november Tech

Migrated

2008-01-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

http://nordschleife.metaforix.net

Openbravo R2.34

2007-11-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

Managed a successful install of Openbravo on my spare hardware (Athlon 2500+ 512MB RAM 80GB HDD Ubuntu 7.10). Well, not that successful, but it wouldn't need me to install if it's so easy anyway. Will post some pics tomorrow, as my Openbravo is in a totally screwed up condition right now, due to my itchy fingers. I reckon that reinstallation is needed.Anyway, what I basically did was to follow

Power to the People

2007-08-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

It seems that it's never a good idea to bully the powerless and the poor in Singapore, especially when you're not particularly politically powerful. It came to me as a no surprise that Odex lost their case against Pacific Internet, judging from the history of StreetDirectory.com. I'd like to express my greatest gratitude to district judge Ernest Lau, for upholding law and order in the confusing

The Soul of the Game

2007-07-31T01:26:00.000-07:00

This is probably the biggest surprise in the history of football. A devastated country in chaos of war, agony, and tears, has won the asian cup against all odds. It was their determination and their strength that brought their country the unprecedented glory.Long live the national heros, and may peace fall upon Iraq and her people.

another lappie

2007-06-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

Mind Prison: Internet Addiction Disorderhttp://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02049/Got honorable mention, we deserve every single recognition, probably more. Not whining here though. Gonna get another lappie, that worths USD750. It'll be my third lappie, plus another 2 desktops I have at home, I can easily make a circle of computers. How I wish I have 5 brains and 5 pairs of hands. But hell, I

Nike+iPod

2007-06-18T05:57:00.000-07:00

just bought a set of running gears, iPod Nano and Nike+. <2000 words worth of pictures>challenges anyone?

And Finally

2007-06-10T00:50:00.000-07:00

My old com seems ok now, finally recovered from the damn autorun virus. Installed Ubuntu 4.10 on both my harddisks, shred everything, delete all partitions, install the "mighty" Windows XP. And that took me the whole day!Anyway, an interesting fact that I recently found out is that almost all my recent CPUs have the same clock speed, they're all 1.8GHz. From Pentium 4 1.8 to Athlon 2200+ to

Spyware

2006-11-30T11:00:00.001-08:00

I, Tian Bo, declear war against all spyware and adware on 1 December 2006 3.00am.

DRM is simply annoying and useless

2006-11-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

It's good to be back. Been busy preparing for my O levels for a long time. The most popular service for this year? iTunes of course. 99 cents for a piece of music, did I say low quality and unreliable? It's 128kbps AAC and DRM protected, which means you cannot play it on your other computer, you cannot play it on a MP3 player other than their very own iPod, you cannot burn your favorite

U.S. Patent No. 7,069,308? wadda crap!!

2006-10-24T02:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry readers, I've got little time recently due to studies n problems setting up my LAMP server. Ok, this is what I found today, 7,069,308 & obviously it's crap. Friendster invented it? I doubt so.What is claimed is:1. In a computer system including a server computer and a database of registered users that stores for each registered user, a user ID of the registered user and a set of user IDs of

All blogging tools you'll ever need

2006-10-16T01:47:00.000-07:00

Adminimizer ToolbarashnewsAvantBlogb2b2.evolutionBlogBlog NavigatorBlogAmpBlogarithmBlog (Web-Tagebuch)BlogBackBlogboxblogBuddyBlogChatBlogCounterblogdexblogdexterBlogFaceBlogFlixBloggerBotBlogHosterBlogletBlogLinkerBlogMaxBlogrollingBlogSnobblogsnowBlosxombookmarklet.pingbplogBricks Site BuilderChronicle LiteCityDeskCocoBlogcorzblogcsBlogProject DAWGdiary2002.cgidotcommentsDrupalEasy

Protect yourself from uneven volumes

2006-10-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

After ripping your CD collection unto your computer or downloading MP3s from the net, have you encoutered uneven volumes? It's common that classical music are softer, while rock music are louder. When a track is very soft, you increase the volume of your MP3 player, but the next track is significantly louder, and you failed to revert back to the original volume. The consequences are severe,

45nm+WiMAX in your laptops in 2008

2006-10-12T04:30:00.000-07:00

Though Intel will only release 4th generation Centrino "Santa Rosa" in first-half of 2007, they have already planned the features of the 5th gen, code named "Montevina", estimated to release in 2008. The new generation will adopt 45nm processors, and features WiMAX wireless technology."Penryn", the new processor, will be made with 45nm manufacturing technology, using the same architecture as the

Sony's new best-ever-sound-quality MP3 player

2006-10-12T04:14:00.000-07:00

Sony Japan released their latest S range of Walkman MP3 player, NW-S700 and NW-S600. NW-S700 provides a variety of storage space of 1GB, 2GB and 4GB, 3 lines OLED screen, FM radio support, plays MP3/ATRAC/AAC/WMA formats, and direct recording to either PCM/Atrac3Plus formats. NW-S600 has identical features except FM radio support and lack of 4GB version. The new range of players is powered by

13 must have Firefox extensions for web surfers

2006-10-11T07:41:00.000-07:00

I'm just a normal web surfer and blogger who use Firefox as my default browser like the majority of you (my readers). I use the following tools on a daily basis:Performancing - a full featured blog editor that sits right in your Firefox browser and lets you post to your blog easily. You can drag and drop formatted text from the page you happen to be browsing, and take notes as well as post to

Capture your screen for free

2006-10-11T07:08:00.000-07:00

There are plenty of software to capture your screen, but mostly for a huge fee or an ugly "UNREGISTERED VERSION" on the upper left corner. But why should we buy those when we can have better software for free? There are refined such screen capture software under the GPL license, meaning you can obtain them for free. For still capturing:[FastStone Screen Capture] The best screen capturing software

4 Google's new Reader tips

2006-10-11T04:45:00.000-07:00

Google has recently made a major update to it's Reader service to become more powerful, especially in terms of ease of use. Here some tips that you can utilize for daily use:1. Do not include Asian characters in sub-directory of OPML file that you want to import. When I tried to import OPML file exported by Bloglines which contains Chinese characters for sub-directory, Google Reader failed to

Interview with Java's inventor James Gosling

2006-10-11T04:33:00.000-07:00

Today there are thousands and thousands of Java programmers, but there was a time when there was only one, James Gosling. He did the original design of the Java programming language and implemented its original compiler and virtual machine. Today Gosling is vice president and Sun Fellow at Sun Microsystems Inc. where he continues to take an active role in software development, especially

How should Microsoft tweak their Zune to be more competitive

2006-10-10T08:53:00.000-07:00

After writing the recent entry on why Zune is not exactly a competitive competitor for the all popular iPod, I've received responses regarding the article, and they also pointed out major flaws in Zune. Today, I'll talk about steps I think that are helpful in making Zune more competitive in front of iPod:1. Support for Mac. If Microsoft says that ZuneMarket won't support Mac, then I would

Zune is NOT a killer

2006-10-09T01:11:00.000-07:00

And will never be. Since the start of this Microsoft Zune commotion, we've heard exciting features like Wifi, connectivity with Xbox 360, H264 and many others. Of course, availability of Wifi is the most anticipated. Before we analyze the Zune, let's take a look on why the iPod reigned:The best aesthetic - everyone must agree that the iPods have the best aesthetics in the world of MP3 players,

Free PC in France

2006-10-09T01:07:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, there are some people in major European countries that still lack internet access, or even computers. (Yes, we're still recovering from shock, too.) According to the French analyst firm Médiamétrie, half of the homes in France don't have a computer, and 60 percent don't have net access. In order to solve this problem, the French ISP firm Neuf Cegetel (they just bought AOL

Ariel Atom - a supercar for $52000

2006-10-08T06:36:00.000-07:00

The Ariel Atom is a high performance sports car made by the Ariel Motor Company. It is unusual in the respect that the chassis is the body, and therefore lacks a roof, windows and other features commonly found on road cars. It is available with a range of engines; the top of the range being a supercharged Honda Civic Type-R K20 engine and can reach speeds rivaling those of much more expensive

The largest prime number

2006-10-08T03:32:00.000-07:00

Prime numbers are usually thought of as numbers that no other number can be exactly divided into. This isn’t quite true as prime numbers always have 2 factors, the number 1 and itself (a factor is a number that can be exactly divided into another number). Because of this rule, the number 1 is not a prime number as it has only one factor (i.e. 1).The first ten prime numbers are:2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19

Official production of F1 Japan grand prix official car

2006-10-08T01:56:00.000-07:00

Honda Motor Co., Ltd., today announced that the prototype 4-door Civic Type R, the sports version of the Honda Civic, has been selected as the official car for the 2006 F1 Japan Grand Prix, to be held at the Suzuka Circuit in Mie Prefecture, Japan, October 6-8, 2006. A production model, currently under development, is scheduled for release in Japan in spring 2007.The 4-door Civic Type R prototype

China made the First Synthetic Sun

2006-10-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST, internal designation HT-7U) has conducted its first successful test on September 28, 2006. The test reportedly used deuterium and tritium atoms and reached a temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for nearly three seconds, obtaining 200 kA of electric current. The EAST is an experimental superconducting tokamak magnetic fusion

Maxim on Google Earth

2006-10-07T06:25:00.000-07:00

In celebration of its 100th issue, Maxim went into the desert and laid out a huge copy (110 foot tall) of one of its more popular covers (picture of Housewife Eva Longoria on the cover). They then took aerial photos of the project and created image overlays so you can view it in Google Earth [Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.] . I guess they couldn't wait 2 or 3 years for Google to

My Google Story

2006-10-07T06:24:00.000-07:00

Google Earth 10/7/06 - Maxim on Google Earth

Top 10 Passwords in UK

2006-10-07T06:09:00.000-07:00

A UK agency has made an anonymous survey on the passwords most people use. According to the survey, 1.8% of the people use one of the passwords in Top 10. Here's the Top 10:Rank Frequency10. thomas 0.99%9. arsenal 1.11%8. monkey 1.33%7. charlie 1.39%6. qwerty 1.41%5. 123456 1.63%4. letmein 1.76%3. liverpool 1.82%2. password 3.78%1. 123 4.00%

Fill Your Disel Car with Free Oil

2006-10-06T08:18:00.000-07:00

0.99mm! Thinnest TFT-LCD

2006-10-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

Toshiba Matsuchita has announced today that they would release the world's thinnest TFT-LCD panal, with a thickness of only 0.99mm. This panal can provide QVGA resolution of 320*240. The panel is 2.0" diagonally, and weighs only 3.5g. Toshiba claims that future palm devices will be slicker with the new LCD panel. The first product to utilize this technology is estimated to be released at April

Stanford: ATI's GPU can Calculate Much Faster

2006-10-06T06:45:00.000-07:00

Beyond3D recently sat down with Stanford's Mike Houston, GPGPU guru and B3D regular, to discuss Stanford's new Folding@Home client for ATI GPUs.Beyond3D: Is the X1K series's dynamic branching performance the enabler that lets you really explore and exploit R580's (and R520's) abilities for GPGPU, and specifically GROMACS in BrookGPU in this case --in a way that is impossible on any other hardware

Sony's new Speaker for PSP

2006-10-06T06:01:00.000-07:00

Sony has just released a portable speaker optimized for PSP, SRS-U10.The speaker only has a power rating of 3.6W, includes PSP supporting stand, and a general input port that can be used for PSP, iPod, handphones and other devices. SRS-U10 has a dimension of 270x105x110mm, weighing a hefty 700g.

Games to Occupy Less Space by 70%

2006-10-05T09:20:00.000-07:00

During the Game Developers Conference held in London this week, an unknown company Allegorithmic demonstrated their technology to reduce the size of texture files by up to 70%. The two programs, known as ProFX and MaP Zone 2, should potentially lessen the file sizes of textures even while the files keep the same quality as current texture files today. A show of their programs' capabilities came

Zune Operational Video

2006-10-04T23:51:00.000-07:00

CBS News released an operational video on Microsoft's latest media player Zune. Zune will be released on 14 November, 30GB version will be priced at $249.99. Microsoft is rumoured to release 60GB and 120GB versions in 2007.Click Here For Video

Archos AV 700 TV personal media player

2006-10-04T03:45:00.000-07:00

World’s first handheld video recorder with digital TV receiver!FEATURES * Seven-inch screen * Digital tuner * 40GB hard drive * Plays MPEG-4 SP, AVI, WMV, MP3 and WMA (protected) * Battery Life: 30hrs audio, 3.5hrs video * 107x209x19mm * 610gArchos’s new portable video recorder fits a huge screen and a Freeview receiver into a box little bigger than a PSP.The seven-inch

New Apple Tablet

2006-10-04T03:26:00.000-07:00

The Apple rumour mill’s going crazy over speculation the Mac makers are prepping an ultra-portable computer for release next year, but what new technologies are likely to appear in such a secretive device?For a start we’d expect a touchscreen, something Apple’s been patenting like crazy for the best part of a year.That screen could even be a multi-touch version, or offer feedback in the form of a

SkyOS - A New Experience

2006-10-04T02:10:00.000-07:00

Finally, it's an OS which is neither Windows or Unix based. It's SkyOS. The new SkyOS 5.0 supports transparent picture, 32 bit PNG file format, and the system is simply amazing, both aesthetically and usability. SkyOS features SMP support, an integrated media subsystem and a 64-bit filesystem. Its filesystem was originally based on a modified version of OpenBFS but now has evolved into its own

Renault: You don't bring a knife to a gunfight Michael...

2006-10-03T00:09:00.000-07:00

From Renault's pit in Shanghai during the F1 Grand Prix on 1st October.

Google's Top Services

2006-10-02T03:14:00.000-07:00

Here are Google's top ten services based on del.icio.us bookmark database. Service Frequency1.Gmail——above 160002.Writely——151433.Search——76754.Maps ——61975.News ——51306.Reader —47457.Video—— 43078.Scholar— 32159.Labs—— 272010.Earth— 2583Note that there's no need to bookmark Google homepage as it's everywhere eg. Firefox Search Box, Google Toolbar etc.Other services not in top ten:

Google's Mashup Rush

2006-10-02T03:08:00.000-07:00

On 13 September and last Thursday, Google has registered the following domains on mashup:mash-search.com/net/orgmash-serch.com/net/orgmashsearch.com/net/orgmashserch.com/net/orgmashup-search.com/net/orgmashups-search.com/net/orgmashupsearch.com/net/orgmashupssearch.com/net/orgsearch-mash.com/net/orgsearch-mashes.com/net/orgsearch-mashup.com/net/orgsearch-mashups.com/net/orgsearchmash.com/net/

Intel's New 45nm Factories

2006-10-01T03:49:00.000-07:00

When AMD is introducing its 65nm quad-core Barcelona K8L, Intel has started building 3 45nm manufacturing facilities, namely D-1D in Oregon, Fab 32 in Arizona and Fab 28 in Israel. These 3 factories will cost Intel 9 billion dollars in investment, and this is one of the reasons for Intel's retrenchment blogally: to compress operation cost, improve R&D and manufacturing capacity.Besides, Intel

CORSAIR's new 1111MHz DDR2 RAM

2006-10-01T03:38:00.000-07:00

Recently, Corsair and OCZ launched 1111MHz and 1120MHz DDR2 RAM respectively. At this time, making DDR2-800 is a great challenge in technology to the manufactures, and making RAMs above 1GHz is a farther test of technical expertise.Corsair said that their new Dominator series of RAMs can work at 1.11GHz and CAS4, but making such RAMs is extremely difficult. These RAMs are results of testing

GIF Patents Has Gone into History

2006-10-01T03:31:00.000-07:00

The software patents for GIF picture format has gone into history on 1 October 2006. The patent was first applied in 1999 by Unisys, and was then taken over by IBM in 2004. From GNU.org:We were able to search the patent databases of the USA, Canada, Japan, and the European Union. The Unisys patent expired on 20 June 2003 in the USA, in Europe it expired on 18 June 2004, in Japan the patent

Energy Benchmark EEcoMark Announced

2006-10-01T03:21:00.000-07:00

Windows Benchmarking organization BAPCo and Ecma International joint announced a new benchmark co-developed, based on power saving features of personal computers. The new software is named EECoMark.EECoMark will test a computer's ability based on real-life software, but will put computer's power usage on top priority. (Which means that power saving computer will score better even though

Sony's new 4GB MP3 Player

2006-10-01T03:12:00.000-07:00

Sony's new unrevealed MP3 has recently appeared on the internet. This player integrates the design of NW-E series and the navigation of NW-S series. Below is the know features:1. 4GB of storage space2. Fast charging enabled3. Good sound quality, with new technology to reduce noise4. 50 hours of continuous playing time5. Integrated FM Radio6. There will be 3 colors at launchPrice and launch

Fastest Car in the World

2006-09-30T06:25:00.000-07:00

The 1005hp Barabus TKR is now the world’s fastest car — rocketing from 0-60in just 1.67-seconds with a top speed of 270mph.Power comes from a 6.0 liter V8 twin-turbocharged with dual intercoolers. The car has a full carbon fibre body and chassis. Further details remain sparse, but the automaker says it will sell the car for £360,000, which should translate to around $500,000here the webbie

Judge: Google is innocent

2006-09-30T06:21:00.000-07:00

A federal court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit against Google over its practice of allowing companies to buy search-related ads that are displayed when people type in the name of a competitor. In early 2005, computer repair company Rescuecom sued Google in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, alleging that Google was violating trademark by selling ads to Rescuecom's

Audi R8

2006-09-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

Summary: 2-door coupe,production car, Mid Engine/AWD, V8, 4200 cc, 420 bhp @ 7800 rpm, 317 lb-ft @ 3500 rpm, 8250 rpm, 6-Speed Manual/Sequential, 0-60 mph:4.5 sec, Top Speed:187 mphAudi has incorporated the name and the genes of the five-time Le Mans winner, the Audi R8, into a spectacular sports car. Three years after the unveiling of the Audi Le Mans quattro concept car, the production version

Audi R8

2006-09-30T06:08:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Zune

2006-09-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

Confirmed Specs & Features Li-Ion batterypreloaded audio and video contentToshiba will manufacture Zune hardwareWiFi (802.11 b/g) connectivity30GB Hard Driveavailable in 3 different colors: black, brown (chocolate), and whitemagnetic headphones.LCD 3.00" screenbuilt-in FM radio tunerTV output connectivityDJ Mode (broadcast what you are listening to)4.4 × 2.4 × 0.58-inch (11.2 × 6.1 × 1.5 cm)

From Zero to Sixty in Three Seconds

2006-09-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

Faster acceleration than a supercar, 1/3 the energy consumption of a hybrid Last month, we learned that the initial batch of the amazing Tesla Roadster was completely sold out. Now a former Tesla worker, Ian Wright, is taking the electric-supercar in a direction of his own. Ian Wright’s company, Wrightspeed, is privately funded and is currently developing an electric car also capable of