.9. The package contains: Display driver: 6.14.10.6396 (WinXP/2K), Display driver: 4.14.01.9125 (WinME/9x), Control panel: 6.14.10.5061 and WDM Capture driver: 6.14.10.6217. This release of CATALYST provides users with a new feature known as the ATI Control Panel Shortcut.

They fixed problems with Blade of Darkness (flickering horizontal line of display corruption), Morrowind under Windows XP with an All-In-Wonder 9200, Jedi Knight-Jedi Academy (no longer fails to respond when enabling Anti-Aliasing to 4x or 6x), HomeWorld 2 (choppy game play is no longer noticed), Panzers demo (AA problem), Grand Prix 4 (display corruption), Flight Simulator 2004 (menu problems), Indy Car demo (shadows flashing), Race Driver (AA 4x problem), Links 2003 (system reboot) and  Serious Sam 2 (is now able to detect OpenGL TRUFORM when set to Application Preference).
Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:14 AM CET - Nov,05 2003 - Post a comment / read (1)
  • Microsoft to offer bounty on hackers - Microsoft will announce on Wednesday that it will offer two $250,000 bounties for information that leads to the arrest of the people who released the MSBlast worm and the SoBig virus, CNET News.com has learned.  The two programs attacked computers that run Microsoft's Windows operating system, causing havoc among companies and home users in August and September. The reward, confirmed by sources in both the security industry and in law enforcement, will be announced in a joint press conference with the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service and Interpol that's scheduled for 10 a.m. EST Wednesday.
  • FCC Approves Internet Anti-Piracy Tool  - The government Tuesday approved an anti-piracy mechanism that will make it harder for computer users to illegally distribute digital TV programs on the Internet. The goal is to speed the transition to higher quality digital broadcasts and ensure such programming remains free.
  • ASUS MyPal A620 Review - The Asus MyPal A620 may not have the most professional sounding name, but the hardware and design are more than up to the professional task. It's small, lightweight, offers a Compact Flash storage slot for compatibility with most digital cameras, and has an excellent LCD screen.
  • Israeli man charged with hacking Mossad - An Israeli man has been arrested over accusations he hacked into a recruitment web site run by Mossad, Israel's main intelligence agency. The 23-year-old man, who is yet to be identified, has been charged in a Jerusalem court over the alleged attack, Israel Radio reported yesterday. AP reports that the nature of the charges or even the date of the alleged security breech of the Mossad-run site remains unclear.
  • Nintendo sales surge on US price cut - Nintendo today claimed a 37 per cent share of the US games console market, and it's all down to price cut it made just over a month ago. Some 35 days after knocking the GameCube's retail price down to $100, Nintendo's share of the market has rise from 19 per cent to 37 per cent, propelling the Japanese company to number two in the market, according to retail-derived stats from NPD.
  • Microsoft looks to SiS for Xbox 2 I/O chips - Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) announced that it has entered an agreement with Microsoft to supply media input/output (I/O) chips for use in future Xbox products and services, according to a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) today.
  • Intel Brings Low-Cost 848P to Budget Market  - Intel has modified its 845/Brookdale chipset for FSB800 and DDR400 memory. The result is the low-cost 848P that will compete in the SiS and VIA budget chipset sector. Its benchmarks also offer some surprises.
  • OCZ Annihilator Water Cooling Kit Video Review - The OCZ Annihilator Water Cooling Kit is available in two different configurations, either the Basic or Deluxe. The basic includes; your choice of a Quiet or High Performance Pump, CPU waterblock, radiator, reservoir, tubing, & mounting hardware. The deluxe adds the GPU & chipset waterblock which is everything that's needed for overclocking. All waterblocks are copper with a smooth surface allowing great contact. It performs well & is reasonably priced. Watch the Video to find out more.
  • An Easy-Upgrade for Notebook Hard Drives  - Backing up your notebook's hard drive prior to an upgrade is a cumbersome task. But Apricorn says its EZ-Upgrade kit makes the process a no-brainer.
  • PHP 4.3.4  - The PHP developers announced the immediate availability of PHP 4.3.4. This release contains a fair number of bug fixes and they recommend that all users of PHP upgrade to this version.
  • GIMP 1.3.22 - The GIMP (GNU/Image Manipulation Program) is a very nice graphics manipulation application that works on many operating systems, in many languages, on many file formats and is used for a variety of computer imagery purposes.
  • Knoppix 3.2-2003-11-03 - Knoppix (download) is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. Knoppix can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos.
  • Bart's PE Builder 3.0.18  - PE Builder is not a Microsoft product and does not create Microsoft Windows Pre-installation Environment ("WinPE"). Using PE Builder does not grant you a license to Microsoft WinPE or to use the Windows XP or Server 2003 binaries in a manner other than stated in the End-User License Agreement include in your version of Microsoft Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. Microsoft has not reviewed or tested PE Builder and does not endorse its use.
  • 1by1 1.41 - 1by1 is a very small sized player which is not only small: It plays whole directories without any playlist. Navigating through your tracks has never been so easy.  Available too: 1by1 command set for IRAssistant, a nice tool to control applications with an IR remote controller, mpglib.dll: Decoding library for MPEG Layer III and Layer II.
 Gameguru Mania News - Nov,04 2003 - tech
Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 01:15 AM CET - Nov,04 2003 - Post a comment / read (2)
  • Destructive MiMail variant hits web - Antivirus firms have warned of a 'destructive' worm that has just emerged in the wild.  The W32/Mimail.c@MM, also known as Mimail.c, is a dangerous worm that bears similarities to W32MiMail@MM. But according to McAfee's Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team (Avert), this variant does not use the codebase MS02-015 and MHTML (MS03-014) exploits against Microsoft Windows operating systems employed by previous variants. Instead, Mimail.c contains its own SMTP engine for constructing messages, and mails itself as a zip or upx attachment.
  • Brit teen pleads guilty to US nuclear lab hacking attack - A teenage computer student has pleaded guilty to hacking into IT systems at an American nuclear weapons laboratory. Joseph James McElroy, 18, a first-year undergraduate at Exeter University, admitted hacking into 17 computer systems at the Fermi National Accelerator laboratory at a hearing at Bow Street Magistrates court in London on Friday. The court heard that the teenager hacked into Fermilab computers on 25 June 2002 and used them to store hundreds of gigabytes of copyrighted film and music files.
  • Brazilian script kiddie arrested in Japan -  Brazilian teenager has been arrested in Japan last Friday on suspicion of membership of an international hacking group. Japanese police believe the unnamed 17 year-old is an active member of a gang of Web site defacers called Cyber Lords, which is blamed for the defacement in recent months of 1,032 Web sites in 33 countries.
  • RIAA sees yet more lawsuits  - Warning letters sent out to peer to peer (P2P) users by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) appear to have prevented another round of mass lawsuits. The association's second legal attack on alleged P2P users has resulted in only 80 lawsuits being filed out of a possible 204. Another 124 individuals are said to have contacted the RIAA to negotiate a deal or to dispute the allegations that they have illegally uploaded songs to the internet.
  • Kurt3D - An Autonomous Mobile Robot for Modelling the World in 3D - Kurt3D is an autonomous mobile robot equipped with a reliable and precise 3D laser scanner that digitalizes environments. High quality geometric 3D maps with semantic information are automatically generated after the exploration by the robot. Precise digital 3D models of indoor environments are needed in several applications, eg, facility management, architecture, rescue and inspection robotics. Autonomous mobile robots equipped with a 3D laser range finder are well suited for gaging the 3D data. We have equipped the autonomous mobile robot KURT2 and a mobile 3D laser range finder for the automatic generation of compact and precise 3D models. The proposed method consists of four steps.
  • Should You Buy a TV From a PC Maker? - PC makers are entering the TV market in full force, industry watchers say. Gateway already sells plasma and LCD TVs, and Dell is shipping its own LCD TV. Hewlett-Packard executives have hinted that HP will begin selling TVs in the next few years. PC makers could offer both good deals and advanced technology in a rapidly evolving marketplace, analysts say.
  • Virgin Mobile unveils MTV-branded phone - Virgin Mobile said the MTV phone, called Slider V5 +MTV, will be made by Japanese cell phone maker Kyocera and will sell for $159. The phone, which will be sold exclusively through Virgin Mobile, has features such as animated screen savers, caller ID cartoons, wallpaper designs, MTV ring tones and MTV content.
  • Microsoft Turns to IBM for Next Xbox Chip - Microsoft Corp.on Monday said it would turn to IBM Corp. for microchip technology that it will use in the next version of its popular video game console, the Xbox. No further details are available.
  • All about Longhorn - Longhorn beta 1 is slated to appear in summer of 2004, which means a release version won't see the light of day until at least early to mid-2005. Releasing the code early, however, is particularly important for a product as ambitious as Longhorn. Not only is it a massive upgrade on core Windows technologies, such as user interface rendering and access to data on a file system, but it is the culmination of the .NET integration I've discussed in past articles.
  • Red Hat tells customers, 'No more freebies!" -  In an email to Red Hat Network customers, the company has announced today that it "...will discontinue maintenance and errata support for Red Hat Linux 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 and 8.0 as of December 31, 2003," that "Red Hat will discontinue maintenance and errata support for Red Hat Linux 9 as of April 30, 2004," and that "Red Hat does not plan to release another product in the Red Hat Linux line." This should not come as a surprise to NewsForge regulars who saw this story on October 23, but less-prepared Red Hat users seem shocked by the idea.
  • Itanium software upgrade hits bump - The software, an Intel package called the IA32 Execution Layer (IA32-EL for short), was scheduled to debut in Service Pack 1 for Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 operating system. However, the introduction of that update has been pushed back from 2003 to the second half of 2004, a Microsoft representative said Friday. Microsoft still expects to support IA32-EL when Service Pack 1 ships and plans to include the feature in all its versions of Windows for Itanium, the company said.
  • MS to intro hardware-linked security for AMD64, Itanium, future CPUs - Microsoft is to introduce hardware-linked security technology with Windows XP Service Pack 2, and beyond that will make "additions to Windows" supporting the technology, execution protection (NX). The feature is already supported by shipping AMD K8 and Intel Itanium processor families, and according to Microsoft: "It is expected that future 32 and 64-bit processors will provide execution protection.
  • Microsoft Talks The Voice-Activated Talk - Microsoft on Monday launched its new Voice Command voice-activated control software for Pocket PCs and cell phones, giving users hands-free access to some of the most commonly-used features of their PDAs and phones. Voice Command, which uses the Redmond, Wash.-based developer's own phonetic speech recognition technology, works on devices running the Windows Mobile 2003 operating system, and lets users dial numbers, access calendars, and launch applications by speaking commands such as 'dial bob smith' to call that contact or 'what's my next appointment' to view the next meeting in the calendar.  The add-on to Windows Mobile 2003 is priced at $39.95 and is available at Handango.com and PocketPC.com.
  • 8.5GB DVD+R discs, drives to ship April '04 - The technology, co-developed by drive maker Philips, and media specialists Verbatim and Mitsubishi Kagaku, adds a second recording layer to a standard-thickness DVD+R disc, taking the medium's capacity from 4.7GB to 8.5GB. That's enough for four hours of DVD-quality material, 16 hours of VHS-quality content or two hours' archive footage. The discs are playback-compatible with existing DVD players and DVD-ROM drives. Initial products will offer a write speed of 2.4x.
  • IBM ThinkPad R50 First Look - The IBM ThinkPad R50 notebook ($1,769 direct, tested configuration) knows when it's falling. IBM's new drive-protection technology senses rough handling and parks the hard drive heads. Should the notebook hit the deck, the drive and its data are likely to remain intact, even if the computer itself is damaged and becomes unusable. The Active Protection System is the most fascinating attribute of the new R50, which could be the most desirable of today's value notebooks.
  • Canon i960 Photo Printer First Look - With Canon hard at work designing different models of photo printers for every need and budget, the Canon i960 Photo Printer ($200 street), aimed at photo enthusiasts and professional photographers, comes as no surprise. The new entry delivers high-speed photo printing, the wider color gamut that typically comes with six-color printing, and the ability to print directly from PictBridge or Bubble Jet Direct-compatible digital cameras.
  • PalmOne Treo 600 smartphone review - Handspring's second generation smartphone is a marvel of good hardware and human interface design. It's a GSM/GPRS (or CDMA 1x) phone with built-in camera, QWERTY buttons and stylus, that's backward compatible with the vast selection of PalmOS 5.0 software, and features an SD/MMC expansion slot.
  • Plextor PX-504UF External High-Speed DVD+R/RW CD-R/RW Drive review - TweakNews has posted a review of Plextor PX-504UF External High-Speed DVD+R/RW CD-R/RW Drive.
  • Pioneer DVR-S606 DVD Writer review - The DVR-S606 looks great, is incredibly quiet and seems to be well thought through. The only improvement we would like to see is support for Apple's operating systems. So before purchasing a DVD writer based solely on its writing speed, ask yourself if an extra minute is really worth purchasing an 8X external drive over the DVR-S606; if it is, then you will be sorry.
  • Creative MuVo NX 128MB review  - Looking around various on-line etailers, the Creative MuVo NX 128MB can be had for a touch under L90. "We feel that's just about an acceptable outlay for a product that excels in most areas, be it digital media player, sound recorder or storage device. The intuitive LCD display and controls are a bonus. Sure, it's sonic skills aren't up to the very best players and it perhaps needs a little more volume oomph to satisfy bass junkies, but we reckon it will be hard to find a much better package on this side of L100. Recommended if it fits into your needs."
  • XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra - XGI recently announced their Volari 3D cards. Many will find it interesting to see how XGI his dual core cards perform against ATi and NVIDIA his offers. Well the German Tecchannel is the first to put up a review of the XGI Volari Duo V8 Ultra, XGI his top card. The expected price of this card will be 400EUR.
  • 3 Way Optical Mouse Pad Shootout - For the average consumer, mouse pad performance is often overlooked when purchasing this ubiquitous accessory. With the advent of optical mice technology, which offer precision tracking and frictionless motion, the mouse pad has become more important for discriminating computer users who crave for an optimum tracking surface for general and gaming use.
  • Tweaking Halo: Combat Evolved - Are you having problems running Halo? Do you feel your frames per second (fps) are way too low for your system, or do you get too much stuttering or lagging? Well let me say right up front that the unavoidable first step for a PC gamer is to optimize your system. What does that mean? That means you need to make sure all the settings in the BIOS are correct, that your Windows is well maintained and configured for optimal performance and stability, and that you have the very latest drivers for all your hardware. Yes, it makes a big difference.
  • News Interceptor 1.09 - Version 1.09 of News Interceptor is now available. This new version adds features to the Advanced Search window. And with more than 1.4 millions archived news titles, News Interceptor allows you to find quickly what you are looking for.
  • DVD Identifier 3.1 - DVD Identifier retrieves and interprets the pre-recorded information that is present on all DVD+R/+RW and DVD-R/-RW media. This information contains a variety of parameters such as disc manufacturing information and supported write speeds.
  • VirtualDub 1.5.8 - VirtualDub (download) is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (98/NT/2000/XP), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video.
  • NetCaptor 7.3.0 Beta 3 - NetCaptor (download) is powerful web browser. "Other browsers only show one page at a time or squish them together in an overlapping mess. NetCaptor gives each web site its own tab."
  • GIMP 1.3.22 - The GIMP (GNU/Image Manipulation Program) is a very nice graphics manipulation application that works on many operating systems, in many languages, on many file formats and is used for a variety of computer imagery purposes.
  • Riva Tuner v2.0 RC14.1 - RivaTuner is the most powerful tweaking utility for NVIDIA display adapters running under Windows 98 / Windows 98 SE / Windows ME / Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The purpose of this utility is to give you access to all the undocumented features of the Detonator drivers. All versions of the Detonator drivers have a lot of undocumented registry entries.
  • PowerStrip 3.47 - PowerStrip (download) provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest Radeon 9700DV and Matrox Parhelia.
  • nVidia Refresh Rate Fix MKII v2.21f E  - However, since Detonator 52.16, nVidia fixed the 60 Hz bug! This is the final version of the nVidia Refresh Rate Fix MKII! To get better refresh rates with version 52.16, simply use the "override refresh rates" option in the nVidia control panel. Thanks to nVidia, who finally matches the needs of their customers." Compatible with nVidia Detonator 28.32+ and up.
  • nForce Unified Drivers 3.13  - NVidia has finally released an updated nForce (ForceWare) drivers (what's new ~ English ~ Multilang) once again including the NVIDIA IDE driver for Windows 2000 and XP.
 Gameguru Mania News - Nov,03 2003 - tech
Intel Takes Gaming to the Extreme - tech
(hx) 05:42 PM CET - Nov,03 2003 - Post a comment
Intel Corporation today introduced the Intel Pentium 4 processor Extreme Edition supporting Hyper-Threading Technology at 3.20 GHz. High-performance computers based on this new processor are designed for high-end gamers and computing enthusiasts and are now available from system manufacturers worldwide. However, the price is probably even more extreme than CPU performance, in 1,000 unit quantities, the Pentium 4 processor at 3.2 GHz sells for $925.
Built on Intel's 0.13-micron process technology, the Intel Pentium 4 processor Extreme Edition features a 512-kilobyte Level 2 cache, a two-megabyte Level 3 cache and an 800 MHz system bus speed. This processor is compatible with the existing Intel 865 and Intel 875 chipset families and standard system memory. The two-megabyte Level 3 cache can preload a graphics frame buffer or a video frame before it is required by the processor, enabling higher throughput and faster frame rates when accessing memory and I/O devices. This results in more realistic game play and improved video editing performance. Increased CPU performance also enables software vendors to create sophisticated software physics engines, which allows realistic character movements, and artificial intelligence, allowing computer-controlled characters to be much more lifelike. The Pentium 4 processor Extreme Edition at 3.20 GHz delivers a SPECint*_base2000 benchmark result of 1583 and a SPECfp*_base2000 result of 1474***.
Sunday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 12:16 AM CET - Nov,03 2003 - Post a comment
  • Physical perils of gaming - A sofa, a console, and a joypad do not really sound too dangerous. But from the frenetic manhandling of your controller in a fighting game, to the similarly intense activity of playing a super-fast racer, there is a definite physical element to some gaming. Those finger tendons and neck muscles can suffer when your game of choice involves efforts to overtake a craft travelling at 1,400kph.
  • French gamers get a helping hand - Ten years ago games cost about $200,000 to produce, but now they cost between $3m and $7m.  "It is expensive because you have about 24 months of production and the production team is about 20 and it can go up to about 40 in the peak," Stephane Baudet, head of Eden Studios, told ClickOnline. "So it requires a lot of time and a lot of people." With budgets mounting, production money is targeted rather than spread around, which is great if you have a proven track record as a developer and a winning formula. It is not so good if you are a struggling independent looking to make your mark, explains Mr Baudet.
  • New switching rules may trash millions of cell phones - The new rule that takes effect November 24 allowing users to change wireless companies without losing their phone numbers is expected to motivate as many as 30 million people to switch within the first year. Those who do will need to buy new phones. That's because even carriers that use the same network technologies employ different encryption. So what will become of all those old phones?
  • World drowning in oceans of data - US researchers estimate that every year 800MB of information is produced for every person on the planet. Their study found that information stored on paper, film, magnetic and optical disks has doubled since 1999.
  • Sun more active than for a millennium - The Sun is more active now than it has been for a millennium. The realisation, which comes from a reconstruction of sunspots stretching back 1150 years, comes just as the Sun has thrown a tantrum. Over the last week, giant plumes of have material burst out from our star's surface and streamed into space, causing geomagnetic storms on Earth.
  • Metal Heads - Scientists in Iowa have developed a magic metal that can turn walls into speakers and remove the smell from manure. Last August, Etrema-an innovative technology firm nestled in the cornfields of Ames, Iowa-started selling those chrome discs for $1,500 a pair. Called Whispering Windows, they can turn any wall, window, or drab conference table into a speaker. When Conley lifts the discs from the table, Freddie falls silent.
  • Chinese to issue EVD standard soon as a replacement for DVD - China could shake up the works with a technology that we have been hearing about. Just in time for HDTV and the accompaning hardware. This non-user recordable format is capable of 5 times the resolution of current DVD technology. Couple that with the fact that this proprietary item skirts the DVD royalty and you have a serious contender in the marketplace. Not to mention China has the capability to efficiently mass produce and distribute their own products.
  • Athlon 64 Notebooks - While AMD stock is flying to the moon, AMDboard's slaves are quietly collecting the smallest pieces of the huge Athlon 64 jigsaw. After tons of motherboards, wonderful barebones, smart chipsets and thousand of useful links they are now back with a compilation of anything comestible on Athlon 64 laptops, notebooks and desktop replacements (sorry but that's AMD official terminology). This fascinating stuff, and all the pictures that go with, are all in one gorgeous page, waiting for you in a the wild wild web at the following address.
  • Sony NW-MS70D Digital Player Review  - Spending that little bit extra on a Sony product usually means the purchase offers a high minimum standard of quality. This is the case for Sony's new NW-MS70D, part of Sony's "Network Walkman" line. While it will not take out the iPod, the NW-MS70D is certainly not just an expensive paperweight, either.
  • Klipsch GMX D-5.1 Speakers - The GMX D-5.1 sound system is one of Klipsch's newer creations and is unique in the fact that it is geared towards console gaming. That's right, Klipsch made the GMX D-5.1 with the console gaming industry- more specifically the Xbox, PS2, and Gamecube users- in mind. They have observed the huge advancement console gaming and decided it was time to act. They thought, why not give users the chance to complete their gaming experience by adding 5.1 surround sound to complement the stellar graphics of these new video game consoles.
  • Gigabyte 8IPE1000 Pro 2 GT2004 - Springdale at Full Speed  - Gigabyte is the second company to bring optimization control to the desktop board, with MSI being the first with Core Cell. We see the GT technology as a step forward that most motherboard manufacturers will start to adopt as a selling point to the lesser informed PC users. This is one of Gigabyte's best value motherboards that has been released for quite some time. Overclocking features were a mixed bag - great FSB selections and CPU voltage options were only soured by the low DIMM voltages. Overall Gigabyte has put out a good motherboard for its starting line in the GT 2004 family that is due to come.
  • GeForceFX 5600 Ultra - It looks like the buys at XFX have done it again with a fantastic solution for people looking to upgrade to the nVidia GeForceFX line of product. This 5600 Ultra card performed well against card priced $150+ more and is a sleek and useful tool in gaming performance. This card comes highly recommended for purchase.
  • PowerVR Series 5 Is A PixelShader 3.0 VPU - If still another proof was required that the in-development PowerVR Series 5 (Series 3 = KYRO I/II/SE, Series 4 = finished, but never hit store shelves because of STMicro's omission as a chip manufacturer) VPU actually equals a Pixel and Vertex Shader 3.0 capable hardware piece then PowerVR Technologies - a division of Imagination Technologies Ltd. - has revealed that fact alone by some new developer relations 3D demo examples.
  • Will "brilinear" filtering persist? - There is an alarming development for a while: Newer Cards and/or newer drivers lower the image quality without being asked to do so. On a GeForce4Ti 4200 a better texture image quality (via anisotropic filtering) can be produced with current drivers (compared to a GeForceFX 5900 Ultra). On the other side the following is correct: The 4x-FSAA-Quality of the GeForce256 is by default better as with GeForce3 (and also as with GeForce 5900 Ultra). Because here stands 4x ordered grid supersampling vs. 4x ordered grid multisampling. But here it's not called "a step back".
  • Windows Xp and Longhorn Installation Differences and Guide - Wondered how Windows XP and Windows Codename Longhorn Install? Not a lot of people know that and are very much confused. See the installer in Windows Codename Longhorn is not like the one in Windows XP yet similar. Windows XP just copies the files to the hard drive and did a install where has Longhorn copies the full backup compressed to the hard drive and then does a restore, so basically for the installer it bypasses any pre-registry (preg) files, but the preg files are there but then they are merged back into the backup file and reburnt and that makes them work.
  • Make Windows XP Self-Maintaining  - Fred Langa explains how to automate Windows XP tools and tasks that normally require manual intervention.
  • Behind Windows XP SP2 - XP SP2 will also include new features that will let developers write applications that more safely handle email attachments, and Microsoft will release new versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, and Windows Messenger that take advantage of this technology. IE will be locked down in a manner similar to, but not as restrictive as, the IE version in Windows Server 2003. The company is also reducing XP's susceptibility to buffer-overrun errors, which worms and viruses commonly exploit, by adding support for new code execution features available on newer Intel and AMD processors.
  • WinXP - Wireless Update Rollup Package -  This update provides support for Wireless Protected Access, a new standards-based wireless security solution developed by the Wi-Fi Alliance. The following problems are resolved by this update: You Experience a Long Delay When You Connect to a Wireless Network; An Incorrect Media Status Appears for the Wireless Interface; User Interface Items Are Incorrectly Translated in Other Languages, etc.
  • Outlook 2003 Add-in: Video Email - Use a Web camera to easily send and reply with a video email to your friends and family with just two clicks on the Video Email for Outlook 2003.
  • Outlook 2003 Add-in: Personal Folders Backup - Backing up your Microsoft Outlook information is quicker and easier with the Personal Folders Backup feature. Personal Folders Backup creates backup copies of your .PST files at regular intervals, in Outlook 2000 and later versions, making it easy to keep all of your Outlook folders safely backed up. With Personal Folders Backup, you can choose which of your .PST files you wish to back up, and how often you wish to back them up.
  • OpenMEX version 0.2 ALPHA 2 - This weekend sees the release of the second Alpha installment of XeNTaX' open source project OpenMultiEX (OpenMEX), version 0.2. The new and fresh offspring of the original MultiEx Commander now increases functionality and game resource archive (GRA) support! The total of supported GRAs for resource extraction is now 142. The new GRAs supported are those for : HALO (*.MAP), Lock On (*.CDDS) and Sacrifice (*.WAD). Plus, it now also supports zip archives, for those games that use standard zip for their GRAs.
  • CPUCool 7.2.9 Beta - CPUCooL is a program that monitors temperature, fan speed and voltages for many motherboards. It works with all chipsets from Intel, ALI, VIA, AMD and SiS 5595 motherboards.
  • PowerVR Kyro Drivers - PowerVR released a new generic drivers for their Kyro-1 and Kyro-2 VGA cards. Tagged as driver 2.1 (Build 2.01.21.0007) it is available for Win9x/W2K/XP and Linux. (thanks Warp2Search)
 Gameguru Mania News - Nov,01 2003 - tech
Saturday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 02:18 PM CET - Nov,01 2003 - Post a comment / read (3)
  • New Mimail Worm Promises Exotic Photographs & Harasses E-Gold - Kaspersky Labs reports the detection of Mimail.c - a new modification of the infamous network worm, Mimail. Mimail.c is a classic e-mail worm, spreading via email messages containing the following characteristics: Sender address: james@recipient's domain, Subject: Re[2]: our private photos, Message body: Hello Dear!, Finally i've found possibility to right u, my lovely girl :) All our photos which i've made at the beach (even when u're without ur bh:)) photos are great! This evening i'll come and we'll make the best SEX :) Right now enjoy the photos. Kiss, James. Attachment: photos.jpg.zip. Another artciles can be found at CNET and ZDNET.
  • Kaspersky version 5.0 offers improved e-mail protection for Linux users - Kaspersky Labs has released a new version of its antivirus software for mail servers running on Linux and Unix operating systems. The software, Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Linux/Unix Mail Servers Version 5.0, offers several new features, including the ability to check all e-mail data streams centrally in real time, the company said in a statement earlier this week. With this function, the antivirus program is able to search for and neutralize malicious code in all objects passing through the server, ensuring that only data confirmed to be safe is delivered to client computers, Kaspersky said.
  • Symantec Product Activation Poses Problems - An antipiracy feature in Symantec's popular Norton AntiVirus software is causing headaches for some users, who are being prompted to re-enter product activation codes for the antivirus, firewall, and antispam products whenever they reboot their machines. Symantec on Thursday acknowledged the problem in a note posted on its Web site, which says the company is investigating the problem, but does not know what is causing it or how to fix it.
  • U.K. copyright law takes effect - A new copyright law designed to curb the unauthorized exchange of music, film and software on the Internet went into effect in Britain on Friday, reigniting the debate on the proper way to tackle rampant digital piracy. The United Kingdom joins Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece and Italy in ratifying the legislation whose deadline for adoption passed 10 months ago.
  • Off-topic: DNA, Now in XXX-Large - Stanford University researchers seeking better-looking DNA have created XDNA, extra-large DNA molecules that glow. XDNA doesn't just sound sexy. It could be used to help diagnose disease, develop new drugs and maybe even discover life on other planets.
  • Off-topic: US says food from cloned animals is safe - Meat and milk derived from animal clones is likely to be safe for human consumption, says a draft report by the US Food and Drug Administration. However, a decision on whether to allow the selling of food products from cloned animals will not be made for at least another year.
  • Off-topic: Ultra-thin "blankets" cut reservoir evaporation  - Spreading an ultra-thin layer of organic molecules on the surface of reservoirs could prevent millions of cubic metres of precious water evaporating each year, according to a Canadian company that is the first to commercialise the technique. The molecules form an invisible, biodegradable blanket that blocks the escape of water molecules into the air.
  • Off-topic: Logic and memory shown on molecular scale - Rice University researchers have demonstrated that molecule-sized electronic devices can be used for both logic and memory, despite being randomly wired, error-prone and inaccurately formed at the nanoscale.
  • Microsoft's Windows Longhorn preview  - This is a preview based on a very early release of Microsoft's next-generation operating system. It lacks the modern user interface elements that will be in the final version. Given that the code is far from final and may contain many debug elements, the system's performance will likely improve in subsequent releases. Any statements we make about perceived performance may not apply to the final version, and any feature discussed here may also change before Longhorn's final release in 2006.
  • Intel Pentium 4 Extreme - Extremely Expensive - Intel will finally ship its extremely expensive Pentium 4 Extreme Edition on Monday, more than a month after the games-oriented processor was announced. Like the Athlon 64 FX-51, the P4EE is being pitched as a high performance CPU for gamers. Like the AMD chip, the Intel part is essentially a server/workstation chip - Xeon in this case - re-branded as a desktop processor. The P4EE boasts 2MB of on-die L3 cache alongside the regular P4's 512KB of L2 cache. It will be clocked at 3.2GHz. Not coincidentally, that's the speed at which the next generation of P4, 'Prescott', is expected to debut. Not only is the P4EE a foil for the Athlon 64 FX, it's also a distraction from the problems Intel denies it's experiencing in getting Prescott out of the door in volume. The new chip isn't going to be cheap, either. Its anticipated price is $925 - over $500 more expensive than the $417 3.2GHz P4.
  • Samsung bundles InterVideo WinCinema with 4x +-DVD recorder - As reported earlier Samsung is releasing a 4X DVD dual format recorder, the SR-T04B. Now InterVideo now has announced that the drive will come bundled with WinCinema, a complete suite of their multimedia products to enhance the value of the drive. WinCinema includes WinDVD Recorder for DVD/VCD playback and recording, WinDVD Creator for capturing, editing, authoring and burning videos and slide shows and DVD Copy for making identical duplicates of personal DVDs and CDs.
  • Fast And Furious Notebooks vs. Battery Life Drain  - Notebook hard drives with top speeds of 7200 rpm offer noticeable performance gains - but at a cost. Does the performance boost compensate for shorter battery life? The THG benchmarks speak for themselves.
  • ASUS Radeon 9800XT/TVD review - It overclocks decently, SmartDoctor makes it quieter than almost any other card, it's presented well, exudes quality and carries ASUS' 3 year warranty. Factor Half Life 2 into the price too, if you're feeling that way inclined. Shipping date for that title stops it making any real difference though. Should you want the fastest graphics card money can buy and you're deep of pockets, the ASUS is as good as any to relieve you of your cash. Another review (including benchmarks) can be found on GamersDepot.
  • Powercolor ATi Radeon 9800 XT Video Card Review - The Powercolor Radeon 9800 XT provided a good performance improvement over the Radeon 9700 All-in-wonder, and it's enough to justify an upgrade provided that you have the money to do so. I wouldn't recommend anyone with a 9800 Pro to upgrade because I really don't believe it would be as beneficial to you. If you've got a 9700 or slower card, looking to upgrade, and have the money to burn then by all means I highly recommend the Powercolor Radeon 9800 XT card to you. The card retails for $500 bucks but can be found cheaper if you shop Pricewatch or Dealtime.
  • Nvidia FX5700 review - As a consumer choosing between these two mid-end cards, (for the first time in a long time) I might choose the GeForce FX card over the Radeon. Although the Radeon usually provides better bang for the buck, the GeForce seems to have more promise in this case. Also, the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra has a better implementation of dual monitor through a combination of nView's Duo-view and nVrotate. You could rotate a 15 inch LCD by 90 degrees and then pair it next to a larger CRT or LCD screen. This is not possible with ATi's Hydravision (since they do not have rotation built into its drivers).
  • MX900 Bluetooth Mouse review - With the advent of the MX900 Optical Mouse, Logitech raises the bar by creating a solid mouse that not only matches the MX700 in precision, but turns your PC into a control center for Bluetooth networking.  At $100, the MX900 is a full $30 more than its RF cousin, the MX700. Even on the Bluetooth front, Microsoft sells a comparable mouse for about $80 and Belkin is rumored to have another on the way this year (price unreported).
  • Eumax EZ-8000 Smart Office Keyboard review - The Eumax EZ-8000 keyboard is built for office use. It features sets of keys that surf the web, control the most commonly used file editing options, and deal with media. Specifically targeted at those who use Microsoft Office for extended periods, the Eumax EZ-8000 keyboard has productivity in mind at a low cost. However, that said, we can not recommend the EZ-8000 Keyboard to gamers, since the product does have issues in this department.
  • Virtual Subwoofer and 3D Surround Headphones - The bass boost capabilities make these headphones a must for anybody who loves to feel the sound. If you don't mind the color, these stylish headphones are a worthwhile investment for music lovers and games alike.
  • Steelpad reviews -  Dan's Data has posted a review of Slicksteel mouse pad and Ohls-Place has posted a review of Steelpad 4s and 4D.
  • AMD Optimal BIOS settings + Overclocking Guide - The Madshrimps have posted a step by step guide on how to get the most out of your AMD setup. Overclocking tips and BIOS tweak settings discussed, as well as an overview of the more popular overclocking tools with local download links.
  • Aliens vs. Predator Movie trailer - Here's the first glimpse at Aliens vs. Predator film trailer (thanks NeoNSX). Here is some more info about this upcoming movie on Ain't it Cool News.
  • PHP 5.0.0 Beta 2 / PHP 4.3.4 RC3 - The PHP Group has released PHP 5.0.0 Beta 2 and PHP 4.3.4 RC3.
  • TV Tool 9.0 ($10) - TVTool is a control center for the TV output of nVidia graphics cards. With this tool it is possible to adapt the TV output perfectly to your needs and to control the TV mode in a comfortable way. TVTool accesses the hardware directly and is able to offer a significant greater functionality than many graphics card drivers
  • AVG Free Edition 6.0 Build 534 -  AVG Free Edition and you will be able to use it without any limitations for life of the product. You can download free Updates to get the latest program virus databases. A free registration is required to run AVG. You will be emailed a registration code and can not install it without it. The installer does provide a link during installation to get your code.
  • Mobile Net Switch 2.1 - Mobile Net Switch enables you to use your computer on more then one network with the click of a button. The program allows you to automatically select the correct drive mappings, printer settings, IP settings and more. All changes are made instantly, no reboot is required.
  • Mozilla 1.6 alpha -  Mozilla (download) is an open-source Web browser, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability. Mozilla is a cousin to Netscape Communicator that is being developed by the Free Software Community with the cooperation and support of Netscape. They finally added one of the most requested Mozilla Mail features - optional separate Recipient and Sender columns in thread pane, has been implemented.
  • Easy CD & DVD Creator Platinum Update 6.2.0.110 - Easy CD Creator goes way beyond the software that came with your CD-Recorder, and all earlier deluxe editions. Now it's easier than ever to create music, photo, video, and data CDs.
  • Fresh Download 6.30 - Fresh Download (download) is an easy-to-use and very fast download manager software that turbo charges downloading files from the Internet, such as your favorite software, mp3 files, video files, picture collections, etc. Unlike any other similar utilities, this software is 100% free, no charges, no banners in the software, no spyware.
  • PlexTools 2.08 -  Plextor Plextools (download) has been updated to version 2.08. The new version adds: CD-ROM Maker: write to image, AudioCD Maker: write to image, Read Transfer Rate for DVD Media and Write Transfer Rate for DVD Media.
  • New KYRO Drivers v2.01.21.0007 - KYRO/KYRO II/SE Win9x/ME Driver 2.01.21.0007, KYRO/KYRO II/SE Win2000 Driver 2.01.21.0007, KYRO/KYRO II/SE WinXP Driver 2.01.21.0007 (thanks SavageNews)
  • GAIM 0.72  - Gaim (download) is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,31 2003 - tech
Nightly Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 02:50 AM CET - Oct,31 2003 - Post a comment / read (1)
  • RIAA files 80 new file-swapping suits - The Recording Industry Association of America on Thursday said it filed 80 new lawsuits against alleged file swappers, a move that comes after a wave of letters it sent earlier this month that warned targets of their legal risk. The action marks a second round of suits against computer users who, record label investigators say, have made hundreds or even thousands of copyrighted songs available for download through peer-to-peer services such as Kazaa. PC World invited Sherman (president of the RIAA) to weigh in on a variety of hot topics, from suing music fans to buying songs online. An edited transcript of the conversation follows.
  • Crack codes and win prizes - The Crypto Challenge is a fun, on-going competition aimed at Cipher hobbyists able to crack level 3 - 4 of Simon Singh's Cipher Challenge. The mysterious cipher genius Mr X develops the Crypto Challenges to be cracked. The first person to crack the code, wins the main prize: a Nikon Cool Pix SQ digital camera, there are runner's up prizes too.
  • Off-topic: New processor computes at light speed - A superfast computing processor that uses light, not electrons, to perform calculations has gone on sale for the first time. Lenslet, the Israeli company that developed the processor, say its light speed calculations deliver the power of a supercomputer in a single device. The device is called Enlight and can perform 8000 billion arithmetic operations per second, about 1000 times faster than a standard processor. Previously this type of processor was only available to highly financed government laboratories, says Lenslet's founder, Aviram Sariel.
  • Off-topic: Nine eyes help robots to navigate - Robots should have eyes in the back of their heads as well the front. Researchers in the US say a robot's navigation skills could be vastly improved by giving it "omni-directional" vision. A robot on the move must be able to sense whether it is travelling in a straight line or spinning on the spot. But telling the difference is difficult with just a single camera for an eye.
  • Off-topic: Second solar storm hits Earth - A second huge magnetic solar storm hit Earth today, just a day after an earlier one hurtled into the planet in what one astronomer called an unprecedented one-two punch. "It's like the Earth is looking right down the barrel of a giant gun pointed at us by the sun ... and it's taken two big shots at us," said John Kohl of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in Massachusetts. Kohl, the lead investigator for an instrument aboard NASA's sun-watching SOHO spacecraft, said the probability of two huge flares aimed directly at Earth coming so close together, as they have this week, was "unprecedented ... so low that it is a statistical anomaly."
  • Paper offers Nokia N-Gage for 1p - UK newspaper The Sun is offering the handset via its website for just one penny. Of course, there's a L28 per month airtime contract with Vodafone you have to sign up for too, but you'd need to do that anyway - N-Gage doesn't work unless you put a SIM into it, which is a bizarre result for a product that's supposed to be a games console first and a phone a very distant second. In any case, the monthly fee is a small price to pay for getting the handset for nothing (effectively).
  • Is it a games console? No it's a phone - Nokia has unveiled five new mobiles, including its flagship first "media category" handset, the 7700. The tri-band 7700 looks more like a handheld games console than a phone. It features a camera and high-spec touchscreen (with pen input) and is capable of showing 65,000 colours at a resolution of 640x320 pixels.
  • Linux-based Motorola phone to use Intel chip - The Schaumburg, Ill.-based company announced the A760 handset in late August and is expected to begin selling it in China on Friday. The A760 is a high-end smart phone that combines personal information management software, a video player, a music player and an instant-messaging tool. It will go on sale in Europe and the United States later.
  • TDK introduces 8x dual format DVD writer - TDK USA has updated its website with the specifications of the TDK indiDVD 840G DVD+R/RW writer: "The 8x Multiformat Indi DVD burner delivers unmatched flexibility and performance. Record DVD videos and photo slideshows that play in virtually any DVD player, rip and burn music and back up your hard drive with total control. Burn a full DVD+R in only 8 minutes, and record a complete CD-R in 3 minutes. Superior quietness (<45 dB acoustic noise) makes Indi DVD ideal for project environments, while automatic speed selection ensures perfect recordings. Records DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW and CD-R/RW media."
  • Ultimate Gaming Machine of 2003 review - Canada Computers built the system around an Intel Pentium 4 3.2 C processor on Intel's own D875PBZ "Bonanza" motherboard, backed up by 1GB of OCZ's EL PC3500 DDR memory and an nVIDIA GeForceFX 5900 Ultra reference videocard. That's not all, the system also packs in an SB Audigy 2 Platinum sound card, two 80GB Seagate Serial ATA HDD's (in RAID-0) and a Sony DRU-510A DVD+/-RW drive.
  • Pentium 4 Extreme Edition vs Athlon 64 FX -  First of all, let's look at the processors. What's it? A new trend in the CPU building? Special extreme solutions? Or what? First, let's see what CPU lines both companies got and what their specs are.
  • Nvidia nForce 3 Pro 150: Leadtek K8NW Pro Review   - The K8NW Pro is definitely the big brother of the K8N Pro with the addition of another PCI slot, AGP Pro, and 4 DIMMs. This board is poised to be a good choice for workstations and for enthusiasts that want the extra performance from dual channel DDR400 support. If you are looking for a serious Athlon 64 FX/Opteron motherboard for work or play the Leadtek K8NW Pro should definitely peak your interest.
  • Gigabyte K8NNXP nForce3 150 Motherboard Review  - The Gigabyte K8NNXP is a very well rounded motherboard with a boat load of features such as Serial ATA/Serial ATA RAID, IDE RAID, IEEE 1394, hot pluggable IEEE 1394B, 5.1 audio, dual ethernet (one Gigabit, one 10/100) and of course dual BIOS's. If you feel the need to upgrade there are five PCI slots an 8x AGP port. The layout of the board is excellent, it really seems as if Gigabyte was thinking about the end user when they designed the K8NNXP.
  • 3D Blaster 5 FX5900 Review - Creative Labs Europe did a nice job with the 3D Blaster 5 FX5900. In it's category it's nothing out of the ordinary yet is priced really sharp for European standards. The FX 5900 will cost your about 300-349 Euro's which sounds better than the 500 Euro we all have to caugh up for the latest and greatest these days. This product already has been spotted for 299 Euro in Europe.
  • ATI All in Wonder 9600 Pro Review  - Aside from the lack of DVI, the AIW9600 is nearly perfect. With its $209 price tag on Mwave, the card is extremely hard to resist considering you get a free $70 worth of free games and a free upgrade to the Remote Wonder II. If you do the math, you technically only pay $80 for a card that performs better then the 9600 Pro and has a lot more features then the 9600XT.
  • Buffalo Technology AirStation 54Mbps Wireless USB Adapter  - After a longer-than-expected wait, 802.11g / USB 2.0 adapters are finally hitting the shelves. The first one to hit the our test bench was also the first announced-Buffalo Technology's AirStation 54Mbps Wireless USB Adapter. We put it through its paces and our RapidReview will tell you whether you have to sacrifice any speed for the convenience of its USB 2.0 connection.
  • Three USB 2.0 Flash Drives with 1GB Storage Capacity - In this mini review X-bit Labs decided to introduce three flash drives like that of 1GB storage capacity. These models are especially interesting nowadays because of their high capacity, as you can save on them much more data than on a standard CD-disk.
  • Hercules USB DJ Console - HotHardware has posted a review on the Hercules USB DJ Console.
  • Sound Blaster MP3+: New USB Solution from Creative review - The device looks really nice, as well as the package (we should give credit to the company designers here). The dimensions of Sound Blaster MP3+ are similar to those of a pocket PC or PDA. The "box" can be fastened to any flat surface with the help of the special sticky pads included into the package. Moreover, the manufacturer also suggests fastening the sound solution to the panel of your portable computer with the help of a plastic clip, which holds to the back of the "box".
  • Neuros 20 gig MP3 Jukebox - The Neuros is solidly constructed and has a LCD screen with a simple to use multi-function navigation button. Most of time you will be using this button to scroll through selections and menu options. You also have standard forward, back and play buttons.
  • Chenbro Xpider Gaming Bomb Case Review - Ohls-Place has posted a review on the Chenbro Xpider Gaming Bomb Case.
  • ATI Radeon 9800NP/Pro To 9800XT Flash Guide  - This article will involve flashing your video card's BIOS to that of the Radeon 9800XT which will void any warranties which you may currently have on your card. 3DMAXX.net, Team 3DMAXX, nor any of its forum members take no responsibility if you kill your video card.
  • Beginners Guides: Legally Copying Software and Music - PC Stats has posted a beginners guide about Legally Copying Software and Music,
  • Win2k Patch: Buffer Overflow in Windows Troubleshooter ActiveX Control Could Allow Code Execution - A security vulnerability exists in the Microsoft Local Troubleshooter ActiveX control. The vulnerability exists because the ActiveX control (Tshoot.ocx) contains a buffer overflow that could allow an attacker to run code of their choice on a user's system.
  • WinXP Patch: Buffer Overrun in the ListBox and in the ComboBox Control Could Allow Code Execution - This revised patch corrects the Debug Programs (SeDebugPrivilege) user right issue that some customers experienced with the original patch that is discussed in Knowledge Base Article 830846.
  • WinXP/2k/2003 Patch: Buffer Overrun in Messenger Service Could Allow Code Execution - Microsoft re-issued this bulletin on October 29, 2003 to advise on the availability of an updated Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 patch. This revised patch corrects the Debug Programs (SeDebugPrivilege) user right issue that some customers experienced with the original patch that is discussed in Knowledge Base Article 830846.
  • CloneCD v4.3.1.7 - SlySoft has released a new version 4.3.1.7 of the CloneCD software. CloneCD is the ideal tool to make backup copies of your music- or data CDs, regardless if they are copy protected or not! CloneCD's award-winning user interface copies almost any CD in just a few mouse clicks.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,30 2003 - tech
Nightly Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 03:40 AM CET - Oct,30 2003 - Post a comment / read (2)
  • No public Longhorn preview, says MS - developers only - The leak of the special Longhorn build designed for Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) this week may turn out to have a lot more rarity value than expected. According to Microsoft, this build will not be widely available after all.
  • Gates puts his money on Longhorn - Microsoft bets that its next OS will succeed even in a tough market. In this interview, Bill Gates claims that Longhorn will make the world work better. Here are the specs of a PC in 2006 according to Gates: 4-6GHz processor, 2GB+ memory, 1TB hard drive, Graphics processor 3X today's performance,1GB Ethernet, 54Mbps wireless networking. You can also check the Windows roadmap.
  • 5 'exabytes' of information created in '02, report says  - Last year, people generated five exabytes of information, the equivalent of a half-million new libraries the size of the Library of Congress, they reported.With a world population of 6.3 billion, that's about 800 megabytes of recorded information produced per person, which would take about 30 feet of books to store on paper.
  • Off-topic: US develops lethal new viruses - A scientist funded by the US government has deliberately created an extremely deadly form of mousepox, a relative of the smallpox virus, through genetic engineering. The new virus kills all mice even if they have been given antiviral drugs as well as a vaccine that would normally protect them. The work has not stopped there. The cowpox virus, which infects a range of animals including humans, has been genetically altered in a similar way. The new virus, which is about to be tested on animals, should be lethal only to mice, Mark Buller of the University of St Louis told New Scientist. He says his work is necessary to explore what bioterrorists might do.
  • Off-topic - Universe began not with a bang - but a whistle - The universe may have begun with a whistle rather than a Big Bang, according to a new study of the afterglow of the moment of Creation. By analysing radiation left over from the Big Bang 14 billion years ago, a physicist has recreated its "sound". The noise, which can be downloaded from the internet, resembles the hum of a jet plane flying overhead.
  • Legal Napster up and running - Its features having been unveiled early this month, Napster's introduction to the masses Wednesday contains little in the way of surprises. As announced earlier, the free software provides access to a huge library of songs that nonsubscribers can download for 99 cents apiece, as well as to a $9.99-a-month service that allows subscribers unlimited listening.
  • Intel Ships 802.11a Chip - Intel announced this week that, after several delays, its Intel Pro/Wireless 2100A chip is shipping to notebook manufacturers, giving Centrino notebooks an 802.11a connection. The new chip allows notebook users to connect to 802.11a networks, which operate at a higher frequency than the more popular 802.11b networks that Intel's Centrino technology currently supports. The 802.11a networks operate at a frequency of 5 GHz, which permits them to transfer data at faster rates with less interference but over shorter distances than 802.11b networks.
  • Microsoft to bring DirectX 8 gaming to PDAs - Microsoft plans to radically boost the multimedia performance of the next generation of PDAs and smartphones based on its software, if pronouncements made at this year's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) come to fruition. PDC coverage among specialist Pocket PC and smartphone sites has focused on the software giant's plan to raise the resolutions supported by Windows Mobile devices to 480 x 640 for Pocket PCs and 240 x 320 for smartphones.
  • GeForce FX 5700 and 5950 Ultra nVidias return to the top?  - TweakTown has posted a new article "GeForce FX 5700 and 5950 Ultra nVidias return to the top?"  nVidia's NV36 (GeForce FX 5700) and NV38 (GeForce FX 5950) cores have arrived. How do they compare to the competition from the 2003 conquering ATI in the 9600 Pro and 9800 Pro.
  • Creative MuVo NX MP3 player review - TheRegister has taken a look at Creative's MuVo NX MP3 player. The device is a hybrid device which means that it's basically an USB Flash storage drive that happens to play MP3 and WMA files. The device is a keychain drive and thus it's ultra portable with dimensions of only 5.2 x 2.2 x 1.3cm (2 x 0.9 x 0.5in). The MuVo NX is available in two versions, 128MB (US$ 150) and 256MB (US$ 200).
  • Samsung Napster YP-910GS review - How did they fit all that in there? That's the first question you'll ask after checking out the new co-branded Samsung Napster YP-910GS player/recorder ($399 street). This latest addition to Samsung's YEPP line of digital-audio devices is roughly the same size as the Apple iPod, but the YP-910GS manages to cram in a lot of extras-features the iPod lacks, such as an FM tuner, an FM transmitter, and a voice recorder.
  • Kenwood HTB-506 Home Theater System Review - The Kenwood HTB-506 provides one with an easy to setup and simple touse home-theater-in-a-box system. It has some shortcomings here andthere which was especially noticeable only in music applications, but itis quite satisfying in home theater applications. If you need anall-in-one receiver-and-speakers solution and you are on a limitedbudget, this system is worth checking out. For $500, the HTB-506represents a very good value.
  • SiS 655FX Chipset Review  - MBReview has posted a review on the SiS 655FX chipset.
    Mushkin 1GB PC4000 Dual Pack Memory Review -     LegitReviews has posted a Mushkin 1GB PC4000 Dual Pack Memory review.
  • ABIT Siluro FX 5600 DT 256MB & FX 5600 Ultra DT128MB Review - Hexus has posted a review on the ABIT Siluro FX 5600 DT 256MB & FX 5600 Ultra DT128MB video cards. The FX 5600 / Ultra series is a reasonable stab at attempting to balance features and performance to cost. ABIT has a couple of cards here that are quite different beasts. The 256MB model is a disappointing card, especially in view of its potential. The 128MB Ultra version is worthy of consideration, however. Both cards appear to be priced at around the L125 mark. You pays your money, you takes your choice.
  • NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra Preview - GeForce FX 5700 is the mainstream refresh of GeForce FX 5600 Ultra. The refresh is the mainstream equivalent of NV30 to NV35 in that the basic configuration stays the same but the main thrust being that the integer shader units have been replace with small floating point units, there have been optimisations for the Intellisample image quality options and the addition of UltraShadow. Although the pixel pipeline configuration remains the same as NV31, albeit with the replacement of the integer units for float ALU's, the entire vertex engine from NV30 / NV35 has been lifted and included in the NV36 chip for GeForce FX 5700.
  • NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra Preview - NVNews has posted an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra Preview.
  • The Albatron Gigi GeForce FX 5200 Ultra - This FX 5200 Ultra's blue PCB is a nice touch. With modding becoming extremely popular among the enthusiast community, having a flashy card such as this Albatron FX 5200 Ultra inside the case is a nice touch. While all the pretty colors will do nothing for performance, the heatsink and RAM-sinks chosen by Albatron may do the trick.
  • AIW 9600 Pro Review - Accelenation has posted a review on the All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro video card. Without AA & AF the 9600 cards offer performance within 5% of the R9700 Pro. When AA & AF are enabled the performance gap widens to around 40%.
  • Coolmax - Taurus CX 450B Silent Switching PSU Review - Do you want your computer to operate with a great deal more stability, do you want the voltages on the all of the rails to stay within at least a 5% tolerance? Then you are going to have to invest in a good power supply. With the ever-increasing number of toys we seem to find ourselves placing inside our computers, the need for a high current, well regulated power supply should be a paramount concern.
  • Mobile Net Switch 2.1 - ' Mobile Net Switch enables you to use your computer on more then one network with the click of a button. The program allows you to automatically select the correct drive mappings, printer settings, IP settings and more. All changes are made instantly, no reboot is required.
  • Sound Forge 7.0a - Sonic Foundry (download trial ~ what's new) has released an updated version of their audio editing software called Sound Forge Studio.
  • DVD Region-Free 3.20  - DVD Region-Free (download) enables you to watch any region DVD on region-locked DVD drive. It will work, even if you can not change the DVD drive's region anymore. DVD Region-Free enables DVD copy software such as DVDFab, DVD X Copy XPress, InterVideo DVD Copy, CloneDVD, DVD2One, Pinnacle InstantCopy, DVD Shrink and Nero Recode to copy any DVD from DVD drive directly.
  • BlindWrite 5.0.0.110 - Blindwrite Suite is an allround set for your personal CD backups. It consists of two seperate tools, Blindread and Blindwrite. Use Blindread to create image files of your CDs, which can be burned with Blindwrite or mounted as a virtual drive (with Daemon Tools for example).
  • Intel Desktop Control Center 1.0 - Intel Desktop Control Center enables you to perform stress tests to verify system stability and to conduct performance testing to measure the impact of system configuration changes. The easy-to-read system gauges provide feedback so you can observe the effects of various system modifications in real-time.
  • NTFS Reader for DOS 1.0.2 - NTFS Reader for DOS is a freeware tool that provides read access to NTFS partitions within the MS-DOS environment. You can preview files on NTFS and copy files from NTFS to FAT volumes or network drives.
  • Apache 1.3.29 & 2.0.48 - The Apache Software Foundation has released Apache 1.3.29 and 2.0.48  This version of Apache is principally a bug fix release.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,29 2003 - tech
Evening Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 01:49 AM CET - Oct,29 2003 - Post a comment / read (2)
  • NGSCB, aka Palladium, in next generation of CPU, says Gates - Microsoft's Next Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB, aka Palladium) will be built into the next generation of CPUs, Bill Gates claimed yesterday, effectively making security via hardware ID an integral part of the Windows PC platform. And Microsoft is talking to the chip and PC companies about the introduction of hardware ID, so we will likely be seeing some decidedly NGSCB-like features well ahead of Longhorn
  • Sober Sings the Praises of Sobig - Kaspersky Labs warns about the start of a virus epidemic from the Sober Internet worm. Sober was first detected this past Saturday, but is now observed surging in activity in connection with the beginning of the workweek. Sober is a classic Internet worm that spreads via e-mail. Infected e-mail messages can have various body texts in English and in German; additionally the infected file attachment can have one of several file extensions (PIF, BAT, SCR, COM, EXE). All of this makes it significantly more difficult to identify from outside appearances.
  • Off-topic: Sun erupts in biggest storm in years - The outburst was classified an X17.2 flare, the third largest on record, according to Paal Brekke, a project scientist with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a sun-watching satellite mission jointly run by NASA and the European Space Agency.  In comparison, two solar storms observed last week were between X1 and X5, Brekke said.  Solar flares are associated with coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, eruptions from the sun that, if headed our way, can disrupt communications satellites and power grids. As this particularly fast-moving CME is aimed directly toward Earth, it is possible that when it arrives midday Wednesday, the geomagnetic activity will be strong enough to stir up electrical trouble.
  • Microsoft adds Longhorn and WinFX details - Microsoft has fleshed out details of the Longhorn version of its Windows operating system, and unveiled its next-generation Windows programming model, named WinFX. Microsoft said WinFX, a development of the .Net Framework's programming model, could increase developer productivity and application security and reliability
  • Nokia's 7700 "media device"  - Nokia today unveiled what looks suspiciously like the first phases of its get PocketPC strategy. The tip of the iceberg is the 7700, which you could categorise as kind of the successor to the 9000 series, kind of a Sony-Ericsson P800 me-too and kind of a PDA, and which Nokia categorises as a "media device", but there's enough of the rest of the iceberg showing to be going on with.
  • Dell unveils MP3 player - The Dell Digital Jukebox music player, or "Dell DJ," and accompanying software will be available through Dell's online music store starting Tuesday, according to the company. Dell says that the device, which comes with a capacity of either 15GB or 20GB, can play music continually for up to 16 hours.  Dell's 15GB MP3 player will sell for $249, while the 20GB version will sell for $329, according to the company.
  • AMD slashes Opteron prices by up to 40% - AMD yesterday trimmed its prices, following on from the cuts Intel made to its Pentium 4 and Celeron prices on Sunday.  The Opteron line saw some of the biggest cuts, with the price of the 844 falling 40 per cent, but the AMD's focus was its 32-bit Athlon chips.
  • foobar2000 v0.7.2 Final -  A nice audio player made by Peter Pawlowski with simple graphical user interface.
  • WinAmp 5 Beta 2 - Nullsoft Winamp (download) is a fast, flexible, high-fidelity media player for Windows. Winamp supports playback of many audio (MP3, OGG, AAC, WAV, MOD, XM, S3M, IT, MIDI, etc) and video types (AVI,ASF,MPEG,NSV).
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,27 2003 - tech
NVIDIA System Utility v1.0 Released - tech
(hx) 03:55 PM CET - Oct,27 2003 - Post a comment / read (5)
As promised ,NVIDIA has released its System Utility tweaker v1.0 (WinXP, Win2k, WinME and Win98SE) for nForce motherboards. Here is a blurb from the official website: "NVIDIA System Utility is the ultimate utility for accessing, monitoring, and adjusting your system components, including temperature and voltages with clear, user-friendly control panels. Overclock your system for highest performance or underclock it for near silent operation. All changes are performed within the Microsoft Windows  interface - enabling full functionality without the need to make changes in the BIOS and reboot your system."  This initial release supports
NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400, NVIDIA nForce2 400, NVIDIA nForce3 Pro 150, NVIDIA nForce3 150 chipsets. Full product functionality is only available on the these products below: NVIDIA nForce2, ASUS A7N8X-E, Biostar M7NCG, Epox EP-8RDA+, Epox EP-8RDA3+, ABIT NF7-S, NVIDIA nForce 3, Gigabyte K8NNXP, Shuttle AN50. The 5MB download can be found on NVIDIA website. (big thanks BloodUK!)
Nvidia System Utility Preview - tech
(hx) 10:40 AM CET - Oct,27 2003 - Post a comment / read (3)
HomeLAN has posted a hands-on preview of the Nvidia System Utility, an upcoming software tweaker for nForce motherboards. Here is a slice:
The NVSU has two different pages of system configuration options in it, defined as basic and advanced. Basic is composed of the FSB speed, AGP bus speed, some memory timings, fan speeds, and voltages for several different components. The FSB and AGP speeds, along with the memory timings are "universal" features, that is, they work without advanced support, and the rest of the features will require advanced support, and may still not be available in all cases(since there has to be BIOS support for the option). All basic options are implemented "on the fly", so it allows easy testing of what the limits are of a configuration.

On the second page, the "advanced" page, there are several more features, including the CPU multiplier, more memory timings, AGP speed, and cache controls. Overall, the advanced page resembles more of a CMOS setup screen than anything else, so it's fittingly appropriate that any changes made here are not done on the fly, and will require a reboot.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,25 2003 - tech
Massive Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 05:39 PM CEST - Oct,25 2003 - Post a comment / read (3)
  • AOL Hacks Subscribers' Computers - If you're running a recent vintage version of Windows, and connecting to the Internet with an IP address reachable from the outside world, you've probably seen them. They're rectangular boxes that pop-up out of the blue with advertising. These aren't pop-up (or pop-under) browser ads but actually a weird misuse of Windows Messenger Service, a mostly useless tool which Microsoft has left on by default! In related story, AOL said it had turned off Microsoft's flawed Windows Messenger service.
  • California Wins Its First Anti-Spam Judgment - California won its first anti-spam judgment on Friday when a court fined a marketing firm $2 million for sending out millions of unsolicited e-mails telling people how to spam, the state's attorney general said. Attorney General Bill Lockyer brought the case against PW Marketing of Los Angeles County and its owners Paul Willis and Claudia Griffin in 2002 under a 1998 state anti-spam law. The law was strengthened last month to make it easier to sue spammers. PW Marketing and Willis and Griffin were charged with sending out millions of e-mails advertising "how to" guides on spamming and long lists of e-mail addresses.
  • Epson Faces Consumer Suits - Consumers fed up with the high cost of ink jet cartridges are taking Epson America to court, accusing it of manipulating equipment in order to sell more ink. A lawsuit filed Friday in District Court in Texas claims some models of Epson ink jet cartridges prematurely block Epson printers from functioning even though "substantial ink" remains in the cartridge.
  • LCD Television Sales to Boom, Affordable from 2005 -  Sales of LCD televisions look set to double next year, but the explosive growth expected to propel the industry in the coming decade is still more than a year off, industry executives and analysts said. The new generation of ultra-slim TVs is one of the brightest spots for electronics companies such as Korea's LG Electronics Ltd, which reported a near doubling in quarterly net profits on Thursday thanks to flat-screen sales.
  • Microsoft gets deeper into gizmos - A high-tech sewing machine Microsoft's Windows CE.Net operating system powers and modern slot machines that run a slimmed-down version of Windows XP were among the products Microsoft cited during a presentation Friday on the its plans for embedded devices--limited-function computing gadgets that range from factory robots to MP3 players.
  • Low-Cost Supercomputer Is Among World's Fastest - A supercomputer built from 1,100 Apple Macs by faculty and students at Virginia Polytechnic Institute has achieved a speed of 8.7 trillion operations per second, surpassing a result reported earlier this week and putting the computer in line to be the world's third fastest.
  • Phantom Game Console Presentation - Glaximus has posted an impressions piece on Penny-Arcade of one of Infinium Lab's first press conferences.  In all of a 90 minute presentation/Q&A session, not a single game was mentioned by name by anyone from Infinium. They seem to be of the opinion that gamers will just buy the console because it's "cool and new."
  • N-Gage Price Drop (Already?!) - The two-week-old N-Gage received a major boost today, when Nokia slashed $100 off the console's $299 sticker price. This afternoon, Gamestop and Electronics Boutique began offering the hybrid cell phone/game deck for $199 on their Web sites and at their retail outlets. (thanks GameSpot)
  • Is this the ATI Half Life 2 statement? - The two silent "V" firms - Vivendi and Valve, haven't said anything much about Half Life 2. They've been quiet as church mice. And while ATI has something to say now, we've heard not so much as a squeak from Valve - although of course we heard from its lawyers. We heard a strangled noise in the graveyard but we're not sure who or what it was being transfixed with a stake... ATI will ship the game with the new version of Radeon 9600 with SE as the suffix. The Radeon 9600 SE will cost only $129 and if you have in mind that you could pay up to $50 alone, just for Half Life 2 this seems like a nice deal. The card will feature four pipelines, 64-bit cut up memory interface, and DirectX 9 support.
  • Cellphone software allows a musical jam - After texting, photomessaging, and web surfing, the latest cellphone talent is set to be enabling people to "jam" together to improvise music, say software engineers in London, UK. The idea is the brainchild of computer interactivity expert Nick Bryan-Kinns and his colleagues at Queen Mary College. They have developed software that let will groups of people phone into a mobile number and work together to improvise short, looping tunes. The QMC team hope people will be able to engage with their friends in the same way jazz musicians appear to "mentally connect" when jamming.
  • Casio Shows New and Improved Digicam - The new camera, the Exilim EX-Z4, is the first in the Exilim family to feature a 4-megapixel class image sensor. Like the EX-Z3, which was launched in April this year and on which it is based, the camera also features a 3X optical zoom lens, according to a statement.
  • Intel CPU Could Run Macs - Intel Chief Executive Officer Craig Barrett says the Macintosh OS could run fine on Intel equipment--the tough part is convincing Apple Chairman Steve Jobs that it's a good idea. Barrett briefly described the company's Vanderpool project, a new processor design capable of supporting multiple operating systems at a processor level, rather than in emulation mode. "If you are able to, say, have two OSs running simultaneously, you won't have to rely on a single OS for everything," Barrett says. "So you could have Mac OS and Longhorn on the same system, using Longhorn for business stuff and Mac OS for personal stuff. But first you'd need to convince Steve Jobs that it's a great idea."
  • Gigabyte to launch second own-brand notebook in November - Gigabyte Technology, which launched its first G-Max-branded notebook in March of this year, is scheduled to begin selling a second model in early November, according to company executive vice president Richard Ma. The N501, aimed at the entry-level market, comes equipped with a 15-inch TFT LCD panel, an Intel Pentium M processor, an Intel 855GM chipset and 1GB DDR SO-DIMM memory. It measures 330×273×29.9mm and weighs 2.8kg. The notebook will be priced around US$1,000, without a combo optical storage drive.
  • Micron samples 1Gb DDR II - Micron yesterday claimed to have shipped "the industry's first 1Gb DDR II SDRAM components" (though Hynix made the same claim back in August). To be fair to Micron, Hynix is actually sampling the parts sometime this quarter, so the US company may well have pipped its South Korean opponent to the post. Micron didn't give a timetable for mass production, but Q1 2004 is likely given that's when Intel expects to ship its first, server-oriented DDR II-supporting chipsets.
  • Tornado GeForce FX 5700 and FX 5950 Ultra Announced - InnoVISION Multimedia announced Inno3D Tornado GeForce FX5950 Ultra & GeForce FX5700 Ultra Graphics Accelerator at 475MHz core that architectures for blazing speeds and delivering unmatched visual quality. The 256-bits interface with 950MHz memory of Tornado GeForce FX5950 Ultra delivers more memory bandwidth and efficiency to power the latest games and applications at blazing speeds. Also XFX announced the same line-up, XFX cards will be available beginning October 26th.
  • GeForce FX 5950 Ultra & GeForce FX 5700 Ultra Reviews - Digit-life | ExtremeTech | Tom's Hardware | GamePC | Hexus | Games Domain | Guru3D.
  • GeForce FX 5950 Ultra Reviews - NVNews | 3DGPU  | HardOCP | Firingsquad  | Hot Hardware | X-bit Labs | Tech Report | Nordic Hardware
  • GeForce FX 5700 Ultra Reviews - NVNews | Hot Hardware | Tech Report | AmdMB | AnandTech | Firingsquad | Sharky Extreme
  • Intel Pentium4 3.2GHz C Processor Review - PCStats has posted a review of Intel Pentium4 3.2GHz C Processor. With a retail price of $795 CDN ($590 US), the Intel Pentium4 3.2GHz processor is quite expensive, but if you want the best you always have to be prepared to pay Intel for it. ;-)
  • Gigabyte K8VNXP K8T800 Motherboard Review -  The K8VNXP is nonetheless the first K8T800 based motherboard to be offered by Gigabyte. The board utilizes a Socket 754 for the AMD Athlon64 processor, along with Single-Channel DDR400/333/266 support. The K8VNXP is loaded with features such as IEEE1394b offering an 800Mb/s transfer rate. Overall, the K8VNXP's performance, packaging and stability were all extremely impressive.
  • EP-8KRA2+ review - Epox has developed a very overclocker friendly reputation with boards in the past and it is good to see that they are still trying to carry that reputation with the EP-8KRA2+ by providing powerful features and versatile control over the components. The hardcore overclocking crowd may not be able to live with some of the limits of the bios but overall it's a very robust combination of features for a <$100 motherboard.
  • Crucial PC3200 DDR Memory - The 256 MB modules tested are available directly from Crucial for $48.95 (which includes FREE second day delivery), making the price highly competitive with other brands available elsewhere online. They are not intended / recommended for overclocking (but is obviously capable)
  • Crucial PC3200 DDR400 - Looking for quality ram without the big price tag? ViperLaier grabbed a couple sticks of Crucial's PC3200, and determine if it's something for frugal enthusiasts to consider.
  • Yamaha MusicCAST Digital Audio Server Review - AudioHolics had a good time reviewing the new Yamaha MusicCAST Digital Music Server. This baby allows you to store your entire CD collection and stream it wirelessly to a client located in another part of the house.
  • Printer Round-up  - PCMag tested 9 personal and 11 photo ink jet printers to see which delivers more for your money 
  • NEC MultiSync LCD1765 First Look - Most PC users don't need to carry their monitors with them. But for salespeople, presenters, road warriors, LAN gamers, students-anyone who doesn't just set up a monitor once and forget it-NEC offers the NEC MultiSync LCD1765. The 17-inch LCD (1,280-by-1,024 native resolution) has a clever folding design that lets you pack it in a shoulder bag and take it along when needed. And the competitive $550 street price means you're not paying extra for the portability.
  • Samsung Syncmaster 173T LCD Monitor Review - The battle for the best 17-inch LCD is on, and Samsung Electronics istrying to keep at the head of the pack. With its 3rd-generation 'T'display now making the rounds, the SyncMaster 173T has eye-poppingspecifications and an affordable price tag. This in-depth review covers thebasics and usability of the screen and should please all.
  • Logitech MX 700 Wireless Mouse - Price around $55-60, this mouse is absolutely a must have. I see no reason not to get it. Sure it may be more expensive than other mice, but you really get what you pay for. The MX optical sensor, coupled with the no lag makes this mouse a real winner. Once you try this mouse for yourself, you'll never go back to any other mouse, wired or otherwise.
  • Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum - With all the added support like for 7.1 surround sound, DTS-EX decoding for movies as well as EAX Advanced HD makes the Audigy 2 ZS the first choice for quality sound gear. If you don't have the need for all connectivity that the Platinum Pro offers you can always just stick with just Audigy 2 ZS card.  In all aspects we have been impressed with what Creative have to offer with the A2ZS, right from included content, all the technology, features and connectivity you will ever need packed into such a small card to the quality of sound it was able to deliver and feel only right to award the Audigy 2 ZS our Editor's Choice.
  • Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 IDE and SATA - RBMods got one SATA and one IDE drive both on 160 GB each so this will be very interesting to see which drive is faster.
  • Plextor PlexWriter PX-708UF - Unfortunately the PX-708UF does not have the polish we have come to expect from Plextor products. We gave the PX-504UF a much better score because it was the first external DVD writer developed by Plextor and overall was a good first attempt. But we expected their updated version the PX-708UF to address some of the issues their predecessor had and this simply was not the case. The PX-708UF is a relatively fast and reliable drive, but it lacks the ability to daisy chain other FireWire devices through it and has a very loud internal fan. Priced at $299.99 we would recommend holding off for Sony's external 8X drive which was just announced while writing this review.
  • Tapwave Zodiac Preview - The chaps at Shacknews has posted up a hands-on preview of the Tapwave Zodiac, the upcoming Palm PDA based portable gaming console.
  • Gamepad October Madness Reviewed  - Not only are vendors slow to revamp gamepad and other joystick lines, but we never thought we'd have six new offerings for our annual review. Yes, you heard that right: THG got six new gamepads in for October review. Some surprised, some did not.
  • Internet Explorer 6 & Outlook Express Tweak Guide - This guide will take you through the vast array of options and settings available to customize Internet Explorer 6 (here-on referred to as IE6) and the bundled Outlook Express (OE) to its fullest, in particular seeking to improve browser security or just fine tuning them to your own browsing needs.
  • Longhorn Review - OnlyNewZ let us know they have posted a review on Windows Longhorn. "I have Longhorn installed and noticed already that the installation is faster finished than Windows XP or Windows 2000 installations. But there are already new version details available on the net, which is Build 4051. Neowin reports that there is also a new theme developed with the codename: Slate."
  • Interview with SlySoft: a new life for CloneCd? - Alientech has conducted an interview with SlySoft, the guys responsible for the AnyDVD software with which you can decrypt DVDs on-the-fly and handle protected DVDs as if they were not protected at all.  SlySoft recently also acquired the CloneCD software from Elby because of new German copyright laws.
  • Warning to LG drive owners who plan to install Mandrake 9.2 -  Mandrake Linux support have warned not to install Mandrake 9.2 on any machine with an LG-based CD-ROM drive. Many users have reported that installing Mandrake Linux 9.2 particularly on Dell computers with an LG drive ended up rendering their LG CD-ROM drive unusable, even after multiple reboots.
  • ATi driver 'optimisations'? An investigation  - I've found this interesting article at EliteBastards, check it out.
  • Roxio Easy CD/DVD Creator 6.2 adds transcoding and overburning - Roxio has updated their Easy CD/DVD Creator software to version 6.2 and this version adds support for burning to 90 and 99 minutes media, as well as a compression (transcoding, shrinking) engine to reduce the size of DVD movies so they will fit on DVD recordables. This makes Easy CD/DVD Creator more powerfull then ever and the company seems to be looking at its competition such as Ahead which included Nero Recode in their Nero 6 package.
  • MyIE2 v0.8.2126 - MyIE2 (download) is a multi-tabbed browser based on the IE core (IE5.x or above required). It can open multiple web pages within one browser window, and uses little system resources. This new version allows you to drag open javascript links, improves Improved browsing speed, and adds Better "Disable script error" implementation.
  • Fresh UI 6.55 - Fresh UI (download) is the fresh solution for configuring and optimizing Windows. Loaded with hundreds of useful hidden settings, this software covers the customizing and optimizing technique that you'll be glad to know: Customizing Windows User Interface, Optimizing system settings, Optimizing hardware settings, Customizing Windows application settings, and Control user environment with policies.
  • Foobar2000 v0.7.2 Beta 6 - Foobar2000 (download) is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include ReplayGain support, low memory footprint and native support for several popular audio formats.
  • AntiVir Personal Edition 6.22.01.01 - The AntiVir Personal Edition (download) offers the effective protection against computer viruses for the individual and private use on a single PC-workstation. In order to make possible an easy operation, the AntiVir Personal Edition is developed to the essential points.
  • MemTest 2.1  - A new version of MemTest has been released that fully supports users with 1GB of RAM or more.
  • MotherBoard Monitor 5.3.4.1 - Motherboard Monitor (download) is a tool that will display information from the sensor chip on your motherboard in your Windows system tray. MBM supports a wide range of Chipsets & Sensor Chip combinations. MBM is compatible with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and .NET.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,24 2003 - tech
Nightly Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 03:15 AM CEST - Oct,24 2003 - Post a comment
  • Vivendi 'Half-Life 2' Game Release Date Uncertain  - With online retailers beginning to speculate that "Half-Life 2," one of the most anticipated PC games ever, could ship as soon as mid-November, the game's developer is still not saying whether it will be out this year at all.
  • Off-topic: Bomb-proof flight simulator developed  - A giant bomb-proof chamber designed to mimic an airplane's cargo hold could be used to safely trigger hidden explosives during airport security screening.  The chamber, developed by the German company Siemens, is shaped like a plane's hull and large enough to hold several cargo containers at a time. The system includes a conventional X-ray for screening cargo, which might detect a timer device on a bomb. But some bomb designs include triggers that respond to flight conditions. Therefore air pressure and temperature inside the unit can be lowered to the levels experienced at altitude.
  • Off-topic: Laser system to pinpoint snipers fast-tracked - A laser capable of pinpointing sniper fire and a system that could alert troops to remote-controlled explosives are being tested by the US military and could be deployed in combat as early as 2004. The two prototype technologies are being developed the Pentagon Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Work on the two systems has accelerated because military officials believe they could prove useful in Iraq, where US troops face guerrilla tactics. They are currently being tested to determine whether they would be suitable for use in combat.
  • Off-topic: Microfluidic battery runs on water - Converting hydrostatic pressure directly into electrical current - without "moving parts" like a fuel cell - has enabled the demonstration of a new kind of battery. The electrokinetic microchannel battery prototype harnessed the combined sub-nanoamp electrical output from 500,000 microfluidic channels to generate microamps of power.
  • Off-topic: Intel chip gear aims to detect disease - The chipmaker will construct a device, called a Raman Bioanalyzer System, at the Seattle-based research organization that will be able, ideally, to detect chemical anomalies in individual cells, which in turn could be used to flag diseases in their early stages. Raman spectroscopy is used to analyze the chemical composition of chips during the fabrication process. When a laser beam is directed toward a chip or a region of a chip, the molecules in the light beam become stimulated and emit a specific spectrum of light, which the Raman spectrometer picks up. Because every molecule emits a different spectrum, the molecules can be identified.
  • Nvidia launches NV38 and NV36 graphics chips - Nvidia today launched its highly-anticipated NV38 and NV36 graphics chips. The NV38 chip, with the GeForce FX5950 Ultra product name, is the fastest GPU offered by the chip vendor to date, Nvidia said. The company also announced its foundry partners for the chips. The NV38 is made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) using 0.13-micron process technology. The NV36, in two configurations (the GeForce FX5700 Ultra and GeForce FX5700), is made at IBM’s East Fishkill fab, also using 0.13-micron technology. The 5950 is essentially a version of the 5900, tweaked to enable the higher core and clock frequencies. The 5950 Ultra is likely to replace the 5900 Ultra, with the regular 5900 (400MHz core, 700MHz memory) staying around for a while.
  • AMD to cut Athlon XP prices Monday - AMD will cut its Athlon XP prices on 27 October, a Chinese web site has claimed. The reductions will come to the 2700+, 2800+, 3000+ and 3200+, it reports. The claim has since been confirmed by our UK sources.
  • ALi launches new DVD player single-chip - Taiwanese IC design house ALi yesterday announced its second-generation DVD player single chip, according to a company statement. The new chip, the M3355, integrates RF (radio frequency), servo and MPEG-4 decoder and will begin volume production this quarter. For other DVD-related chips, ALi's networked DVD processor (T6305) and media adapter processor (T6306) are currently in the design-in stage, according to the company. ALi also plans to launch solutions for DVD recorders and recordable DVD drives in the first half of 2004.
  • Toshiba Updates Pocket PCs - Toshiba has launched a version of its E800/805 Pocket PC personal digital assistant that incorporates integrated Wi-Fi and VoIP (voice over IP) software along with several different speech-recognition applications and an enhanced display. In addition to the $599 E800/805, the company has released the $299 E400/405 for users interested in a less-expensive PDA without Wi-Fi or VoIP capability.
  • N-Gage sales figures offer mixed picture -  According to Nokia, 400,000 units have been sold to retail outlets since the product launched on October 7. In addition, they claim that follow-up orders have begun trickling in. Calling the debut "strong," Nokia says it is pleased with the initial response and hopes to sell between 6 million and 9 million units by year-end 2004. In related story, Nokia is set to unveil three new models next week, one of which is the company's first fold-away design, industry and market sources said on Thursday. Nokia will show the 'clam-shell' model 7200, the 6230 camera phone and the 6820 with keyboard at its Mobile Internet Conference in Nice, France, on Tuesday, the sources said.
  • HP Introduces Its Most Powerful Graphing Calculator - HP today announced the hp 49g+ graphing calculator (homepage), the flagship of a new line of powerful graphing calculators to be launched this fall. Built for scientists, engineers, mathematicians, surveyors and students who need portable calculating power, the HP 49g+ graphing calculator performs more than 2,300 functions and has 2.5 megabytes of total memory including 2MB of flash ROM, of which 800KB is available to the user. Priced at suggested retail of $175.991, the calculator also allows for future electronic upgrades via an included USB cable.
  • Red Hat Upgrades Linux OS - Red Hat on Wednesday introduced Red Hat Linux 3, the newest addition to its Open Source Architecture platform, and according to one analyst its improved support for Java and threads will have many Red Hat users making an upgrade. According to Raleigh, North Carolina-based Red Hat, one of the key features of the new Red Hat Linux is its ability to support seven hardware architectures: Intel's X86, Intel's Itanium, Advanced Micro Devices' AMD64, and IBM's ZSeries, ISeries, PSeries, and S/390.
  • An explanation why you should avoid purchasing cheap DVD media - The problem with most media is that, unless you buy media from a well known brand name you can't really tell what you bought until you've tried it on your DVD RW drive. Many unknown companies (mostly small Asian or Eastern European) who are in the business of producing media only for the easy money, take advantage of this fact by luring customers into buying their media by offering extremely low prices. Because the MID code can also be used to trace media back to the manufacturer, they often don't use any MID code and rumor has it that some companies even "steal" MID codes from other manufacturers, making it look like the discs are made by reliable companies. The 1st problem with this type of media is that the quality may be unreliable, though this is not necessarily the case.
  • GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, GeForce FX 5700, GeForce FX 5600XT 128b benchmarks - The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, which looks also good compared to the RADEON 9600XT, has the equal recommended price of $199. It's only the FX 5700 which at its price of $149 can look equal or a bit inferior to its competitors. Let's wait for the real cards and their prices which are expected in 3-4 weeks.
  • Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition Updates 1.4.2_02  - Java 2 SDK updates are developed by addressing key customer issues and feedback on the previous FCS release. These updates do not generally include any new features or functionality. There are several key bug fixes in this release. Sun strongly recommends that users upgrade. If deploying any update, we recommend that our customers follow their standard test procedures for Java technologies and deployments.
  • BlindWrite Suite 4.9.9.104 Beta - Blindwrite Suite (download) is the best set of tools to reproduce or clone any CD, even protected ones. Blindwrite Suite is the most powerfull tool to create a perfect copy from your original CD for personal private copy. Blindwrite Suite can also create CD audio from MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, WMA, monkey`s audio and be use with an CD-ROMcd emulator like Daemon Tools.
  • ICQ Pro 2003b Build #3916 - Another version of ICQ is available for download.
  • MSN Messenger 6.1 Final Build 155 -  The final release of MSN Messenger 6.1 (Build 155) has been released.
  • 4c vision 3.1 - 4c vision gives you the opportunity to get the look behind the link The browser creates a preview (see picture) of found websites. Your search results, favorites, and history are loaded in the background and visualized for you while you are surfing the web.
  • CPUInfo 2.11 - CPUInfo is a Windows based program which announces extensive information about the available processors. Besides the information about the processor type, manufacturer, clock frequency, multiplyer and FSB, CPUInfo shows information about the processor caches, feature flags and machine specific registers (MSR). Additional to these the information from the Windows-Registry are included in the analysis.
  • VIA Hyperion 4-in-1 v4.49p3 (unofficial) - Station-Drivers have updated their Hyperion 4in1 drivers page with version 4.49vp3. (mirror1 ~ mirror2)  This new version adds support for Windows 2003. VIA Hyperion drivers are suitable for any VIA chipset and all Microsoft Windows Operating Systems. Hyperion driver sets include INF, AGP, IDE and IRQ related drivers.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,23 2003 - tech
ForceWare Release 50 Graphics Driver v52.16 - tech
(hx) 05:54 PM CEST - Oct,23 2003 - Post a comment / read (13)
NVIDIA today released its new NVIDIA ForceWare release 50 graphics driver (which replaces replace the Detonator designation), a new Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) engineered to provide unmatched performance and image quality on both DirectX 9.0 and OpenGL applications. The new 52.16 release claims:
The ForceWare release 50 graphics drivers include the NVIDIA unified compiler technology that translates shader programs so that they are optimized for the NVIDIA GPU architecture, substantially improving the performance of next-generation DirectX 9.0 titles such as HalfLife 2, XIII, and more. Performance in the DirectX 9.0 application HaloPC improves by up to 58%  and DirectX 9.0-based Microsoft Flight Simulator 9 improves by 33% .

Other features of the NVIDIA ForceWare release 50 graphics drivers include:

  • Enhanced image quality for both anisotropic filtering and antialiasing
  • A new NVIDIA nView 3.0 multi-display setup wizard for easy configuration of your multi-display settings
  • nView gridlines to section off the display to help organize your various windows
  • Customized user profiles to save display settings and image quality settings on a per application/game basis
  • A new user-friendly interface
  • Microsoft DirectX and OpenGL support
Nvidia GeForce FX 5700 Ultra Preview - tech
(hx) 04:05 PM CEST - Oct,23 2003 - Post a comment / read (2)
HomeLAN has posted a preview of the Nvidia GeForce FX 5700 Ultra graphics card, based on checking out a reference board of the upcoming new mainstream PC graphics solution. They also  talk about the 5950 card and Nvidia's plans for the PCI Express standard. Here is a bit:
Out of all the benchmarks we ran on the 5700, the Gun Metal set was perhaps the most interesting. While this comparison will be unscientific, AnandTech ran the same set of Gun Metal benchmarks against a slew of cards on a faster machine; their 5600U scored only 14.5, and the Radeon 9600 XT 18.9. Our 5700, on an inferior machine, scored 23.1, well above the 5600U and the Radeon. The best explanation we can come up is that Gun Metal, being a DX9-based program, has shaders that can be modified by UCT, and that's exactly what happened. Gun Metal has primarily advertised itself as a pixel shader-heavy test in the past(as opposed to vertex shading), so it seems likely UCT offered the biggest boost(the rest being the core boost, and the aforementioned Vertex abilities). The 5600U can make use of the UCT too however, so the real difference remains to be seen, but it's an impressive sign of what the UCT might be able to do in DX9, and against the Radeon series.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,22 2003 - tech
Wednesday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:41 PM CEST - Oct,22 2003 - Post a comment / read (2)
  • Microsoft offers "self destructing" documents - The latest version of Microsoft's hugely successful Office software suite launches on Tuesday, with its most eye-catching feature a new ability to make documents and emails "self-destruct". Experts say the feature should act as a barrier against sensitive information being copied or leaked, but they say it is unlikely to stop any determined attempt.
  • Macrovision's SafeDisc version 3.1 launched and defeated? - A while ago the Macrovision company announced a new version of their well known SafeDisc copy-protection, v3.1. This latest version promised to protect "against hacking and unauthorised copying of protected titles" by adding some unique new features to the copy-protection. A digital signature, for instance, should prevent any optical drive from copying a disc that is protected with SafeDisc v3.1. However, as dr--evil reports via our forum, it seems that the protection can quite easily be beaten when the proper hardware is used.
  • Can Water Power Your Cell Phone? - Canadian researchers have demonstrated a new way of producing electricity from flowing water which could provide power for anything from mobile phones to the national grid. Professors Daniel Kwok and Larry Kostiuk in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Alberta report in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering a new method of generating electric power by harnessing the natural electrokinetic properties of a liquid, such as ordinary tap water, when it is pumped through tiny microchannels. The technique is based on understanding that when a non-conducting glass container is filled with water, the glass develops a tiny electric charge while the water takes on the opposite charge.
  • Dell moves into family room with LCD TV - The Round Rock, Texas-based company will begin selling the WT1700, a 17-inch LCD screen TV on Oct. 28 in the United States and Canada for $699, according to a representative. Gateway sells a similar TV for $699, as well as TVs with larger and smaller screens.
  • Addonics unveils 16-in-1 multifunction portable CD recorder - Over at Mobilemag they say Addonic Technologies has announced today a multi-function portable digital recorder and player that does everything but write DVDs. As an 8-in-1 Flash Memory Reader/Writer; Flash Media to CDRW Converter; USB 2.0 DVD/CDRW; MP3 Player; Home Theater DVD Player it is small enough to throw in a bag and carry on the road, in fact, it comes with a bag.
  • Logitech upgrades credit-card cam - Logitech has updated its credit card-sized digital camera, the Pocket Digital, by upping the camera's native picture resolution from 640 x 480 to 1280x1024 and dropping the original's Autobrite light enhancement software in favour of a built-in strobe flash. The result is a new model, the Pocket Digital 130 that retains the credit card length and width dimensions but is slightly thicker than the original.
  • Apple PC iTunes hits 1 million downloads - Apple Computer Inc. said that computer users had downloaded more than one million copies of its iTunes digital jukebox software for Windows since its launch Thursday, and that a total of one million digital songs had been purchased at 99 cents in that time. That compares with 1 million songs sold in the first seven days when it introduced the original iTunes for Mac users, according to Apple co-founder and Chief Executive Steve Jobs.
  • Microsoft Ships First SmartPhone in U.S. - AT&T Wireless has begun selling Motorola's MPx200, the first smart phone based on Microsoft software to be sold in the U.S. The MPx200 runs Microsoft's Windows Mobile Smartphone 2002 software and costs $299 when bought with an AT&T Wireless plan. The phone is available at AT&T Wireless stores as well as Best Buy and CompUSA, according to Microsoft. In Europe, the MPx200 will be available soon and sold by a number of operators, Suwanjindar adds.
  • Microsoft Works Suite 2004: The Annual Enhancement -  At the core of the five-CD Microsoft Works Suite 2004 ($99.99 list) is Works 7.0, comprising a database, spreadsheet, calendar, and task launcher. Also included are Encarta Encyclopedia Standard 2004, Money Standard 2004, PictureIt! Photo Premium 9, Streets &Trips 2004, and Word 2002 (not Word 2003, the latest version). Added to the suite are a Task Launcher home page, a project organizer tool, and over 500 new templates. And many of the individual apps are new versions.
  • Gigabyte unveils Nvidia-based graphics cards - Gigabyte Technology today unveiled four graphics cards, in six configurations, powered by Nvidia’s GeForce chip solutions and announced a renewed partnership with Nvidia.
  • Problem hits Western Digital IDE RAID arrays - According to TheInquirer, if you are finding Western Digital EIDE drives drop out of an IDE RAID array after a few days, the firm appears to have the answer. It might only affect you if you have drives shipped before June. All drives since that date are OK. This irritating phenomenon happens because of a feature that cuts idle acoustic noise in desktops in an IDE RAID environment. But WD says there's an easy answer - you can just switch this feature off  :]
  • ATI's Radeon 9800XT 256MB review - ATI's Radeon 9800XT card is the fastest gaming card on the market; I think that's pretty clear. Considering the Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB card was the fastest thing around, the additional GPU and DDR clock speed boosts featured on the 9800XT model are simply icing on the cake. While the performance differences between the old and new ATI GPU's are not large (roughly 5% in most games), it is pretty clear that ATI will continue to hold the lead for the foreseeable future.
  • AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU Review - All in all, Athlon 64 3200+ can be considered a good choice for those users who prefer AMD products. The only thing I have to mention though in conclusion is a questionable situation with the Socket754 platforms. Since the CPUs with a dual-channel memory controller cannot be used in this socket, I expect all Socket754 CPUs to be soon moved into the Budget segment. Therefore, you should consider Socket754 as a solution allowing further upgrade only if you realize that this system will not be able to set any performance records later on.
  • Leadtek K7NCR18D-Pro2 Review - Leadtek's K7NCR18D-ProII boasts NVIDIA's nForce2 Ultra 400 and NVIDIA nForce2 MCP-T, with loads of add on features. This is basically an updated version of Leadtek's original nForce2 board: the K7NCR18D-Pro. The major difference between the two boards is the change in chipset from the regular nForce2 to the nForce2 Ultra400. The only difference between the two is the added support for 400 Mhz front side bus. However, there are some added features on this board compared to the original K7NCR18D-Pro.
  • Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro - The Audigy 2 ZS series has a lot of expectations to deal with; at least in my eyes. Precisely as a lot of the other products that are being released this Autumn,(Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, Radeon 9800/9600 XT, GeForce FX 5700/5950 etc.), we are talking about a so called "refresh". A refresh is, for the uninformed, a relatively small upgrade of an existing technology.
  • Crucial PC3200 Memory Review - Viper's Lair has posted a review on Crucial's PC3200 memory. "Everything was running well so we will go up 1 MHZ at a time until we reached our maximum over clock. As we approached the higher speeds, we had freezing issue, and we had to increase the memory voltage to 2.8v to maintain stability. At 3-4-4-10, I managed a maximum over clock of 236MHz (472MHz DDR), but the ram fails the Memtest86 tests."
  • Aerialix Mini Dipole Antenna -  If you've ever wished for better performance from your notebook's wireless card, Aerialix' Mini Dipole antenna could be the solution you're looking for. But you'll need the right card in order to use it, so check out our review and see if you've got what it needs.
  • Highpoint Rockethead100 SATA Convertor review - TweakNews has posted a review of Highpoint Rockethead100 SATA Convertor & AC Ryan EL SATA Cable.
  • iRiver SlimX iMP-550 CD/MP3 player review  - The quality and features of the iRiver SlimX 550 really stand out. It's"the" CD/MP3 player to get. The form factor is perfect with the ease ofcontrol, great battery life, great sound, and numerous features that putit ahead of anything else out on the market. iRiver continues to achieveexcellence in the SlimX line. With a relatively low price point of$179.99, we believe you will not find a better similarly equipped CDplayer than iRiver's SlimX iMP-550 today.
  • Avixe Portable CD-RW/DVD combo drive Review - Hardware Zoom has posted a review of Avixe Portable CD-RW/DVD combo drive.
  • Dell Inspiron 5100 Review - Modasylum.Com has posted a review on the Dell Inspiron 5100. "This is a great laptop. As long as you are not playing Half Life 2, or rendering graphics all the time, this is a perfect laptop for you. While not the cheepest, and lacking a few of the features other laptops have, its a great value. And Dell is reconized as the world leader in tech support. If you are looking for a sturdy desktop replacement for under $1800, this is perfect for you. I would give it a 9.5, subtracting half a point for the odd layout of the keyboard, but nothing serious, and it just takes a little getting used to."
  • The Athlon Cooler Cometh at 2.8 Ghz and Below Zero Cool - The cooler system had no trouble keeping the CPU die temperature down to a steady, low range between -17°C and -22°C (signal evaluation of the thermal diode). If you're an ambitious user with cash to spare, this is the system for you: nVentiv supplies ready-assembled the barebones plus motherboard (Asus SK8N with NForce-3/150 chip set), processor and power unit. All you have to do is install a suitable graphic card, memory and hard drive and/or drives. nVentiv charges $1,500 or $1,535 for the barebones system available in either silver or black. Our test system with the selected components came to just under $3,256.
  • Speed Strip - Athlon XP Unlocking Device - The Speed Strip is designed only for certain AMD CPUs. Specifically, those whose ID begins with 'AXDA'. You can see below our test chip is an 'AXDA' style 2400 XP+ CPU.
  • Properly Installing More Than One Operating System Together and Multi-booting them - This tutorial is only valid for single hard drive systems (1 hard rive from which you boot)...but with a few changes you could use more hard drives.
  • Beginners Guides: Little Known Features of WindowsXP - PCStats have published a nice WinXP guide for beginners.
  • OpenMex version 0.1 (Alpha) - OpenMex is a tool that can extract (and in the future import) files from a large variety of game archives. Release 0.1 includes support for 138 games, and a fresh new GUI.
  • MSN 9 & MSN Messenger 6.1 Updated  - Today MSN have released another refresh update to the MSN 9 beta. Included in the update is a new version of MSN Explorer 9 and MSN Messenger 6.1. This brings MSN Messenger 6.1 up to build 6.1.0150 and MSN 9 Explorer to 9.00.0010.1601.
  • VirtualDub 1.5.7 - VirtualDub (download) is a video capture and processing program. It features fast capturing, process files larger than the 2 gigabyte limit, optimized for linear editing, support for Motion-JPEG, MPEG-1 video and layer 3 audio, real-time and near-realtime video processing, video job queues, and much more.
  • MAME v0.76 - MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, and currently runs 1800+ classic (and even some not so classic) arcade games.
  • DivX Pro 5.1.1 Beta - DivX (download 5.1beta ~ changelog) is a package that includes all the DivX codec, player, utilities, and documentation that you need to play DivX files. DivX codec is based on the MPEG-4 compression standard. This codec can reduce an MPEG-2 video (DVD format) to ten percent of its original size. They claim that DivX 5.1.1 Beta 1 is 50% faster than DivX 5.1 and 12% faster than DivX 5.0.5.
  • Total Commander 5.51a (Win2K) Update - A new version of the best file manager has been just released. Whats new since the 5.51? After installing Windows security update KB824141, quick search no longer works correctly. They have created a hotfix which contains a workaround to this problem. The hotfix contains just the new program totalcmd.exe and needs to be installed to the same directory as the installed version of Total Commander 5.51.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,21 2003 - tech
Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:31 AM CEST - Oct,21 2003 - Post a comment
  • From cars to medicine, nanotubes may be miracle material - They are stronger than steel and as flexible as plastic, conduct energy better than almost any material ever discovered and can be made from unexotic raw materials such as methane gas. Now the question is whether they can live up to their promise. In a relatively short time, carbon nanotubes--thin tubes of carbon atoms that have unusual characteristics because of their unique structure--have emerged as a miracle material that could revolutionize a number of industries.
  • Water sparks new power source - A new way to generate electricity from water which could be used to power small electronic devices in the future has been developed by Canadian scientists. It could provide new power for chips The researchers have harnessed what happens to water when it is pumped through tiny channels.  The team says its "electrokinetic" battery could be further developed to provide a clean, non-polluting power source that could eventually drive small devices such as mobile phones.  But some experts in the field have cast doubt over its potential as a useful source of power.
  • Nvidia GeForce FX 5950, 5700 to launch Wednesday? - Nvidia's NV38 and NV36 chips will debut this week if claims made by the Taiwanese tech press are to be believed. Commenting on graphics card companies who offer products based on both ATI and Nvidia chips, DigiTimes notes that one such firm, Gigabyte, will announce cards based on the GeForce FX 5950 and GeForce FX 5700 on Wednesday this week.
  • Creative unveils 60GB iPod alternative - Creative has extended its Nomad Jukebox Zen line of hard drive-equipped portable music players with the Xtra - a unit that packs in not only an iPod-beating 60GB hard drive but a new display that addresses one of the key criticisms of older Zens: screen size.
  • Epson Stylus Pro 4000 review - The Epson Stylus Pro 4000 ($1,795 direct) is far and away the best, fastest, most versatile printer in its class, capable of producing superb exhibition-quality photo prints, graphics arts proofs, posters, and just about any other output one could possibly want. With a 17-inch-wide carriage, the printer will barely fit on your desk, but who wouldn't sacrifice desktop real estate for this gem?
  • KingMAX SuperRAM PC3500 DDR433 Memory Review - PCStats has posted a review of KingMAX SuperRAM PC3500 DDR433 Memory
  • The Optical Mice Rat Race Reviewed - The optical mouse sector has become a two-rat rat race, dominated by Microsoft and Logitech. THG tested MS' and Logitech's newest and brightest gear to counter marketing hype with hard testing data. THG has also threw in for good measure performance results for the Razer Boomslang, touted by Terratec as the latest and greatest wireless mouse. For those of us who don't know enough about what optical mice benchmarks mean, but are afraid to ask, we have included an optical mice tutorial.
  • Toshiba e750 Pocket PC - Personal Computing on the Run  - If you aren't a business person you probably won't find enough reasons to justify spending $500 US on this type of device - at least not until Pocket PC's become more mainstream and carry more features such as AM and FM radio, for instance. However, if you are a business person who is on the road a lot and needs all your information in your pocket and to be very accessible with the ability to synchronize important data between the device and your desktop PC, you should not be without the Toshiba e750 Pocket PC.
  • SCSI vs. IDE: Which is really faster? -  If nothing else, everybody agrees on the fact that SCSI is much more expensive than IDE. A reasonable IDE drive ranges from $100 CDN ($75 USD) to $200 CDN ($150 USD), and all motherboards these days come with integrated IDE controllers and the necessary cables. When it comes to SCSI the investment is much higher. After ordering a hard drive, SCSI controller, cable, and terminator, my wallet was $700 CDN ($525 USD) lighter. Before anybody would spend this kind of money he had better be sure that SCSI being faster than IDE is not a myth. So prior to the purchase Dechannel did some testing.
  • Building the Ultimate High-End Gaming Workstation: Stage 1 - Anyone can build a gaming system by following a recipe and buying what everyone else is using. To be at the top-of-your-game at performance system building, you need to understand what you are doing and why. Almost no one has the budget to regularly buy exclusively flagship components but knowing how high-end workstations are designed will help you design a good gaming PC. You'll be able to cut corners and redirect the money toward a graphics card or faster CPU depending on your goals. More importantly, if something goes wrong with your built system, you will have a good idea of where the weak-link in your system is, and what you need to upgrade.
  • WinDVD Platinum 5 review  - DVD software players generally offer better quality and greater ease of use than the standard players bundled with PCs. Players from market leaders CyberLink and InterVideo add Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, DTS audio, and smarter power management. InterVideo's WinDVD Platinum 5 ($69 direct) offers all of these things plus Hyper-Threading and DivX support, optimized display settings for various hardware, and new video effects.
  • Linux Mandrake 9.2 Final - CD1 ~ CD2 ~ CD3, enjoy leeching :)
  • Updated DirectX Redistributable 9.0b - This download provides the end-user Redistributable that developers may include with their product. The redistributable license agreement covers the terms under which developers may use the Redistributable.
  • Remove Hotfix Backup Files 2.0  - Removes Hotfix Backup files and the Add/Remove Programs Registry entries.
  • phpMyAdmin 2.5.4 Final - phpMyAdmin can manage a whole MySQL-server (needs a super-user) but also a single database. To accomplish the latter you'll need a properly set up MySQL-user who can read/write only the desired database.
  • PHP 4.3.4 RC2  - PHP 4.3.4 RC2 (Linux ~ Win32) has been released for testing. This release candidate contains only bug fixes, so it should be quite stable. Please test this release as much as possible, so that any remaining issues can be uncovered and resolved prior to the final release.
  • DOSBox 0.60 - DOSBox is a PC emulator with builtin DOS for running DOS Games primarily.
  • AntiVir Personal Edition 6.22.00.01  - The AntiVir Personal Edition offers the effective protection against computer viruses for the individual and private use on a single PC-workstation. In order to make possible an easy operation, the AntiVir Personal Edition is developed to the essential points.
  • Avant Browser 8.02 Build 107 - Avant Browser (download) is an upgrade to Internet Explorer. Avant Browser is a fast, stable, user-friendly, versatile multi-window browser. Avant Browser is freeware.
  • kX Project Drivers 5.00.3535 - The kX Audio Driver is an independent WDM (Windows Driver Model) driver for all EMU10K1 and EMU10K2-based soundcards manufactured by Creative Technology Ltd. and/or E-mu Sytems Inc., including the SoundBlaster Live! series, the E-mu Audio Production Studio (APS) card, and the Audigy series of cards.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,18 2003 - tech
Saturday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 12:46 PM CEST - Oct,18 2003 - Post a comment / read (2)
  • Microsoft Releases Super Patch for XP - Making good on a promise made last week by Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer to simplify security-patch deployment for companies, Microsoft this week released a consolidated Windows XP update that brings together 22 critical updates into one downloadable package. The new release, known as Update Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows XP, was posted on the Redmond, Washington, company's Windowsupdate.com Web site and includes almost 9MB of security fixes for machines running the operating system.
  • Teen hacker is not guilty - Aaron Caffrey, the teenager hacker accused of crippling the Port of Houston's web-based systems, was found not guilty today. The jury took just three hours to reach their verdict. Prosecution and defence agreed that a DDOS attack had begun from Caffrey's home PC. But Caffrey claimed the evidence against him was planted on his machine by attackers who used an unspecified Trojan to gain control of his PC and launch the assault.
  • RIAA sends letters to 204 individuals saying they will be sued unless they settle - The Recording Industry Association of America has sent letters to 204 individuals saying that they are in line to be sued for copyright infringement. Unlike the last time where the RIAA had issued lawsuits against 261 individuals, this time they have sent out warnings and if the RIAA receive no word back within a period of 10 days, they will be sued.
  • Software engineers - the ultimate brain scientists? - Can software engineers hope to create a digital brain? Not before understanding how the brain works, and that's one of the biggest mysteries left in science. Brains are hugely intricate circuits of billions of elements. We each have one very close by, but can't open it up: it's the ultimate Black Box.  The most famous engineering brain models are "Neural Networks" and "Parallel Distributed Processing." Unfortunately both have failed as engineering models and as brain models, because they make certain assumptions about what a brain should look like.
  • Video games fight phobias - Scared silly of spiders? Horrified by heights? Terrorized by tight spaces? Play a video game -- doctor's orders. Regular, off-the-shelf computer video games are an effective method of treating people's fears, using a style of therapy that exposes people to what scares them in a controlled setting, according to a new study released on Friday.
  • iTunes for Windows may face new piracy threat - Apple's successful music download service iTunes faces a new threat of misuse now that it has been extended to include users of Microsoft's Windows operating system, say experts. The threat comes from the combination of the relatively light copy protection iTunes uses and the big increase of potential hackers that comes with opening up to the world's most common operating system.
  • Datel plans third party Game Boy Player device - UK-based console accessory specialist Datel is set to launch a smaller, lightweight alternative to Nintendo's Game Boy Player on October 24th, allowing gamers to play GBA titles on their GameCubes via the memory card slot. The "Advance Game Port" will cost L29.99 (the GB Player generally retails for L39.99) and acts as a sort of bridge adapter for GBA carts, slotting into a memory card slot and drawing power from the GameCube, and allowing you to play GBA titles on your TV screen using the Cube pad (including the analogue stick) as a controller.
  • Games retailers report dismal first week for N-Gage - Figures from videogame retailers around the UK are showing an extremely low sell-through of Nokia's new N-Gage game deck in its launch week, with fewer than 500 units sold by the 6,000 game stores polled by Chart-Track. Although these figures don't include sales from mobile phone stores, which might well be expected to shift a few units of the N-Gage, they still spell out something of a setback for Nokia's ambitions in the console space. By way of comparison, Nintendo's Game Boy Advance hardware outsold the N-Gage by a ratio of almost 30:1 last week, despite the fact that no key titles launched on the GBA over the course of the week, and that the system is long overdue a price cut. In contrast to this report, the first official statement from Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia on the launch of its N-Gage game deck has claimed that the device is sold out at many retailers following a "very positive" consumer response.
  • VoodooPC preps Athlon 64 gamers' notebook - The Envy m:855 is built around a VIA K8T800 chipset. Its graphics sub-system is driven by an ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 chip with 64MB of video RAM, hooked up to a 15in screen. Since all of VoodooPC's machines are built to order, the company didn't detail memory, hard drive and DVD-RW optical storage, but the HDD it's offering is Hitachi's 7200rpm notebook-friendly Travelstar, probably a 60GB version. The unit includes a built in card reader, an S/P DIF audio port, four USB 2.0 ports, a 1394 connector, 56Kbps modem, 10/100Mbps Ethernet. And a 12-cell battery
  • Graphics card supply chain shuffles - Gigabyte Technology next Wednesday will announce graphics cards powered by Nvidia's GeForce FX5950 (with an NV36 core) and GeForce FX5700 (with an NV38 core) chips, joining Asustek Computer in supplying products based on solutions from both ATI Technologies and Nvidia. Earlier this month, Asustek Computer announced ATI-based graphics cards, supplementing its existing offerings based on Nvidia chips.
  • Interview with ATI's Nils Horstbink - Driver Heaven have posted a brief interview with ATI's desktop product manager Nils Horstbink as he talks about RADEON 9800 XT.
  • Combined GSM/CDMA handset by Xmas - The first phone capable of being used globally on both GSM and CDMA networks will be released by the end of the year.  The MSM6300 chipset has been developed by Qualcomm from a CDMA base and uses the same microprocessor as the CDMA chipset to keep costs and space requirements low.
  • The Logitech diNovo Media Desktop - Logitech introduced a distinctly new cordless mouse-and-keyboard combination - based on Bluetooth wireless technology - that's bound to change how the most discriminating PC enthusiasts will view a keyboard and mouse; for work, for play and for communicating.
  • Connect3D Radeon 9600 128mb Video Card review - LegitReviews has posted a review of Connect3D Radeon 9600 128mb Video Card.
  • PC4000 Memory Roundup - OcPrices.com has posted a PC4000 roundup, with memory from Corsair, Geil, Adata, Mushkin, Kingston and OCZ.
  • Plextor PX-708A review - 4X DVD+R is available everywhere, and Plextor magically made 8X recording work with these media without compromising quality and compatibility. Carrying Plextor's brand name and the ability to burn a fully loaded DVD+R within eight minutes, the PX-708A will be a big hit in the market even its price tag of aorund SGD9 (as of 16 Oct) is more towards the steep side - until a similar yet more affordable product appears, that is.
  • Danger Den Watercooling Kit Review - The CPU waterblock that comes with this kit is the Maze 4 which is the successor to the Maze 3 which was a really good block. This Maze 4 is designed to be used on socket A systems but you can change the top to work with Socket 478 setups. The block itself is made of pure copper which is the best material that can be used for cooling and the top is made of Lucite which is laser cut. The barbs on this block are chrome which look really cool especially compared to the standard brass or polypropylene ones.
  • Garmin iQue 3600 review - DevHardware has posted a review of the Garmin iQue 3600, the first PDA with an integrated GPS.  "After much fanfare, Garmin, makers of GPS systems for the military, avionics, and general consumer industries, finally began to ship its much anticipated iQue 3600, the first Palm OS PDA with an integrated GPS. Fortunately, I was one of the first to own Garmin?s newest offering, after an excursion to Alexandria, Virginia took me to Navtech Seminars & GPS Supply. Today I? ll be reviewing that unit to see whether it is indeed worth its hefty MSRP $589 (USD) price tag."
  • Cinebench 2003 Ratings - This page is for all those who want to see the Cinebench 2003 results in CB Rating instead of time in seconds.
  • Building the Ultimate Gaming PC - Puget Systems has published an article called "Building the Ultimate Gaming PC".
  • Make your own Electronic Lock with Key Card - This is an "Advanced" guide, you may not be able to get the same parts as I did. The locking circuit has already been tested and works with all the parts listed. If you cannot get the same parts, I recommend having a multi-tester, although an oscilloscope is going to be the best choice since you're going to be able to see exactly what's happening. It's important to read everything in this guide, so if you're having some troubles you may be able to check what's wrong. Knowledge about electronics and digital logic will definitely help you. You will also have to find an optoisolator that fits the circuit and your motherboard (Voltage and Amperage), since the original project I did used a relay and I couldn't test it with an optoisolator. Don't be scared by all you've just read, keep reading.
  • Benchmarking With Halo PC  -  The Xbox and a PC are not as identical as some would have you believe. There are differences between the platforms in DirectX, and the unified memory architecture of the Xbox can make programming for it quite a bit different than for a PC. Thus, Gearbox actually had a lot more to do in porting Halo than simply allowing the game to run at any resolution and tossing in mouse and keyboard support. Most of the game's shader effects have been rewritten, utilizing a variety of code paths to support everything from fixed-function graphics pipelines to the latest 2.0 shaders in DX9. This makes it an interesting graphics test, if only because there are so few games that utilize 2.0 shaders at all. In the 2.0 shader path, Halo does utilize partial-precision hints, allowing GeForce FX cards to operate using faster 16-bit floating point operations.
  • DirectX 9.1 and GFX golden combo - Guru3D is reporting that "Quite an interesting tidbit of news can be found at the French PC Inpact website. This site claims that DirectX9.1 opens up a new bag of tricks in favor for NVIDIA's GeForce FX. As you know Shader 2.0 performance on DX9 has been the achilles heel of the GFX series bigtime. The site figures that Shader performance can get boosted upto 60% in favor of the GeForce FX series. Read that again, upto 60% better Shader performance, not overall performance!"
  • FeedDemon 1.0 RC-1  - FeedDemon enables you to quickly explore the world of RSS from your desktop without having to visit hundreds of sites. Written by Nick Bradbury, creator of TopStyle and HomeSite, FeedDemon makes RSS as easy to access as your email.
  • VisualBoy Advance 1.7 Beta2 - Visual Boy Advance (download) is a Game Boy Advance and Game Boy emulator that runs with Windows systems.
  • DAEMON Tools 3.41 - This new version 3.41 (download) is already two weeks old, but I forgot to mention it here. The new version adds support for *.pdi files (Instant CD/DVD) and plugin support for mounting 3rd party images.
  • PowerStrip 3.46 Build 422 - PowerStrip (download) provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest Radeon 9700DV and Matrox Parhelia.
  • Real Alternative 1.10 - Real Alternative will allow you to play RealMedia files. This way you can play RealMedia files without having to install RealPlayer/RealOne Player. You do need a player that is capable of playing RealMedia.
  • K-Lite Codec Pack 2.10 Final  - The K-Lite Codec Pack contains everything you need to be able to playback the most popular audio and video formats. The basic version contains all the codecs that are needed for playing most movies that can be downloaded from the Internet. The full version has some extra codecs which are used less often and includes a media player. In the basic version 3ivx is used to playback XviD, 3ivx and MPEG4.
  • SecureCRT 4.0.9 - SecureCRT (download) gives you an encrypted SSH session with both SSH1 and SSH2 servers. SSH security goes far beyond the basic secure logon, rerouting data or local applications using TCP/IP ports through an encrypted channel.
  • AIDA32 3.85 - AIDA32 (download) is a professional system information, diagnostics and benchmarking program running on Win32 platforms. It extracts details of all components of the PC. It can display information on the screen, print it, or save it to file in various formats like HTML, CSV or XML. For corporate users, AIDA32 offers command-line switches, network audit and audit statistics, remote system information and network management.
  • CrystalCPUID 2.0.11.20 - Japanese software called CrystalCPUID is becoming the star of some threads, thanks to a new integrated feature, named LoveHammer, said to be able to change Athlon 64's, and also some Athlon XP, multiplier directly under Windows. (thanks Warp2Search)
  • The Official Catalyst 3.8 Problems - As many of you may have already read on various community forums that the 3.8's are overheating video cards (foremost Radeon 9800 Pro cards), along with monitors burning out. Terry Makedon, Senior Software Manager at ATI, has sent out the following notice: "1) Overheating. We have spent a great deal of time analyzing the temperatures due to the CATALYST 3.8 drivers. We do not under any circumstance see anything near a 10 degree Celsius increase in temperature (but we don't overclock our test cards either). We do see a slight increase in temperature in certain cases (3Dmark2003 Nature Scene for example). However any temperature increase is well within our safety range.Investigation continues and we are trying to determine why this change intemperature exits  2) Monitors. We have spent a great deal of time trying to reproducethis problem and analyzing the driver code. There is nothing to be found. At this point we are working very closely with an ATI Beta Tester who experienced a monitor loss. There have been zero reports in our customer support of monitors dying." (thanks NVNews)
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,17 2003 - tech
Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:43 AM CEST - Oct,17 2003 - Post a comment / read (3)
  • Microsoft plans Windows overhaul to fight hackers - Stung by criticism over lax software security, Microsoft Corp. disclosed plans Thursday to update its flagship Windows operating systems early in 2004 to make consumers less vulnerable to hackers. Microsoft said the changes, announced by chief executive Steve Ballmer during a trade conference in New Orleans, will be offered free in the next "service pack" update to users of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 software, the company's latest versions for consumers and businesses.
  • Microsoft Debuts First Windows XP Security Pack - Microsoft has unveiled the first Windows XP security rollup, a collection of 22 previously-available patches for that operating system. Update Rollup 1, which has been in beta testing for the past month, is being positioned by Microsoft as a more convenient way for users to deploy patches they might have missed when the original vulnerabilities -- and associated security bulletins -- were posted on the company's Web site. When discussion of the Rollup first started, analysts saw it as an attempt by Microsoft to provide an interim pack of security updates prior to the release of a second Service Pack for Windows XP, which at that point wasn't expected until the middle of 2004.
  • Beefed-up firewall, new version of Update for XP SP2 - The nature of the mysterious components of the 'security update' to ship with Windows XP Service Pack 2 is becoming clearer, and SP2 itself could be becoming nearer. Steve Ballmer told us approximately what the update was supposed to do, but not how, in his security manifesto last week, but Paul Thurrott has some specifics, the most important being that the update to the built-in firewall will include features from Microsoft Internet Security & Acceleration Server, including outbound scanning capabilities.
  • Prescott set for 90-100W power draw - Intel - 'Prescott' will never exceed 100W of power dissipation, Intel said today, in a bid to keep the heated debate over the as-yet-unlaunched Pentium processor's thermal characteristics from bubbling over. That marks the first time the company has come clean and put a precise figure - well, a pair of figures - on the next-generation processor's heat-generating potential.
  • SiS launches 800MHz dual channel chipset - the SiS655TX - Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) today announced the release of the SiS655TX for the popular 800MHz FSB (front-side bus) standard, representing SiS's highest-level dual-channel product supporting the Intel Pentium 4 platform.
  • The Radeon 9600 XT  - ATi has revamped its mid-range 9600 XT graphics card only a few days after ATi introduced its latest high-end Radeon 9800 XT. What does this card offer that its predecessor does not? And how does it measure up against its rivals from.
  • ZyXEL ZyAIR B-4000 Wireless LAN Hot Spot review - Anyone who wants to run their own, independent pay-for wireless "hotspot" can now get into the game. ZyXEL's B-4000 Wireless Service Gateway bundles everything you need into one convenient package - even the printer for customer receipts! It's a decent solution for its intended application, but it has some important limitations.
  • Adobe Photoshop CS - After many awards and becoming a raving succcess, Adobe have upgraded there desktop digital imaging program Adobe Photoshop. It is said that there are hundreds of new features and improvements.
  • DVD Plus Identifier v3.0 - Since the packaging of a disc is not a reliable way of identifying it (e.g. different brands can still have the same manufacturer and some discs don't even have any labeling whatsoever) "DVD Plus Identifier" now offers a 100% reliable method to distinguish between discs.
  • WinAmp 5 Beta 1 - Winamp 5.0 is the latest version of the groundbreaking media player that helped start the MP3 revolution
  • Avant Browser 8.02 Build 106 - Avant Browser is a custom Web browser application based on Internet Explorer with versatile multi-window support. It allows users to browse multiple Web sites simultaneously and block all unwanted pop-up pages.
  • Nero SIPPS 2.0.43.11 - SIPPS offers the comfort of modern ISDN phones and more. The integrated answering machine with a remote inquiry feature, call forwarding and conference calls are only a few of the features that make using it a pleasure. IT lets you freely choose from a number of different user interfaces ('skins'), custom ringing tones, a variety of answering machine messages, offers MSN Messenger support, and much more.
  • Apple QuickTime 6.4 -  QuickTime 6.4 is availble for download. Built on MPEG-4 and powered by QuickTime, 3GPP extends the reach of rich multimedia to a new generation of handheld wireless devices. As the first widely distributed, freely available multimedia technology to deliver 3GPP capabilities, QuickTime enables users all over the world to share 3GPP content with others via both computers and mobile devices.
  • Fresh Diagnose 6.40 - Fresh Diagnose (download) is an utility designed to analyze and benchmark your computer system. It can analyze and benchmark many kinds of hardware, such as CPU performance, hard disk performance, video system information, mainboard information and more.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,16 2003 - tech
Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:00 AM CEST - Oct,16 2003 - Post a comment / read (1)
  • Security Flaw Found in Hotmail - The new security flaw, known as a cross-site scripting vulnerability, could be used to create an Internet worm that steals e-mail addresses from Hotmail users' accounts, captures credit card numbers, or installs Trojan horse programs, Finjan said. The vulnerability exists in the way that Hotmail treats e-mail containing ActiveX controls, which are small, portable pieces of software code that enable programmers to embed sophisticated user interface elements into Web pages for use over a corporate intranet or the Internet. Hotmail content filters do not adequately block e-mail messages containing the controls, Finjan said.
  • DoS attack warning for Windows 2000/XP - ISS warned that the flaw affects PCs even with the most current Windows patches installed, including computers patched against the devastating RPC flaw described in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS03-039. According to ISS, the DoS vulnerability exists by exploiting the race condition, allowing attackers to crash the Microsoft RPC service and/or force vulnerable systems to reboot. But the firm added that "significant barriers exist" which may prevent reliable exploitation outside controlled lab conditions. ISS said that Microsoft has not yet released a patch for the vulnerability, and urged network administrators to assess external exposure to vulnerabilities associated with Microsoft services running on ports 135, 137, 138, 139, 445 and 593 on both the network perimeter and VPN connections.
  • Microsoft releases monthly security fixes - Microsoft released its first monthly security update on Wednesday, following a new schedule that attempts to ease the load on overburdened system administrators. The first update consists of five vulnerabilities 824141 / 825119 / 828035 / 826232 (Win2k only)/ 823182) deemed "critical" by the software giant, the top rating that Microsoft assigns to security flaws,
  • Microsoft pushes up XP security upgrade - At the Citrix iForum in Florida on Tuesday, Microsoft's corporate vice president of content, Richard Kaplan, who is in charge of the Microsoft.com and Windows Update Web sites, told delegates that Windows XP SP2 would be available by the end of the year. The service pack was originally planned for this year, but had been put back to 2004.
  • Off-topic: China prepares to welcome first space hero - China's first ever astronaut is scheduled to return to Earth at about 0600 Chinese time on Thursday (2200 GMT, Wednesday), after 21 hours orbiting the Earth. The parachute-assisted landing should bring the Shenzhou V ("divine vessel") spacecraft carrying Yang Liwei to touch down in the Gobi desert. China became only the third nation to send a man into space when 38-year-old lieutenant colonel Yang was launched at 0100 GMT on Wednesday. His craft entered orbit 10 minutes later.
  • Efficeon TM8000 processor Launched - Transmeta today launched the Efficeon TM8000 processor, a new high-performance low-power x86-compatible CPU. This processor is aimed at ultra-portable deviced and mainstream laptops, they also suggest usage in tabled PC's, ultra-presonal computers, silent computers. This processor stays within the thermal limit of 7W, so it can be used in fanless computer system designs. Efficeon is a high-performance, low-power x86-compatible processor, based upon a new silicon microarchitecture and also a redesigned version of Transmeta's Code MorphingR Software. The microarchitecture is based on a 256-bit VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word) processor that can issue up to 8 internal instructions per clock cycle. When combined with the new Efficeon Code Morphing Software, it provides full compatibility with modern x86 software, including MMX, SSE and SSE2 multimedia instructions.
  • Maxtor Technique Pushes Hard Drive Capacity - Perpendicular recording is not a new concept, and it's not unique to Maxtor. But the announcement is significant because the company claims it can incorporate the new technology without retooling its manufacturing process or raising costs significantly. Maxtor is not yet disclosing plans to produce disks with the new technology, but executives at MMC say it could occur by the end of 2004. Initial capacities could reach 175GB per hard drive platter--up from 80GB per platter today, says MMC vice president of research and development Ken Johnson. (Competitor Seagate recently announced 100GB platters.) Maxtor is currently the capacity leader in desktop-style (ATA) hard drives--using four platters to produce a 300GB drive. With 175GB platters, 700GB drives would be possible.
  • WiMax Promises Broadband Breakthrough - WiMax, also known as 802.16a, is a wireless networking standard that offers greater range and bandwidth than the Wi-Fi family of standards, which includes 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g. Whereas Wi-Fi is intended to provide coverage within a relatively small area, such as an office or a hotspot, WiMax can transfer data at around 70 megabits per second over a distance of 30 miles to thousands of users from a single base station.
  • Is Bluetooth Dead? - According to EETiemes, Bluetooth is toast, finished, over. Stick a fork in it. It's done.
  • New Internet speed record set - CERN, whose laboratories straddle the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, said it had sent 1.1 Terabytes of data at 5.44 gigabits a second (Gbps) to a lab at the California Institute of Technology, or Caltech, on October 1. This is more than 20,000 times faster than a typical home broadband connection, and is also equivalent to transferring a 60-minute compact disc within one second -- an operation that takes around eight minutes on standard broadband.
  • AMD sets date for son of Opteron - The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company is "working like crazy" on the K9, an underlying architecture, or blueprint, for a new generation of chips, said Fred Weber, chief technology officer of AMD's computational products group, during an interview at the Microprocessor Forum here Wednesday. Chips based on the K9 architecture will likely be released--at least in sample quantities--by the second half of 2005, Weber said. AMD engineer Randy Allen is overseeing the project.
  • Microsoft adds new flavors of server OS - The software maker said it has started allowing some developers access to a test, or beta, version of Windows Server 2003 for 64-bit extended systems that support the AMD64 architecture. A public beta is planned soon, although release of the final version has been pushed back until the second half of 2004.
  • Bill Gates: "Longhorn is going to be late" - Bill Gates yesterday confirmed that there is no official release date yet for the next version of Windows, named Longhorn. "Longhorn could be 2005 or 2006," Gates told a small group of journalists yesterday at the TechNet/MSDN seminar in The Hague. "This release is going to be driven by technology, not by a release date. Which probably means it is going to be late."
  • IDF Taiwan : PCI Express Galore - VR-Zone has posted a sneak peek on some of the interesting stuffs showcased during IDF Taiwan.
  • ATI TV WonderT Pro Remote Control Edition Card (video-review) - 3D Game Man has posted a video-review of ATI TV WonderT Pro Remote Control Edition Card.
  • Radeon 9600 XT vs. GeForce FX 5700 - Hexus.net has posted a new review of Radeon 9600 XT video card. The review includes benchmarks for Nvidia's NV36 aka GeForce FX 5700 (Detonators 52.16) against ATI's 9600XT (Catalyst 3.8 ) using 3DMark2001SE v330 , 3DMark03 v330 , Quake 3 v1.30 , Aquamark 3 and Unreal Tournament 2003.
  • NVIDIA nForce3 120 Preview - The nForce3 120 will be featured in the new, super-cool, every-geek's-dream-gadget, Ultra Portable Computers (UPC).
  • ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Volt Modification Guide - Madshrimps take the ATI Radeon 9800pro graphic's card under their wings and give it a few tweaks and modifications to push it far beyond any graphic's card currently on the market to take your PC gaming over the edge.
  • BIOS Guide Revision 8.0 Interim Release 5 - Adrian let us know he has updated his premier BIOS optimization guide to 8.0 Interim Release 5.
  • Security Update for Microsoft Windows (KB824141) -  A vulnerability exists (WinXP patch) because the ListBox control and the ComboBox control both call a function, which is located in the User32.dll file, that contains a buffer overrun.
  • Update Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows XP (KB826939) - Microsoft has released Update Rollup 1 (download) for Microsoft Windows XP. An update rollup is a cumulative set of hotfixes, security patches, critical updates, and updates that are packaged together for easy deployment. Update Rollup 1 for Windows XP is a single package that includes many previously released critical updates for Windows XP.
  • Easy CD-DA Extractor 6.2.0 - Easy CD-DA extractor make great-sounding direct digital copies from audio compact discs with Easy CD-DA Extractor. Easy CD-DA Extractor includes tools for direct digital audio copying from Audio CDs, file format conversions, and Audio CD recording.
  • Mozilla 1.5 Final -  Mozilla is an open-source Web browser, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability. New Features and FixesMozilla now includes a spellchecker for MailNews and Composer (what's new)
  • Firebird 0.7  Final - Mozilla Firebird is a speedy, full-featured browser that makes browsing more efficient than ever before.
  • Thunderbird 0.3 Final - Mozilla Thunderbird is a redesign of the Mozilla mail component. Thunderbird focused solely on stand alone mail. The focus of this third milestone release is on bug fixing and performance.
  • CPU-Z 1.20 - CPU-Z is a diagnostic tool that provides all information on your CPU, including: processor name and vendor, core stepping and process, processor package, internal and external clocks, clock multiplier, etc.
  • RAR 3.20 for Pocket PC - Pocket RAR is a version of the RAR archiver for the Pocket PC 2002 platform.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,14 2003 - tech
Tuesday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:56 PM CEST - Oct,14 2003 - Post a comment / read (3)
  • Historic photo archive available on the Web - A collection of more than 12 million photographs, capturing scenes from the Boer War to the D-Day landings, was published on the Internet yesterday. The images, which date back to the turn of the 20th century, have been captured from the archives of the British Pathé newsreel, a cinema news service that predated television. The unique collection has been created by rescanning every inch of the archive's 3,500 hours of 35mm film.
  • Martial arts robots hit Asian tech fair  - Humanoid robots capable of performing somersaults and complex martial arts moves were demonstrated at Asia's largest electronics and computing fair in Tokyo on Saturday. Visitors to CEATEC 2003 met Morph3, a human-like robot about 30-centimetres tall developed by researchers at the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan. It can perform back flips and karate moves thanks to 138 pressure sensors, 30 different onboard motors and 14 computer processors.
  • Super-Radar, Done Dirt Cheap  - Any technology can be a two-edged sword. Cell phones are a good example. They're clearly a great convenience, even a life-saving tool during natural disasters and medical emergencies. And they should save many more lives under the Federal Communications Commission's enhanced 911 mandate, which requires that cell phones relay their precise locations to 911 operators.
  • Israel slams the door on Microsoft - The Israeli Ministry of Commerce has suspended all governmental contracts with Microsoft, and indicated that the ban will last throughout 2004. The de facto suspension means no upgrades for the duration, at a time when Microsoft is looking to roll out its Office 2003 upgrade; and the Ministry is said to be examining OpenOffice as an alternative. It's a consequence of a much-anticipated legal verdict: Israeli Antitrust Authority director general Dror Strum has finally acknowledged that Microsoft is a monopoly.
  • A Storage Tank Like No Other  - IBM's new data storage system, codenamed Storage Tank, is designed for the most voracious data warehouser. Storage Tank uses software to link servers in multiple locations over an IP network, creating a sort of mega-server capable of connecting thousands of computers and processing multiple petabytes of data. Storage Tank also makes a distributed storage network look and behave just like a local network. No matter where or on what operating system any piece of stored data might reside, it can be located quickly and used by anyone else on the network.
  • China Gets on the Grid - The China Education and Research Grid, which is being built in conjunction with IBM, will have a computational power of 6 trillion FLOPS by 2005, according to IBM. This number is expected to eventually increase to 15 trillion FLOPS, making the China grid one of the largest grids in the world.
  • Intel Tejas delayed until 2005 - Intel's 'Tejas' processor, the successor to the as-yet-unreleased 'Prescott', will now not be released until 2005 rather than late next year. However, the 130nm Northwood core Pentium 4 won't last as long as previously planned. The shift is a result of the 90nm Prescott being moved back from Q4 2003 to Q1 2004. Last August, Intel was saying 3.2GHz and 3.4GHz Prescotts would be shipping in volume in the current quarter.
  • Motorola Expands Into Flat-Screen TV Business - Mobile phone giant Motorola Inc has signed a deal with a Hong Kong firm to make flat-screen televisions and computer displays, adding another player to the fast-growing industry. Analysts expected global demand for liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs to hit 31.9 million units by 2007, compared with 1.7 million units in 2002.
  • 3-D Without the Glasses  - The Sharp Actius RD3D is the first 3-D notebook ($3.299) that does not require special glasses; Sharp's 3-D TFT display controls the way light leaves the screen so that left and right eyes see separate images that composite into one 3-D whole. The display can also be switched to a standard 2-D for normal viewing. The notebook comes equipped with the nVidia GeForce 4 440 Go graphics processor and the 2.8-GHz Pentium 4 processor to power the 3-D applications. Sharp is bundling three titles with the RD3D: James Bond 007: Nightfire, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003, and Need For Speed Hot Pursuit
  • Acer presents Ferrari 3000 notebook - Acer, an official supplier to the Scuderia Ferrari racing team, has introduced a limited edition Ferrari 3000 notebook featuring a 15-inch display, according to the company. Powered by an Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) processor, the Ferrari 3000 will adopt the ATI Radeon mobility 9200 graphics solution, 128MB video memory, 512MB DDR RAM, 60GB hard drive and a DVD-Dual drive. It will also support wireless connectivity (IEEE 802.11g and Bluetooth) and standard LAN and modem connections. Other features include an IEEE 1394 interface and 4-in-1 memory card reader, according to Acer. The Ferrari 3000 is expected to be priced at about US$1,999 and will be available through Acer's channel retail stores worldwide in November.
  • Pioneer Amplifies Windows Media 9 - The amplifier, the VSA-AX10Ai-N, can play back Windows Media 9 Professional-encoded files when connected to a personal computer using the Sony/Philips Digital Interface, according to the statement. This is a digital interface format that can be used to stream digital audio data between two supporting devices without the usual conversion to analog. This means no data is lost in conversion and also copy-protection information is not discarded.
  • Cheap Leadtek WinFast A350 TDH LX - A new model from Leadtek that we obtained for our lab tests - WinFast A350 TDH LX - excited our keen interest due to its rather nice features at the relatively low price. Priced $100 less than usual FX5900 products, i.e. about $300 just has some slower memory, but the same 5900 GPU! But Digit-Life tests indicated that overclocking can provide you speed comparable with GeForce FX5900 cards.
  • Radeon 9800XT review - The Radeon 9800 XT features a clock speed of 416MHz up from 380MHz of the Radeon 9800 Pro and 325MHz of the Radeon 9700 Pro. Through heavy testing and refinement of their .15 micron process they've been able to increase the clock speed with their latest part comfortably and additionally a memory clock speed of 365MHz. The main architecture though of the chipset has not seen any significant changes
  • Tyan Tachyon G9600 Pro 128MB review - Hexus.net has posted a review of the Tyan Tachyon G9600 Pro 128MB, the card made by the US based 'server' board maker - do they manage to bring something different to the equation?
  • Ximeta Netdisk 80GB review - The Ximeta NetDisk retails for $199 but can be found for as little as $179 online. The product comes packaged in a full retail box, which is surprising as the drive is not really aimed at the retail sector. According to reader comments, there''s ONE huge problem: When in NDAS mode, only ONE workstation can use (both read&write) the drive at a time. If you want to share the drive, the other workstation has to use the system tray utility to switch to read-only mode, then you use the system tray utility to switch to read-write.
  • Stardock WindowBlinds 4.1 Windows GUI Customization Software Review - Tweaknews has posted a review of Stardock WindowBlinds 4.1 Windows GUI Customization Software.
  • GameCube Network Loader Runs Homebrew Games -  A new network loader has been released which allows you to execute retail code by exploiting a known bug in Sega's online game, Phantasy Star Online. In addition, the Warp Pipe Project released a specification that contains, and links to, detailed information regarding the protocol Nintendo has chosen to use in order to allow the GameCube to play over a LAN. If you own GameCube, definitely visit this website. (thanks Be Vigilant)
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 "Kmixer.sys Crash" Patch - This update fixes a problem on your Windows 2000-based computer. When you try to play music, the computer stops responding and you receive the following error on a blue screen: Stop: 0x0000001E (0xC0000090 0xB73B4CF3 0x00000000 0xED27F6F4) Kmode_Exception_Not_Handled Address B73B4CF3 base at B7397000 Datestamp 3829162e - Kmixer.sys After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.
  • Latest Windows XP patches from Year 2003 - OnlyNewz let us know they have posted a list of updates and fixes for Windows XP.
  • mIRC v6.12  - mIRC v6.12 has been released to address a remote vulnerability found yesterday, capable of crashing your mIRC. The vulnerability affects versions of mIRC from v6.0 onwards, so it is highly recommended that you upgrade to mIRC v6.12.
  • Paint Shop Pro 8.10 - Paint Shop Pro (download trial) takes image editing to a new level of functionality and ease of use. Designed for users who want control, power, and flexibility, Paint Shop Pro delivers the tools you need to easily capture, create, enhance, and optimize your graphics projects.
  • FotoFusion 2.1 - FotoFusion (trial) is an elegant application enabling the swift creation of photorealistic "scrapbooks" from your image collection. Create collages in seconds, then share them as directly-embedded images in email or as hyperlinked web pages. Print to multiple pages to create poster-size masterpieces, or export at extremely high resolution for futher work in other image editing packages.
  • MAME v0.75 - MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. When used in conjunction with a game's data files (ROMs), MAME will more or less faithfully reproduce that game on a PC. MAME can currently emulate over 1900 unique (and over 3300 in total) classic arcade video games from the three decades of video games - '70s, '80s and '90s.
  • DVD2SVCD 1.2.1 Build 3 - Freeware DVD2SVCD is a completely automated frontend for converting DVD, PVA and AVI files to SVCD.
  • Divx Light Decoder v5.1 - Tired of downloading more than 5 MegaBytes to read DivX movies? The DivX codec don't fit on your CD with your 700MB movie ? Download DivXLight Decoder 5.1 (250kb only).
  • 1by1 1.40 - 1by1 is a very small sized player which is not only small: It plays whole directories without any playlist. Navigating through your tracks has never been so easy.  Available too: 1by1 command set for IRAssistant, a nice tool to control applications with an IR remote controller, mpglib.dll: Decoding library for MPEG Layer III and Layer II.
  • WinAce v2.59 - WinAce (download) is an archiving utility with an easy-to-use interface for creating, extracting, and viewing archives. It includes built-in compression for ACE, ZIP, LHA, and MS-CAB formats, and built-in decompression for ACE, ZIP, LHA, MS-CAB, RAR, ARJ, ARC, GZIP, TAR, and ZOO formats.
  • Neutral Catalyst ATIPower Pack v2.1.6.7 - Neutral Catalyst (French website) are alternative drivers for ATI video cards. They are developed (like Omega drivers) with official Catalyst 3.8.
  • Software Mod For Turning Your Radeon 9500 Non-Pro Into A 9700 - The Software Mod For Turning Your Radeon 9500 Non-Pro Into A 9700 , 9800SE and 9800 PRO guide has been updated for combination with the Catalyst 3.8 drivers.  If the softmod succeeds your card will behave exactly like a 9700 and 9800 PRO (8 pipelines, 256bit bus) card. (thanks Warp2Search)
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,13 2003 - tech
Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:57 AM CEST - Oct,13 2003 - Post a comment
  • A Next-Generation DirectX 9.0 Game Graphics Performance Preview - X-Bit Labs managed to obtain a copy of a highly-anticipated DirectX 9.0 game utilizing modern technologies like Pixel Shaders and Vertex Shaders 2.0. Fortunately, the title allows benchmarking and they could not miss the opportunity to benchmark the RADEON and GeForce FX graphics cards under hardcore load.
  • Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX Barebones Special - Compiling more than 100 motherboards for AMD Athlon 64 (95) and AMD Athlon 64 FX (6) wasn't enough for AMDboard's monks, and they are now torturing eyes and fingers for the sake of making a compilation of the latest AMD Athlon 64 barebones.
  • LeadTek GeForceFX 5900 Ultra Review - LeadTek's Winfast A350 TDH Ultra myVIVO card, which sports the dynamically fast GeForceFX 5900 Ultra chipset, is the true behemoth of video cards on the market today. With an attractive bundle and top marks for benchmarking, this is the nVIDIA card of choice for gamers and enthusiasts.
  • XFX FX5600 Ultra 128MB DDR DVI & VIVO (video-review) - The XFX FX5600 Ultra 128MB Video Card supports dual display, video in/out and many other advanced features. This enables users to enjoy gaming and work more productively. While this product is not the fastest in the nVIDIA lineup it is very stable, overclocks and performs well. If you are ready for an affordable Video Card upgrade then keep this product at the top of your list. Watch the Video to find out more.
  • Vantec Fan & Power Supply Vibration Dampener Kit Reviews -  If you are being bothered by the noise levels of your fans or vibrations of the case caused by fans then this product can definitely help you. Placing it on the interface between a fan and a window might obstruct the aesthetics of an LED fan or colored fan body, but on the case itself this concept works great with no visible differences. If you need to reduce the noise levels of your fans this product might work for you. The risk is well worth the investment as these dampeners are very reasonably priced. I feel comfortable in recommending the Vantec Vibration Dampeners.
  • Maxtor Maxboost utility *beta* - MaxBoost (download) is performance-boosting driver software for Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP that is designed to complement your Maxtor ATA or SATA hard drive. The MaxBoost driver intelligently caches data in the host system RAM before it is written to and read from the Maxtor disk drive, optimizing the effective storage speed of your system in a variety of applications.
  • Media Player Classic 6.4.6.7 - Media Player Classic (download WinXP/2k ~ Win9x/ME) is similar to windows media player 6.4 but with features pertained to minimalist advanced users. It also supports DirectX 9 and VFW drivers for capture. It supports viewing through ActiveX controls of Real and QuickTime files.
  • DVD2SVCD 1.2.1 Build 2 - Freeware DVD2SVCD is a completely automated frontend for converting DVD, PVA and AVI files to SVCD.
  • CPUCooL 7.2.8 - CPUCooL is a program that monitors temperature, fan speed and voltages for many motherboards. It works with all chipsets from Intel, ALI, VIA, AMD and SiS 5595 motherboards.
  • jv16 PowerTools 1.4.1 Final - Jv16 PowerTools (download trial) provides the best solutions to maximize the performance of your PC. You can diagnose, monitor and tune up your computer, and it's easier you would ever believe! The program contains advanced tools for your computer.
  • NVIDIA Detonator Drivers v45.33 WHQL - NVIDIA have released a new set of Detonator drivers v45.33 for their Personal Cinema GeForce FX products. They also offer new certified Quadro driver v45.28.
  • Omega Driver Catalyst 3.9 - Omega has released an updated version of his Driver based on leaked Catalyst driver that came from Dell.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,11 2003 - tech
Saturday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 03:57 PM CEST - Oct,11 2003 - Post a comment / read (10)
  • Student sued over CD piracy study? - A US student is being sued for showing how to get around anti-piracy technology on a new music CD. Princeton graduate John Halderman published a paper online showing how to defeat the copy-protection software by pressing a single computer key. This has angered the company behind the software, SunnComm Technologies, which is now planning to sue him. Mr Halderman found that SunnComm's MediaMax CD-3 software could be bypassed by simply holding down the shift key on a Windows PC when a copy-protected CD was inserted into a disc drive. However according to this related story, SunnComm announced they won't sue grad student :) SunnComm CEO Peter Jacobs acknowledged his threat to file a lawsuit was a mistake.
  • Police warn world of UK domain scammer - Cambridgeshire Police has taken the unprecedented step of issuing a global warning about St Neots-based Dot Com Avenue. Trading as service provider, the company is believed to have raked in hundreds of thousands of pounds by offering to pre-register .eu domain names for companies. But many companies contacted are not eligible for the suffix, and .eu domains cannot in any case be pre-registered.
  • Off-topic - Top 10 Files Valve Doesn't Want You to See - Don't expect some serious informantion, just a parody.
  • "Subversive" code could kill off software piracy - Software pirates who make illegal copies of a particular computer game are finding the games companies are coming up with a radical new anti-copying strategy.  Illegally copied games protected by the system work properly at first, but start to fall apart after the player has had just enough time to get hooked. As a result, the pirated discs actually encourage people to buy the genuine software, the developers say. The new protection system, called Fade, is being introduced by Macrovision, a company in Santa Clara, California, that specialises in digital rights management, and the British games developer Codemasters, based in Leamington Spa. It makes unauthorised copies of games slowly degrade, so that cars no long steer, guns cannot be aimed and footballs fly away into space. But by that time the player has become addicted to the game.
  • NASA's laser-powered model plane takes flight - NASA gave wing to a small model plane powered entirely by laser light, in what it believed was the first laser-powered flight, the US space agency announced. The 300-gram plane, with a 1.5-metre wingspan, was powered entirely by an invisible laser beam emanating from the ground, which followed the plane in flight and directed its energy toward photovoltaic cells that feed the plane's propeller. "The craft could keep flying as long as the energy source - in this case, the laser beam - is uninterrupted. This is the first time that we know of that a plane has been powered only by the energy of laser light," Robert Burdine, the laser project manager for the test, said.
  • Robotic pets, futuristic TVs, and digital video devices debut - Gone are the days when your PC was solely for work and your TV was the source of most of your entertainment. Convergence is the hot watchword, and several new devices prove the case. Looking for a way to transfer digital video from your PC to your TV? Want a stand-alone device with new uses for memory cards? It's all here.
  • Intel preps 1MB cache 130nm Pentium 4s - Intel intends to charge a whopping $925 for its Pentium 4 Extreme Edition - the recently announced 3.2GHz part with 2MB of on-die L3 cache. And the chip giant plans to offer regular Pentium 4 chips with 1MB of cache to expand the number of high-end desktop parts it offers before the arrival of 'Prescott', its next-generation P4 chip.
  • Microsoft Plans Broadband TV Software - Continuing its push into the emerging broadband television market, Microsoft plans to show prototype software for a system that will allow cable and telecommunication operators to deliver TV services over broadband Internet connections. The technology will be shown at ITU Telecom World 2003, a conference and exhibition sponsored by the International Telecommunication Union, which opens Saturday in Geneva. The new software, which Microsoft for now is calling an Internet Protocol Television delivery system, is one of several new developments the U.S. software giant will be promoting at the show, Microsoft said Thursday in a statement.
  • Toshiba to demo simplified 100Mbps WLAN - Toshiba's European R&D division will next week demonstrate a "low complexity" WLAN capable of achieving raw data rates of up to 100Mbps - almost double what today's 802.11g standard can offer.  The company will show off the technology at the ITU Telecom World 2003 conference in Geneva, which opens its doors on Monday.
  • Google's Secret: 'Cheap and Fast' Hardware - This "fast and cheap" mantra at Mountain View, California-based Google resonates through the more than 10,000 servers used by query searchers worldwide, turning over more than 200 million search queries a day among 4 billion Web documents. By using commodity PC hardware, which is similar to that of home PCs, Google buys cheap and builds high levels of redundancy into its system in an effort to compensate for the fact that one full day of Google use on a server is the equivalent of 40 machine years, Nevill-Manning said.
  • Dreambox DM7000 -- an open TV hacker's paradise - The Dreambox DM7000 from Dream-Multimedia-Tv (DMM) is a $395 Linux-based digital radio and digital TV (DVB) satellite (or cable) receiver with digital video recorder (DVR) functions and PC connectivity. It is implemented using IBM's STB04500 set-top box chipset, which provides the necessary DVB functions like transport stream demultiplexing and MPEG2 decoding inexpensively. A minimalistic, GPL'd Linux-based software implementation has made the DM7000 popular with Linux programmers and TV device hackers.
  • Athlon64 3200+ 32/64-bit Processor Review  - The 2.0GHz Athlon64 3200+ retails for about $417 USD, while the 2.2GHz Athlon64 FX51 is priced at $713 USD. Compared to typical Intel prices, it is easy to see that AMD are making a dramatic shift away from the rock bottom prices of old. The new 64-bit Athlon 64 is powerful, and there is no reason why we should expect it to be priced significantly lower than an equivalent Intel processor just because it is made by AMD.... though I'd expect prices to drop a little once the supply of Athlon64's loosens up.
  • Intel P4 Extreme Edition review - Overall, the Extreme Edition and it's L3 cache is an intriguing concept and certainly a much more efficient way of managing the anisotopic distribution of data accesses than any of the equivalent proposals of integrating the L3 into the chipset; that would bring us back to another variation of the socket7 days scheme. However, even the on-die L3 is not the all-encompassing solution, especially when it comes down to compensating for high initial access latencies. In so far, the P4EE and its future versions may be able to ameliorate some of the shortcomings of DDR-II but they may not be able to solve the fundamental problems of inflated initial access latencies.
  • Dual Channel Memory Roundup - Part 2  - If you're on the other side of the scale and you simply want to run your computer at default look at the Kingmax PC3200 modules or Crucial PC3200 modules. Both are of very high quality and you shouldn't have any problems running them at 400MHz and even a little extra sometimes. If you're interested in a slightly cheaper alternative it may be worth considering the slower Transcend otherwise Kingmax's line of SuperRAM which we have looked at in the past may be a good option as well.
  • Plextor PX-708A DVD+RW/DVD+R Drive Review -  This is the first DVD drive able to record 24X CD-RW, and it also quickly burns CD-Rs, that is why it can actually replace several devices. The only disadvantage is its high price ($270-320).
  • Saitek Cyborg Evo Joystick review - The Saitek Cyborg Evo most definitely seems to be the most adjustable joystick in the world. No matter whether you have big hands or small hands, whether you are right handed or left handed, this joystick is bound to be comfortable for you. And it looks just as nice as it feels. This joystick is fairly priced at $39.95 USD and, in my opinion, worth every penny only if you're looking to play flight simulators. I would not recommend it for other types of games, especially first person shooters.
  • Mounting a Prometia or Vapochill on AMD A64/FX51 - The Madshrimps show you how to mount a Prometeia or VapoChill on your brandnew Athlon 64 / FX51 setup.
  • Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 RPC buffer overflow Again?! - There are few bad news on RPC DCOM vulnerability: 1. Universal exploit for MS03-039 exists in-the-wild, PINK FLOYD is again actual. 2. It was reported by exploit author (and confirmed), Windows XP SP1 with all security fixes installed still vulnerable to variant of the same bug. Windows 2000/2003 was not tested. For a while only DoS exploit exists, but code execution is probably possible. Technical details are sent to Microsoft, waiting for confirmation.
  • CATALYST 3.8 Driver Report - Firing Squad tested Catalyst 3.7 against the newly released Catalyst 3.8 using the following benchmarks - NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, Q3A v1.32, UT2003, IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles, Splinter Cell and Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness.
  • Mozilla 1.4.1 - Mozilla v1.4.1 on Windows now has support for NTLM (download) authentication. This enables Mozilla to talk to MS web and proxy servers that are configured to use "windows integrated security".
  • Quintessential Player 4.10 - This player features MP3, Ogg, WAV, and CD support, CD Ripping, FREE MP3 Encoding, Streaming audio support, Skins and Plug-ins support, Powerful Tag Editor, Gracenote CDDB support, Crossfading support, Multiple visualizations.
  • foobar2000 v0.7.1 Final - Foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include ReplayGain support, low memory footprint and native support for several popular audio formats.
  • mIRC v6.11 - To use IRC you need a small program like mIRC, an IRC client for Windows, written by Khaled Mardam-Bey. mIRC is a friendly IRC client that is well equipped with options and tools. With this new release (changelog) they hope to address most the comments, requests and remarks they received after the release of version 6.1.
  • GAIM 0.71 - Gaim (download ~ changelog) is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks.
  • Trillian patches - Yahoo connectivity patches have been released for Trillian 0.74, Trillian Pro 1.0, and Trillian Pro 2.0.
  • VirtualDub 1.5.6 - VirtualDub (download ~ P4 optimized) is a video capture and processing program. It features fast capturing, process files larger than the 2 gigabyte limit, optimized for linear editing, support for Motion-JPEG, MPEG-1 video and layer 3 audio, real-time and near-realtime video processing, video job queues, and much more.
  • DVD Region-Free version 3.10  - DVD Region-Free enables you to watch any region DVD on region-locked DVD drive. It will work, even if you can not change the DVD drive's region anymore. You needn't hack DVD drive (flash firmware) which is sometimes dangerous, useless or unavailable.
  • GermaniXEncoder 1.40.707  - FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. Grossly oversimplified, FLAC is similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without throwing away any information. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, see links to the right for supported devices) just like you would an MP3 file.
  • PowerStrip 3.46 - PowerStrip 3.46 provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards.
  • Fresh UI 6.50 - Fresh UI (download) is the fresh solution for configuring and optimizing Windows. Loaded with hundreds of useful hidden settings, this software covers the customizing and optimizing technique that you'll be glad to know: Customizing Windows User Interface, Optimizing system settings, Optimizing hardware settings, Customizing Windows application settings, and Control user environment with policies.
  • Some betas & RCs: SecureCRT 4.1 Beta 3 | FreeBSD 4.9-RC2 | Opera 7.21 RC5
  • Script pack for Catalyst 3.8 (updated) - Guru 3D updatde the Catalyst 3.8 script pack. SoftR9x00 script for w2k/xp did't performed R9x00->R9800 mod properly and forced R9700PRO ID instead. The problem is fixed now, so if you use SoftR9x00 for forcing R9800 caps this update is a must for you. If you use R9x00->R9700 mode or you use w9x/ME then there is no need to download this update.
  • ATi Linux Drivers 3.2.8 - ATi has released a new drivers v3.2.8 for Linux.
  • Latest Bios and Drivers updates - OnlyNewz has posted a list of latest drivers and BIOS updates for MSI, ECS, ASUS, nVidia, SiS, VIA, ATI, Leadtek and Plextor.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,09 2003 - tech
Thursday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:46 PM CEST - Oct,09 2003 - Post a comment / read (2)
  • Offtopic: Forty-second ecstasy tablet test developed  - A new technique that rapidly analyses ecstasy tablets could provide an early warning system for rogue pills and also police help trace illicit manufacturers. The method uses Raman spectroscopy to produce a fingerprint for each ecstasy tablet. This reveals the concentration of the active ingredient MDMA plus the identity of any toxic contaminants.
  • Have chess computers surpassed the strongest grandmasters? - In a few weeks Garry Kasparov will take on X3D Fritz in a high-profile man-machine chess match. It is very difficult to figure out who should be the statistical favorite, because computer ratings are somewhat different from human FIDE ratings. Every two or three months, the Swedish Chess Computer Association (abbreviated SSDF in Swedish) publishes a rating list, estimating the strength of the top chess computers. The ratings are based upon thousands of games hosted by SSDF members, between commercially-available computer programs running on specific hardware. Different versions of the same program are treated separately. Thus the top seven in the July 2003 SSDF list were all various versions of Fritz or Shredder, running on the most powerful hardware used by SSDF members (256MB Athlon 1200 MHz). (thanks Slashdot.org)
  • Microsoft FrontPage 2003 First Look - FrontPage still integrates with the rest of Office and employs shared Office features like the Picture Manager and Clip Organize. But it's now intended for serious Web authors and businesses that want to build sites based on data sources in XML, OLEDB, or Web services formats. Many advanced features, like Web logs and data-driven news pages, require Microsoft's SharePoint services. Sleek new features make the highly automated, business-oriented FrontPage 2003 worth the upgrade. A more efficient interface eliminates the vertical Views bar and replaces it with a tabbed interface on the editing screen, giving you quick access to site management and editing featur.
  • Nokia phone explodes - again - A Dutch teenager suffered burns to his leg when his Nokia mobile phone exploded in his trouser pocket on Monday. This latest incident comes less than three months after a woman, also from The Netherlands, suffered burns to her face and neck after her Nokia handset exploded.  At the time Nokia blamed the incident on a non-Nokia replacement battery being used.
  • MS plucks Sierra Wireless for smartphone - A Canadian modem company, Sierra Wireless is to introduce a smartphone based on Microsoft's Smartphone 2003 platform next year. The 'Voq' looks like a candybar phone, but its keypad opens to form a fold-out QWERTY keyboard. Flextronics will manufacture the device, which runs on GSM/GPRS networks. Sierra is targeting business users in North America and Europe where it does most of its business.
  • VIA KT880 Specs - AMDboard has the specification of the first known mainboard to use the newly born. Coming from Abit, the KV7II offers the latest technologies thanks to this new chipset coupled with the now popular VT8237: 6-channel audio, SATA 150, RAID, USB2.0, LAN 10/100, and most of all, the new VIA Quad Band Memory 533 (QBM) technology that allow 8.5GB/s bandwidth.
  • 64-Bit Takes Off - Equally key is a 64-bit CPU's ability to recognize and use a lot more RAM. Today's 32-bit chips, such as AMD's Athlon XP and Intel's Pentium 4, can address up to 4GB of RAM split between the OS and applications. Few PCs have that much memory, and even fewer apps use it. But with ever-more-complex software, that limitation may become a bottleneck, making Athlon 64's ability to address a whopping terabyte (1000GB) of physical memory very attractive. But you will need a 64-bit-capable operating system, new hardware drivers, and 64-bit applications to fully take advantage of such a chip, and therein lies the rub. AMD knew 64-bit desktop computing wouldn't be ready for prime time right away, so it made its 64-bit Athlons hybrid CPUs that can also run today's 32-bit app and PCWorld's initial tests show the chips run them very well.
  • 19" LCD Monitors Round-up - X-Bit Labs have compared 11 monitors from Iiyama, LG, Nec, Samsung and Sony. They take look at the pixel response time parameter, monitor brightness, contrast ratio, color temperature and quality of color rendition.
  • Pentium 4 3.2GHz "Extreme Edition" review - There's really nothing new to this chip other than the 2MB of L3 as apposed to the normal 512KB L2 Cache that does help boost performance under certain loads - after all if tons of extra cache on a chip was the main indicator of performance for desktop PCs, wouldn't we have seen that done by now?
  • DVD Burning: The Complete Guide - PCMag tested 23 burners to find the ones that rock, and select the best DVD authoring software from among the 6 front-runners.
  • Creative Audigy 2's Platinum Pro Features Sound 7.1 (and DTS) review  - Anyone who is not thinking of doing anything more than playing games or a DVD, an Audio CD or audio files in general, the Audigy 2 ZS is certainly the best choice in terms of the ratio between possibilities and cost. On the other hand, if you like to connect and disconnect various types of equipment and perform elaborate recording, you will more likely need the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro. In the case of multimedia and musical creative activities, the external housing makes it easy to use and offers a range of possibilities that will soon prove to be indispensable. Whatever the case and whatever the version you choose, the ZS has become the non-professional sound card that offers the best audio quality on the market.
  • Maxtor's DiamondMax Plus 300 GB Monster review  - With a behemoth capacity of 300 GB, the DiamondMax is the biggest hard drive so far. Can the 5,400 rpm drive with just 2 MB of cache also deliver the performance for our times?
  • Ximeta NetDisk review - Ximeta's NetDisk can both serve as a USB 2.0 external drive or plug into your LAN via its 10/100 Ethernet port. But does its LAN feature make it an inexpensive NAS device?
  • VapoChill XE [Socket 478 P4] - The chaps at Hexus.net took the most advance cooling solution avaliable on the retail market and coupled it with the highest performing CPU (which a mounting solution was avaliable for the cooling solution to use) - The Pentium 4 EE CPU.
  • ATI Catalyst Suite 3.8 (Driver) Review - So, there we have it, the new features of the ATI Catalyst 3.8 in a nutshell. ATI have given all users something to play with here, "but you have not covered gaming performance!" I hear you all saying. Well, this set of drivers are more about the added features, not the optimization. Only one game has been pumped up in terms of performance and that's Tomb Raider Cradle of Life, which no one gives a damn about anyway.:) So, expect performance to be the same as your Catalyst 3.7 release in all your other games. Another reviews can be found at EnvyNews, Beyond3D
  • Linux 2.6 Kernel Stability Freeze - Linux Creator Linus Torvalds released the 2.6.0-test7 Linux development kernel and declared a "stability freeze".
  • Mozilla Firebird 0.7 RC1 - Mozilla Firebird (download) is a free, open-source and cross-platform web browser for Windows, Linux, MacOS X and other operating systems. It is small, fast and easy to use, and offers many advantages over other web browsers, such as the tabbed browsing and the ability to block pop-up windows.
  • WinGuard Pro 2003 5.5.3.43 - Give yourself peace of mind from people tampering with your PC with WinGuard Pro 2003 - Free Edition, stop people changing your settings, accessing unauthorized programs, and important files.
  • HotDog Professional 7.03 - HotDog Professional 7 includes some great new features making this latest version the most robust, flexible and user friendly text-based HTML Editor on the market.
  • InstantGet 1.45 - InstantGet (download) is a powerful and efficient download manager and accelerator, InstantGet splits downloading files into multiple sections, downloading each section simultaneously to increase downloading speed up to 5 times faster.
  • Nero version 6.0.0.19 changelog - Nero have finally provided a lengthy changelog to Nero Version 6.0.0.19.
  • Easy CD-DA Extractor 6.1.0.2 - Easy CD-DA Extractor (download) package includes  CD-Ripper, CD-Burner, and Music File Format Convert.
  • TVTool 8.3.1 -  The main problem is the black borders around the picture on the TV screen. These can be very annoying for most applications like DVD-playback or decoding. TVTool (download trial version) is a completely software based solution to this problem. TVTool has many features, such as dualview, which makes simultaneous output to the TV and monitor possible.
  • VG Clipboard Master 1.0 - VG Clipboard Master is very useful program which provides extended clipboard capabilities, helps you to work with computer, saving your time and it is easy to use. Windows clipboard can only store one item at a time but using VGCM you can copy a lot of different objects to the clipboard at the same time.It is easy to customize your clipboards list.
  • Plextor Europe releases firmware 1.02 for PX-708A/UF drive - Plextor Europe has released a new firmware version for the PX-708A/UF DVD recorder, along with the changelog.
  • RivaTuner Script Pack For Catalyst 3.8 - Guru3D has posted an udated SoftR9x00 and ATIOverclockingAntiprotection (this patch script allows you to remove driver-level overclocking protection on certain ATI RV250/RV280/R300/RV350 based boards) for the new Catalyst 3.8.
  • Omega Drivers 2.4.87 - Omegadrive has released his Omega Drivers version 2.4.87 based on ATI's Catalyst 3.8 display drivers that were released last night.
 Gameguru Mania News - Oct,08 2003 - tech
ATI Catalyst 3.8 Drivers - tech
(hx) 09:55 PM CEST - Oct,08 2003 - Post a comment / read (9)
The official ATI's Driver page is now offering the Catalyst 3.8 drivers (WinXP ~ Win9x/ME) for the Radeon family of videocards. ATI entitled them as "the biggest and most improved software release in ATI history". For example, they claim performance improvements to applications that use the Z-buffer in certain ways. Tomb Raider frame rates improve as much as 20%. Giants - Citizen Kabuto also runs significantly faster. Other titles may also be improved.  There are fixes for games like IL2 Stumovik Forgotten Battles, Tiger Woods, Flight Simulator 2004, CounterStrike (setting 800x600/32/100Hz followed by enabling triple buffering no longer results in display corruption), Serious Sam 2, Project A3, Midnight Club 2  (corrupted textures on 7500), Neverwinter Nights, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (image corruption) and XIII demo.
Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:05 AM CEST - Oct,08 2003 - Post a comment / read (2)
  • Hacker Wargame Research Project - The wargame is a specially designed internet connected network running Microsoft Windows 2000 Servers with IIS, Exchange and MS-SQL. Each participant (that's you) will have to complete 3 specific hacking goals on these Microsoft based servers, so you gotta know how to hack a 'doze box to play our little game. We will be studying how you complete the goals for our "cognitive research" which is the study of how people think.  If we select you to participate in the wargame research project, and you are successful in achieving the three project goals and follow the simple steps we outline, you will be paid a minimum of US$250.
  • Shift key breaks CD copy locks - In a paper published on his Web site this week, Princeton Ph.D. student John Halderman explained how he disabled a new kind of copy-protection technology, distributed as part of a new album by BMG soul artist Anthony Hamilton. Under normal circumstances, the antipiracy software is automatically loaded onto a Windows machine whenever the Hamilton album is run in a computer's CD drive, making traditional copying or MP3 ripping impossible. However, simply holding down the Shift key prevents Windows' AutoRun feature from loading the copy-protection software, leaving the music free to copy, Halderman said
  • Software drives users to crime - Instead of preventing piracy, the current crop of software product activation schemes could actually encourage it. Nice article, check it out..
  • Off-topic: Two Americans, Russian Win Nobel Prize in Physics - Alexei A. Abrikosov, Anthony J. Leggett and Vitaly L. Ginzburg were awarded the prize for their work concerning superconductivity and superfluidity.
  • Nokia Launches N-Gage Handset - Nokia on Tuesday launched its much-hyped N-Gage game phone, taking on Japan's Nintendo in a bid to break into the red-hot gaming market and offset its slowing growth in global handset sales.
  • First 2-Megapixel Camera Phone Debuts - Casio Computer has become the first cellular telephone maker to announce a handset that can capture still images at 2-megapixel resolution. The phone is on show at the Ceatec Japan 2003 exhibition, which opened Tuesday just outside of Tokyo.
  • PSX Specs And Price Revealed - Sony Corp said on Tuesday it would begin selling the "PSX," an all-in-one game console and entertainment system, in Japan by the year-end. The PSX would feature a satellite TV tuner, DVD recorder, hard disk drive (HDD) recorder and PlayStation 2 game player.  A version with a 160-gigabyte HDD will sell for 79,800 yen ($719) and be able to record up to 204 hours of television, the company said. It will also sell a 250-gigabyte version for 99,800 yen.
  • Asus unveils DiGiMatrix PC that looks like a Hi-Fi separate - Asus have introduced its latest barebones PC, the DiGi Matrix, but looks like Hi-Fi separate rather than a PC. It is designed to combine various Hi-Fi and Video separates in one box including a CD player, TiVo style Personal video recorder, MP3 player, DVD player in a box, but while not looking 'out of place' under the living room TV.
  • TDK Shows Off Stylish MP3 Players - TDK on Tuesday announced an expansion of its MOJO line to include several new portable MP3 players. TDK also noted the Mac compatibility of three of the new units, which use USB to connect to Macs or to Windows PCs. The MOJO 256F ($190) sports a digital FM tuner, 256MB of internal memory, and a slot for an MultiMediaCard or SD card flash memory expansion media. The device can also record voice memos or FM radio streams to its internal memory. It sports a backlit text display, seven equalizer presets for different musical styles, a user-programmable EQ mode, and four playback modes. It supports up to 20 programmable FM radio presets.
  • New Discs Double DVD Storage - Pioneer, Koninklijke Philips Electronics, and Mitsubishi Kagaku Media, the latter better known by its Verbatim brand name, have said they have developed prototype discs that can hold up to 8.5GGB of data and will show them at Ceatec, according to statements from the companies.
  • SiS unveils 16GB quad-channel Rambus chipset - The chipset provides a quad-channel memory bus designed to take 1.2GHz RDRAM for 9.6GBps of memory bandwidth. Up to 16GB of memory is supported. SiSR659 samples will be available in the fourth quarter, the company said.
  • AMD Duron Applebred vs. Athlon XP Thoroughbred - Recently AMD introduced its new durons.  The chaps at MadShrimps bought one of them, the 1.6GHz version. The most interesting part of this cpu is its core voltage, only 1.5 V. This CPU begged to be compared with an Athlon XP, dlt3c (known for reaching speeds up to 2700Mhz!). Is the new Duron an equally good overclocker ? Maybe even better ? Find out in this review..
  • ATI Overclocking Antiprotection  - The script was tested and seems to work fine on RV350 based boards and Catalyst 3.7, however it must function properly on the rest drivers and hardware too. Any feedback from locked RV250/RV280/R300 owners is welcome.
  • HyperSnap-DX 5.30.01 - HyperSnap-DX is a screen capture and image editing tool for MS Windows. It captures screens from standard desktop programs and even those hard-to-grab DirectX, Direct3D, 3Dfx, 3dfx, Voodoo and Glide mode games.
  • nVidia Detonator 50.21 for Win2003 Unofficial - Station-Drivers have posted an unoffical new set of Nvidia Detonator Drivers 50.21 for windows server 2003.
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