music & computer

Fender Limited Edition “Thin Skin” ‘62 Stratocaster Re-Issue

2009-10-30T07:57:00.004+07:00

Model Fender Limited Edition “Thin Skin” ‘62 Stratocaster Re-Issue

Intro As long-time readers of this blog may remember, in early 2007 I began a “Quest For The Perfect Strat,” with the sole intention of digging up the best combination of playability, affordability, looks, and tone that Fender had to offer in the way of vintage-style Stratocasters.

Having had a life-long love affair with the company’s simple but versatile Tele––and somehow managing to go some 20+ years without ever owning a Strat––I decided early on that I would skip the many worthy clones on the market, and keep my efforts trained on the real deal: the Fender Stratocaster

Model Fender Limited Edition “Thin Skin” ‘62 Stratocaster Re-Issue

Intro As long-time readers of this blog may remember, in early 2007 I began a “Quest For The Perfect Strat,” with the sole intention of digging up the best combination of playability, affordability, looks, and tone that Fender had to offer in the way of vintage-style Stratocasters.

Having had a life-long love affair with the company’s simple but versatile Tele––and somehow managing to go some 20+ years without ever owning a Strat––I decided early on that I would skip the many worthy clones on the market, and keep my efforts trained on the real deal: the Fender Stratocaster
Because there’s really no such thing as a “perfect” guitar, and the readers of this blog alone make up a huge cross section of popular guitar-playing styles and techniques, my quest has been not so much to find “the” perfect Strat, but the Strat that best suits my own personal tastes and needs… or to put it perhaps more succinctly: when reading this review keep in mind that as always, your mileage may vary.

After more than a year of searching through big-box guitar stores and pawn shops alike, I’m happy to report that Fender is producing some particularly gorgeous instruments at *subjectively* reasonable prices right now (if you’re willing to dig around a bit,) and that I found my own little piece of heaven in a 3-tone Sunburst “Limited Dealer Run” Thin Skin ‘62 Stratocaster Re-Issue––one of just 180 produced.

This thing is stunning…

Specs

Comfort-contoured Alder body
1-piece “C” shaped Maple neck with nitro finish (25.5“ scale length)
Rosewood fretboard with 21 Medium Jumbo 6105 frets (7.25” radius)
Three American Vintage ‘62 Strat single-coil pickups (w/aged covers)
Master volume and two tone controls
3-way pickup switching (5-way pickup switch included)
American Vintage Synchronized Tremolo w/“Ash Tray” bridge cover
Fender/Gotoh vintage-style tuners
Chrome hardware
3-ply Mint Green pickguard
3-tone Sunburst “Thin Skin” nitrocellulose finish
Limited Edition backplate
Deluxe brown hardshell case (orange plush interior,) strap, and cable
What I Liked Oh the tone… like the production-model American Vintage ‘62 Strat reissue, this “Thin Skin” beauty very commendably captures the sound and feel of a real vintage Stratocaster circa the 1960s––minus the heart-cluching price tag and cosmetic wear & tear of course.

In fact, if you’re already enamored of the ‘62 Strats then keeping an eye out for a thin skin model is pretty much a no-brainer. Many of the classier guitar joints get “Dealer Run” limited editions on a regular basis, and they are often priced competitively with the standard production models that they’re based on.

Two of my favorite retailers are Music Zoo and Music Machine (no affiliation, folks,) but there are any number of others you might want to peruse on a regular basis.

The two big selling points on this particular instrument are, surprise, surprise, the same two things that I had found lacking from Fender’s American Vintage ‘62 Strat reissue (a guitar I really loved nonetheless) ––the “Thin Skin” comes already upgraded with a set of comfy Medium Jumbo 6105 frets (those skinny vintage wires just don’t feel good to my fingers,) and of course the whole thing is decked out in a very thin nitrocellulose finish, causing it to age quickly and beautifully, and sing like nobody’s business.

As I stated in my earlier review, if you’ve ever doubted the tonal effects that a quality nitro finish can have on a guitar, then I dare say you haven’t spent enough quality time with a nitro-finished Strat––let alone a thin skin. There’s a singing richness to the sound that simply can’t be replicated by a poly-coated guitar… at least not to my ears.

And those fatter, taller 6105 fret wires add a bit of extra sustain to an instrument that already seems to wail unendingly. They’re also far more comfortable for those of us who like to bend strings to the moon and back, and feel particularly solid when chunking out big jazz chords and comping up and down the neck.

With these two added features out of the way (oh yes, and a Limited Edition backplate,) the Thin Skin ‘62 Strat stays pretty much true to its Production Run predecessor.

The guitar is loaded with a trio of Fender’s reissue American Vintage ‘62 Strat single-coil pickups, and these things do a very impressive (if noisy) job of re-creating that warm, organic, early ’60s Strat punch. Mid-tones are emphasized, and the traditional Strat “quack” is there in spades. As is to be expected, the bridge pickup is a bit more biting than I personally find useful, but once again: your mileage may vary.

From snarling Hendrix-style chord chaos to gut-aching blues and twang, the Thin Skin ‘62 is both highly versatile and impressively true to that vintage Stratocaster sound––shimmering highs, fat and round lows, and a truly walloping mid-section make for a thick full tone that’s difficult, if not impossible, to adequately explain.

As far as playability is concerned, the Thin Skin ‘62 Strat is everything you could want it to be… provided you like a vintage feeling guitar (like I do!)––the highly curved vintage 7.25“ fretboard radius makes for easy chording and vamping, but if you’re a serious string bender (who isn’t?) you’ll probably need to ride that action fairly high. With that kind of curve in the neck you are bound to fret-out a bit above the 12th fret otherwise.

Of course, this is true-to-form for a vintage Strat, and for folks who like their guitar to fight back a bit it’s no big thing, but if you’re a speed demon who prefers his action low and fast then you’ll probably want to look elsewhere––a vintage-style Strat just isn’t going to float your boat.

Neckwise, the ”Thin Skin“ is armed with what is easily my favorite Fender neck profile: the Vintage ”C“ shape. Now, neck preference is a very personal thing, but time and again I’ve found the vintage ”C“ to be wonderfully contoured for my own playing style, hand size, and finger length… it just feels good in my hands.

Tuners are solid, the six-point vintage tremolo is surprisingly dependable, and even with string trees on the headstock I have found this guitar to have fewer tuning issues than any electric I’ve owned in the last 20 years. For blues it’s a true godsend.

Last but not least, the ”Thin Skin“ ‘62 Stratocaster is about as handsome a guitar as you’re going to find. Beyond its tonal value, the thin Nitrocellulose finish on these beauties is absolutely stunning just on looks alone. Gone is the thick, plastic-like gloss of polyurethane––this bad boy is imbued with a subtle, almost matte-style sheen that wonderfully accentuates the natural wood pattern beneath.

On top of that, a ”mint green“ pickguard matched with aged plastic parts (including switch tip and pickup covers,) makes for a throughly vintage vibe all around. The Deluxe brown Tolex hardshell case brings the package full circle with a funky orange plush interior and old-school Fender good looks.

What I Didn’t Like Surprisingly, my only complaint after many months of constant playing is that the Thin Skin ‘62 Stratocaster, like pretty much all vintage-style Strats, has a propensity to hum and buzz like nobody’s business.

Why a world class guitar behemoth like Fender doesn’t bother to supply better shielding in its instruments is anyone’s guess, but luckily for us, adopting the much less noise-prone wiring of the popular Quieting The Beast modification is fairly straight-forward business… provided you’ve got a few soldering chops and an afternoon you can safely set aside for pulling your guitar apart.

It’s a shame that this fairly basic wiring scheme hasn’t been introduced into any of Fender’s guitars, but I definitely wouldn’t let this one ”true to the time period“ flaw get in the way of purchasing such an otherwise amazing instrument.

Other than a bit of noise I have no reservations about this guitar––it does what it does, exceedingly well, and at a surprisingly decent price point. What’s not to love?

Final Word In the end, the Limited Edition ”Thin Skin“ ‘62 Stratocaster Re-Issue takes an already great thing (the production model American Vintage ‘62 Strat,) and makes it truly shine––all for a price well below that of very comparable Custom Shop models.

Sure, you could pay a few thousand more for a pre-worn-in Relic, but why bother when you can get a ”Thin Skin“ model that should age quickly and gracefully on its own, and for a surprisingly reasonable price of just less than $1500.

IBANEZ RGTHRG1 Review

2009-10-24T18:24:00.002+07:00

The RGTHRG1 features Giger's "NY City XIX" painting on the Ibanez RG body design popular among heavy metal guitarists.
Features: It was made in 2005 I beilive. It has 24 XJ frets as well as a 5 peice maple/walnut Wizard II neck with a dark "deluxe" sharktooth inlay. It is a neck-thru body, and has one of the most amazing feels and fret access I've ever felt. You can really get on the upper-frets with ease. The body is mahogany shaped into the typical RG design. The finish is a beautiful, eye catching graphic made by H.R. Giger himself, which contains a kind of mechanical/industrial look to it along with it's erie dark green/black colors. The whole guitar, including the finish, is satan. It comes with passive eletronics. Ibanez IFN1 neck and IFN2 bridge dual humbucker setup. The controls are Volume, Tone and a 5-way selector. The tuners are simply Ibanez stock. The bridge is a Ibanez Edge Pro II Double Locking. It came with a neat material Ibanez/Giger poster which actually looks pretty cool. I just wish it came with a case. // 9

Features: It was made in 2005 I beilive. It has 24 XJ frets as well as a 5 peice maple/walnut Wizard II neck with a dark "deluxe" sharktooth inlay. It is a neck-thru body, and has one of the most amazing feels and fret access I've ever felt. You can really get on the upper-frets with ease. The body is mahogany shaped into the typical RG design. The finish is a beautiful, eye catching graphic made by H.R. Giger himself, which contains a kind of mechanical/industrial look to it along with it's erie dark green/black colors. The whole guitar, including the finish, is satan. It comes with passive eletronics. Ibanez IFN1 neck and IFN2 bridge dual humbucker setup. The controls are Volume, Tone and a 5-way selector. The tuners are simply Ibanez stock. The bridge is a Ibanez Edge Pro II Double Locking. It came with a neat material Ibanez/Giger poster which actually looks pretty cool. I just wish it came with a case. // 9
Sound: This guitar is a pretty versitle peice of equipment. My style varies. It suits most all of them including, classical, metal, blues, rock and classic rock. The 5-way and passive makes it kind of easy to pull a more Strat like tone out of it all though never completely authentic. I play this directly into a Peavy Triple XXX Half-stack. When distorted, the noise and feedback tends to be extremely low. It has a nice warm sound but it's hard to get a good solid bite out of it. It plays beautifully for lead yet average when it comes to rhythms. The sustain was one of the best features. It went on for days and made the harmonics sing as well as scream. When clean, the sound is full, warm and clear and brings absolutely no issues. // 8

Action, Fit & Finish: I had received this guitar well passed its discontiuation date. I was lucky to get my hands on it. The factory set up was decent yet needed adjustments because I use a thicker gauge of strings then the factory set. After those adjustments were complete, The guitar was perfect. Played great, everything was as described, except for me the finish looked better in person. It contained absolutely no flaws other then the neck adjustment. // 9

Reliability & Durability: This guitar is very very very durable. It only has 1 small scratch so far with it. It had 1 or 2 hard hits to the back of the neck and the paint on the back came out with no damage what-so-ever. It seems it would be perfect for Live playing and I can't wait to take it on-stage next time I have a gig. The hardware works fine and the locking tuners do keep in tune pretty well. The strap buttons work perfect even though I am going to Switch them to strap locks soon. If I were to play this guitar on stage, I'm pretty sure I would not use this as a backup guitar. The looks and reliability would be a instant yes, to taking it on stage. The finish seems to look thin but it proves durable. For me this is a first but it actually has been extremely durable and still looks new. // 10

Impression: I play in a metal band, and this guitar is almost a perfect match. The only problem was it's distorted rhythm tone didn't have enough bite. One thing that might be a problem for some people is the fret dots on the side of the fretboard are slightly hard to see. I've been playing for over 3 years now, I also own a Dean Razorback, ESP LTD EC-1000, and a Peavy Triple XXX halfstack. Suprisingly it beats my razorback and almost my LTD. If this were lost or stolen I would hunt the person Who stole it down because this was too hard to get ahold of in it's discontinued state, and it's never gonna get lost, that's a promise. I would glady go on ebay and pay well more to purchase it again though. I love its feel and upper-fret access, as well as its screaming lead. I hate the 5-way switching and it's average rhythm tone. My favorite thing about it is definately the feel of the neck. I picked this over a Jackson RR3 and another Ibanez RG. This was completely superior. Not only that, I'm a huge fan of H.R. Giger's artwork. The only thing I wish was different about it is the passive system. The passive system on this wasent that well with the rhythms. I wish for it to be active, along with 3-way instead of 5-way. Other then that, it's great. Giger's artwork with a awesome RG model, this is a must for a lot of lead players or Giger fans. The price is very reasonable too. I just wish you good luck getting this discontinued model though. You'll probably only find it on ebay now.

Motorola Cliq

2009-10-16T16:36:00.001+07:00

The beautifully designed Motorola Cliq is a social butterfly’s dream phone, but others may find the MotoBlur user interface overwhelming.

The Motorola Cliq ($200 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile) caught my attention because of its sleek design and its innovative MotoBlur overlay for Android. Overall, the new features lived up to my expectations, and I applaud Motorola for doing something different to separate itself from the Android pack. The Cliq isn't perfect, however: Its camera disappoints, and it doesn't ship with the latest version of Android.

The beautifully designed Motorola Cliq is a social butterfly’s dream phone, but others may find the MotoBlur user interface overwhelming.

The Motorola Cliq ($200 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile) caught my attention because of its sleek design and its innovative MotoBlur overlay for Android. Overall, the new features lived up to my expectations, and I applaud Motorola for doing something different to separate itself from the Android pack. The Cliq isn't perfect, however: Its camera disappoints, and it doesn't ship with the latest version of Android.
Like the T-Mobile G1 and the Samsung Moment, the Motorola Cliq has both a touchscreen and a slide-out keyboard. I haven't spent enough time with the Samsung Moment to compare it and the Cliq in depth, but I can safely say that I much prefer the Cliq to the G1. It feels sturdier, more streamlined, and more comfortable during use.

Measuring 4.5 inches long by 2.3 inches wide by 0.6 inch thick, the Cliq falls somewhere between the G1 and the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G (T-Mobile's other Android offering) in size. Weighing 5.7 ounces, it is slightly heavier than other current smartphones--the iPhone 3GS, for example--but it doesn't feel bulky. The Cliq feels as though it has a high build quality, thanks in part to the glass display and metal trim around the handset. I'll take heavier materials over cheap-feeling plastic any day.

The 320-by-480-pixel capacitive touch display dominates the phone's face. Though a 3.1-inch screen is large enough to support watching a video or navigating around the interface comfortably, Motorola didn't use the available real estate very efficiently. The Cliq sets a noticeable amount of space aside to accommodate logos; I wish that Motorola had made this area smaller and the screen larger.

Three hardware buttons appear beneath the display: Menu, Home, and Back. These buttons are nicely raised, easy to press, and brightly backlit. A volume rocker, a charging port, and a ringer switch lie on the left spine of the phone; and the lock/power button and camera shutter occupy the right. The 3.5mm headphone jack sits at the top of the phone.

A physical keyboard is necessary because the native touch keyboard on the current version of Android is far from perfect (as we noted in our reviews of the T-Mobile MyTouch and the HTC Hero). I appreciated the raised, dome-shaped keys, but I didn't like their mushy feel in comparison to the responsive clickiness that other QWERTY keyboards (such as the BlackBerry Tour's) possess. I suspect that I'll get used to the keys with more use, however. The keyboard is spacious, and I liked how large and easy-to-find the Alt, Search, Space, Sym, and Undo keys were (they're a different color than the other keys). A four-way directional pad sits to the left of the keyboard and serves as a handy navigation control if you don't feel like using the touchscreen.

Call quality over T-Mobile's network was very good. I made a few calls on a busy street corner and could hear my contacts perfectly. Motorola says that the phone incorporates two microphones as well as noise-cancellation technology. Callers on the other end of the line told me that my voice sounded very clear, although one noted a faint hiss during our call.

The Motorola Cliq is the first phone to showcase MotoBlur, Motorola's skin for Android. Before we delve into Android, however, I should note that the Cliq doesn't ship with the latest version of Android OS 1.6 (more deliciously known as Donut). T-Mobile says that it won't announce any plans for 1.6 at launch, but the company did mention the ease of making over-the-air upgrades via MotoBlur, so perhaps you can expect one later in the year.

When you start up your Cliq for the first time, you have to register for a MotoBlur account. This establishes a registration record of your phone on the MotoBlur servers so you can receive updated information without interruption. You then choose which social networks or accounts--such as such as Facebook, Last.fm, MySpace, and Twitter--you want to associate on your Cliq. MotoBlur then aggregates all of the information from your networks and delivers it to the phone.

The best example of how MotoBlur organizes this information is your contacts. The application collects all of the contacts from your various social networks. If you're friends with the same people on multiple networks, MotoBlur condenses all of their information into a single listing to avoid duplicating data on your phone. You can then see each of your contacts' current information--birthday, status update, current profile picture, e-mail address, phone number, and the like. You can view your communication history with a particular contact as well as viewing that person's activity on different social networks.

When your friends update their information in one of the supported social networks, MotoBlur will update their listing on your phone. To see how quickly the updating would occur, I used my PC to change my picture on Facebook via the Web. My picture updated in my contact info on the Cliq in less than 30 minutes.

Android is easy enough to get the hang of, but it lacks the aesthetic appeal and intuitiveness of some other OSs. This is where MotoBlur comes in: MotoBlur uses Android's live widget capabilities to bring all of your messaging and social networking activity to the phone's homescreen.

At first glance, MotoBlur is a bit overwhelming: Text, talk bubbles, and images fly out at you in every direction. And the text and icons don't pop out as much as the ones on iPhone OS or the Palm Pre do. Fortunately, you have five homescreens to fill with the widgets and applications of your choice, which helps reduce the clutter (a small indicator at the top of each page tells you which page you're on--much as on the iPhone. In addition to the standard Android widgets (Music, Clock, Calendar, and Search, to name a few), you'll see four MotoBlur widgets: Messages, Status, Happenings, and Weather.

As its name implies, Messages delivers your most recent unread texts, social network messages, and e-mail messages to the homescreen in a speech bubble. The sender is identified at top of the message in bold, so you can easily tell whether the message is important or just spam. A snippet of the e-mail appears, but when you tap on it, you jump the full message, at which point you can reply or delete it. You can also view all of your messages in a universal inbox similar to Palm's WebOS--or you can view your messages by account, if you prefer.

MotoBlur's Happenings widget gives you instant access to your social networks from the homescreen. Facebook, Gmail, Last.fm, MySpace, Twitter, Yahoo, and other social networks are constantly connected and continually updated on the app. Honestly, I found Happenings a bit annoying. Do I really want some random former classmate's status popping up on my phone?

Status is fairly self-explanatory, too: You can use it to update your status to one or all of your social networks from your phone. This feature is pretty convenient because you don't actually have to open the application to enter a status update; instead, you can do it from the homescreen.

MotoBlur's best feature may be its ability to track your lost or stolen phone via GPS and remotely wipe it. And since all of your data is stored in the MotoBlur cloud, you won't have to reload everything into your new phone.

The Web browser loaded pages quickly; but the Cliq doesn't support Flash, so certain videos and pages won't load. Though Flash 10 for Android is coming soon,you'll just have to hold out until it is available. The browser itself is reasonably easy to use: You can open multiple windows, bookmark pages, and search for words on a page.

Holding down the dedicated shutter button launches the camera application. My outdoor pictures looked great, with bright, accurate colors and sharp details. Snapshots taken in dimly lit indoor settings didn't fare as well, however. Some test images had yellow or blue color casts and looked grainy. One shot of an acoustic guitar had a noticeable amount of noise in the lines of the wood. In addition, the shutter speed is disappointingly slow, and you can't adjust it, so you'd better make sure that your subject stays put for a good 3 seconds to ensure a decent shot.

The Android music player is straightforward and easy to navigate. You can download DRM-free tracks from the Amazon MP3 store, which is a nice alternative to iTunes. Music playback sounded good (though slightly tinny) through the included earbuds. Video playback looked great on the Cliq's 3.1-inch display--but again, I wish that the display were a little bigger.

For hardcore social networkers, the Motorola Cliq is a dream phone. You get fast access to all of your accounts and a well-designed QWERTY keyboard for typing long messages. If you aren't into social networking or if you want to keep that information limited to your computer, you may be turned off by the Cliq. The T-Mobile MyTouch 3G might be a better Android option, or you could choose one of the many BlackBerry models on T-Mobile.
pcworld.com

Research in Motion BlackBerry Storm 2

2009-10-15T17:38:00.001+07:00

The BlackBerry Storm 2 phone is an overall improvement from its predecessor, but SureType still feels a bit unintuitive.

When the BlackBerry Storm debuted last fall, RIM's first touchscreen device received not-so-stellar reviews. RIM took reviewers' and customers' gripes into consideration, however, when designing the BlackBerry Storm 2 ($200 with a two-year contract from Verizon; price as of 10/14/09). The result? This is the Storm that I wish RIM had released last year--the device's build, the on-screen keyboard, and the software are miles beyond the first generation. Even so, pressing to type still takes some getting used to.

The BlackBerry Storm 2 phone is an overall improvement from its predecessor, but SureType still feels a bit unintuitive.

When the BlackBerry Storm debuted last fall, RIM's first touchscreen device received not-so-stellar reviews. RIM took reviewers' and customers' gripes into consideration, however, when designing the BlackBerry Storm 2 ($200 with a two-year contract from Verizon; price as of 10/14/09). The result? This is the Storm that I wish RIM had released last year--the device's build, the on-screen keyboard, and the software are miles beyond the first generation. Even so, pressing to type still takes some getting used to.
In measurements and display size, the Storm 2 is identical to its predecessor. It weighs just slightly more (0.1 ounce more, to be exact) than the original Storm. If you put the two handsets side by side, however, the older Storm looks clunkier. All of the buttons on the Storm 2 are more recessed, making for a more streamlined design. Hardware buttons no longer run below the display; instead, the new handset offers touch-sensitive buttons there. And unlike with the first model, on this version you won't see a crack between where the display ends and the keys start--this alone puts the Storm 2 eons beyond the Storm in design aesthetics.

The absence of that (somewhat disturbing) crack is due to the new SurePress technology, which is now electronic rather than mechanical. You still have to push down to type or select an application, but the unit no longer feels wobbly or clumsy to press. As my colleague Yardena Arar noted in last year's review of the Storm, the mechanical SurePress interface was often inaccurate: You'd press one application, and another would activate.

Without getting too technical, the difference in the two generations lies underneath the display. The original Storm was essentially one big suspended button mounted below the screen's center point. Below the Storm 2's hood, in contrast, four activators sense when you're pressing on the screen. This design allows for a more stable navigating experience.

I had a much easier time typing on the Storm 2's keyboard than on the original's, but I still can't get accustomed to pushing down on a display to type. I know that it is supposed to feel more natural than a typical touch keyboard, but I think I prefer the physical BlackBerry keyboards. I do like how you can hold down the Shift key and a letter to capitalize it, as you would on a physical keyboard. A colleague with larger hands had more difficulty typing on it than I did, however.

One interesting thing to note: RIM studied the way people typed on touch keyboards, and found that, while typing quickly, they often briefly held down two keys at once. The Storm 2's keyboard mimics that by having both keys respond when you press them, thus making typing faster. And of course, the keyboard has RIM's excellent SureType predictive-text entry, which facilitates speedy typing.

The new Storm also has inertial scrolling, which means that you can move through your contacts or media library quickly with a flick of your finger. It isn't as speedy as the iPhone's scrolling, but it is a big improvement from that of the older Storm, which barely budged when you flicked to scroll. There were times when I had to flick multiple times to get the phone to respond, however. The cut/copy/paste functions are also easier to use, since the "handles" you grab to select text are bigger.

While the Storm 2 retains the original's 480-by-360-pixel display resolution, the user interface looks a lot brighter and sharper. This is due to the BlackBerry OS 5.0 software, which has sharper icons, brighter colors, and blacker blacks than does BlackBerry OS 4.7 (which shipped on the original Storm). The interface is clean and simple to navigate, thanks to the easy-to-identify icons.

Call quality over Verizon's 3G network was very good, with no background static or hiss. Voices were loud enough for me to hear easily, and they sounded natural. Parties on the other end of the line could hear my voice clearly while I was standing on a busy street corner.

Like all BlackBerry products, the Storm 2 has excellent messaging and e-mail capabilities. You get BlackBerry Enterprise Server support for your work e-mail, and you can load up to ten work or personal POP3 or IMAP accounts. The Storm 2 doesn't come loaded with the new BlackBerry Messenger 5.0, but you should definitely download it from BlackBerry App World. Trust me, you'll never go back to the old Messenger: Version 5 sports a spruced-up interface that's easier to use, it offers more emoticons to choose from, and it has the ability to display your location via GPS.

Pages loaded quickly over Verizon's 3G network, and even faster over Wi-Fi. Yes, the Storm 2 has Wi-Fi, and that alone makes the revised handset a big step up from the original Storm. RIM says to expect all of its future CDMA handsets to ship with Wi-Fi connectivity, so kudos to the company for finally getting past that roadblock. The browser will default to a mobile page when one is available, but it also loads full sites without any issues. Of course, the BlackBerry platform doesn't yet support Flash, so Flash-heavy sites won't load.

The music player displays album art and has easy-to-access touch controls. Audio quality sounded a bit hollow piped through the bundled headset and on my own higher-quality earbuds. Video playback was very smooth throughout most clips; I noticed only a bit of stuttering in fast-action scenes.

Overall, I was impressed with the Storm's 3.2-megapixel camera. Snapshots taken both indoors and outdoors looked better than pictures taken with the iPhone 3GS. Colors were a bit washed out and even more so when the flash was on, but details were sharp and I didn't detect any noise or graininess.

The BlackBerry Storm 2 is definitely an upgrade from the first Storm in design and usability. And while the keyboard handles better, I still can't really get the hang of it. Before you decide to purchase the Storm 2, try it out extensively in a Verizon store. If you discover that it isn't for you, consider getting a phone with both a touchscreen and a keyboard, like the LG enV Touch or the HTC Touch Pro 2. With one of those models, you get the best of both input technologies rather than something in between.
pcworld.com

HP TouchSmart 600

2009-10-13T18:54:00.001+07:00

This third-generation TouchSmart PC is boosted by Windows 7's gesture support, but HP's custom multitouch software is even more impressive.

With Windows 7, Microsoft has built support for multitouch gestures directly into the operating system. And though using your fingers to tap, flick, and pinch your way around probably won't replace the humble mouse anytime soon, HP has almost three years of experience in producing multitouch-capable all-in-one PCs. It shows.

This third-generation TouchSmart PC is boosted by Windows 7's gesture support, but HP's custom multitouch software is even more impressive.

With Windows 7, Microsoft has built support for multitouch gestures directly into the operating system. And though using your fingers to tap, flick, and pinch your way around probably won't replace the humble mouse anytime soon, HP has almost three years of experience in producing multitouch-capable all-in-one PCs. It shows.
Aesthetically, the new TouchSmart 600 retains the familiar and elegant TouchSmart design, including ambient lighting that casts a soothing colored glow. Its 23-inch display puts it between HP's existing 22-inch TouchSmart IQ500t and 25.5-inch TouchSmart IQ816 in terms of size. Like the latter, the TouchSmart 600 supports a resolution of 1920 by 1080 (1080p)--perfect for watching high-definition movies and TV via its built-in Blu-ray slot drive and HDTV tuner. You can also stream shows wirelessly over 802.11n, and suck in photos with the integrated multicard reader. A remote control is included, as well.

But as with the earlier models, on the TouchSmart 600 it's HP's custom software that really shines. Version 3.0 is a significant upgrade, offering touch-friendly versions of Hulu, Netflix, Twitter, and other applications that have oversize buttons and that understand gestures such as swiping and pinching. The Collage app lets you use two hands to shuffle, resize, and rotate photos, in a way that's reminiscent of Microsoft's high-end Surface table PC. And the HP apps now multitask, letting you hop back and forth by sliding them around with a fingertip. The interface is responsive, and is the benchmark for upcoming Windows 7 all-in-one PCs from Acer, Asus, Dell, Gateway, and MSI.

As touch remains best for casual interaction with the PC in a family room or kitchen, HP also throws in a wireless mouse, plus a low-profile wireless keyboard that you can tuck beneath the case when you're not using it.

Our $1600 test configuration included Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), a 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7450 processor, 4GB of DDR-1333 memory, a 750GB hard drive, and 1GB nVidia GeForce GT230M graphics. Those components helped the TouchSmart 600 achieve a WorldBench 6 score of 92, which is right in the middle of our top-performing all-in-one PCs. It's pretty much equal in performance with the Core 2 Duo T8100-equipped TouchSmart IQ816 (81) and the Lenovo IdeaCenter A600 (87). (When it comes to all-in-one speed, nothing we've tested so far has matched the 24-inch Apple iMac's WorldBench score of 111.) As for gaming, however, the TouchSmart 600 simply can't match those all-in-one PCs; it struggled to break a playable 30 frames per second at 1680 by 1050 resolution, in either Enemy Territory: Quake Wars or Unreal Tournament.

Even with Windows 7, touch remains an entertaining luxury rather than a killer feature; and if you can do without it, you can get a machine for a lot less cash with features and specs that are otherwise comparable. But if you're ready to reach out and touch Windows, the TouchSmart 600 lets you do it in a way that's both fun and effective.

Alienware M15x

2009-10-13T18:40:00.004+07:00

If money is no object and mobile gaming is your goal, the Core i7-fueled M15x strikes a reasonable balance between size and speed.

To fans of high-end hardware who want to be a little more mobile: Check out the new Alienware M15x. Take Alienware's M17x, shrink it down to the all-purpose size bracket (our test unit had a 15.6-inch screen), and pop in a Core i7 CPU. If you don't need to read any further, that's about as reductive as it gets. While a baseline machine starts at $1499, the real power doesn't exactly come cheap (our review unit, as configured, sells for about $2999). But how does the M15x fare versus its bigger brother? Surprisingly well.

If money is no object and mobile gaming is your goal, the Core i7-fueled M15x strikes a reasonable balance between size and speed.

To fans of high-end hardware who want to be a little more mobile: Check out the new Alienware M15x. Take Alienware's M17x, shrink it down to the all-purpose size bracket (our test unit had a 15.6-inch screen), and pop in a Core i7 CPU. If you don't need to read any further, that's about as reductive as it gets. While a baseline machine starts at $1499, the real power doesn't exactly come cheap (our review unit, as configured, sells for about $2999). But how does the M15x fare versus its bigger brother? Surprisingly well.
Jumping right to the performance, let's take a peek at some of the hard numbers. In WorldBench 6 tests, the M15x scored a 121 thanks to the Core i7-920XM processor, 4GB of RAM, and the 7200-rpm, 250GB hard drive. That's in the same range as the M17x and catapults it to the top of the all-purpose notebook pack. In fact, that puts it right in spitting distance of Eurocomm's near-$6000 monster machine that packed a Xeon processor on the desktop replacement chart. And as any self-respecting gaming rig would, the M15x also packs a decent discrete GPU--a 1GB nVidia GeForce GTX 260M. Under our stress tests, this GPU held up quite well.

At 1680-by-1050-pixel resolution with all the settings cranked (and 4X antialiasing) the M15x knocked out 69 frames per second in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and 89 frames per second in Unreal Tournament 3. That is nothing to sneeze at. By the way, for a little comparison, the M17x knocked out 65 and 84 frames per second in the same tests. So, technically, the little brother is more spry. Opting to throw a couple more curveballs, I loaded up Left 4 Dead, jacking up the settings to the machine's native resolution (1920 by 1080) and 4X antialiasing. I even fired up Crysis Warhead (with AA turned off). Both games looked great and ran reasonably smoothly. After that, I kicked on the Resident Evil 5 benchmark, and it shot out a respectable 40 frames per second. In short, it works as advertised. Bear in mind that it did all this running Windows Vista Home Premium Edition. With Windows 7 on board (a free upgrade coupon comes in the box), it'll probably run a hair snappier in these same tests.

Of course, a downside to all this power is that this high-performance rig can barely muster 2 hours of battery life. So you wind up with an all-purpose PC that lasts a little less than half the average run time. Keep the power supply handy and be somewhere near an outlet next time you want to play World of Warcraft.

Moving back to the outside of the hood, let's take a look at that 15.6-inch screen. It actually has good color reproduction with the brightness kicked up all the way. And, in games such as Left 4 Dead, the dark moody corridors don't get blasted out with ridiculous gamma settings. But as I just said, I needed to jack up the brightness to really get the best picture in mixed light settings. You plan to use the M15x in a cave? No worries, set it lower. And, it goes without saying that it was more than capable of outputting good quality video--at least as good video as the DVD-ROM drive could provide. While you can upgrade to a a BD-ROM drive, that wasn't on board here. But with the 1080p video we installed on the 250GB hard drive, a sample clip of a space shuttle looked crisp, with yellow-ish gray smoke plumes erupting in front of the early morning sky at the launch site.

One thing is for sure, this is nothing like the last-gen version of the M15x. That creaky box felt like it was held together with duct tape and true grit. The new M15x, by comparison, is a fairly solid, seamless chassis. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find many screws (they hide behind the battery for access to upgradable components).

And the keyboard? It certainly felt good enough as my fingers danced over the keys. Actually, maybe I should say that my fingers moved over the dance floor because you can change the color schemes on running lights around the machine. But I digress. Though the touchpad is a little on the small side for my tastes, it's textured and easy enough to use. The buttons also have a good amount of give as they jutted above the large wrist rest. Still, the buttons could stand to be a hair bigger. Truth be told, though, if you're setting up shop with this machine somewhere, you're probably going to opt for an external mouse, anyhow.

Crammed around the sides are a four-pin FireWire port, two USB plugs, one eSATA/USB combo port, an ExpressCard slot, and an eight-in-one Media Card reader. The M15x also makes room for DisplayPort and VGA video-outs. A couple of audio-out jacks for external surround sound provides a pretty strong indication that you won't be tempted to stick with the two built-in front-firing speakers--though the attempt at virtual sound works decently. 802.11n and Bluetooth wireless support complement the gigabit ethernet jack.

Coming in, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the Alienware M15x this time around. But, thanks to the new guts and scaling down most of the M17x's designs, this machine is making me a believer. That said, this laptop certainly doesn't come cheap or last long on a single charge; and while this "all-purpose"-size rig may fit in your bag, it also may just tear a hole in the bottom. But it delivers on exactly what you'd expect: high-end gaming performance.

--Darren Gladstone
pcworld.com

HP Mini 311-1000NR

2009-10-12T19:12:00.000+07:00

We're still testing it, but so far the first Ion netbook delivers on its promise: The first affordable netbook that can support games and HD video has arrived.

Commuting to work this morning, I was playing Left 4 Dead on HP's Mini 311-1000NR--that's right, on a netbook. Few netbooks are up to that task, and HP is first to market with an nVidia Ion-based portable. The 3.22-pound, 11.4-by-8.0-by-1.2-inch Mini 311-1000NR has a reasonable amount of power and a $399 asking price. (Our review unit, as configured, sells for $450 as of October 5, 2009.)

We're still testing it, but so far the first Ion netbook delivers on its promise: The first affordable netbook that can support games and HD video has arrived.

Commuting to work this morning, I was playing Left 4 Dead on HP's Mini 311-1000NR--that's right, on a netbook. Few netbooks are up to that task, and HP is first to market with an nVidia Ion-based portable. The 3.22-pound, 11.4-by-8.0-by-1.2-inch Mini 311-1000NR has a reasonable amount of power and a $399 asking price. (Our review unit, as configured, sells for $450 as of October 5, 2009.)
What's Ion? If you've somehow missed the reams of stories I've already written about the Ion platform, here's the executive summary: For netbooks or nettops, it marries an Intel Atom CPU (in this case, the 1.66GHz N280) to an nVidia Ion LE GPU, yielding more-powerful, affordable machines that can output high-def video and even allow you to play some games.

Also fueling this machine are 1GB of RAM and a 160GB 5400-rpm hard drive--standard-issue netbook guts. Unfortunately, we don't yet know exactly how much additional juice the Mini 311-1000NR delivers--we're conducting our WorldBench 6 lab tests as I write this--but we do have some preliminary results.

I'm looking forward to the final results to see how an Ion netbook will fare against AMD's tweener-class Neo CPU, which came on board the category-defying HP Pavilion dv2 (a model that earned a score of 45 on WorldBench 6). And now the HP Pavilion dm3, due to replace the dv2, is just around the corner. HP spokespeople say that they expect the Mini 311-1000NR to deliver roughly 5 hours of battery life; we'll see.

Gaming on a netbook is one of the big bullet-point promises of the Ion platform--but don't expect to run Crysis Warhead. I tried: After a lengthy load time, it was a start-and-stop experience at 800 by 600 pixels with everything but the monitor turned off. Though I can say that I "played" the game, but it isn't exactly "playable." I had much better luck with Left 4 Dead and with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. At the same resolution--with visual effects switched to low setting--both were slightly jerky (frame rates bounced along in the high 20s and low 30s), but definitely playable. For laughs, I tried running the ridiculous Resident Evil 5 Benchmark that challenged the Core i7; at 1280 by 720 pixels, the Mini 311-1000NR managed 7.7 frames per second. (A $4000 desktop replacement laptop gets ten times that performance--not a huge surprise there.)

Like the Acer Aspire One 751h, the Mini 311-1000NR has a relatively large 11.6-inch screen as netbooks go. The LED BrightView display, at 1366 by 768 pixels (with a 16:9 aspect ratio), looks fairly sharp despite some glare problems when used outdoors in direct sunlight. Once I settled into a shady spot, though, I threw all sorts of test 720p content at the netbook, and it ran clean, with maybe one stutter-step moment out of all the video I installed on the machine's hard drive. The Mini 311-1000NR runs Hulu at full-screen as well. Just don't hold your breath for HD streaming video (unless maybe you can wait a little longer for a Flash update to support GPU acceleration). A quick launcher from the tool tray provides access to a number of video-calibrating options--from color and brightness to bit-depth and resolution--with minimal on-screen digging.

HP's take on the platform is fairly stylish--no surprise considering that the Mini (and the Pavilion, for that matter) sports curved lines and interesting patterns on a glossy finish. In this case, the Mini 311-1000NR comes with a white or black swirled lid that'll hypnotize you.

The keyboard reminds me of the dv2's, just shrunken down a little bit. HP spokespeople say that the Mini 311-1000NR's keyboard is 92 percent of full size. I've seen the dips in the buttons termed "scalloped keys," and the little lips do make them a bit easier to type on. Still, if HP had let the keys spread closer to the sides of the machine, the company might have been able to enlarge the buttons to 93 or even 94 percent of full size. And I wouldn't have complained.

The touchpad and button placement along the bottom of the netbook toes the line--and it's a world better than on previous Mini models, which stupidly dropped the left and right buttons in flanking positions on either side of the touch area. The left and right buttons on the Mini 311-1000NR feel firm though a little plasticky. One thing that I did miss was the little kill switch for turning off the touchpad. In its absence, I often found myself accidentally grazing the touchpad or buttons and inadvertently moving my cursor.

The I/O ports lining the box are in line with what you'd expect on a netbooks: three USB ports, a 10/100 ethernet jack, VGA out, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and a Webcam. Upgrade options include 802.11n, Bluetooth, and 3G WWAN broadband.

Among the minor tweaks that I approve of are a headphone out/microphone combo jack (compatible with the four-conductor headsets used in some cell phones), HDMI-out (taking advantage of the GPU, obviously), and a five-in-one flash card reader that can handle SD/MMC, Memory Stick/Pro and XD picture cards (most netbooks handle only SD/MMC cards).

So at this point I see a fairly good deal jammed into a machine that actually looks like a fairly good deal. Meanwhile, where is the Lenovo IdeaPad S12 with the Ion under the hood? Lenovo was the first company to announce support for the chipset, but we're still waiting on its first product.

Remember to revisit this review soon for an update that will include a full score and proper test results. For those that simply can't wait, I'll say this: If you've resisted the urge to buy a netbook until something with a little more oomph came along, this could be your machine.
pcworld.com

Boss GT6

2009-10-11T19:28:00.002+07:00

Ease of Use: This thing is awesome. I have been playing for about nine months now, both various kinds of metal and some '60s "new ageish" folk/metal (thats right, combined) stuff and this thing can do it all and then more. It can play any style you want, metal, country, folk, punl, classic rock, or anything you can think up of on your own. It has everything you would ever need, distortion, chorus, reverb, delay, phaser, flanger, wah, tremelo, vibrato, it just goes on and on. It also has a freakin' sweet system where you can model amps, like a driven stack or oldschool blues tube amp. The version I bought didn't come with an owners manual, which is crappy due the bigillion functions this thing has. So I fixed that by downloading the manual off the internet at www.Boss.com and did a search for the owners manual, and got it right then and there. Now I don't know if that was just me, but I wrote that down just in case. Also I sould note that thy discontinued the GT6 and came out with the GT8 for $399 or $499, not really sure, but would try to get my hands on this bad boy before it goes away. // 8
Sound: Right now I am playing an Ibanez RG 321, which was great for its price, and a 15 watt Crate, but I plan to get a Fender FM212 100 watt soon, just need the money. It can have some unwanted feedback when you combine too many of the electronic features, or push teh volume too much directly on the system, but thats what the master volume knob is for on the amp. But if you don't get effects happy or push the system too hard, it sounds pretty good. But I can still get a hell of alot better distortion out of my Line 6 UberMetal petal, but that thing is top of the line hardcore. Other than that, the sound of the effects are pretty good. Also, it has a MIDI hook-up, and if you have a MIDI bank on your computer, you can get some crazy sounds like a piano or a squeeling pig if you have it. And if you don't its easy to get from a google search. // 7

Reliability & Durability: I have not found anything wrong with it, and it is made out of mostly metal, with rugged pedals and knobs. I have droped it once on soncrete for arms length, and survived just fine. I haven't done a show with it due to the absence of being in a full fleged band, but it is defiently up to the task, without a backup, to due any show you throw at it. // 7

Impression: I play hippie/metal, but it would suit any guitar player out there, and does just fine from my crazy styles I randomly come up with like a flanged acoustic (very space rock) or a simple classic Overdrive with a fast slicer. I really hoped it came with an accutual owners manual, because the computer version is hard to follow and read. I love all the functions, but I don't like the distortion feature, I think that they could have doen better. I would bust a cap if it got stolen, and would try to replace it any way possible, but it is expensive (for good reason)

Deep Purple Plan New Live Album

2009-10-11T19:22:00.001+07:00

Deep Purple has a new live album in the works called "Space Truckin' Round the World Live 68-76". According to Classic Rock magazine, the two-disc set — due out next month — will feature rare live recordings from various concerts all over the world, including gigs in Tokyo, Paris and San Diego. The compilation, which features multiple band line-ups, will also feature a detailed history of the group, individual concert details and photos. It's being released as part of the 10th anniversary of Purple Records — the label that handles the band's music.

Deep Purple has a new live album in the works called "Space Truckin' Round the World Live 68-76". According to Classic Rock magazine, the two-disc set — due out next month — will feature rare live recordings from various concerts all over the world, including gigs in Tokyo, Paris and San Diego. The compilation, which features multiple band line-ups, will also feature a detailed history of the group, individual concert details and photos. It's being released as part of the 10th anniversary of Purple Records — the label that handles the band's music.
The track listing is as follows:

CD 1:

01. "Hush" (Inglewood 1968)
02. "River Deep Mountain High" (Inglewood 1968)
03. "Hey Joe" (Inglewood 1968)
04. "Wring That Neck" (Aachen 1970)
05. "Into The Fire" (Stockholm 1970)
06. "Mandrake Root" (Montreux 1969)

CD 2:

01. "Child In Time" (Granada TV 1970)
02. "Lazy" (Denmark 1972)
03. "Strange Kind Of Woman" (Denmark 1972)
04. "Burn" (San Diego 1974)
05. "Mistreated" (San Diego 1974)
06. "The Gypsy" (Paris 1975)
07. "Lady Double Dealer" (Paris 1975)
08. "Wild Dogs" (Tokyo 1975)
09. "Love Child" (Tokyo 1975)

Deep Purple will be Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson's guests on Friday, October 9 during Bruce's weekly BBC 6 Music radio program, dubbed "The Bruce Dickinson Friday Rock Show". Listen to the broadcast live via the Internet between 9:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. (midnight) U.K. time at BBC.co.uk.

Deep Purple's 18th studio album, "Rapture Of The Deep", was released in November 2005. It is the fourth studio CD from Deep Purple since guitarist Steve Morse joined the band in 1994. It was also the second album to feature veteran keyboardist Don Airey.

"Rapture Of The Deep" was produced by Mike Bradford, who also worked on the band's previous release, 2003's "Bananas".

Deep Purple has dates lined up in November in the U.K.
www.ultimate-guitar.com

Jimi Hendrix

2009-10-11T19:15:00.001+07:00

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is widely considered to be the greatest guitarist in the history of rock music by other musicians and commentators in the industry, and one of the most important and influential musicians of his era across a range of genres. After initial success in Europe, he achieved fame in the United States following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. Hendrix often favored raw overdriven amplifiers with high gain and treble and helped develop the previously undesirable technique of guitar amplifier feedback. Hendrix was one of the musicians who popularized the wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock which he often used to deliver an exaggerated pitch in his solos, particularly with high bends and use of legato based around the pentatonic scale. He was influenced by blues artists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, and Elmore James, rhythm and blues and soul guitarists Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, as well as by some modern jazz. In 1966, Hendrix, who played and recorded with Little Richard's band from 1964 to 1965, was quoted as saying, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice."

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is widely considered to be the greatest guitarist in the history of rock music by other musicians and commentators in the industry, and one of the most important and influential musicians of his era across a range of genres. After initial success in Europe, he achieved fame in the United States following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival and the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. Hendrix often favored raw overdriven amplifiers with high gain and treble and helped develop the previously undesirable technique of guitar amplifier feedback. Hendrix was one of the musicians who popularized the wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock which he often used to deliver an exaggerated pitch in his solos, particularly with high bends and use of legato based around the pentatonic scale. He was influenced by blues artists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, and Elmore James, rhythm and blues and soul guitarists Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, as well as by some modern jazz. In 1966, Hendrix, who played and recorded with Little Richard's band from 1964 to 1965, was quoted as saying, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice."
Carlos Santana has suggested that Hendrix's music may have been influenced by his partly Native American heritage.[14] As a record producer, Hendrix also broke new ground in using the recording studio as an extension of his musical ideas. He was one of the first to experiment with stereophonic and phasing effects for rock recording.

Hendrix won many of the most prestigious rock music awards in his lifetime, and has been posthumously awarded many more, including being inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. An English Heritage blue plaque was erected in his name on his former residence at Brook Street, London, in September 1997. A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6627 Hollywood Blvd.) was dedicated in 1994. In 2006, his debut US album, Are You Experienced, was inducted into the United States National Recording Registry, and Rolling Stone named Hendrix the top guitarist on its list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in 2003. He was also the first person inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame.
wikipedia.org

Dell Latitude Z600

2009-10-11T19:08:00.002+07:00

We're still waiting on final test results, but Dell has created a future-forward bit of tech that's good for the status-seeking businessman. Everyone else: Look on from afar.

You read car magazines for reviews of wheels you want to buy--and of the odd machine that you'd never be able to afford in a million years but can admire from afar. That's the Dell Latitude Z600 ultraslim laptop. Wait--a "sexy" Dell Latitude? It's hardly practical--or economical--but if you're into forward-thinking tech, this portable that starts at around $2000-plus is worth a good longing look. (Our review unit, as configured, sells for a mere $4323 with its wireless charger and base station).

We're still waiting on final test results, but Dell has created a future-forward bit of tech that's good for the status-seeking businessman. Everyone else: Look on from afar.

You read car magazines for reviews of wheels you want to buy--and of the odd machine that you'd never be able to afford in a million years but can admire from afar. That's the Dell Latitude Z600 ultraslim laptop. Wait--a "sexy" Dell Latitude? It's hardly practical--or economical--but if you're into forward-thinking tech, this portable that starts at around $2000-plus is worth a good longing look. (Our review unit, as configured, sells for a mere $4323 with its wireless charger and base station).
First observation: The Z600 is wide and way thin. We're talking a laptop with a 16-inch screen and only 0.57 inch thick (and weighs about 4.5 pounds with the standard 4-cell battery). It defies logic creating a machine this big, yet thinner than many ultraportables. You'll want to take it everywhere and show it off, but since it has a 16-inch screen, you'll have a tougher time finding a bag it will fit in. (For what it's worth, Sony's recently unveiled VAIO X Series ultraportables are a whole 0.02 inch thinner.) But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

Grab the Z600, and you'll feel a supple, almost rubbery, black-cherry coating reminiscent of what Lenovo does on some ThinkPads. Open her up, and you're greeted by a 1600-by-900-pixel panel. Along the right side, Dell's TouchEdge LCD sensor technology replaces the need to clutter the machine with many shortcuts (you'll find volume controls parked above the keyboard, plus an instant-on shortcut button--more on the latter in a minute). Just tap an indent near the bottom of the panel, and it pulls up an overlay of application shortcuts. Tap the frame, and it launches whatever program you configure. It works really well.

And the screen's colors are crisp enough with still images. The backlit WLED panel does a great job reproducing the gamut of rich, dark tones like the ocean as well as those of bright, vibrant jungle scenes (think of the sample images in your computer's Pictures folder), and it keeps looking sharp whether indoors or out. Glare is minimal. And 720p video installed on one 128GB solid-state drive (our machine came configured with two SSDs) runs smoothly--a small triumph for the integrated Intel 4500MHD GPU, no doubt.

Under the hood of this test rig: A 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU9600 CPU and 4GB of RAM. Aside from the two aforementioned hard drives, these are the kind of guts you'll find in something like an Acer Timeline. Now, as much as I'd like to spit out performance numbers, you should keep two caveats in mind. First, this machine hasn't run through the vaunted WorldBench 6 testbed just yet--I had to steal the Z600 away just to give you this deep-dive hands-on. Second, our machine came loaded with Windows Vista Ultimate. Safe bet is that the computer you'd consider buying--assuming you have tons of cash--will come loaded with some flavor of Windows 7. Similarly, it's a little early to provide battery-life test results.

Want to get a little more life out of the machine--or not go into Windows proper? Try Latitude ON, a quick-firing OS that boots in 4 seconds. Not bad considering it runs off a separate ARM CPU, 512MB of RAM, and Linux. Log in and use a 3G WWAN (wireless wide-area networking) connection for easy access to e-mail, contacts, and calendar info synced with your Exchange server or over POP. Through it, you can view MS Office documents and PDF files. It's obviously geared for the mobile businessman on the go. And you can also hit the Web.

Just don't expect miracles. It won't sync with Outlook in Windows. And if you're trying to hot-swap between Windows and Latitude ON, you'll encounter some idle time between powering down one OS and starting the other. (Spokespeople say that the ARM processor won't cut deeply into battery life; we'll keep you posted on what we find). Neat as all this may be, we've seen variants of a Linux quick-boot option in laptops from HP and Asus as well.

Dell also pops in a couple of proprietary apps you might actually use. The optional 2-megapixel camera works with the fairly impressive Dell Capture software to scan business cards; as long as you hold up a "normal" card, the app will read all the info and plug it into your contact manager. The software also scans documents directly into PDF format. You also have options for biometric lockouts, either via the FaceAware app that uses the Webcam or the fingerprint scanner that sits next to the keyboard.

Speaking of the keyboard, it feels, like the rubbery finish around the machine, soft to the touch, and the cut-out keys seem suitably springy and responsive. While it looks all lovely and well-framed floating in the middle of the computer, I can't help wondering if this is the one area where form trumped function for the worse. I would've loved to see a little more room to make the keys a hair larger. And the top-row keys--from the "Esc" and function buttons to "Delete" at the end--seem disproportionately (and unnecessarily) small. You know what isn't small? The multitouch mousing area and good-sized buttons.

Also a little out-of-the-ordinary and one of this laptop's bigger selling points is the wireless laptop charging base station. This $250 add-on powers up the Z600 through a panel similar to how the induction coil works in the Palm Pre's Touchstone charger. The laptop charges just as fast as if you plugged it directly into the power brick. And despite some bloggers crying about how big the charging station is, I can honestly say, after testing it, that it's no larger than other elevated docking stations I've seen. It just does its job in high-tech style. What I really want, though, is a smaller, smarter charging pad that can feed the correct voltages to different devices. Hey, I'm allowed to dream.

The other (but slightly less sexy) wireless option is a docking station. No dongles required, it works out the box with your Z600. It houses four USB 2.0 ports, along with DVI-out video, headphone, and mic outputs. Another excessive accessory that came with the Z600: The slickly matching 4X external BD-ROM drive that drives up the price further. But if you're buying this machine, you aren't what I'd consider "thrifty."

Despite being so thin, the Z600 makes room for one USB 2.0 port, one hybrid USB/eSATA port, a DisplayLink video port, and a headset/mic jack. Cleverly hiding behind the screen--bracketing the battery--are power and ethernet jacks. Unfortunately, when trying to get so much done in so little room, some sacrifices must be made. The lack of a flash-card reader may not be a deal breaker for every executive considering this model, but it is for me. And the audio is a loud but tinny afterthought. Get headphones, stat. Beyond that, you get 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional 3G WWAN (mentioned earlier), and the ability to configure it for WiMAX.

The Z600 is a classy-looking machine. So much so that a test flight near the Macworld office area brought a couple nods. But is it perfect? No. Even though it's amazingly thin and surprisingly light, it's still a 16-inch laptop that you might find tough to fit into a travel bag. The Z600 may be perfectly suited as the interoffice status symbol, but for practical mobility I'd have asked for a laptop with a smaller screen. Keep the features, lower the price (and the screen size), and this could be a killer ultraportable.

Bottom line, the Z600 is very much not for everyone. In fact, I think they made this notebook just to sell it to Michael Dell and maybe a couple of his showboating buddies. But it boasts design smarts and a couple of tech innovations that I'd love to see trickle down to more mainstream portables (with slightly smarter implementations). Until then, I can dream. Also, look for a final score when we get test results from the lab.

Darren Gladstone
pcworld.com

Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB WD20EADS

2009-10-11T18:57:00.002+07:00

First benchmark tests of Western Digital's 2TB hard drive reveal this model offers competitive performance.

The Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB WD20EADS hard drive boosts the capacity game to a whole new level. This $299 drive crams 2 terabytes into a single drive--making this drive a boon to anyone with a large data archive, multimedia library, or space-hogging video collection.
We've used words like gargantuan and massive before to describe the capacity of a hard-disk drive, but this model blows all other examples away. Western Digital is the first drive maker to achieve 2TB in one drive. The previous top honors for capacity went to the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB drive

First benchmark tests of Western Digital's 2TB hard drive reveal this model offers competitive performance.

The Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB WD20EADS hard drive boosts the capacity game to a whole new level. This $299 drive crams 2 terabytes into a single drive--making this drive a boon to anyone with a large data archive, multimedia library, or space-hogging video collection.
We've used words like gargantuan and massive before to describe the capacity of a hard-disk drive, but this model blows all other examples away. Western Digital is the first drive maker to achieve 2TB in one drive. The previous top honors for capacity went to the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB drive
This capacious internal drive provides an areal density of 400 gigabits per square inch on four 500GB platters. The drive is also part of WD's Green Power line of hard disk drives, billed as environmentally friendly drives due to their lower power consumption.

In our PC World Test Center benchmarks, the 2TB drive came in fifth place among all drives tested--one better than its nearest-capacity competitor, Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB. Its performance was above average and bettered that of its sibling, the Caviar Green 1TB WD10EACS, which finished ninth overall in our performance tests.

This model lagged behind our performance leaders (the Western Digital RE3 Enterprise 500GB and the WD VelociRaptor) on some results--most notably, the write-intensive disk imaging test that we perform as part of PC WorldBench 6. On other core metrics, though, the 2TB drive performed very competitively. For example, it completed our "write files and folders" test in 112 seconds and our "write large files" test in 92 seconds. On each of those tests, its results were off those of our performance leaders by a dozen seconds or less.

The 2TB drive has several WD technologies inside that the company says enable this model to achieve its balance of price and performance. StableTrac reduces vibration by securing the motor shaft at both ends, and this in turn permits accurate head tracking during read and write operations. IntelliPower, according to WD, adjusts the balance of spin speed, transfer rate, and caching algorithms for optimal balance between performance and power consumption. IntelliSeek optimizes seek speeds to enable lower power consumption, noise, and vibration. And WD's NoTouch ramp-load technology keeps the recording head from touching the disk media.

The storage fiend in me salivates at the thought of 2TB in a single 3.5-inch hard-disk drive. Such a high ceiling on capacity means that I no longer need to make choices about where I'm storing my data; instead, I can better organize and consolidate my data across multiple subjects. But even though I like the idea of consolidating my data under a single roof, I shudder to think what the costs to recover a ginormous 2TB drive might be if anything should go amiss.

I also admit that, at first blush, the 2TB model's $299 price tag gives me pause. That is, until I realized that its $.15 per gigabyte cost is actually fairly competitive with that of other drives on the market; the only difference is that this particular drive's supersize capacity skews the upfront costs accordingly.

The slight lag in performance shouldn't be enough to deter people who have large data libraries from getting the WD Caviar Green 2TB WD20EADS. Nor should it put off casual and professional digital media enthusiasts, who will rightly crave this drive. For these audiences, the price and performance tradeoffs are a small price to pay for the honor of packing a 2TB drive inside.
pcworld.com

Canon Vixia HF S10

2009-10-09T15:28:00.003+07:00

The HF S10 camcorder offers sharp and vibrant video and stills, and its truly robust manual controls make it a great choice for dedicated users.

Hands down, the Canon Vixia HF S10 generates the best high-definition video and still images we've seen from a small camcorder. Add the impressively deep and professional manual controls, and you have an excellent--albeit expensive ($1300 as of 9/25/09)--camera for advanced videographers that will also appeal to many casual use

The HF S10 camcorder offers sharp and vibrant video and stills, and its truly robust manual controls make it a great choice for dedicated users.

Hands down, the Canon Vixia HF S10 generates the best high-definition video and still images we've seen from a small camcorder. Add the impressively deep and professional manual controls, and you have an excellent--albeit expensive ($1300 as of 9/25/09)--camera for advanced videographers that will also appeal to many casual use
The camera's 1/2.6-inch CMOS imaging chip records 1080 horizontal lines of video at 60 interlaced frames per second (60i), 30 progressive frames per second (30p), and 24 progressive frames per second (24p). The camera includes 32GB of built-in flash memory and supports SDHC cards, and it encodes the video as AVCHD files with data rates up to 24 mbps, the format's maximum capability.

In PC World's subjective evaluations, viewers judged the HF S10's HD video and 8.6-megapixel still images to be slightly better than those of the next-best camcorder (the Panasonic HDC-TM300). Among our test group of six new high-definition camcorders, the Vixia HF S10 ranked at the top in video quality under both bright lighting and low lighting, earning an overall video-quality score of Good. Under both lighting conditions, its images exhibited crisp color rendering and sharpness; under low light, they showed just a touch of noise.

Audio capture is another strong suit, as the Vixia HF S10 again came out at the head of the pack. The camcorder earned an audio score of Good, with noticeably better clarity and volume than rival camcorders offered.

In still-image quality the Vixia HF S10 again outranked the competition, with an overall rating of Very Good. Though exposure quality and color accuracy were its major strengths, it landed near the middle of the pack in sharpness and distortion. You might get better image quality from a good digital photo camera, but not much better.

The battery life, at about 100 minutes on a single charge, is perhaps the HF S10's main drawback, but it was still efficient enough. A few other camcorders in our test group had around 2 hours of battery life, with one model--the waterproof Sanyo VPC-WH1--offering more than 3 hours of power.

Once you're using the HF S10, the automatic mode on the camcorder works well enough and lets you capture high-resolution stills as you record HD video. The face-detection feature adjusts focus and exposure to enhance skin tones.

Of more interest to dedicated and more-experienced users is the camcorder's potent set of features and controls. You get an accessory shoe, as well as microphone and headphone jacks. Notably, however, the camcorder also offers two sets of "zebra stripes" to help set exposure levels, generates color bars and tone for calibrating display equipment, and offers good control over the aperture, shutter speed, and white balance.

A control dial mounted under the lens eases adjustment of the exposure and microphone settings. In addition, it lets you really fine-tune the camcorder's focus; together with the camera's peaking feature, which outlines subjects in a bright color when they are in focus, the dial helps the HF S10 provide excellent focus control and feedback.

The HF S10 does have a few weak spots. Its menu structure requires some work to master (but the included manual is excellent). The image stabilizer on its 10X-optical-zoom lens is just okay--I've definitely seen more-effective stabilizers on other HD camcorders, such as the Panasonic HDC-TM300. And the HF S10 lacks a viewfinder other than the 2.7-inch flip-out LCD; you must depend on the LCD to frame shots, check settings, and review footage.

None of those issues are deal-breakers, though, especially when you consider the camcorder's best-in-class video quality and fine-tuning capabilities. The great overall image quality, deep manual controls, and decent ease of use make the Canon Vixia HF S10 an excellent choice for both advanced and casual videographers.
pc world.com

Arch Enemy The Root Of All Evil

2009-10-09T15:11:00.003+07:00

Swedish Metal powerhouse, Arch Enemy, has finally unleashed its eighth studio album, The Root Of All Evil, in the US, courtesy of Century Media Records.

The Root Of All Evil, which released in Europe last week and entered the German charts at #84, is a collection of Arch Enemy classics from the band’s first three albums, rerecorded and reenergized by the current Arch Enemy lineup.

Swedish Metal powerhouse, Arch Enemy, has finally unleashed its eighth studio album, The Root Of All Evil, in the US, courtesy of Century Media Records.

The Root Of All Evil, which released in Europe last week and entered the German charts at #84, is a collection of Arch Enemy classics from the band’s first three albums, rerecorded and reenergized by the current Arch Enemy lineup.
t is available in CD, LP (with the full album on CD as bonus), and Digital format, as well as a Limited Edition CD including a special Mediabook packaging, three additional live bonus tracks, alternate artwork, an extended booklet and an exclusive embroidered patch.

The LP and Limited Edition releases will only be available in the US through CM Distro.

Two new tracks off The Root Of All Evil can be heard at the official Arch Enemy MySpace page, and the new music video for "Beast Of Man" can be viewed at here.

Arch Enemy will play a number of shows overseas in support of the new album to round out 2009.

Dream Theater

2009-10-03T14:22:00.002+07:00

forward form dream theater
History
Formation and early years (1985–1987)
Dream Theater was formed in September 1985 when guitarist John Petrucci and bassist John Myung decided to form a band in their spare time while studying at the Berklee College of Music. The pair came across drummer Mike Portnoy in one of Berklee's rehearsal rooms, where he was asked to join the band. The trio started off by covering Rush and Iron Maiden songs in the rehearsal rooms at Berklee.

forward form dream theater
History
Formation and early years (1985–1987)
Dream Theater was formed in September 1985 when guitarist John Petrucci and bassist John Myung decided to form a band in their spare time while studying at the Berklee College of Music. The pair came across drummer Mike Portnoy in one of Berklee's rehearsal rooms, where he was asked to join the band. The trio started off by covering Rush and Iron Maiden songs in the rehearsal rooms at Berklee.
Myung, Petrucci, and Portnoy settled on the name Majesty for their newly formed group. According to the The Score So Far... documentary, they were waiting in line for tickets to a Rush concert at the Berklee Performance Center while listening to the band on a boom box. Portnoy commented that the ending of the song "Bastille Day" (from the album Caress of Steel) sounded "majestic". It was then decided that Majesty would be the band's name.
The trio then set out to fill the remaining positions in the group. Petrucci asked his high school band-mate Kevin Moore to play keyboards. After accepting the position, another friend from home, Chris Collins, was recruited as lead vocalist after band members heard him sing a cover of "Queen of the Reich" by Queensrÿche. During this time, Portnoy, Petrucci, and Myung's hectic schedules forced them to abandon their studies to concentrate on their music, as they did not feel they could learn more in college. Moore also left his college, SUNY Fredonia, to concentrate on the band.
The beginning months of 1986 were filled with various concert dates in and around the New York City area. During this time, the band recorded a collection of demos, titled The Majesty Demos. The initial run of 1,000 sold out within six months, and dubbed copies of the cassette became popular within the progressive metal scene. The Majesty Demos are still available in their original tape format today, despite being released officially on CD through Mike Portnoy's YtseJam Records.
n November 1986, after a few months of writing and performing together, Chris Collins was fired. After a year of trying to find a replacement, Charlie Dominici, who was far older and more experienced than anyone else in the band, successfully auditioned for the group. With the stability that Dominici's appointment brought to Majesty, they began to increase the number of shows played in the New York City area, gaining a considerable amount of exposure.
Shortly after hiring Dominici, a Las Vegas group also named Majesty threatened legal action for intellectual property infringement related to the use of their name, so the band was forced to adopt a new moniker. Various possibilities were proposed and tested, among them Glasser, Magus, and M1, which were all rejected until Portnoy's father suggested the name Dream Theater, the name of a movie house in Monterey, California.
form wikipedia.org

ASUS P5K-E

2009-09-30T13:44:00.002+07:00

ASUS P5K-E Intel Socket 775 Desktop ATX Motherboard
For those looking to put together a high performance desktop PC without spending a huge amount just for the motherboard, the ASUS P5K-E is an excellent blend of features and performance.

ASUS P5K-E Intel Socket 775 Desktop ATX Motherboard
For those looking to put together a high performance desktop PC without spending a huge amount just for the motherboard, the ASUS P5K-E is an excellent blend of features and performance.
* Very Strong Performance
* Good Overclocking Ability
* Q-Connectors For Easy Motherboard Header Installation

Cons

* BIOS Somewhat Difficult to Use
* SATA Ports Can Conflict with Long Video Cards
* Limtited CrossFire Support

Description

* Intel LGA775 Socket
* Intel P35 Chipset with ICH9R
* 1333 / 1066 / 800 MHz Frontside Bus
* Four 240-pin DDR2 Memory Slots
* Two PCI-Express x16 (One x16, One x4 or x1) with ATI CrossFire Support
* Two PCI-Express x1, Three PCI Expansion Slots
* Six SATA 2.0 Ports via ICH9R with RAID 0/1/5/10 Support, JMicron Controller for PATA and Two External SATA
* Ten USB 2.0 (Six Rear, Four Interntal), Two FireWire 400 (One Rear, One Internal), Gigabit Ethernet
* ADI AD1988B 8-Channel HDA Codec with Coax and Optical S/PIDF
* SATA Cables, ATA Cables, Molex-to-SATA Power Adapter, Floppy Cable, I/O Shield, Q-Connector Adapters
Guide Review - ASUS P5K-E Intel Socket 775 Desktop ATX Motherboard

5/17/08 - The ASUS P5K-E is a mid-level board using the popular Intel P35 chipset. The LGA775 socket allows it to use almost every version of the Core 2 processor available on the market save for the 1600MHz bus Core 2 Extreme. It can properly handle the new 1333MHz 45nm dual and quad core models.

The number and variety of connectors on the board allows for it to use just about all of the latest technologies. It does use the DDR2 memory standard over DDR3, but this doesn't affect overall performance much and helps keep system costs down dramatically. One really nice feature of the P5K-E is the inclusion of the Q-Connectors that makes connecting case headers to the motherboard headers extremely easy.

Some users might have an issue with the location of the SATA ports. If you happen to have a very long graphics card in the primary PCI-E slot, it will interfere with several of the SATA ports. Since there are six, it is possible to avoid using two of them but it is still an annoyance. Also, the second PCI-Express graphics slot can run at most at x4 transfer rates. This limits the overall performance of an ATI CrossFire setup.

Overclocking the ASUS P5K-E motherboard worked very well. The heatsinks on the various critical components helps keep the motherboard temperatures down. Even though the board only officially supports the 1333MHz bus, the board has no problem reaching 1600MHz speeds without any chipset voltage increases. The only real problem is that the BIOS menus are fairly difficult to navigate and adjust to truly push the board as far as it can go. Of course, the cost of the board is much less expensive then the enthusiast class boards.
form www.compreviews.about.com

Shuttle XPC P2 4800

2009-09-30T13:28:00.002+07:00

Shuttle XPC P2 4800 Deluxe Small Form Factor Desktop PC
Shuttle makes some surprisingly good small form factor kits available to consumers. They are a bit expensive but if you buy a system built entirely by Shuttle, the pricing ends up being ridiculous. The XPC P2 4800 Deluxe has a price tag of around $1800, but if you build the same thing from comparable prices, you can save roughly $700 or more off that cost. While performance is good, there are better options available from other companies or just build it on your own. About the only real benefit here is the Windows XP operating system if you really dislike Vista and can't wait for Windows 7.

Shuttle XPC P2 4800 Deluxe Small Form Factor Desktop PC
Shuttle makes some surprisingly good small form factor kits available to consumers. They are a bit expensive but if you buy a system built entirely by Shuttle, the pricing ends up being ridiculous. The XPC P2 4800 Deluxe has a price tag of around $1800, but if you build the same thing from comparable prices, you can save roughly $700 or more off that cost. While performance is good, there are better options available from other companies or just build it on your own. About the only real benefit here is the Windows XP operating system if you really dislike Vista and can't wait for Windows 7.

Pros

* Windows XP Downgrade
* Fingerprint Scanner Built-In

Cons

* Far More Expensive Then If You Build One Yourself
* Mediocre Parts Selection

Description

* Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 Dual Core Desktop Processor
* 2GB PC3-12800 DDR3 Memory
* 250GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
* 22x Dual-Layer DVD+/-RW Burner
* ATI Radeon HD 4650 Graphics With 1GB Memory and Shuttle XP19 19-inch LCD Monitor
* Intel HDA 7.1 Audio
* Dual Gigabit Ethernet
* Eight USB 2.0, Two eSATA, Two DVI-D, Fingerprint Scanner, 23-in-1 Card Reader
* 12.8" x 8.7" x 8.3"
* Windows XP Professional

Guide Review - Shuttle XPC P2 4800 Deluxe Small Form Factor Desktop PC

Sep 28 2009 - Shuttle's XPC P2 4800 Deluxe desktop system is based on their XPC SX48P2-Deluxe barebones kit. Essentially, it is a complete system build that the company offers to consumers who aren't up to putting together their own system from their kit and the various components you must buy to complete it. Unfortunately, Shuttle has decided to charge a very large premium for this service plus a warranty.

The components that Shuttle includes in their $1900 version of the XPC P2 4800 Deluxe are very moderate. The Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 is one of the slower dual core desktop models and the 2GB of memory is half of the typical memory found even in budget desktop PCs. The 250GB hard drive is extremely small considering it uses a standard size 3.5-inch desktop SATA hard drive. And with the space for two graphics cards, the ATI Radeon HD 4650 offers up moderate performance for those looking to use it for PC gaming.

So, what does one really get that is fairly unique out of the XPC P2 4800 Deluxe? For one, it is possible to get it with the downgraded Windows XP Professional operating system rather than having to use Vista. This may still matter to some, but with Windows 7 soon to be released it is really only a minor bonus. The system also has a built-in fingerprint scanner for security but so does the barebones kit it is based on.

The problem is that if one decided to build a similar system from components including the free 19-inch LCD monitor, it would be possible to build it for around $1200. This makes the price premium for Shuttle to put it together and support it for one year very high. In fact, those looking for performance would be better served going for something like the FragBox 920.

Dream Theater

2009-09-30T12:10:00.002+07:00

Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the name Majesty by John Myung, John Petrucci, and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, before they dropped out to support the band. Though a number of lineup changes followed, the three original members remain today along with James LaBrie and Jordan Rudess.

Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the name Majesty by John Myung, John Petrucci, and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, before they dropped out to support the band. Though a number of lineup changes followed, the three original members remain today along with James LaBrie and Jordan Rudess.

Dream Theater has become a successful progressive metal band. Although the band has had one successful hit (notably "Pull Me Under" in the early 1990s, which received extensive MTV rotation), they have mostly stayed underground for their career.

The band is well known for the technical proficiency of its instrumentalists, who have won many awards from music instruction magazines. Dream Theater's members have collaborated with many other notable musicians. Guitarist John Petrucci has been named as the third player on the G3 tour six times, more than any other invited guitarist, following in the footsteps of Eric Johnson and Robert Fripp.

The band's highest selling album is the gold selling Images and Words (1992), which reached #61 on the Billboard 200 charts. Both the 1994 release Awake and their 2002 release Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence also entered the charts at #32 and #46 respectively and received mostly positive reviews. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence also led to Dream Theater becoming the initial band reviewed in the Music Section of Entertainment Weekly during its opening week of release, despite the magazine generally preferring more mainstream music. In 2007, Systematic Chaos entered US Billboard 200 at #19. Dream Theater has sold over two million albums in the U.S., and over 8 million records worldwide. The band's tenth studio album, Black Clouds & Silver Linings, was released on June 23, 2009. It entered the US Billboard 200 at #6 and Eurochart Hot 100 at #1, marking their highest entry on either chart.
form wikipedia

IBANEZ JEM 77 FP

2009-09-29T12:18:00.002+07:00

The 2003 Fifteenth Anniversary Floral Pattern JEM has the same features as the 1988 original, including the actual floral pattern cloth used to make the drapes in Steve Vai's studio, plus the new Edge Pro tremolo. Includes extra back plate signed by Steve Vai.

The 2003 Fifteenth Anniversary Floral Pattern JEM has the same features as the 1988 original, including the actual floral pattern cloth used to make the drapes in Steve Vai's studio, plus the new Edge Pro tremolo. Includes extra back plate signed by Steve Vai.
Features: The original Jem 77 FP, designed with Steve Vai's demanding specifications, features a Ibanez Edge tremolo, Pro humbucker pickups, 5 way position Switch, dual control knobs and standard JEM 'monkeygrip'. All the features are painstakingly reproduced in this fine miniature replica. The Floral Pattern is said to be the actual curtains from Steve's Long Island, NY boyhood home, stretched over the body and finished. The floral pattern on this reproduction is hand painted along with the vine inlay on the fretboard.

- Finish: Floral Pattern (actual cloth finished with poly)
- Body Material: american basswood
- Neck Material: maple
- Neck type/scale: JEM Prestige/25.5"
- 24 large frets
- Rosewood fingerboard
- Green vine inlay
- Edge Pro bridge
- Cosmo Black hardware
- DiMarzio PAF Pro humbucking neck pickup
- JEM single middle pickup
- DiMarzio PAF Pro humbucking bridge pickup
- 1 volune, 1 tone and 5-way Switch controls
- Other special features: clear pickguard, lions claw tremolo cavity, monkey grip. // 10
Sound: Perfect for any music style, but I like metal and shred metal. I am using a Digitech multi-effects pedal with a Fender amp. It is not noisy on any settings. It is rich and full of bright and beautiful sound. This guitar can make any sounds in a sonic territory. I don't dislike it at all.

Action, Fit & Finish: The guitar had perfect intonation and was awesome when I got is from the factory. The pickups were adjusted perfectly. Everything was perfect no flaws throught out this guitar.
Reliability & Durability:

Impression: Shred is my style of music and it is like a dream. I have been playing for 22.5 years and this is pretty much my gear. I wish I had asked about why it is so expensive, I got an answer and it is because it sounds like nothing you have heard before. If it were stolen I would hunt the theif down and get it back, that is how good it is. What's not to love? I compared it with every guitar I could. I do wish it had an overdrive Switch like Jason Becker's guitar did.

Boss GT 10

2009-09-29T12:04:00.002+07:00

The GT-10, driven by BOSS' latest custom-made DSP and proprietary sound-modeling COSMÂ® engine, is a floorboard powerhouse that offers natural and musical response as well as a marked improvement in sound quality from previous generations.

The GT-10, driven by BOSS' latest custom-made DSP and proprietary sound-modeling COSMÂ® engine, is a floorboard powerhouse that offers natural and musical response as well as a marked improvement in sound quality from previous generations.
Ease of Use: Usually, a multi-effect pedal is supposed to be an ordeal to learn, in that you have to spend hours finding a good Overdrive or Distortion tone. Not so with the GT-10. It has a feature called the EZ Tone, which lets you graphically shape your tone. Once you do, you can save it as it's own patch, and there you go. I'll break it down into steps, since no one has yet.

01. After clicking Create under the EZ tone category, you'll choose from genres like Blues, Country, Soul Funk, Jazz, 70's Hard Rock, 80's Metal, Modern Metal, Punk, Progressive, Acoustic, and a few others.
02. From there, you Pick a variation (for example, Modern Metal has different variations that will focus on solos, or rhythm).
03. Once you Pick a variation, you use a graph system with the main knobs that feels like you are drawing on an Etch-and-Sketch. The tone is shaped by what area of the graph your cursor is in (in an x, y coordinate graph). The farther right you go, the harder the tone hits. Moving to softer warms up the tone. And then there is the solo or backing axis that modifies the mids and higher ups in the EQ.
04. You can then set delay and reverb in the next graph.

And that's it. Then you can nit-Pick from there, and that could take a little while, depending on how picky you are. Editing patches is easy as well, feels like a normal unit, but it is pretty fast and easy. The manual is a little thick, but the font is also a bit bigger, so it is easy to read. The manual also has a cut-out booklet, basically a 4 page deal (front and back of 2 sheets) that has all of the presets. Very easy to use if you put at least 5 minutes into getting acquainted with the EZ-Tone deal. After that, it depends on what sound you want. I haven't owned a previous iteration of the GT-x series, but I can definitely say, it's probably a huge step up because this thing rocks. // 10
Sound: I have a few number of setups. I've yet to try my main one, which is my guitar into a Crate half-stack. I'm debating about putting my Mesa/Boogie V-Twin pedal in front of the GT-10 or behind it. I'll see how it goes. So far though, I've used it on a small Ibanez practice amp, a Fender 212R combo amp, and the headphone jack. My guitars include an ESP/ltd. Viper-400, Dean Dime Razorback (two-tone), and a Schecter Revenger 7 (7stringer). Another great thing about this pedal is that it has an output selector, which lets you Pick what kind of amp you are coming out of, and then the GT-10 will adjust it's voicing to that. You can Pick between a JC120 (from Roland), a small amp (practice amp), a combo, a stack, and a line/headphones sound (for use with a PA/mixer and/or headphones). Also, you can Pick the return inputs on the combo, stack, or JC120. Most of the presets are pretty decent. There are some that excel, but of course there are a few failures. The sound has been cleaned dramatically (from what I've heard about the GT-8) and almost all of the distortions sound great. Some of the pre-amps this thing models include a JC-120, a Vox, a Mesa/Boogie combo, a Marshall 1959, a Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier, and a Tube Screamer (the pedal from Ibanez, but voiced to a pre-amp! ), a Peavey 5150, and many others. The Rectifier sounds really good. It is easy to adjust any of the pre-amps, so that shouldn't be a problem. This thing has a good number of pedals modeled too. A few I'll mention are pretty much any of the Boss od/ds pedals, a Tubescreamer, a Proco Rat, the Guv'nor pedal, a Dist+, an Octave Fuzz, and a Muff fuzz. The pedals sound really good, and there are many things you can edit about them (EQ, voicing, etc.). The distortions have a nice bite to them, and aren't very hiss-prone or whiny, like my Boss MT-2 sometimes is. In fact, I think the MT-2 modeling on this pedal might even be further improved on the original MT-2, if not even better than a modded one. it's all in the ears though, so take heed to that. There are a huge number of effects. You can make a single-coil sound like a humbucker and vice-versa. And even make your guitar sound like a hollow-body or an acoustic. I was playing this at Sam Ash with an ESP/Ltd. Eclipse, I think the 600 model with passive pickups. I turned it to an acoustic setting, strummed, and thought I had grabbed an electric/acoustic. The simulators aren't supposed to be this good! Very clean tone. Besides a guitar simulator, there are a number of effects. These are some of them: compressor, equalizer, delay, chorus, reverb, pedal wah/pedal bend, noise suppressor 1, noise suppressor 2, t wah, auto wah, sub wah, adv comp, limiter, graphic eq, parametric eq, tone modify, guitar sim, guitar synth, and many others. There are a few other synth effects. there is even a feed-back effect that simulates getting feedback, even if playing through head-phones. Pretty useful if you need a single-note phrase with some feed-back kicking in. Each effect has many different parameters to work with. Users familiar with the GT-8 will be happy to know there are now 2 control (ctrl) pedals. Basically these Switch channels on the pre-amps, turn effects on/off, and more. You can hold down on of the control pedals with your foot and get a higher Harmony part for as long as your foot is held down. So if you have a higher melody part that you want, but it comes in for 2 measures every other time you repeat the phrase, you are good to go with that, instead of looking like you are trying out for River Dance. I give sound a 9 just because of a few of the effects being a bit too "out there" in that I might never use them. But for a progressive type of player, this could be a gold-mine of effects. // 9

Reliability & Durability: Oh yes, this thing seems rock solid. You can't use it without the power-cord since there is no place for batteries. But this thing is built like a tank otherwise. The only problem is that the bank switching pedals are a little out of reach. But they aren't anywhere near the screen, which is good. I never really feel safe at any gig. I'd depend on this, but I'd carry some back up effects with me, just because that keeps me comfortable. Otherwise, if I only had room for my amp, guitar, and this, I would most definitely gig without backup. // 10

Impression: I play in a band that plays hard rock with a slight hint of metal. This pedal does everything I need it to in the band. As for myself, I write music as a solo project and for fun, and this takes care of everything. And I will go between different genres. If I'm feeling some blues, I kick that on. If I want to do some fun techno stuff or dark synth for industrial, I can flip that on with no problem. This really is a great pedal. It has 2 midi jacks, so you can use the GT-10 to control MIDI objects as well. I don't use MIDI, so I don't have too much to say about it. The USB is one problem though. They don't include a cable with the GT-10, and I can't get my GT-10 to work with my computer. But that's only because I have a 64-bit version of Vista Ultimate. There are drivers for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Apple. So you should be safe. Check Boss's site for more info. on that. I can't really explain that stuff, since I'm not very tech-savvy. Customer Support, after you register for "backstage" or w/e at Boss so you can see the different manuals and stuff, is very helpful. I e-mailed yesterday about the drivers, and I was replied to today. They even sent a request to the main headquarters to see about making a 64-bit driver. No info. on that though, but it's understood. They were helpful as far as they could be, so for that I thank them. I've been playing for almost 5 years, and my multi-effect pedal before this was the Zoom GFX-5. A knob broke on it, and I wasn't too happy with what I was hearing so I decided to upgrade. I was thinking about this and the DigiTech RP-500. But I decided on this after hearing it, because it just seemed to good to pass up. And I wanted something that could create tones, instead of just full-on replicating them. My friend and other guitarist in my band isn't going to be too happy about me getting this instead of the RP-500, since we were thinking about getting the same pedals so we'd have identical sounds and he doesn't want to shell out for this. I don't really care though, because this pedal probably kicks the RP-500's ass many times over. Maybe the replication isn't as great, but this thing has enough tones and effects where I am completely satisfied. I'm going to be learning things about this system for a good amount of time to come, and then the fun will really start. If you are thinking about getting a multi-effect pedal, and have the cash... get it. I believe you won't regret it. If you plan on recording via USB though, make sure you aren't running a 64-bit OS. Otherwise, go for it. If there is anything else you need, feel free to message me. Or better yet, check the Boss site and look at all the effects and stuff they have under the Knowledge Base. I give this a 9, only because of a few of the presets (which really shouldn't be taken into account, but for those that like all presets to be great, then the 9 is for them... otherwise, if you aren't too picky with presets, give it a 10) and the USB driver problem. I'm sure someone will have a fix sometime soon. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and get back to jamming out with it.
price:$499
form http://www.ultimate-guitar.com

Toshiba NB205-310

2009-09-17T11:52:00.002+07:00

Toshiba's NB205 is a great value, packed with a collection of fantastic features and a marathon-ready battery life.
Toshiba may be new to netbooks, but the company is no stranger to small. Toshiba's NB205-N310 ($400) jumps into the market and claims a top spot in our rankings. This primo portable not only delivers where it counts with the longest battery life to date, it does so with panache and some great design decisions. In short, Toshiba has come a long way since blazing trails with its Libretto subnotebooks in the 1990s.

Toshiba's NB205 is a great value, packed with a collection of fantastic features and a marathon-ready battery life.
Toshiba may be new to netbooks, but the company is no stranger to small. Toshiba's NB205-N310 ($400) jumps into the market and claims a top spot in our rankings. This primo portable not only delivers where it counts with the longest battery life to date, it does so with panache and some great design decisions. In short, Toshiba has come a long way since blazing trails with its Libretto subnotebooks in the 1990s.
I'm going to start this review with the NB205's only real "downer": its pedestrian speed and guts. The guts are a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB 5400-rpm hard drive, which together earned the NB205 a rather standard performance score of 36 in PC WorldBench 6. But that's about the only thing that I'd classify as "average" about the NB205-N310.

Toshiba spokespeople say that the NB205-N310's six-cell battery can last for almost 9 hours. Wrong. In our tests, the NB205 survives a staggering 9 hours, 53 minutes. For a little perspective, that is easily the longest time so far that a netbook has been able to run--and this is with the standard battery on board. That alone catapults this netbook's worth to a top pick on the charts.

A killer keyboard and a touchpad to match are essential for a champion netbook. After all, how useful is a machine if you can't type on it without hurting your hands? Toshiba scores by making the Chiclet-size cutout keys just big enough, and by dropping down a huge touchpad. This is simply the best netbook mouse pad to date. For starters, the surface area of the strike zone is larger than that on many full-size laptops! Next, the beefy mouse buttons camp at the southern edge of the machine--easing hand strain. My physical therapist would approve.

The N310 has good (though occasionally muted) color reproduction and supports a reasonably precise resolution of 1024 by 600 pixels on its glossy 10.1-inch screen. I noticed some dark spots that got washed into a splotch or two--but otherwise, the images looked plenty sharp.

Its configuration looks fairly standard on the surface: three USB ports, an SDHC card reader, a Webcam, one VGA-out, ethernet, and headphone and microphone jacks. But it's put together in a 2.9-pound package and with a sense of style that doesn't look or feel cheap at all.

Toshiba also adds a few extras to the NB205-N310 that are sure to appeal to folks on the go--and even more so to IT departments looking to deploy cheap PCs to a mobile workforce. One notable perk is a pass-through USB port that enables users to charge USB-powered devices while the computer is off. This netbook also provides an internal accelerometer to protect the hard drive in case of falls (much as the HP Mini 2140 does)--and it offers wireless WAN support as an option.

As a quick heads-up, another version of the NB205 is waiting in the wings--the lighter, scrappier NB205-N210. The big differences between these sibling Toshiba netbooks boil down to price (the N210 costs $350, $50 less than the N310), key shape (the N210 has flat, wide keys, as opposed to the N310's cut-out style), and the N310's bluetooth support (the N210 doesn't have it).

But considering all the features packed into the N310--and how well it performs in a pinch--this is an easy-to-recommend netbook that's perfect whether you are a budget-minded businessman or you just need a flexible minimachine for a long day of note-taking. If this netbook ponied up a little more horsepower (a discrete GPU wouldn't hurt), I'd probably use this as my go-to gadget.

--Darren Gladstone
pcworld.com

Nikon D90

2009-09-17T11:35:00.002+07:00

The innovative video feature of Nikon's D90 digital SLR needs work--but the photo features shine.

Nikon rocked the DSLR world when it announced the D90, the first digital SLR camera to incorporate video recording. That feature needs refinement, but purely as a photographer's tool, the D90 stacks up as a worthy successor to the Nikon D80 on several counts. And it compares favorably to the competition, scoring well in our image-quality tests.

The innovative video feature of Nikon's D90 digital SLR needs work--but the photo features shine.

Nikon rocked the DSLR world when it announced the D90, the first digital SLR camera to incorporate video recording. That feature needs refinement, but purely as a photographer's tool, the D90 stacks up as a worthy successor to the Nikon D80 on several counts. And it compares favorably to the competition, scoring well in our image-quality tests.
The D90, which costs $1250 (as of 11/15/08) with its AF-S ED 18mm-to-105mm kit lens, packs several upgrades: It inherits the excellent, crisp 3-inch LCD from the prosumer-level Nikon D300, it adds a new CMOS sensor, and it pumps up the resolution to 12.3 megapixels (from 10.2 megapixels on the D80). In addition to video, you'll find other features inspired by point-and-shoots, such as live view, face detection, in-camera retouching, and a calendar feature that allows you to view your shots by date.

The D90 weighs slightly more than its predecessor; it's solid and well built, but not too hefty. The camera feels substantial, but its grip is comfortable, and its design is pretty intuitive, with dedicated function buttons and common scene settings on the top dial. It also sports a dense, though easily navigable, menu system with some user-friendly elements borrowed from the D80, such as My Menu, which allows you to save your most frequently used settings. Non-Nikon users should find the interface visually appealing and easy to use; Nikon veterans will find shooting straightforward right out of the box.

The back of the D90 sports a button that activates the live view function, which includes still and video recording (the latter 720p at 24 fps). Once live view is activated, everything slows down as the mirror flips up, the shutter opens, and software takes over the recording process. While shooting stills, I found live view too clunky and its autofocus too slow, so I opted to use the viewfinder instead.

Before recording video, you must set the autofocus on your subject using live view. While recording, the D90 automatically adjusts for exposure, but not focus. You can manually adjust focus while shooting, but I found this too awkward to do without a tripod. Also, because of the way that CMOS records an image, you may see "rolling" (a shake-like impression) in your footage, which detracts from the overall quality and creative potential of the video feature. Clips longer than 5 minutes may cause the camera sensor to grow discernably warm, too.

Audio quality from the camera's built-in microphone was not great, and unfortunately you cannot use the mic to record notes on your still shots. Judging from my hands-on experience, I'd say that the D90's video function, though a welcome innovation, needs further development. In the meantime, I'm happy to use my point-and-shoot for off-the-cuff videos.

The D90 excelled in the PC World Test Center's evaluation: It came in second only to the Canon 50D in our digital camera tests. I was generally pleased with my field test shots. The D90 was quick to autofocus and usually was on the mark. The auto-flash also performed consistently well. I found that the camera tended to blow out the brightest highlights, however, and I saw some minor halos along very high-contrast edges. When I switched to high-quality JPEG from RAW, it produced a slight but noticeable softening in the images.

The image quality at high ISOs was very good compared with that of other models I've tried recently: Although some noise appeared in darker areas at speeds above 400, it was minimal, looking more like film grain than the usual jarring digital noise with accompanying sludgy colors. My RAW files showed a pretty impressive dynamic range; the JPEGs, a little less so but still quite good. A bit of sharpening and sometimes a contrast boost helped the look of JPEGs significantly. (You can make those settings in-camera.)

With its improved LCD, slightly larger frame of view, dust-cleaning sensor, enhanced 3D 11-point autofocus, an optional GPS attachment, and the ability to make a video here and there, the D90 definitely has an array of interesting features. And simply as a camera, the D90 turns out some of the best results you can buy.
pcworld.com

New Search Engine Targets Muslim Web Users

2009-09-11T12:43:00.002+07:00

A new search engine, called ImHalal.com, aims to protect the sensibilities of Muslims by filtering out content that is "haram" or forbidden by the faith.

A new search engine, called ImHalal.com, aims to protect the sensibilities of Muslims by filtering out content that is "haram" or forbidden by the faith.
The site will warn people if they are searching for a query that might return explicit content, site-founder Reza Sardeha said in an email on Friday.

Besides developing the search technology, Sardeha and others in his team, based in the Netherlands, have also introduced a two layer filter.

When users get a haram rating of level one or two out of three, they are advised to choose another keyword to search, but they can still continue their search if they believe the results fetched will be clean, Sardeha said.

Words like porn and rape are considered to be at a rating of three, and are blocked, he added. Terms like beer and pork, however, get a haram rating of one because users cannot consume them off the Internet.

The site was launched earlier this month, and has received more than 400,000 unique visitors so far, Sardeha said. The promoters are considering using advertising as a revenue stream for the site, he added.

Muslims have become very active on the Internet in the last few years but there is a lack of tools to assist in safe or responsible online activities.

ImHalal.com aims to create a safe and clean environment for Muslims to search the Web, it said.

Mainstream search engines have comes in for criticism in many parts of the world for displaying content that is offensive to the local culture, and even against local laws. A social activist in India for example has filed a complaint in an Indian court against major search engines for displaying advertising and information on child sex selection techniques. Such advertising is against the law in India.

In some nations, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, some Web sites are actively filtered.
visit this web

Musicman sterlling

2009-09-10T15:44:00.001+07:00

Musicman sterling.
style with Musicman sterling

Model:
Sterling
Size:
12-1/2" wide, 1-5/8" thick, 43-7/8" long (31.8 cm wide, 4.1 cm thick, 111.4 cm long)
Weight:
9 lbs (4.08 kg) - varies slightly
Body Wood:
Ash
Body Finish:
High gloss polyester
Bridge:
Standard - Music Man® chrome plated, hardened steel bridge plate with stainless steel saddles; Optional - Piezo bridge with nickel plated brass saddles
Pickguard:
Standard - Black or White; Optional - Shell, White Pearloid, Vintage White Pearloid, Black Pearloid, Blue Pearloid, Moonstone, Abalone, Python, Orange Swirl, Gold Swirl, and Blue Swirl.
Scale Length:
34" (86.4 cm)
Neck Radius:
11" (27.9 cm)
Headstock Size:
Only 7-5/8" (19.4 cm) long
Frets:
22 - High profile, wide
Neck Width:
1-1/2" (38.1 mm) at nut, 2-1/2" (63.5 mm) at last fret
Neck Wood:
Select maple neck
Fingerboard:
Fretted - maple or rosewood; Fretless - Pau Ferro with or without inlaid fretlines
Neck Finish:
Gunstock oil and hand-rubbed special wax blend
Neck Colors:
Standard - Natural; Optional - Matching painted headstock
Tuning Machines:
Schaller BM, with tapered string posts
Truss Rod:
Adjustable - no component or string removal
Neck Attachment:
5 bolts - perfect alignment with no shifting; Sculpted neck joint allows smooth access to higher frets
Electronic Shielding:
Graphite acrylic resin coated body cavity and aluminum lined control cover
Controls:
Single Pickup, 3-band active preamp; vol, treble, mid, bass; Dual Pickup, 3-band active preamp; vol, treble, mid, bass; Piezo 3-band active preamp: vol, mag/piezo pan, treble, mid, bass
Switching:
Single Pickup - 3-way lever pickup selector; Dual Pickup - 5-way lever pickup selector
Pickups:
Standard - Music Man® humbucking with ceramic magnets and hum canceling phantom coil; Optional - Dual Humbucking with ceramic magnets; Optional - Humbucking/Single coil with ceramic magnets
Left Handed:
Yes
Strings:
45w-65w-80w-100w (Super Slinky Bass #2834)

i Phone 3G

2009-09-09T15:50:00.002+07:00

With the iPhone 3GS, Apple solidifies its leadership position in a crowded smartphone landscape.

It would be easy to dismiss the Apple iPhone 3GS as an inconsequential hardware upgrade. But to do so would underestimate how much, collectively, the phone's new features augment the iPhone experience. With the iPhone 3GS, Apple solidifies its leadership position in a crowded smartphone landscape.

With the iPhone 3GS, Apple solidifies its leadership position in a crowded smartphone landscape.

It would be easy to dismiss the Apple iPhone 3GS as an inconsequential hardware upgrade. But to do so would underestimate how much, collectively, the phone's new features augment the iPhone experience. With the iPhone 3GS, Apple solidifies its leadership position in a crowded smartphone landscape.
On the outside, the iPhone 3GS ($299 for 32GB, or $199 for 16GB, with a two-year AT&T contract, as of 6/22/09) looks and feels virtually identical to the existing iPhone 3G (now $99 for 8GB with a two-year AT&T contract). Yes, it's disappointing that Apple made no refinements in the external case (see our review of the iPhone 3G for more detail, but it's simply a minimalist design dominated by its display and the home button beneath that display). And yes, it's curious that the colors remain the same, black or white gloss (this from the company which made sure its audio players came in every color of the spectrum).

But inside, the iPhone 3GS has been fully redesigned, with new core components (CPU, memory, integrated compass, video recorder) in different locations, no less. And together with the iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade (which makes many compelling features available to existing iPhone customers), the iPhone 3GS stands tall. After pounding on it, I can say that at the full-subsidy prices, the 3GS is a surprisingly worthy upgrade for heavy users of the phone's Web and gaming capabilities, and for general-use apps--even if you're only jumping from the iPhone 3G. Read on to learn why.
Performance

Apple has played down the upgraded component specs on the iPhone 3GS; instead, the company simply promised noticeably faster performance. And the 3GS, with its CPU boosted (to 600MHz, from the iPhone 3G's 412MHz CPU) and its memory doubled (to 256MB), indeed delivers a noticeably zippier user experience compared with the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G.

Not only do apps open faster, they respond faster, too. These differences were evident in my use over both 3G and Wi-Fi. The annoying lags for accessing data or redrawing a screen are gone; moving around from one complicated Web page to the next feels downright breezy, not onerous.

I wasn't surprised that games--I tried Oregon Trail and Peggle--were snappier, since the graphics has been bumped up, with Open GL ES 2.0 for mobile 3D graphics and, according to teardown reports, Imagination Technologies' PowerVR SGX.

But I was pleasantly surprised to have a noticeably better experience navigating apps like Marco Polo CityGuide London, a largely text-based utility with hooks into the Maps app. And the London Tube Underground map didn't need seconds to redraw as I rapidly scrolled within the map. These small differences add up in a big way (especially if you're standing on a street corner while touring in London, trying to find your way), and made for a much more pleasing experience as I pounded on apps, switching among them at will, my fingers gliding fast to move from one feature to the next.

Call quality and reception remained the usual mixed bag we've come to expect from AT&T. Calls sounded adequate, but sometimes lacked the crisp clarity I've experienced with other handsets, including the T-Mobile G1 and the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G. How much of this is attributable to the AT&T network versus the handset itself is unclear, but moot anyway, given that the phone remains locked to AT&T, and its network is the one iPhone users must contend with.

Apple's claims of longer battery life from the previous generation are true, though not by much. According to the PC World Test Center's battery life tests, the iPhone 3GS had an average talk time 6 hours and 12 minutes--only 34 minutes longer than the iPhone 3G. Still, I couldn't get through a full day of real-world usage without needing a charge (I engaged in talk and data activities, plus checking my location on a map, and shooting off some photos and videos, all with the Wi-Fi connectivity enabled). For data, the company rates the battery at up to 9 hours time over Wi-Fi, and 5 hours over 3G.

One pleasant battery-related addition is a new Battery Status indicator, which you enable In General/Usage. I'd often wondered aloud why earlier iterations of iPhone couldn't do this seemingly basic task--tell me in numbers exactly what percent of the battery life was left. I'm still trying to gauge the accuracy of this battery meter, but I'm glad to finally have it there nonetheless. Now, at least, I don't have to guess what the gauge icon represents; I know that after about 4 hours--with both Wi-Fi and 3G enabled, but no data transfers and 27 minutes of phone conversation--the battery was down from 100 percent to 78 percent.
Imaging

Beyond the performance boost, the iPhone 3GS features a notably improved imaging experience that ranks high among the hardware upgrades built into the iPhone 3GS handset. The camera jumps from 2 to 3 megapixels, a welcome if moderate increase that makes the phone's camera somewhat more viable for on-the-go snaps. And the camera now includes a video mode--finally.

In my hands-on use, I found the iPhone 3GS camera surprised in some situations, and disappointed in others. The camera app opened and was ready to shoot with just a 3-second delay. I was pleased by the autofocus and tap-to-focus features; my images were reasonably sharp, and I found that by selecting different focus points, I could change the image's exposure as well as composition.

In some shots, the focus select had minimal impact on what area of the image appeared sharp. But other shots seemed to benefit greatly, even though when the feature brightened the dark areas, it completely blew out the light areas. The macro mode works invisibly and without intervention. Still, I was annoyed that the autofocus box didn't confirm sharpness for me by turning green, as happens on many point-and-shoot cameras; sharpness was often impossible to tell on the iPhone's screen.

Though Apple boasts of improved low-light handling with the iPhone 3GS camera, I had mixed results with indoor andlow-light shots. A low-light dusk shot ended up being very grainy, with degenerating building details when viewed at full resolution. Some indoor shots looked decent, but others were barely passable and would have clearly benefitted from a flash, had Apple included one. Maybe we'll see Apple catch up to its competition by adding a flash in its next version of the iPhone handset.

Also on the wish list: software-based image stabilization. I have often found that even images shot in daylight were not sharp at full resolution, especially images I tried to shoot one-handed. With its on-screen shutter button, the iPhone's camera just doesn't lend itself to one-handed photography. And while on the topic of what's missing, the Camera Roll app still lacks integration with Web services; sure, Flickr has its own app, but that's not the same as viewing a pic and deciding to post directly from the camera roll.

The bigger news is the inclusion of video capture and editing. The iPhone 3GS camera app has a slider switch to activate the video camera, which records 30 frames per second video at 640-by-480 resolution. In video mode, the camera shutter turns into a red record button you press once to start recording, and again to end recording.

Sending video is very easy: The phone has integrated hooks into YouTube, MobileMe (Apple's $99-a-year service), and e-mail. Just select the service, and proceed from there; for YouTube, the iPhone 3GS will automatically compress the file in preparation for upload to your YouTube account. Want to trim your video before sending? No problem: The in-player iMovie-like frame editor makes snipping the beginning or end of a clip a breeze.

The videos I captured looked better than many typical camera phone images at the same resolution, and I found the inclusion of a video camera handy in a pinch when I was caught off-guard with a video opportunity and had no other camera on hand. But the iPhone 3GS can't replace the video you can capture in 720p high-definition with many digital cameras and compact video recorders like the Flip Mino HD. And like-resolution dedicated camera and camcorder devices generally have a few advantages, such as greater stability for hand-held shots, and a tripod shoe if you want to steady the image.

The video feature has a few other rough spots. You can't easily find the videos you capture: They're lumped in with the rest of the images in your Camera Roll, with the video camera icon and length running along the bottom of the thumbnail. You also can't access your videos from within the iPod music and video player. And, unfortunately, the much-ballyhooed editing feature is rather limited: Once you make an edit, it's done. You can't undo them, and you can't save a copy of the original video--annoying if you want to keep the longer video for yourself and send an excerpt to a friend, for example.

One major gripe about both the images and videos: On a Windows XP-based netbook, Windows' camera import tool brought all 257 pics and vids across to my netbook, but the order of the pics was completely jumbled compared with the order things were captured in my Camera Roll. I'm not sure where the communication failure is between the two devices, but it was very frustrating.
Voice Control

Voice dialing is fairly common, and has been for years. This is a seemingly basic feature on which the iPhone 3GS is playing catch-up. But, at least it goes further by providing a range of voice controls for both dialing and music playback. When it works, I found it a wonderfully handy feature when driving, or even when walking down a street.

Hold the Home button for a count of three (a count of two invariably took me one page to the left), and the Voice Control screen pops up. Your command options scroll across in a rush, prompting your memory of the available commands (some imprecise mutations of the "accepted" options appeared to work): Play album, previous track, play songs by, dial, call, play, what song is playing, yes, no, cancel, shuffle, play more songs like this.

I found this feature worked with varying degrees of success. If I said to dial Rita and didn't specify the number, it asked me which number I wanted. If I said Rita Home, it dialed Rita Home--even when I asked in a noisy restaurant or in a room with the TV on in the background. But Voice Control stumbled on other names, either offering the wrong name or not recognizing anything. And it missed some voice commands when a TV blared nearby. Also odd: If I said Perenson and there were three Perensons in my Contacts, it just accessed the first one in the Contacts list, and didn't ask me which of the Perensons I wanted (even though I've seen reports that say it should). I asked it to play songs by REM and it played ABBA, and sometimes I didn't say a thing and I suddenly noticed it dialing a number I hadn't asked for. Oops.

One detail worth noting: Apple makes the iPhone 3GS more accessible to vision-impaired users through its new Voice Over feature. Once enabled, the phone can talk at you as you navigate among the touchscreen icons.
Display

The iPhone 3GS has the same 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen display as its predecessor. The display still looks beautiful, displaying images at 320-by-480-pixel resolution. But these images are a bit "warmer"--they don't have quite the vividness that they do on the iPhone 3G.

As shown by a side-by-side comparison in an earlier article, the iPhone 3G's colors pop more; it has deeper browns at the top of the notepad, and deeper grays in the keyboard. The same screen on an iPhone 3GS has a dullish gray on the keys. In both instances, the auto-brightness setting was off, and the brightness level was identical.

In some images, we detected a slightly greenish cast on the iPhone 3GS. We found the color distinction quite noticeable on screens with white backgrounds, such as the search tab, the calendar, and the photo library. While some of these differences may not have stood out when we looked at the iPhone 3GS on its own, they did when we put the new handset next to the 3G.

When asked, an Apple spokesman said the color temperature and brightness level of the display has not changed from the 3G phone. Apple also says the new oleophobic (oil-resistant) coating had no impact on the screen, as the coating is transparent.

While some aspects of the 3GS's display look dull and washed out in comparison with the 3G and even the original iPhone, I noticed a clearly visible improvement in blacks. An example was when I compared the original iPhone and the 3GS, both in the camera app, with their lenses facing a black table. The black of the table appears more dark gray than black on the original iPhone, so it's clearly washed out and too bright; the table appears to be a more pure black with the iPhone 3GS. However, in this example, the noise level of the 3GS is also abundantly clear: Parts of the image show dramatic and intrusive evidence of reddish artifacts and noise.

The aforementioned smudge-proof coating, at least, is the real deal--it attracted fewer fingerprints than an iPhone 3G did when both cameras were used similarly, and those fingerprints wiped off more easily. Another benefit: The new screen's texture has an ultrasmooth glide to it. In contrast, my fingers would more easily catch on the iPhone 3G (typically as they passed over a fingerprint or three).

Also, text appears slightly sharper on the 3GS compared with the 3G. That's surprising considering that the iPhone 3GS has the same resolution as the iPhone 3G does. Apple says that fonts on the iPhone 3GS are rendered by the phone, as opposed to being bitmaps, and that this approach accounts for the smoother and sharper appearance of text.
Everything Else--Including OS 3.0

A couple of stray features have been crammed into the iPhone 3GS, and while they may seem minor, they're sure to find their fans.

The newly integrated compass is handy for location-based and mapping applications (and if you're communing with Mother Nature). The compass has distinctive, easy-to-read graphics, and it allows applications to orient to your current position. For example, the Maps app will reorient based on your directional heading.

Nike+ support is built-in now, too. Take iPhone 3GS on a workout with you, and it can track your progress together with the $19 Nike+ accessory.

Certainly, the OS 3.0 software update, which makes many cool features available to all iPhone users, could persuade some people to decide they don't need a new handset. Among OS 3.0's features: a landscape keyboard for all core apps; an innovative and useful implementation of cut, copy, and paste, the long-elusive iPhone feature; A2DP stereo Bluetooth; push notifications, an improved call log that shows details like the time and length of a call; spotlight search for searching apps, e-mail (subjects and to/from lines), music, and more; shake to shuffle; voice memos; and support for MMS and tethering, common features bizarrely not available to AT&T until later this summer.

Although the iPhone 3GS offers some compelling improvements for heavy users, I'm disappointed that Apple didn't build more innovations into the handset, to differentiate itself from the pack. Some areas are still lacking, and there's still no true multitasking (you can't log into instant messaging while surfing the Web, for example).

But the performance enhancements do distinguish this otherwise evolutionary step-up phone from its previous iterations. The new features of the 3GS are few but choice. With 32GB of storage and its data and multimedia strengths, Apple's iPhone 3GS is, despite the reservations noted, one of the best smartphones you can buy for the money.
pcworld.com

Lamb of God

2009-09-09T15:37:00.002+07:00

Lamb of God is an American heavy metal band from Richmond, Virginia, formed in 1990. The band was originally known as Burn the Priest, but changed their name shortly after the release of their self-titled debut album in 1998.[7] Lamb of God consists of vocalist Randy Blythe, guitarists Mark Morton and Willie Adler, bassist John Campbell, and drummer Chris Adler and is a member of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal.[8]

Since its formation, Lamb of God has released six studio albums, one live album, and three DVDs. The band's cumulative sales equal almost two million in the United States. In 2007 the band received a Grammy nomination for their 2006 album Sacrament. Lamb of God has toured with the Ozzfest twice and appeared on Slayer's The Unholy Alliance Tour in 2006. They have also played at many other major festivals around the world including Download Festival in the UK, Soundwave Festival and Gigantour.

Lamb of God is an American heavy metal band from Richmond, Virginia, formed in 1990. The band was originally known as Burn the Priest, but changed their name shortly after the release of their self-titled debut album in 1998.[7] Lamb of God consists of vocalist Randy Blythe, guitarists Mark Morton and Willie Adler, bassist John Campbell, and drummer Chris Adler and is a member of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal.[8]

Since its formation, Lamb of God has released six studio albums, one live album, and three DVDs. The band's cumulative sales equal almost two million in the United States. In 2007 the band received a Grammy nomination for their 2006 album Sacrament. Lamb of God has toured with the Ozzfest twice and appeared on Slayer's The Unholy Alliance Tour in 2006. They have also played at many other major festivals around the world including Download Festival in the UK, Soundwave Festival and Gigantour.
History

[edit] Formation and Burn the Priest (1994–1999)

In 1990, guitarist Mark Morton, drummer Chris Adler and bassist John Campbell started a band named Burn the Priest. The band members knew each other from the college they were all attending, Virginia Commonwealth University, in Richmond, Virginia.[9] Morton left the band soon after its inception to receive his master's degree. Adler and Campbell replaced Morton with Abe Spear. For the next five years, the band practiced in Adler's house and around Virginia. In 1995, the band released its self-titled first demo. After the demo, Burn the Priest recorded two split albums with Agents of Satan and ZED respectively.[10] After the band's first three demos, Burn the Priest added vocalist Gian Del Rosario to its line up.[10]

In 1997, Morton returned to the band. Two years later, the band released its first full-length self-titled album, Burn the Priest, through Legion Records. Mikey Bronsnan of Legion Records saved up $2,500 for the recording and then broke them in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania through DIY shows.[11] The album was produced by Today Is the Day guitarist and vocalist Steve Austin. Spear left the band, leaving an open position for a guitarist. Adler's brother, Willie Adler, became the band's second guitarist a year later, and a deal with Prosthetic Records was signed.[10] After being banned from playing in certain places (some venue owners believing the band possessed an "evil" name),[12] Burn the Priest changed their name to Lamb of God.

[edit] New American Gospel and As the Palaces Burn (2000–2003)
Guitarist Mark Morton performing at the With Full Force music festival in 2007.

With a new name and label, the band released its second album, New American Gospel, in September 2000.[13] Patrick Kennedy of Allmusic compared the band to Pantera stating, "The essential signatures of post-Pantera metal are in abundance on Lamb of God's inaugural album. New American Gospel provides a mighty oak upon which gritty American metal's faith is maintained, effectively bridging the '90s' insistence upon drill-sergeant technicality and the old school's determined focus on riff construction."[13] Chris Adler commented: "This is a classic record. We had all the elements come together to make one of the heaviest, yet contagious records of our career. It was difficult to contain us—we didn't even understand at the time what we had created."[14]

Lamb of God toured for two years before releasing its third studio album, As the Palaces Burn, on May 6, 2003. Kirk Miller of Rolling Stone gave the album three out of five stars, writing that "unlike many of their overreaching, Slipknot-influenced contemporaries, Lamb of God deliver a meticulously crafted metal assault."[15] The album was voted the number one album of 2003 by both Revolver Magazine and Metal Hammer. The band toured on the first Headbangers Ball tour, where they recorded a DVD including live performances and a documentary, titled Terror and Hubris. The DVD was a success, debuting at number 31 on the Billboard Top Music Videos chart.[16][17]

[edit] Ashes of the Wake (2004–2005)
Vocalist Randy Blythe performing at Ozzfest 2004.

Lamb of God released Ashes of the Wake in August 2004, which debuted at number 27 on the Billboard 200, and sold over 35,000 copies in its first week.[18][19] The album was distributed through the band's new record label, Epic Records. Johnny Loftus of Allmusic praised the album, saying "With the genre getting clogged by PVC goofs and Alice in Chains impersonators, Lamb of God balances the equation of power, rage, tradition, and craft. It kills the filler."[20] The title track of the album featured Testament and ex–Megadeth guitarists Alex Skolnick and Chris Poland, respectively.[20]

The band supported Ashes of the Wake with extensive touring, including a second stage slot on Ozzfest in 2004,[21] and the 2005 Sounds of the Underground tour.[22] The band was awarded 2nd Best Album of the Year by Revolver Magazine behind Mastodon's Leviathan, and was awarded Best Music Video for "Now You've Got Something to Die For" (2005).[23] While on tour, the band recorded a performance and released it with the name of Killadelphia. The release was made available as a DVD and a CD.[24] The DVD was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2007.[25]

[edit] Sacrament (2005–2007)
Bassist John Campbell performing at 2007's With Full Force.

In August 2006 Lamb of God released its fifth studio album, Sacrament. The album debuted at number eight on the Billboard 200 and sold nearly 65,000 copies in its first week of sales, nearly doubling the first week sales of Ashes of the Wake.[18] The album received generally positive reviews, with Cosmo Lee of Stylus Magazine stating, "Sacrament has the band's most memorable songs to date. Musically, there's no fat. The band plays with laser precision and songs move smoothly through riffs and transitions."[26] Ed Thompson of IGN referred to Sacrament "one of the best metal albums of 2006",[27] and Jon Pareles of Blender called it a "speed rush all the way through".[28]

The band appeared on major tours to support the album, including The Unholy Alliance with Slayer, Mastodon, Children of Bodom, and Thine Eyes Bleed,[29] Gigantour, supporting Megadeth;[30] main stage at Ozzfest;[21] an appearance at the Download Festival, and an exclusive co-headlining tour with Killswitch Engage, Soilwork, and Devil Driver where Killswitch Engage and Lamb of God shared headlining spots alternately each show.[31] Lamb of God was nominated for Best Metal Performance at the 2007 Grammy Awards for "Redneck", but lost out to Slayer's "Eyes of the Insane".[32]

In December 2007, the band re-released the album as Sacrament: Deluxe Producer Edition. The release contained all of the original songs from Sacrament on the first disc, and the second disc was a CD-ROM featuring all of the vocal, bass, guitar, and drum tracks in 192kbit/s MP3 format, enabling the buyer to produce their own interpretation of the songs. Blythe stated, "you sometimes have to do something special to get kids to even buy an album these days rather than download it."[33] The band is taking a break to write new material throughout 2008 and prepare a new record for release, slated for 2009. The band is negotiating for a new record label to distribute records outside the United States. Chris Adler stated Epic Records in the United States "couldn't be more perfect", but wants a different label for international releases.[34] The band later inked a deal with Roadrunner on 1 May 2008 for distribution outside the United States.[citation needed]

[edit] Walk with Me in Hell and Wrath (2008 onward)
Randy Blythe at 2007's With Full Force.

On May 1, Lamb of God announced via MySpace their new DVD, Walk with Me in Hell, would be released on July 1, 2008. The DVD is a double-disc and has nearly five hours of footage, containing the feature documentary Walk with Me in Hell and multiple live performance extras from the Sacrament World Tour. At the end of the Walk with Me in Hell documentary the members stated that they are excited more than ever to write new material.

In August, 2008, it was announced that the band had commenced work on the follow-up to Sacrament, and that its release was scheduled for February, 2009. Josh Wilbur was also named as the producer for the record.[35] They will also be touring with Metallica as a direct support act starting in December 2008.[36]

The recording process of the new record was made available to view online live through the band's website, with two webcams installed in the studio (specifically in the drum room and mixing room).[37]

Their latest album is named Wrath [38] and was released on February 23, 2009 internationally via Roadrunner Records and on February 24, 2009 in America via Epic Records. The album is dedicated to Mikey Bronsnan, who helped them get started in Philadelphia, PA. In November 2008, Bronsnan was killed by a drunk driver. According to drummer Chris Adler, "Without Mikey, we'd very well might not be a band today."[39] Drummer Chris Adler was quoted saying "This album is going to surprise a lot of people. Typically bands that get to where we are in our career begin to slack off, smell the roses and regurgitate. We chose a different path. No one wants to hear another band member hyping a new record. ‘Wrath’ needs no hype. We have topped ourselves and on February 24 you will feel it." With that said, "Wrath" debuted on the Billboard 200 at number two, selling over 68,000 copies in its first week.[40]

In support of Wrath, the band in spring of 2009 embarked on the first leg of their world tour, No Fear Energy Tour headlined by themselves with main support from As I Lay Dying and Children of Bodom, and rotating opening slots with God Forbid and Municipal Waste.[41] The tour was a massive success for the band with rave reviews and large turnouts at each show. The band played in Europe in the summer to perform with Metallica on the World Magnetic Tour along with Mastodon, while also playing headlining shows of their own and performing at major European festivals. For the final six dates of the tour, Unearth's Buz McGrath filled in for Mark Morton, as he left early to be with his wife and his first child.

Lamb of God has been announced to also serve as Metallica's direct support for the North American leg of their 2009 world tour, as well as finishing the year off by headlining shows in Australia and New Zealand with Shadows Fall and DevilDriver.

Commenting on the dispute over lineup slots at the UK Sonisphere Festival where Limp Bizkit were booked into the slot previously given to Machine Head, Willie Adler said of Limp Bizkit "I wouldn’t wanna open up for Limp Bizkit! They’ve been out of the scene for so long, I mean, who cares? Who cares about Limp Bizkit? [...] Fuck those dudes! Fuck that band, and fuck all the people who work for that fuckin’ band!" [42]

[edit] Musical style

Lamb of God was formed as an instrumental band, Burn the Priest, and included vocals after Randy Blythe joined the band as a vocalist. After they reached the success with the release of 2004's Ashes of the Wake[7][43] the band is often associated with such terms as the "leaders" of the "New Wave of American Heavy Metal".[8]

Burn the Priest and early Lamb of God has been defined as a thrash metal, death metal and hardcore punk[43] or grindcore[44] hybrid with a strong element of power groove, which often connects Lamb of God with the influential metal band Pantera. Another connection between Pantera and Lamb of God is the fact that both were and are highly influential metal bands from the Southern United States, Texas and Virginia, respectively. Along with Mastodon, from Georgia, Lamb of God could currently be helping to strengthen a young tradition of great southern metal that was first pioneered by Pantera.[20][43][13][45][46][47] Burn the Priest and early Lamb of God include growling death metal vocals[43] and sometimes lyrics that are difficult to decipher.[citation needed] The style has been considered to vary between several different genres, including hardcore punk, thrash metal, and even possessing sludge metal influences.[43]
Guitarist Mark Morton performing at 2004's Ozzfest

New American Gospel continues in a similar style as Burn the Priest, with drum-heavy production of double picking and double-kick drumming.[13] Here, the band has been considered by Allmusic to be effectively bridging the 1990s' tendency towards technicality and early metal's focus on riff construction and plays a brand of heavy metal described as not unlike Meshuggah without some of their mathematical components.[13][45]

2003's As the Palaces Burn saw the band's compositions focusing more on what some have called "memorable" riffs.[46] On 2004's Ashes of the Wake, they continued the progression of As the Palaces Burn with more frequent guitar solos.[20]

Sacrament, released in 2006, was described by critics as more technical, especially considering the vocal performance. Again, the band experimented with more melody and guitar solos; however, the band has also been often reproached by the critics for the similarity of the songs within their albums.[47][48]

Due to the variety of influences, stylistic elements and changes throughout the band's career the press has chosen several genres and terms to describe Lamb of God's music. Lamb of God has been labeled as a metalcore[48][49] and groove metal[49] band. Campbell, on the Walk With Me in Hell DVD, says that Lamb of God is "a punk band that plays heavy metal", while Chris Adler refers to Sacrament as a speed metal album.

[edit] Discography
Main article: Lamb of God discography

Studio albums

* Burn the Priest (1999)
* New American Gospel (2000)
* As the Palaces Burn (2003)
* Ashes of the Wake (2004)
* Sacrament (2006)
* Wrath (2009)

DVDs

* Terror And Hubris (2003)
* Killadelphia (2005)
* Walk with Me in Hell (2008)

[edit] Members

* Randy Blythe – vocals (1995 onward)
* Mark Morton – lead guitar (1990, 1997 onward)
* Willie Adler – rhythm guitar (1998 onward)
* John Campbell – bass (1990 onward)
* Chris Adler – drums (1990 onward)

[edit] Former members

* Abe Spear – guitar (1990–1998)

Linkin Park

2009-09-09T15:21:00.003+07:00

Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California, formed in 1996. Since their formation, the band has sold more than 50 million albums and won two Grammy Awards. It achieved mainstream success with its debut album, Hybrid Theory, which was certified Diamond by the RIAA in 2005. Its following studio album, Meteora, continued the band's success, topping the Billboard 200’s album charts in 2003, and was followed by extensive touring and charity work around the world. In 2003, MTV2 named Linkin Park the sixth greatest band of the music video era and the third best of the new millennium behind Oasis and Coldplay.

Having adapted the nu metal and rap rock genres to a radio-friendly yet densely-layered style in Hybrid Theory and Meteora, the band explored other genres in their next studio album, Minutes to Midnight. The album topped the Billboard charts and had the third best debut week of any album that year. They have also collaborated with several other artists, most notably with rapper Jay-Z in their mashup album Collision Course, and many others on Reanimation.

Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California, formed in 1996. Since their formation, the band has sold more than 50 million albums and won two Grammy Awards. It achieved mainstream success with its debut album, Hybrid Theory, which was certified Diamond by the RIAA in 2005. Its following studio album, Meteora, continued the band's success, topping the Billboard 200’s album charts in 2003, and was followed by extensive touring and charity work around the world. In 2003, MTV2 named Linkin Park the sixth greatest band of the music video era and the third best of the new millennium behind Oasis and Coldplay.

Having adapted the nu metal and rap rock genres to a radio-friendly yet densely-layered style in Hybrid Theory and Meteora, the band explored other genres in their next studio album, Minutes to Midnight. The album topped the Billboard charts and had the third best debut week of any album that year. They have also collaborated with several other artists, most notably with rapper Jay-Z in their mashup album Collision Course, and many others on Reanimation.
Band history

Early years (1996–1999)

Originally consisting of three high school friends, Linkin Park’s foundation was anchored by Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, and Rob Bourdon. After graduating from high school, the California natives began to take their musical interests more seriously, recruiting Joe Hahn, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, and Mark Wakefield to perform in their band, Xero. Though limited in resources, the band began recording and producing songs within Shinoda’s make-shift bedroom studio in 1996. Tensions and frustration within the band grew after they failed to land a record deal. The lack of success and stalemate in progress prompted Wakefield, at that time the band's vocalist, to leave the band in search for other projects.Farrell also left to tour with Tasty Snax and other bands.

After spending a considerable time searching for Wakefield's replacement, Xero recruited Arizona vocalist Chester Bennington. Jeff Blue, the vice president of Zomba Music, had referred him to the band in March 1999. Bennington, formerly of Grey Daze, became a standout among applicants because of his unique singing style. The band changed its name from Xero to Hybrid Theory. The newborn vocal chemistry between Shinoda and Bennington helped revive the band, inciting them to work on new material. The band’s renaissance culminated with a change in name; from Hybrid Theory, the band changed its name to Linkin Park, a play on and homage to Santa Monica’s Lincoln Park. However, despite these changes, the band still struggled to sign a record deal. After facing numerous rejections from several major record labels, Linkin Park turned to Jeff Blue for additional help. After failing to catch Warner Bros. Records on three previous reviews, Jeff Blue, now the vice president of Warner Bros. Records, helped the band sign a deal with the company in 1999. The band released its breakthrough album, Hybrid Theory, the following year.
Hybrid Theory (2000–2002)

Linkin Park released Hybrid Theory on October 24, 2000.[19][20] The album, which represented half a decade’s worth of the band’s work, was edited by music producer Don Gilmore.[1] Hybrid Theory was well received by music fans; the band sold more than 4.8 million records during its debut year, earning it the status of best-selling album of 2001, while singles such as "Crawling" and "One Step Closer" established themselves as staples among alternative rock radio play lists during the year.[16] Additionally, other singles from the album were featured in movies such as Dracula 2000, Little Nicky, and Valentine.[16] Hybrid Theory was also nominated for three Grammy Awards, including best new artist, best rock album, and best hard rock performance (for "Crawling").[21] MTV awarded the band their Best Rock Video and Best Direction awards for "In the End".[1] Through the winning of the Grammy for best hard rock performance, Hybrid Theory’s overall success had catapulted the band into the mainstream's attention.

During this time, Linkin Park received many invitations to perform on many high-profile tours and concerts including Ozzfest, Family Values Tour and KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas.[16][22] The band also formed its own tour, Projekt Revolution, which featured other notable artists such as, Cypress Hill, Adema, and Snoop Dogg.[18] Within a year’s stretch, Linkin Park had performed at over 320 concerts.[1] The experiences and performances of the precocious band were documented in its first DVD, Frat Party at the Pankake Festival, which debuted in November 2001. Now reunited with former bassist Phoenix, the band began work on a remix album, dubbed Reanimation, which would include works from Hybrid Theory and Hybrid Theory EP.[16] Reanimation debuted on July 30, 2002, featuring the likes of Black Thought, Jonathan Davis, Aaron Lewis, and many others.[23] Reanimation claimed the second spot on the Billboard 200, and sold nearly 270,000 copies during its debut week.[24]

Meteora (2002–2004)

Following the success of Hybrid Theory and Reanimation, Linkin Park spent a significant amount of time touring around the United States. The band members began to work on new material amidst its saturated schedule, spending a sliver of their free time in their tour bus' studio.[25] The band officially announced the production of a new studio album in December 2002, revealing its new work was inspired by the rocky region of Meteora in Greece, where numerous monasteries have been built on top of the rocks.[26] Meteora featured a mixture of the band's previous nu metal and rapcore styles with newer innovative effects, including the induction of a shakuhachi (a Japanese flute made of bamboo) and other instruments.[1] Linkin Park's second album debuted on March 25, 2003 and instantly earned worldwide recognition,[1] going to #1 in the US and UK, and #2 in Australia.[15]

Meteora sold more than 800,000 copies during its first week, and it ranked as the best selling album on the Billboard charts at the time.[27] Music videos for some of the album's singles, including "Somewhere I Belong", "Breaking the Habit", "Faint", and "Numb", received significant radio attention.[28] By October 2003, Meteora sold nearly three million copies.[29] The album's success allowed Linkin Park to form another Projekt Revolution, which featured other bands and artists including, Mudvayne, Blindside, and Xzibit.[1] Additionally, Metallica invited Linkin Park to play at the Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003, which included well-known acts such as Limp Bizkit, Mudvayne and Deftones.[30] The band released an album and DVD, entitled Live in Texas, which consisted of audio and video tracks of some of the band's performances in Texas during the tour.[1] In early 2004, Linkin Park started a world tour titled the Meteora World Tour, supporting bands on the tour include Hoobastank, P.O.D. and Story of the Year.

Meteora earned the band multiple awards and honors. The band won MTV's awards for Best Rock Video ("Somewhere I Belong") and the Viewer's Choice Award ("Breaking the Habit").[31] Linkin Park also received significant recognition during the 2004 Radio Music Awards, winning the Artist of the Year and Song of the Year ("Numb") awards.[31] Although Meteora was not nearly as successful as Hybrid Theory, it was the third best selling album in America during 2003.[16] The band spent the first few months of 2004 touring around the world, first with the third Projekt Revolution tour, and later several European concerts.[16]

Side projects (2004–2006)
Bennington appears on the band's behalf at MTV Asia Aid

Following Meteora's success, the band postponed working on a new studio album for the next few years. Instead, Linkin Park continued to tour and work on many side projects. Bennington appeared on DJ Lethal’s "State of the Art" and other work with Dead by Sunrise, while Shinoda did work with Depeche Mode.[16] In 2004, the band began to work with Jay-Z to produce another remix album, entitled Collision Course. The album, which featured intermixed lyrics and background tracks from both artists' previous albums, debuted in November 2004. Shinoda also formed a new band, Fort Minor, as a side project. With the aid of Jay-Z, Fort Minor released its debut album, The Rising Tied, to critical acclaim.[32][33] At the same time, the band's relationship with Warner Bros. Records was deteriorating rapidly on account of several trust and financial issues.[34] After months of feuding, the band finally negotiated a deal in December 2005.[35]

Linkin Park also participated in numerous charitable events. Linkin Park helped raise money to benefit victims of Hurricane Charley in 2004 and later hurricane Katrina in 2005.[16] The band donated $75,000 to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation in March 2004.[36] They also helped relief efforts for the 2004 tsunami victims by staging several charity concerts and setting up an additional fund called "Music for Relief".[37] Most notably, however, the band participated at Live 8, a series of charitable benefit concerts set up to raise global awareness.[38] Alongside Jay-Z, the band performed on Live 8's stage in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a global audience.[38] The band would later be reunited with Jay-Z at the Grammy Award Ceremony 2006, during which they performed "Numb/Encore", en route to winning a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.[39] They would later go on to play at the 2006 Summer Sonic music festival, which was hosted by Metallica, in Japan.[40]

Minutes to Midnight (2006–2008)
Linkin Park in Prague, 2007.
Linkin Park performing at 2007's Projekt Revolution Tour in Norton, Massachusetts

Linkin Park returned to the recording studios in 2006 to work on new material. To produce the album, the band chose producer Rick Rubin. Despite initially stating the album would debut sometime in 2006, the album was delayed until 2007.[11] The band had recorded thirty to fifty songs in August 2006, when Shinoda stated the album was halfway completed.[41] Bennington later added that the new album would stray away from its previous nu metal sound.[42] Warner Bros. Records officially announced that the band’s third studio album, entitled Minutes to Midnight, would be released on May 15, 2007 in the United States.[43] After spending fourteen months working on the album, the band members opted to further refine their album by removing five of the original seventeen tracks. The album’s title, a reference to the Doomsday Clock, foreshadowed the band's new lyrical themes.[44] Minutes to Midnight sold over 600,000 copies in its first week, making it one of the most successful debut week albums in recent years. The album also took the top spot on the Billboard Charts.[14]

The album's first single, "What I've Done" was released on April 2, and premiered on MTV and Fuse within the same week.[45] The single was acclaimed by listeners, becoming the top-ranked song on the Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks and Mainstream Rock Tracks charts.[46] The song is also used in soundtrack for the 2007 action film, Transformers. Later in the year, the band won the "Favorite Alternative Artist" in the American Music Awards.[47] The band also saw success with singles such as "Bleed It Out", "Shadow of the Day", "Given Up", and "Leave Out All the Rest", which were released throughout 2007 and early 2008. The band also collaborated with Busta Rhymes on his single "We Made It", which was released on April 29.[48]
Linkin Park at 2007's Novarock Festival.

Linkin Park's touring and live shows have, among other things, included a performance at Live Earth Japan on July 7, 2007.[49] and headlining Download Festival in Donington Park, England and Edgefest in Downsview Park, Toronto, Canada. The band completed touring on its fourth Projekt Revolution tour before taking up an Arena tour around the United Kingdom, visiting Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester, before finishing on a double night at the O2 arena in London. Bennington stated that Linkin Park plans to release a follow-up album to Minutes to Midnight.[50] However, he stated the band will first embark on a United States tour to gather inspiration for the album.[50] In an interview with Rolling Stone, Bennington said that the band had already begun writing new material for the album, and Shinoda too stated that the album could well be released in late 2009. Mike Shinoda also announced a live CD/DVD entitled "Road to Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes", which is a live video recording from the Projekt Revolution gig at the Milton Keynes Bowl the 29th June 2008, which was officially released on the 24th November, 2008.[51]

Future direction (2008 onward)
Bassist Dave "Phoenix" Farrell performing at 2009's Sonisphere Festival in Kirjurinluoto, Pori, Finland.

In October 2008 Shinoda revealed on his blog that he, Phoenix and Hahn had begun working on two song ideas at Hahn's home, with studio recording to begin in earnest soon.[52] In 2008, Bennington announced that Linkin Park's fourth studio release will be a concept album.[53] The band has not released many specific details about the album.[1] In an interview with MTV in November 2008, Bennington stated, "It sounds a little daunting to me, so, I think my confidence level will drop, but when it was presented to us by this friend of ours, we liked the idea. It was an inspiring idea, and it was something we could relate a lot of the things we like to write about to".[2] He also added that the band planned to begin recording in December for a six-week session. The album was expected in mid 2009, but in late March, Mike Shinoda wrote on his blog saying "We're hoping to have Chester's Dead By Sunrise album out this fall, and the new LP album out early next year."[54]

In December 2008, Digidesign gave the band the opportunity to preview the new Pro Tools 8 software. The experiment resulted in an instrumental song performed by Shinoda and Bourdon.[55]

In April 2009, Mike Shinoda revealed on his blog that Linkin Park will be working on the score for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with successful film composer Hans Zimmer.[56] On May 7, it was further confirmed that the song recorded for the film is titled "New Divide," and was released as a single on May 18.[57][58] A clip from the song can be heard 14 seconds into the new trailer. The music video for "New Divide" was released on June 12, 2009 and was directed by Mr. Hahn. On June 22, 2009, the band played a short set after the premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The concert took play on the street in Westwood Village.

In May 2009, Linkin Park announced that they were working on their fourth album which will be released in 2010, with the aim for it to be "genre-busting".[59] Shinoda also stated recently in an interview with IGN that the new album will have in comparison to Minutes to Midnight a bigger "thread of consistency" and will also be more experimental and "hopefully more cutting-edge".[60] Additionally the band's other vocalist Chester Bennington confirmed in an interview with Taipei Times that Rick Rubin returns as the producer of the new album.[61]

Musical style

Both Hybrid Theory and Meteora combined the alternative metal,[62] nu metal,[16][63][64][65][66] and rap rock[66][67] sound with influences and elements from hip-hop, alternative rock,[68] and electronica, utilizing programming and synthesizers. William Ruhlmann from Allmusic regarded it as "a Johnny-come-lately to an already overdone musical style,"[69] whereas Rolling Stone called "Breaking the Habit" "risky, beautiful art".[70]

In Minutes to Midnight the band experimented with their established sound and drew influences from a wider and more varied range of genres and styles, a process Los Angeles Times compares to a stage in U2's work.[71] In it, only two of the songs feature rapping, and the majority of the album can be considered alternative rock[72][73] rather than nu metal or rap rock. It is also their first studio album to feature guitar solos.

In concert the band has covered songs by artists as varied as The Cure, Deftones, Guns N' Roses, and Nine Inch Nails.[citation needed]

Linkin Park's use of two separate vocalists has become a large part of their music. Chester Bennington is most known for using screaming vocals common in various forms of metal and hardcore, while also using more melodic singing, and was placed 46th in Hit Paraders list of "Heavy Metal's All-Time Top 100 Vocalists".[74]

Mike Shinoda is the group's MC and does all of the rapping. Mike has also done all of the backing vocals live, and in their latest album, Minutes to Midnight, he sings lead vocals on "In Between", "Hands Held High", and the B-side "No Roads Left". Shinoda has also been placed in Hit Parader's list of "Heavy Metal's All-Time Top 100 Vocalists" at number 72.[74]

Band members
Chester Bennington performing at Sonisphere Festival in Kirjurinluoto, Pori, Finland.
Main article: List of Linkin Park band members

* Chester Bennington – lead vocals, rhythm guitar
* Rob Bourdon – drums
* Brad Delson – lead guitar
* Dave "Phoenix" Farrell – bass, backing vocals
* Mr. Hahn – turntables, programming, samples
* Mike Shinoda – rapping, vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards

Discography
Main article: Linkin Park discography

* Hybrid Theory (2000)
* Meteora (2003)
* Minutes to Midnight (2007)

Awards
Main article: List of Linkin Park awards

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Skype On Nokia 97

2009-09-09T14:13:00.002+07:00

The second day of the MWC 2009 is now over and we are particularly happy about Nokia's announcements. First of all, it wasn't a secret that there were going to be some introductions into Nokia's Nseries smartphones. So at the end of the day we have the N86 8MP announced for the second quarter with the price under 400 USD. But that is not all. Evenly with devices, Nokia and Skype declared they have arrived at the point, considering each other's success and future potentials, where world's foremost Internet communications experience can and should come together with up-to-date handsets. Which are initially downscaled computers in their view.

The second day of the MWC 2009 is now over and we are particularly happy about Nokia's announcements. First of all, it wasn't a secret that there were going to be some introductions into Nokia's Nseries smartphones. So at the end of the day we have the N86 8MP announced for the second quarter with the price under 400 USD. But that is not all. Evenly with devices, Nokia and Skype declared they have arrived at the point, considering each other's success and future potentials, where world's foremost Internet communications experience can and should come together with up-to-date handsets. Which are initially downscaled computers in their view.Of course, we are not fooling anyone and mobile versions of Skype can easily be downloaded and installed for a long time now. However it didn't stop Skype and Nokia to make some ballyhoo about preinstalled software. In my view the point of it is that Skype is looking forward to raise its funds on this move because required WLAN and 3G are now very common and widely spread. Anyway, the first handset with preinstalled Skype will be Nokia's Nseries flagship N97. This will happen in the third quarter and afterwards all Nseries and other models will come out with it. Policy with preinstalled soft will have few advantages for end users - primarily it means no bugs. Skype will feature address book adoption with contact info, status, chat and Skype-to-Skype calls. All free as usual. Calls to landlines, mobile phones and SMS still have to be paid of course.

Nokia Surge

2009-09-09T14:06:00.002+07:00

The svelte Nokia Surge is surprisingly feature-packed for its price, but the design has more than a few flaws.

The Nokia Surge ($80 with a two-year contract; as of 8/10/09) is a great starter smartphone for teenagers or those wary of high-priced handsets. It has a few design quirks, and the construction is a bit flimsy, but you get a solid set of features for an affordable price.

The svelte Nokia Surge is surprisingly feature-packed for its price, but the design has more than a few flaws.

The Nokia Surge ($80 with a two-year contract; as of 8/10/09) is a great starter smartphone for teenagers or those wary of high-priced handsets. It has a few design quirks, and the construction is a bit flimsy, but you get a solid set of features for an affordable price.
The Surge is incredibly pocketable, measuring 3.8 by 2.2 by 0.6 inches thick. It's light, too, weighing a feathery 4.3 ounces. But it isn't exactly eye-catching: The phone's dull, all-black body is almost completely plastic except for metal trim around the keyboard. While this construction keeps it lightweight, it looks a bit cheap. And for a phone that's aimed at a young, hip, and socially-connected audience, I wish Nokia had offered more fun with the colors.

Nevertheless, the phone feels really nice in the hand and caused no discomfort during a long phone conversation. Call quality over AT&T's 3G network sounded great, too. But the Surge has one very annoying design quirk: It has no separate numeric keypad; you can only access it from the slide-out keyboard. This means you must have the keyboard open every time you dial a number. Too bad Nokia didn't make this phone a dual-slider like its N97.

The Surge's hardware buttons are laid out horizontally, suggesting that you'll mostly use the phone with the slide-out QWERTY keyboard open. A 2.4-inch display dominates the face of the phone. While the display was bright and crisp enough, I wish Nokia had used the real estate of the phone's face more wisely--it has quite a bit of room for a bigger screen.

To the right of the display lies the Talk and End/Power buttons, with a directional pad between them. Unlike other Nokia smartphones I've seen, this d-pad is easy to press and comfortable to use. To the lower right of the display are three shortcut keys: Browser, Home, and E-mail. Unfortunately, these rigid, flushed keys are not as tactile as the d-pad. I preferred taking the extra steps to access these apps via the phone's software menu rather than pushing these small plasticky buttons.

The keyboard slides out easily and feels very sturdy. Again, I found the keys quite stiff and difficult to press. The keys were quite large though, so the keyboard didn't feel cramped. I also liked the generously-sized, centrally-placed spacebar.

Like other Nokia smartphones, the Surge runs on the Symbian S60 platform. The interface lacks the pizzazz of other smartphones and phones with advanced features that we've seen, like the Samsung Impression (also on AT&T), for example. Still, the interface packs in an impressive amount of features. In particular, the social networking aspect of the Surge comes from a preloaded app called JuiceCaster. This app acts as a portal for other social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter, and JuiceCaster's own social network. You can post status updates, photos, and videos all from one seamless application, and I can see its appeal to the younger set that is the phone's market.

The Surge is not all fun and games, though--it has productivity apps, too, such as the QuickOffice suite, a PDF reader, and a calendar. You can also set up your business e-mail account using Microsoft Exchange synchronization or your personal e-mail accounts, such as Gmail.

The media player supports a wide gamut of file types including AAC, AAC+, WAV, MP3, WMA 9, and RealAudio10 files. You can also listen to FM and XM radio stations. Audio quality is good, but I was disappointed by the lack of a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack.

Perhaps the Surge's strongest point is that the browser supports Flash Lite. Unlike with the iPhone, viewing pages with heavy Flash content is no problem. CNN.com, Hulu, and YouTube were a bit slow to load (this may have been a network issue, not a problem with the handset); eventually, however, I was able to watch streaming video without any issues.

The 2-megapixel camera is adequate, but not on a par with some of the other Nokia smartphone cameras we've tested. Colors looked washed out and details lacked refinement. Video recording quality was also just average with some blurring and pixilation.

The Nokia Surge offers a lot for the price, but I wonder if the younger audience it is aimed at will be turned off by its boring (and awkward) design and lackluster interface. The $99 iPhone 3G, also on the AT&T network, is slightly more expensive, but is a much more tempting buy thanks to its sleek design, its fun interface, and its plentitude of apps and games.
pcworld.com

INTEL Core i7 and Core i5

2009-09-08T14:56:00.003+07:00

Intel's New Core i7 and Core i5 Processors Explained

Intel's two new Core i7 CPUs (860 and 870) are mid-range counterparts to its top-of-the-line Core i7 900-series chips, and initial tests (using Intel's new DP55KG motherboard) indicate their performance follows suit. Our early tests also show the new entry-level Core i5 750 is the one to watch when it comes to best bang for your buck.

Intel's New Core i7 and Core i5 Processors Explained

Intel's two new Core i7 CPUs (860 and 870) are mid-range counterparts to its top-of-the-line Core i7 900-series chips, and initial tests (using Intel's new DP55KG motherboard) indicate their performance follows suit. Our early tests also show the new entry-level Core i5 750 is the one to watch when it comes to best bang for your buck.

Intel's full processor breakdown--including the axing of its Core i7 940 processor--includes some potentially confusing differences between the chips. So here's what you need to know.

The existing Core i7 900-series processor lineup, codenamed Bloomfield, now features three separate products: 3.33-GHz Core i7 975, 3.06-GHz Core i7 950, and 2.66-GHz Core i7-920 processors. Between the Core i7-950 and Core i7-920 processors sit the new "Lynnfield" 2.93-GHz Core i7 870 and 2.8-GHz Core i7 860 processors. The brand-new, 2.66-GHz Core i5 750 CPU is a Lynnfield chip as well, but we'll get to that odd duckling further below.

Technology Differences

Intel took a big leap forward in the design department when it launched Core i7 900-series processors last November. Just a few of these included a new triple-channel memory controller integrated into the chip, a new QuickPath Interconnect system to replace (and improve upon) the front-side bus architecture of old, and the return of hyperthreading that split the chip's four physical cores into eight virtual cores for increased system performance. As the Core i7 900-series chips were based on a new Intel X58 chipset and LGA1366 socket, aspiring upgraders had to invest in new motherboards to reap the benefits of the Core i7 900-series platform.

That part still rings true for the new Core i7 800-series and Core i5 CPUs--all three run on Intel's latest P55 chipset and LGA1156 socket, which necessitates a new motherboard purchase for use. What's changed, however, is that the Core i7 800-series and Core i5 CPUs each adopt different permutations of the fanciest of the Core i7 900-series' features.

All three chips have dropped down from a QuickPath Interconnect and triple-channel memory controller to a Direct Media Interface and dual-channel memory controller. But don't freak out; This is more a loss of future-proofing than anything else given the minute performance differences between current dual- and triple-channel memory configurations.

An integrated PCI Express graphics controller on the Lynnfield CPUs can either deliver 16 lanes of bandwidth to a single PCI Express 2.0 videocard or split this connection into two x8 lanes for an SLI or CrossFire setup. Although it's a cut from the full 32 lanes (for a dual 16x or quad-8x configuration) provided by Core i7's X58 chipset, the bandwidth reduction should only affect those crazy enough to SLI or CrossFire dual-GPU videocards on a Lynnfield setup.
Turbo Boost: Automatic Overclocking

The new Core i7 800-series CPUs and the Core i5 750 still support the same automatic overclocking functionality, or Turbo Boost, as the Core i7 900-series processors. However, this feature has been jacked up on the newer chips. Core i7 900-series CPUs will only increase their multipliers to a maximum of two additional steps according to system demands (effectively taking a 3.33-GHz processor to 3.6-GHz depending on how many cores are in use). The new Lynnfield processors are able to jump up five multiplier steps for the 800-series chips (taking a 2.93-GHz processor to 3.6-GHz) and four for the Core i7 750 (2.66-GHz to a maximum 3.2-GHz).
Performance

Both Core i7 800-series processors support hyperthreading the same as their Core i7 900-series brethren. The Core i5 750 does not-its four physical cores are all that will appear in your operating system's task manager. Even so, the CPU's noteworthy performance makes it an excellent value for its roughly $200 price. We only saw a performance difference of 5 percent between the Core i5 750 and the roughly $555 Core i7 870 (based on WorldBench 6 testing of the two CPUs on identical system builds). In fact, the Core i7 750's score of 127 falls right around the scores set by competing Value and Power PCs that use Core i7 920 processors.

Test Bed: Intel DP55KG Motherboard, 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM, ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics, 2x Seagate ST3750630AS hard disks (Raid 0), Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit Service Pack 2

So where does that leave the Core i7 870? Given that its price is almost identical to that of the high-end 3.06-GHz Core i7 950 CPU, a processor that natively runs faster than the 2.93-GHz Core i7 870, it's difficult to see the compelling reason to pick up this chip. The Turbo Boost feature of the Core i7 870 does ultimately beat the speeds of the Core i7-950's, but for the enthusiast market, the increased memory support and bandwidth for multi-GPU setups might not be worth giving up. The Core i7 860 is more reasonably priced at $285, provided you can make sufficient use of its hyperthreading functionality.

It remains to be seen just how far the Core i7 800-series CPUs will overclock compared to the Core i7 900-series chips-the lower power draws of the 800-series processors could make quite a difference in this area. As for the Core i7 750, this chip looks to be a solid winner for those looking to dip their toes into the Nehalem platform without breaking the bank-given Intel's dramatic price points, that's always a strong possibility.

Sony Ericsson C905a

2009-09-08T14:47:00.004+07:00

Sony Ericsson's C905a is an average cell phone, but its camera impresses.

The Sony Ericsson C905a cell phone ($180 with a two-year contract from AT&T, as of 8/20/09) might be better described as a camera that happens to have a phone attached to it. As a phone, it will do the job; but its 8.1-megapixel camera with an LED flash rivals some point-and-shoot digital cameras.

Sony Ericsson's C905a is an average cell phone, but its camera impresses.

The Sony Ericsson C905a cell phone ($180 with a two-year contract from AT&T, as of 8/20/09) might be better described as a camera that happens to have a phone attached to it. As a phone, it will do the job; but its 8.1-megapixel camera with an LED flash rivals some point-and-shoot digital cameras.
This slider phone features a bright 2.4-inch screen, measures 4.1 by 1.9 by 0.7 inches, and weighs 4.8 ounces. As is the case with all vertical slider phones, you slide up the screen to expose a numeric keypad. I found the C905a easy to open and close with one hand; depending on where you place your thumb to slide it, however, you may end up with smudges all over the screen.

When you press the keys, they have a solid feel and a good amount of clickiness, and they each sport a raised bump, but since keys on each row run together without any dividers, determining where one key ends and another begins can be hard. Also, the top row of keys can be a little uncomfortable to press, since they are right up against the slide-up portion of the phone. Other buttons on the face, such as the call start/stop buttons, are small and might be tough to press if you have big fingers.

Build quality is good: The C905a feels solid in the hand, although I wonder how well the slider will hold up over constant use. Initially I found the battery cover difficult to remove; it didn't help much that the quick-start guide failed to mention anything about the battery compartment (call me crazy, but battery-installation instructions are exactly the sort of thing I'd expect in a quick-start guide).

The C905a's software is adequate, but after using a smartphone for the last several months, I can't help thinking that it feels antiquated by comparison--in navigation, and especially in aesthetics. The phone's various features are reasonably easy to locate in the menu system.

In my hands-on tests in the San Francisco Bay Area, I found the C905a‘s call quality just average. Voices weren't especially clear, but they had adequate volume.

The C905a's Entertainment app handles music and video playback as well as photo viewing, and it includes a handful of games. The interface is reminiscent of what you see on the PlayStation Portable or the PlayStation 3 game console, and it works about as I would have expected; if you've used an MP3 player, you probably already know how to use the C905a's media player. The player is easy to navigate, and it's the most attractive part of the phone's interface. It won't replace your existing MP3 player, however--the C905a lacks a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

The C905a's headlining feature is its camera--and it's the best cell phone camera I've ever used. Modeled after Sony's Cyber-shot stand-alone camera line, the camera here, with its 8.1-megapixel lens, rivals basic point-and-shoot cameras. Photos come out pretty sharp, though colors aren't quite as vivid as with a dedicated digital camera. The camera features a Xenon flash, which performs reasonably well indoors. It also offers a handful of advanced functions, such as red-eye correction, digital zoom, image stabilization, autofocus, and a macro mode. I was particularly impressed by the macro mode, which took crisp, sharp photos. To add to the camera-with-a-phone nature of the C905a, the handset has a dedicated shutter button, a photo-preview button, and a button to toggle between the still-photo and video modes, just like most point-and-shoot cameras.

If you're the type who takes a camera with you everywhere and you don't want to carry around too many devices, you may want to give the Sony Ericsson C905a a closer look. If you want a more advanced phone, however, consider the Nokia N97, a smartphone with a high-quality camera.

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Nokia Gets Social With Two New Touchscreen Phones

2009-09-03T17:00:00.002+07:00

Nokia introduced on Wednesday two new touchscreen smartphones that aim to spice up your mobile life. The new N97 Mini and the X6 feature tight integration with Facebook and improved specs over their predecessors.

During the Nokia World conference in Stuttgart, Germany, Nokia presented two new touchscreen phones that will make your Twitter-using friends jealous. Both the N97 Mini and the X6 will ship in the fourth quarter, so read on to find out what to expect out of the two phones.

nokia n97 mini nokia x6Nokia introduced on Wednesday two new touchscreen smartphones that aim to spice up your mobile life. The new N97 Mini and the X6 feature tight integration with Facebook and improved specs over their predecessors.

During the Nokia World conference in Stuttgart, Germany, Nokia presented two new touchscreen phones that will make your Twitter-using friends jealous. Both the N97 Mini and the X6 will ship in the fourth quarter, so read on to find out what to expect out of the two phones.
Nokia N97 Mini

The N97 Mini is the follow-up of Nokia's current flagship device, the N97, only in a smaller form. Featuring a

nokia n97
The Nokia N97 Mini follows the footsteps of its larger sibling, the N97. (Click to enlarge) Photo: Nokia

3.2-inch, 16:9 aspect ratio display, the 3G-enabled N97 Mini rocks a full kick-out QWERTY keyboard and a 5-megapixel camera with dual LED flash.

Around 0.3 inch smaller than the N97, the N97 Mini packs WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, and a GPS receiver next to the now standard 3.5mm headphone plug. Unlike its bigger sibling, the N97 comes with only 8GB of built-in storage (32GB on the N97) that can be expanded with another 16GB via microSD cards.

But the new selling point of the new N97Mini is what Nokia calls Lifecasting. The Finnish company partnered with Facebook, and the new phone can now share to Facebook your location, together with your status, directly from the N97 Mini's homescreen.

The Nokia N97 Mini is due out in October and will cost around $640 unlocked, and hopefully less if AT&T or T-Mobile decide to subsidize the phone. Also, for a quick look at how the Facebook location and status sharing work on the N97 Mini, check out the video below.

Nokia X6

The new X6 is Nokia's 5800 model follow-up, a music-centric device, hence the 32GB on built-in storage. The 5800 camera got an upgrade as well on the X6, up to 5-megapixel with dual LED flash, now on the par with the N97 Mini.

The Nokia nokia x6
The Nokia X6 improves over the older 5800 model with a better camera and more on-board storage. (Click to enlarge) Photo: Nokia
X6 handles connectivity well, with WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, and A-GPS, plus a 3.5mm headphone jack. The X6 integrates with Facebook as well, bringing a Facebook widget and 20 of your friends' activity on the homescreen.

The Nokia X6 will cost also around $640 unlocked, due out in the fourth quarter. Nokia will introduce a Comes With Music version of the X6 as well, but only in selected countries. Nokia announced on Monday that it is delaying the lunch of the Comes With Music service in the U.S. until 2010.
pcworld.com

MIKE PORTNOY PROFILE

2009-09-03T16:39:00.004+07:00

Michael Stephen Portnoy (born April 20, 1967) is an American drummer primarily known as the drummer and backing vocalist for the progressive metal band Dream Theater. Known for his drumming prowess and technical skill, Portnoy has won 23 awards from the Modern Drummer magazine. He has co-produced the last five Dream Theater albums with guitarist John Petrucci, starting from Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory. From A Change of Seasons onwards, Portnoy has been writing a substantial amount of Dream Theater's lyrics, filling the void left by Kevin Moore, who left the band after the release of Awake. He is the second youngest person (after Neil Peart) to be inducted into the Modern Drummer's Hall of Fame (at 37 years of age).

Michael Stephen Portnoy (born April 20, 1967) is an American drummer primarily known as the drummer and backing vocalist for the progressive metal band Dream Theater. Known for his drumming prowess and technical skill, Portnoy has won 23 awards from the Modern Drummer magazine. He has co-produced the last five Dream Theater albums with guitarist John Petrucci, starting from Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory. From A Change of Seasons onwards, Portnoy has been writing a substantial amount of Dream Theater's lyrics, filling the void left by Kevin Moore, who left the band after the release of Awake. He is the second youngest person (after Neil Peart) to be inducted into the Modern Drummer's Hall of Fame (at 37 years of age).
Pre-Dream Theater history

Mike Portnoy was born and raised in Long Beach, New York, on Long Island. According to a post made by Jordan Rudess on his forum, Mike is ethnically Jewish, but does not practice Judaism religiously. His father worked as a DJ at a local radio station, helping Portnoy gain an appreciation for music at an early age through bands like Queen, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Yes and The Beatles. Although Portnoy taught himself how to play the drums, he did take music theory classes in high school. During that period he began playing in local bands Intruder, Rising Power and Inner Sanctum, the last two of which released an album. He left Inner Sanctum after being awarded a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, dropping out shortly after. There he met John Petrucci and John Myung with whom he formed the band Majesty, which would later become Dream Theater.

Mike and his wife Marlene are currently living in Rockland, NY with their children, Melody and Max Ruthandrea John.

Mike has a strong personality and talkativeness, and a maniacal precision for every activity (especially music) he makes: he, benevolently, describes himself a "neurotic obsessive-compulsive" (a fact confirmed explicitly by John Petrucci in an interview contained in the DVD "Chaos In Motion 2007/2008").

Influences, awards, and other accomplishments

Portnoy names his biggest influences as Rush drummer Neil Peart and composer/guitarist Frank Zappa. Other favorites include drummers Terry Bozzio, Vinnie Colaiuta, Peter Criss, Simon Phillips, John Bonham, Vinnie Paul, Carl Palmer, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Phil Collins, Bill Bruford, and bands such as Rush, The Beatles, Queen, Yes, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Genesis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Pink Floyd, Tool, Meshuggah, Pantera, Muse, Metallica, Megadeth, Jellyfish, Iron Maiden, KISS, Phish, Deep Purple, Radiohead, Umphrey's McGee, U2 and Jane's Addiction.

Portnoy has won 23 awards from Modern Drummer magazine, including "Best Up & Coming Talent" (one time), "Best Clinician" (two times), "Best Educational Video/DVD" (two times), "Best recorded performance" (6 times) and "Best Progressive Rock Drummer" (for 12 consecutive years), and is also the second youngest person (at 37 years of age) to be inducted into the Rock Drummer Hall of Fame since Neil Peart was inducted in 1983 (at 31 years of age).

He has also been the catalyst for founding several other progressive rock groups and projects: Transatlantic, Liquid Tension Experiment, and O.S.I. (with former Dream Theater keyboardist Kevin Moore), touring as well with Mexican drummer "Chucho" Dávila giving free clinic sessions to local Music Stores in Texas in 2005.

He has released three instructional videos, "Progressive Drum Concepts", "Liquid Drum Theater", which has won awards from Modern Drummer Magazine, and his latest "In Constant Motion". He has also released many "Official Bootlegs" on his website, including footage of the studio sessions for the Dream Theater albums Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, Train of Thought, Octavarium and the Transatlantic release Bridge Across Forever. He has also released bootlegs of his tribute bands Hammer of the Gods (a Led Zeppelin tribute), Yellow Matter Custard (The Beatles), Cygnus and his Sea Monsters (Rush), and Amazing Journey (The Who).

He also played with New Jersey thrash metal band Overkill for one show in 2004.

On September 18, 2006 within his website's Forum Portnoy cagily stated that he had finally met Rush drummer Neil Peart (one of the few heroes from his youth Portnoy had never met, owing to Peart's legendary privacy), that "Neil and I have finally met and we spent some time together this week and had a great time..." and that a possible collaboration was underway/had been discussed with the teasing statement of "Patience everybody... all will soon be revealed!" It has now been revealed that this meeting was for an interview Portnoy did for his stint as guest editor of Rhythm Magazine. Portnoy had previously written the liner notes for the Japanese pressing of Rush's 2002 release Vapor Trails , but also publicly denounced Peart in 2000 after Peart called the people involved in the Rush tribute "bar bands". It was later determined that it was a misunderstanding, as Peart was actually referring to a specific Rush tribute record (that Mike Portnoy had no involvement in).

In February, 2007, Mike Portnoy announced his new DVD "In Constant Motion" would be released on March 1. The DVD has 3 discs and is over 7 hours long.

Equipment

* When Dream and Day Unite/Images & Words Kit - This Tama Imperialstar (the previous model of the Imperialstar, unlike the 2007 Imperialstar, which is an entry level kit) kit and Zildjian cymbals which was bought originally by Portnoy himself through working three jobs. It was used until the end of the Images and Words tour when Mike Portnoy got signed by Sabian and Mapex. Also, this was the kit he used when he was with the band Intruder, although upgraded noticeably since then. It should be noted that Images and Words was recorded with an electronically triggered snare drum at producer David Prater's insistence.
* Awake/A Change Of Seasons kit - This Mapex USA Maple kit was used on the world tour supporting the album Awake. It had two bass drums, one snare, six toms, two small timbales, a section of various percussion instruments, and four Octoban-sized drums in a 2x2 formation. This marked Portnoy's first use of Octobans on a record, which were custom-made by Mapex using maple as opposed to Tama's more traditional acrylic, giving them a slightly different, more "natural" tone.
* The Purple/Green/Red Monsters - These were Tama Starclassic kits which marked Portnoy's signing with Tama in the late '90s after his endorsement deal with Mapex fell through (they took the kit he was using off the market, meaning that he was endorsing a product the public could not buy.) Used for the recording of Falling Into Infinity" and "Scenes from a Memory and the North, South American, and Asian tours for said albums, they are so named because of their striking color/white/color fade finishes. The reason for three identical drum kits were for two copies held in storage in different parts of the world to avoid the shipping costs one extremely large kit around the world; the "Green Monster" in use for European tours and a "Red Monster" for Asian-market touring. It is similar to the "Awake" kit but features many more cymbals, the left-side octobans in a four-inline configuration (as opposed to his last kit which held them in a 2x2 pattern) and two more "low"-tuned octobans on the right side of the kit held overhead of the floor toms. This kit also featured a snare drum with a foot-operated snare strainer mechanism which allowed for different snare drum sounds without having to use his hands to adjust it. On the Purple Monster Portnoy used DW 5000 Pedals, instead of the Iron Cobra Pedals. He also uses this kit in his 1999 Instructional DVD "Liquid Drum Theater".
* Liquid Tension Experiment kit - A comparatively modest kit used in his supergroup project Liquid Tension Experiment. The bass drum and toms of this kit (not the snare, timbales, and cymbals) were the first Portnoy ever purchased used according to an interview where he gave a tour of his basement and this kit showed up. This kit was also unique in that it used a pair of small timbales where the two smallest toms would normally be. It was otherwise a normal "seven piece" rock kit with three toms (five if you count the timbales), and a single bass drum with a double kick pedal. It marks the first time Portnoy uses a floor tom on either side of the kit for a recording (during footage from their Fan Club Show in 1998 featured on 5 Years in a LIVEtime, Portnoy's "Unplugged" kit contained a left-hand floor tom used heavily during that performance) with a 14" floor tom on the left and an 18" floor tom on the right. It is also the first time Portnoy used his MaxStax cymbal line in the studio. Portnoy notes in his Liquid Drum Theater instructional video that the reason behind the smaller kit is that when Liquid Tension Experiment went into the studio to record the first album, The Purple Monster kit was still being shipped back from some shows they had played immediately prior in Brazil.
* Transatlantic kit - The kit used to record and tour behind the first Transatlantic album was the same as the Liquid Tension Experiment kit, but with five regular toms. When recording and touring behind the second Transatlantic album, Portnoy added his new Melody Master snare drums for the first time and some different cymbals including a set of custom made 15" hi-hats. The smaller Melody Master displaced the 14" floor tom, which was moved back to the right of the kit for the Transatlantic recordings. For the filming of Portnoy's 2007 "In Constant Motion" instructional DVD set, the Transatlantic kit was reproduced in Tama drums' new line of acrylic shells named Starclassic Mirage in the "Black Ice" finish. However, the original recording was done with more traditional Starclassic wood drums.
* The Siamese Monster - This kit was an amalgamation of two individual kits. The left side of the kit is laid out similarly to the Liquid Tension Experiment kit, with a floor tom on his left side, a modified tymp-tom on his right side, and three rack toms. The right side is laid out as a normal five piece kit but with the two rack toms reversed, a gong bass drum in place of a floor tom (with modified floor tom legs), and the ride cymbal in front of the hi hats, which allows him to share some of the cymbals and toms between the two kits. It has two stools, and while is not capable of being played in its entirety by one person, Portnoy often invites other drummers to sit in on the unplayed half during shows. It is a predominantly black kit with Majesty symbols around each individual drum. Much like the Colored Monsters, there were three identical versions of this kit for use when touring different continents, the North American kit being the "featured" kit with purple markings as was the case with the Colored Monsters. It was built by Tama for the recording of the Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence album and tour.
* The OSI kit - Portnoy used the small (right) side of his Red Siamese Monster kit for the recording of the first Office of Strategic Influence album. For the second he downsized even more to a four-piece consisting of his signature snare, one timbale as a tom as previously used on his Liquid Tension Experiment kit, one floor tom, and a single 18" kick drum with a double pedal. However, he still insisted on using a large amount of cymbals including crashes, splashes, Max Stax and Max Splashes.
* Yellow Matter Custard kit - A specially designed set for use in Mike's Beatles tribute band, Yellow Matter Custard. It is modelled on Ringo Starr's kit, and is quite simple compared with his Dream Theater kits. Its in the sizes: 12"x8", 14"x14" & 20"x14". The cymbals are an 14" AA HiHat, an AA Crash on the left and a HH Crash/Ride on the right.
* Hammer Of The Gods kit - A John Bonham-replica kit that was used in Mike's Led Zeppelin tribute band. Custom-made acrylic shells were used (transparent amber), and the kit is always played while wearing the obligatory bowler hat.
* The Albino Monster - The previous kit used by Portnoy is similar to the Siamese Monster. Aesthetically, it is white with silver sparkle Majesty logos instead of the black/colored logos of the Siamese Monster. In layout it is almost exactly the same, the only differences being the right side of the kit mimics his earlier Hammer of the Gods kit; two of the timbales were removed, the 10" tymp-tom was changed to a 14", and the gong bass drum was replaced with a floor tom. He kept some of the cymbals from the right side of the Siamese Monster, including the 13" HHX Groove Hats, and the 19" Hand Hammered Fierce Crash, so there's more distance between the two sides in the Albino Monster, than there were in the Siamese Monster. So far it has been used for the Gigantour (a tour that Dream Theater participated in alongside Megadeth, Symphony X and several other bands) and throughout the Octavarium 2005-06 World Tour. The modification to the right side stemmed from sessions for Dream Theater's Octavarium album, where what began as an experiment became the inspiration behind most of Octavarium. When recording of Octavarium began, Mike brought along the Hammer of the Gods kit, resulting in the kit being used for part of the album: he ended up using it on five of the album's eight tracks. The kit utilizes larger "Rock" sizes, with a 14" rack tom, a 16" floor tom, an 18" floor tom, and a meaty 6.5" x 14" snare drum, much reminding of the drum sizes used by John Bonham of Led Zeppelin. Additionally, Portnoy only used a few crash cymbals, and used a splash and china sparingly. When touring began, Tama had the shells changed to traditional Starclassic Maple shells, because they didn't want Mike touring with a kit featuring shells that Tama didn't mass-produce for public acquisition. The touring kit includes two new limited-edition Mike Portnoy signature snare drums with the same matching finish used on the rest of the kit. On Tama's official website, Portnoy released details about changes to the kit for his upcoming tours, beginning with G3 in March. He says the left side will stay the same, but the right side will change. The sizes will change to more conventional sizes-22" kick etc. and will have three rack toms as opposed to the 'Bonham'-size, one rack tom kit of before. Also, the shells would be Starclassic Mirage acrylic shells instead of the Starclassic Maple he has always used. He also used this kit in his DVD In Constant Motion.
* The Mirage Monster- Revealed at Gods Of Metal 2007, Mike's newest kit is made up of two kits once again, except built out of Tama's new Tama Starclassic Mirage acrylic drums in clear "Crystal Ice" finish. The left side is virtually identical to his previous kit, except made with clear acrylic shells. The new configuration of the right side of his kit has replaced the "Bonzo Kit" of "The Albino Monster." His new right side of the kit includes: a 22" kick and 3 rack toms (8", 10", and 12") "so it's going to be a little more of a conventional, small kit." (Click on "Interview" link button) The snares used are his Signature Melody Master snares. He uses 2 12x5" steel snares (one on the right side of the kit as a main snare and one on the left as a side snare) and uses one 14x5.5" maple shell snare. These snares are the same snares used in the last 2 kits (Albino Monster and Siamese Monster) and they are in the original black color. This kit has been scaled down to a relatively small double-bass kit for several shows taking place in smaller venues.
* Black & Silver Monster - Similar to the Mirage Monster, this kit is made up of two different kits, this time with tradicional wood drums with a black and silver finish.

Several of Portnoy's drum kits also make use of Roland electronic drum pads. Mike uses these as what he calls the "secret cowbell", to count off the songs in a way that only his fellow band members and the technicians can hear it. An example of this can be seen on the Score DVD, where it can be seen in the background that Mike counts off the song "Under A Glass Moon" on the pad. Mike explains the use of these pads in the commentary track of the "Drum Cam Only" version of the Live At Budokan DVD, as well as the "Mike's Stage Tour" featurette on the Chaos in Motion 2007-2008 DVD.

Tama has marketed two different sized Mike Portnoy signature snare drums, known as "Melody Masters" (named after Melody, his daughter), since the late 1990s. The smaller of the two has a 12x5" steel shell and the larger has a 14x5.5" maple shell. Both snare models have a unique three way snare strainer mechanism. Portnoy and Tama have custom-made versions in various colors to match the color schemes of the kit he was using at the time (i.e. The "Purple/Red/Green Monsters", "Siamese Monster" "Albino Monster", etc.). For 2006, in recognition of his 'Albino Monster' kit, he released only 250 of these snares worldwide in a white, gloss finish. The older colour (black) is not limited edition.

Sabian has marketed three different sized signature cymbal stacks, known as "Max Stax" (named after his son, Max). They consist of a hand hammered china kang-style cymbal on top of a splash (or crash) cymbal that can be played much more like a drum than a cymbal, used much more in traditional drum fills than most quickly decaying cymbal tones. Their sizes are 8/8", 10/10" and 12/14". Sabian has also marketed odd-sized 7, 9, and 11" "Max Splash" cymbals which also have a fast decay and can be used in fills and drum patterns that have the same namesake.

Mike Portnoy has endorsed Promark sticks since the early 1990s. His signature stick is the TX420N. It is made of hickory 5A sized stick, with a white nylon 747 sized taper and has purple print to match the Purple Monster's motif. The "420" in the model number, which is also printed on the sticks, is a reference to his birthday (and not a marijuana reference, as has been suggested). He is known for gripping his left stick on the reverse side to attain a different sound on the snare drum. It should also be noted that he has a rather rare grip on his right stick, with it being held solely between the thumb and the index finger.
wikipedia.org

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2009-09-01T15:55:00.001+07:00

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2009-09-01T15:41:00.002+07:00

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Spain's Pedrosa takes MotoGP pole at Indianapolis

2009-08-31T16:01:00.000+07:00

INDIANAPOLIS – Dani Pedrosa had the fastest motorcycle in the rain and was even quicker on a dry track.

It's still not good enough for the 23-year-old Spaniard.

So Pedrosa has asked his Repsol Honda team to make more adjustments after outdueling his top two rivals Saturday to take the Indianapolis MotoGP pole with a fast lap of 1 minute, 39.730 seconds. Spain's Jorge Lorenzo was second at 1:40.236, with six-time world champ Valentino Rossi third in 1:40.609.

"I'm happy," Pedrosa said. "I think we have to look for something else. I think we always should have to work and try to improve for tomorrow."

Most expected Rossi and Lorenzo, the Fiat Yamaha teammates, to continue their season-long dominance.

Pedrosa hasn't given them a chance.

He topped the speed charts Friday afternoon, in the rain, and again Saturday morning, on a green track. Then in the 1-hour afternoon qualifying session, he rode on the edge, occasionally tapping the surface with his knee pads yet maintaining enough balance to zip through the corners and the straightaways on the 2.621-mile road course more than a second faster than Rossi did in last year's inaugural race.

The result: Pedrosa's speed of 94.56 mph was a 10 mph improvement from Friday.

Italy's Rossi, the defending race champ and current points leader, and Lorenzo couldn't keep up.

That ended a four-race streak in which Rossi or Lorenzo had won the pole, and it's only the fourth time this year one of the teammates has not had the pole. Rossi is making his fourth start of the season outside the top two spots and acknowledges his motorcycle may be quick enough to catch Pedrosa.

"Honestly, we don't have enough pace at the moment, and I can't ride how I want to," Rossi said. "We don't have quite enough grip to enable us to push at the maximum. We did a lot of work this afternoon, but we're still not at our best."

That's certainly not the case for Pedrosa, who claimed his second pole of the season and eighth in his MotoGP career.

Pedrosa knocked 11 seconds off his best time from Friday in the morning practice and shaved another 1.5 seconds off that pace in qualifying.

Now he can go for an American sweep after winning in California in July and perhaps even become the first motorcycle rider to hit 200 mph down Indy's famed straightaway. Track officials said speeds topped 197 on Saturday and with the forecast calling for cooler temperatures and drafting expected under race conditions, it is possible.

"If the wind changes, maybe we can go faster than that in the trap speed," Pedrosa said.

Thirty minutes into qualifying session, Lorenzo was clocked in a record 1:40.643. Five minutes later, Pedrosa jumped to the top of the speed charts by going 1:40.440.

In the final 10 minutes, three riders — Lorenzo, Rossi, and San Marino's Alex De Angelis — all broke 1:41.

Pedrosa outdid that, too, breaking 1:40 on two of his last three laps — a first — to win the pole.

De Angelis starts fourth after going 1:40.620.

Colin Edwards was the top American qualifier at 1:40.961. He'll start fifth.

Nicky Hayden, the 2006 world champ who lives in Kentucky, was sixth in 1:41.067.

"I still feel I could have gone faster at the end, and I'm not completely happy," Hayden said. "I know what I'm in for tomorrow, and I'm not expecting to find a full second in the morning (practice)."

Three drivers, including Edwards, slid off their motorcycles during qualifying, but none appeared seriously injured. All three walked away from the accidents.

But Pedrosa isn't leaving anything to chance.

"I've been comfortable on the machine from the start and things have just clicked here," he said. "We can't relax at all, though, because I'm sure the other riders will improve and we know how strong our rivals have been this season. So we must make a few small adjustments to make sure we have the best possible package."

yahoo.com

John Petrucci

2009-08-31T14:14:00.003+07:00

John Peter Petrucci (born July 12, 1967) is an American guitarist and songwriter best known as a founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. Along with his bandmate Mike Portnoy, he has produced all Dream Theater albums since their 1999 release, Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory. Petrucci was named as the third player on the G3 tour six times, more than any other invited guitarist. GuitarOne ranked him as the 9th Greatest Shredder of All Time.

Biography

Petrucci first played guitar at the age of eight when he noticed his sister (who was taking organ lessons at the time) was allowed to stay up past her bed time to practice. He soon dropped it when his plan failed. At age 12, he began playing again when he was invited into the band of his friend Kevin Moore, who would later become the first keyboardist of Dream Theater. Petrucci began to practice in earnest. He was a largely self-taught guitarist who developed his skills through attempts to match the skill of his idols, who included Steve Morse, Steve Howe, Steve Vai, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Al Di Meola, Alex Lifeson and Allan Holdsworth. He has jokingly referred to his guitar idols as "the Steves and the Als".^[1]

Petrucci attended Berklee College of Music in Boston with childhood friend John Myung (bass), where they met future bandmate Mike Portnoy (drums). These three in addition to another childhood friend of Petrucci and Myung, Kevin Moore (Keyboards), formed the band Majesty, which would later become Dream Theater.

While Dream Theater is what Petrucci is most commonly associated with, he is also a part of the project band Liquid Tension Experiment and has appeared as a guest on several records by other artists such as the Age of Impact album by the Explorer's Club.

Petrucci has released a guitar instructional video, "Rock Discipline", which covers warm up exercises, exercises to avoid injury while playing, alternate picking, sweep picking, chords and other techniques for developing one's guitar playing. Petrucci also has a book named "Guitar World presents John Petrucci's Wild Stringdom", which was compiled from columns he wrote for Guitar World magazine, bearing that same title.

In 2001 he was invited by Joe Satriani and Steve Vai to tour with them on the popular G3 guitar tour, which exposed him to a massive number of new fans and inspired him to record a solo album. Suspended Animation was released on March 1, 2005, and made available for order from his web site. He also appeared on the 2005, 2006 and 2007 G3 tours.

Petrucci also wrote and recorded two instrumental soundtrack songs for a Sega Saturn game titled Digital Pinball: Necronomicon. Each track is roughly two minutes long and they are simply titled "Prologue" and "Epilogue". Petrucci is an avid Sega Saturn gamer, and has revealed in interviews that he never tours without one.^{[citation needed]}

In 2007, John Petrucci went on G3 tour again, this time with Joe Satriani and Paul Gilbert.

Dream Theater bandmate Jordan Rudess revealed in an interview that Petrucci is a practicing Catholic. Petrucci is married to Rena Sands, a guitarist in the all-female heavy metal band Meanstreak, and they have 3 children, Samantha and Reny (who are twins), and Kiara. He is also an avid fan of bodybuilding and dedicates much of his off time to weight training.

John Petrucci won the "Guitarist of the Year 2007" award recently in Total Guitar Magazine.

He is a voting member of NARAS.

Musical style

Petrucci is respected for his variety of guitar styles and skills. One of the most notable of these is his high speed alternate picking which, as he himself claims, requires a "strong sense of synchronization between the two [playing] hands." He has performed alongside Joe Satriani and Steve Vai on their annual G3 tour 6 times.

Equipment - Studio Albums

When Dream and Day Unite
Images and Words - Triaxis, Marshall JMP1 for Metropolis Pt.1, Roland JC120 for cleans.
Awake - Only album to be quadruple layered. 2 takes using Dual Rectifier, 2 takes using Mark IIC+
A Change of Seasons - Mark IIC+, Mark IV, TriAxis
Falling Into Infinity - Rectifier, Mark IIC+, Mark IV, TriAxis
Scenes From A Memory - Mark IIC+, Mark IV
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence - Mark IIC+, Dual Rectifier
Train Of Thought - Road King Series I
Octavarium - Road King Series I & II, Lone Star
Systematic Chaos - Lone Star, Mark IV
Black Clouds & Silver Linings - Lone Star, Mark IV, Mark IIC+, Mark V
Suspended Animation (solo cd) - Roadking Series 1, Mark IIC+
Liquid Tension Experiment - TriAxis, 2:90 power amp
Liquid Tension Experiment 2 - Mark IIC+, Mark IV

wikipedia.org

BOSS GT -8

2009-08-31T13:50:00.005+07:00

The BOSS GT-8 is a powerful multi-effects processor which was preceeded by the GT-6 and followed by the GT-10. Introduced on 20 Jan 2005 at Winter NAMM 2005, it was the first to feature two COSM engines allowing different effects and modulations to be run on two different modeled amplifiers simultaneously.

Appearance

The GT-8 is framed in a black and grey, sturdy metal box. It has 5 footswitches, expression pedal, 15 knobs, 32 buttons and one dial. It has green, backlit 2×16 character LCD for texts and two digit 7 segment LED display for bank number.

The construction is robust and solid. The device weights 4.8kg.

Features

Dual amplifiers

One of the most notable features in the device is the dual COSM amplifier emulation. Which allows the user to combine the sounds of two different guitar amplifiers in several different methods.

Single - Only one amp is audible, but can be switched with a footswitch or by other method. Because there is two separate chips for processing, the switch is fast and doesn't have any audible glitch.
Dual Mono - The signal from both amps is mixed and the mix level can be controlled for best blend.
Dual Stereo - Each amp is sent to different stereo channel. Either channel can have time delay applied for deeper stereo effect.
Picking Dynamics - The mix ratio is decided by how hard player picks guitar strings. When picking softly the amp A is used and when picking hard, the amp B is used.

Effects

The processor has 13 effect blocks which can be set in any order, using the "effect chain" feature. Each effect block can be disabled.

The effect blocks are:

The Effect 1 and 2 blocks have 16 shared effects which can be used in both blocks. and Effect 2 block has 11 additional effects which can be used only on the second block.

The external loop effect relays the signal out of the processor, so external effect pedals can be used. Because the effect blocks can be freely arranged some artists have found it a good idea to use external loop for real guitar amplifier head.

Wikipedia.org

Ronaldo bags debut goal as Real 'Galacticos' triumph

2009-08-30T15:44:00.003+07:00

AFP – Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo controls the ball during their Spanish league football match against …

MADRID (AFP) – Cristiano Ronaldo, the world's most expensive player, scored a dream debut goal as Real Madrid's new generation of expensive 'Galacticos' defeated Deportivo La Coruna 3-2 in the Spanish league curtain-raiser.

Real spent over 250 million euros in the summer with Ronaldo accounting for 94 million euros of that, and the Portuguese star got off to a great start converting a first half penalty for his first competitive goal in the famous white shirt.

The cameras were out in force for Ronaldo and Kaka, the past two Ballon d'Or winners, but it was a player that cost Real nothing, captain and youth product Raul, who stole the first half headlines.

Raul, the club's all-time leading scorer, netted the first goal of the new season with a simple tap-in on 26 minutes and won Ronaldo's penalty on 35 minutes after Depor had equalised.

Real twice went ahead only to be pegged back at 1-1 and 2-2 through Riki (30min) and Juan Carlos Valeron (46).

French midfielder Lass Diarra was the unlikely hero firing in on the hour mark to ensure new coach Manuel Pellegrini and his Galacticos got off to a winning start.

"I am happy because it was very important to win the first game and we did," explained Pellegrini.

"Being just a goal ahead can cause panic because your opponents can equalise with just one chance. It was a tough game."

As Real's new superstars took to the field, there was a special guest appearance as Jamaican sprint king Usain Bolt dribbled a ball to wild applause.

It was Bolt's first time on the Bernabeu pitch and there were seven other debutants for Real with Ronaldo, Kaka and Karim Benzema forming an attacking force alongside Real veteran Raul.

Xabi Alonso, a 30-million-euro summer arrival from Liverpool, made his bow alongside Diarra in midfield while his old Liverpool team-mate Alvaro Arbeloa began at right back.

With Pepe suspended, Argentine Ezequiel Garay began in central defence alongside fellow debutant Raul Albiol.

With just 48 seconds gone Kaka, a 68.5-million euro-purchase from AC Milan, almost scored a debut goal but dragged his shot wide of the post.

Real's formation resembled a 4-2-2-2 but Ronaldo, sporting the number nine shirt, often roamed in from the right into a central striker's role.

The Portuguese international has taken over free-kick and penalty duties at Real and revealed that he had also been given licence to roam all over the pitch.

"My position is set and then I play a free role in the centre, on the right and on the left," said Ronaldo.

Former coach Sir Alex Ferguson often allowed Ronaldo to roam at Manchester United and two seasons ago he responded with a staggering 31 league goals.

Depor, who had beaten Real 2-1 on the opening day of last season, were under the cosh for the first 20 minutes and the breakthrough came on 26 minutes with Benzema racing onto Kaka's pass.

The Frenchman fired against the post but Raul was on hand to roll in one of the easiest goals of his career.

Depor replied quickly with Riki heading in on the half hour mark after some poor defending.

Raul then won a penalty as goalkeeper Daniel Aranzubia clipped him and Ronaldo stepped up to smash his spot-kick low into the corner for his first Real goal.

A minute after the interval Depor caught Real off-guard with veteran Valeron thundering a volley past Casillas to make it 2-2.

Ronaldo screamed a shot past the post with his supposedly weaker left foot before Diarra, hardly prolific in front of goal, fired in the winner.

"Madrid are a powerful team with so much talent that it is difficult to concentrate against them for the 90 minutes," said Depor boss Miguel Lotina.

Title holders Barcelona are not in action until Monday when they host Sporting Gijon at Camp Nou.

Barcelona have been impressive in pre-season lifting the Spanish Super Cup and European Super Cup to add to their historic league, Champions League and Kings Cup treble last season.

Later on Saturday two promoted sides face off when Real Zaragoza host islanders Tenerife.

Microsoft: Xbox 360 Price Drop Timing Coincidental

2009-08-30T15:29:00.000+07:00

Matt Peckham

Aug 28, 2009 8:24 pm

Welcome to the day after Microsoft lowered the price on its $300 Xbox 360 Elite, wrinkling its brow and lowering its horns to meet Sony's slimmer, $100 cheaper PlayStation 3 in battle. While the incidentals differ between the two, we've officially entered the melee phase of the campaign. The riders are off their horses, lances in the mud, swords drawn, endorsement-and-feature-laden tabards flapping. Welcome to the first day of the headiest holiday game sales season in years.

Microsoft's director of product management for Xbox Live Aaron Greenberg is doing his best to dismiss assumptions that the Xbox 360's price drop was reactionary. He's popped up in several locations in the last 24 hours claiming the timing of the 360's price drop was simply "coincidental."

I don't doubt him. It's that time of year, and getting out in front of the holiday action is essential. In a few weeks, the kids are back in school. Before you know it, the leaves will be turning and we'll be talking Halo 3: ODST, Gran Turismo PSP, Sony's PSP Go, Uncharted 2, Dragon Age: Origins, and Modern Warfare 2.

But don't think for a minute Microsoft and Sony aren't eyeing each other like tomb raiders squaring off over the Holy Grail. The analysts haven't weighed in yet, but I'm betting they'll mark this holiday season as pivotal. Will Sony bite back into Microsoft's lead? Will Microsoft pull away permanently? Will Nintendo maintain its pole position? Or are its halcyon days finally over? Stand back, because the meaningless rhetoric (but correspondingly meaningful sales deals) could be explosive.

That's good news, because it means we're finally well enough along that these systems are becoming affordable. Sony's PlayStation 3 started off at nigh 3DO price levels, something I think we can all agree at this point was a terrible starter move. And Microsoft...let's just say I'm amazed that peripherals like a $100 802.11g adapter and $150 120GB hard drive upgrade haven't incited a Thermidorian Reaction. However cynical it sounds, you do have to admire the latter for getting its "modular" medicine down our throats with spoonfuls of marketing sugar.

Where to next? After I trot out an updated price guide, it's back to games and services. The PlayStation 3 may be slimmer, and at $300, the Xbox 360 Elite may be "eliter," but in the end, we play games, not boxes.

pcworld.com

HP Photosmart C4680

2009-08-26T15:14:00.000+07:00

Print quality is impressive for a model this inexpensive, but its ink costs are high.

HP's Photosmart C4680 color inkjet multifunction printer (MFP)--$100 at this writing--is priced to look like a bargain. Given its costly inks and slow speeds, however, it's best suited for low-volume use.

The C4680 covers just the basics. It has a USB connector but no ethernet or media-card slots. Its single input tray maxes out at 80 sheets. It has no output tray: Prints or copies simply drop on top of the input stack-to a maximum of 15 sheets, according to HP. The input-tray panel unfolds awkwardly and noisily; HP says this is normal, but I thought it made the unit feel badly constructed. Manual duplexing is available with on-screen prompts from the printer driver.

The Photosmart C4680's best attributes are its control panel and support software. A 1.5-inch LCD displays menu options. You select your choices using touch-sensitive, backlit LCD "buttons." HP's excellent Solution Center software, which loads automatically during the standard installation, provides a simple and streamlined interface for printer status, tasks, and projects.

The Photosmart C4680's output quality is better than its speed. Plain, black text looked crisp. Color photos showed a small degree of banding and graininess but otherwise varied from washed-out fleshtones to precise contours and shadowing in inanimate objects. Scanned output showed sharp detail and colors that were a little dark.

But it's just not very fast: In our tests, using the printer's default ("normal") mode, the machine managed just 7.4 pages per minute (ppm) printing plain-black text and 2.3 ppm printing graphics--below the average of other inkjet MFPs we've tested, and far short of HP's claims of 29 ppm using just black ink and 23 ppm using all four colors.

The Photosmart C4680's biggest drawback by far, though, is the cost of its ink. Using standard-sized black and tricolor cartridges (lasting 200 and 165 pages, respectively), the C4680 costs more than nearly every other color inkjet MFP we've reviewed to date: 7.5 cents per page for black and 19.6 cents per page for a four-color printout. The high-yield supplies are small consolation: A 600-page black costs $35 or 5.8 cents per page; a 440-page tricolor costs $42 or 9.3 cents per page, making a four-color page cost 15.1 cents.

The Photosmart C4680 would be a decent choice for a light-duty home MFP, given its nice output and friendly controls. However, if you print or copy a lot, look for a faster machine with much lower ink prices.

pcworld.com

2009-08-25T15:39:00.001+07:00

2009-08-25T15:21:00.001+07:00

Lenovo Ideacentre A600

2009-08-25T15:10:00.000+07:00

A lush display, unmatched upgradability, and extras such as an HDTV tuner, a four-in-one remote, and a 2-megapixel Webcam make the A600 all-in-one hard to resist.

No question about it: Lenovo's IdeaCentre A600 looks unique. The combination of a sharp and angular design, an ultrathin chassis, and a 21.5-inch display definitely stands out against the more traditional "one big flat panel" look that competing all-in-one desktops offer. And at $1149 (as of 7/2/09), the A600 is seriously competitive, especially since it's the most upgradable all-in-one PC we've seen.

The Lenovo's 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7450 processor has one of the slower clock speeds for all-in-ones larger than 20 inches. Surprisingly, that doesn't have as big of an impact on overall performance as you would think when comparing it with, say, the 3.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor of the 24-inch Sony VAIO VGC-LV180J. As for its other main components, the Lenovo's 4GB of DDR3-1066 memory is a step above the DDR2-800 average in PCs of this class, while the 1TB hard drive is among the best you'll find in an all-in-one, matched here only by the 22-inch HP TouchSmart IQ500t and the 24-inch Apple iMac.

The A600's score of 87 in our WorldBench 6 test suite isn't the best we've seen, but it puts the machine in fine company. It ties the IQ500t and beats the 24-inch TouchSmart IQ816 (which scored an 81), but lands 28 percent shy of our all-in-one performance leader, Apple's 24-inch iMac (which earned a mark of 111). Given that the Apple system is nearly twice the price of the A600, however, that's not a bad showing at all.

The A600's ATI Radeon HD3650 graphics helped it achieve above-average graphics scores. The A600 had a solid average of about 60 frames per second in both our Enemy Territory: Wars and Unreal Tournament 3 tests (at 1024 by 768, and at normal and medium settings, respectively). Results fell to about 35 fps in each test when we bumped up the resolution to 1680 by 1050. The A600's HDTV-centric native resolution of 1920 by 1080 prevented it from running our tests at 1920 by 1200 or higher.

The A600 lacks touchscreen functionality--perhaps, in part, to keep the price so low. The display is otherwise strong: It delivers powerful saturation and pretty good contrast levels for gaming and Blu-ray movie watching (a built-in Blu-ray player is a common feature for all-in-ones with screens of this size). In my testing, I found that other all-in-ones offer a bit more contrast and richer black levels. Darker scenes on the A600 seemed slightly brighter than they should be.

On the side of the system you get two USB ports, one FireWire 400 miniport, and a six-in-one media card reader. Four more USB ports are on the A600's rear, alongside the system's gigabit ethernet port and HDTV tuner input. I would have liked to see some kind of next-generation connectivity on the system, be it an eSATA port, an HDMI port, an optical-out, or integrated 5.1 surround sound. As it stands, you can transform the A600 into a quasitelevision, but you have no way of fully integrating this all-in-one into a fancier entertainment-center setup. At least you'll be able to stream files off your network quickly using the A600's gigabit ethernet or 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity.

Surprisingly, you can upgrade nearly every part of the A600's insides. Typical all-in-one upgradability--if any exists--is restricted to the memory or the hard drive. If you have determination and a screwdriver, and if you've read the provided upgrade guide, you can really get inside the A600 to make whatever customizations (or replacements) you desire. It's a wonderful "above and beyond" move by Lenovo, although it's not the only one.

Since has no touchscreen, the A600 doesn't need any additional software beyond the standard 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium installation. Lenovo nevertheless throws in a number of extra programs that are surprisingly useful. The Bright Vision utility, for instance, uses the system's 2-megapixel Webcam to gauge the luminosity of your surroundings and adjust the display for optimal, no-eyestrain conditions. It also factors in the position of your face relative to the frame and warns you if you're getting too close (or conversely, slouching backward too much).

The keyboard and mouse on our test A600 were integrated into a single, flat device. Standard keys reside on the left, additional function and illuminated touch-sensitive media controls rest beneath a layer of black plastic in the upper right, and the laptop-style touchpad sits on the keyboard's lower right. The touchpad is a space-saver if you have the PC in the lounge, but you'd want to plug your own mouse in back at your desk. Lenovo also bundles a combination VoIP handset, air mouse, motion game controller (with games included on a version-by-version basis), and media center remote that's awesome in its functionality--it reminds me of a Wii Remote, albeit uglier.

If you can deal with the loss of superhigh resolution and the lack of a touchscreen, Lenovo's IdeaCentre A600 all-in-one is a compelling addition to the field. It comes at just the right price to appeal to people who have no interest in spending a fortune just to watch America's Next Top Model in the kitchen. Its drawbacks are few, and they're more than offset by Lenovo's willingness to give you as much for your dollar as it can pack into this uniquely designed system.

2009-08-25T14:48:00.000+07:00

Marilyn Manson rape threat

2009-08-22T10:50:00.000+07:00

Marilyn Manson threatened to 'rape' a rival rocker’s face.

The 'Dope Show’ singer became involved in a fracas with Trevor Strnad, frontman of Black Dahlia Murder, after Strnad insulted him.

The incident erupted as Marilyn was signing autographs for fans at a meet-and-greet in Florida, US, when Strnad shouted: 'Welcome to the freak show,' prompting Marilyn to write 'I hate those ****s' on the tablecloth in front of a fan.'

The self-styled 'Antichrist Superstar’ made a comment about wanting to 'rape' Trevor’s face before swinging a punch at him. Security then intervened to break the fight up.

This is not the first time Manson has issued threats in the last few weeks. Last month, he said he would 'murder' journalists who write falsities about him, after US blogger Buddyhead alleged he was addicted to cocaine.

Marilyn wrote on his blog: 'I can, but do not need to defend myself and the absurd accusations that the average press has clinged onto.

'If we need a nude photo of me to prove that I am far different than what the soon-to-be-murdered-in-their-home press have decided to fabricate, that is easy.

"But if one more 'journalist' makes a cavalier statement about me and my band, I will personally, or with my fans’ help, greet them at their home and discover just how much they believe in their freedom of speech.

"I dare you all to write one more thing that you won't say to my face. Because I will make you say it. In that manner. That is a threat."

*Form: http://www.music-news.com/ShowNews.asp?nCID=0&H=Marilyn-Manson-rape-threat&nItemID=28617

Rancid Let the dominoes fall

2009-08-21T00:44:00.000+07:00

This isn’t quite RANCID – more green around the edges. Rancid are supposed to be shambolic and hardcore punk rebellion with edges and jagged bits but this has the sharp bits smoothed off and the holocaust of sound reduced to a bit of a rumble.

There are a few real Rancid numbers – 'Up To No Good’ has echoes of their ska-punk origins and a great keyboard line, 'Damnation’ kicks ass like The Damned and 'The Bravest Kids’ has a real Pogue-ish feel to it while the single 'Last One To Die’ is classic dumb-ass punk – and they have got a feeling of real energy at times but, and this is the big but, there were times I thought I was listening to Blink 182 and that is close to a crime in my book.

I really wanted this to be classic West Coast hardcore and to live up to all that Rancid mean but it falls short while still being better than most – nearly but not the real deal.

Slipknot scoop two Kerrang! awards

2009-08-20T21:00:00.000+07:00

SLIPKNOT have been awarded two Kerrang! awards for best live act and best international band.

The heavy metallers collected their gongs at a ceremony in London alst night, which was co-hosted by the band's frontman Corey Taylor.

He said winning the awards was "really gratifying" as he felt that the band, famous for their ghoulish onstage masks, have "had to fight against controversy and misconception".

He said: "I can't think of many bands that have worked harder, and it really feels good that people are starting to turn around and really see what we're about and appreciating it for what it is."

Bullet For My Valentine won best British band for the second year in a row, while Metallica took best album for Death Magnetic.

The Prodigy won best single with Omen and Alice In Chains was voted Kerrang! Icons.

Full List Of Winners at the Kerrang! Awards 2009:

Best British Newcomer: In Case Of Fire

Best International Newcomer: The Gaslight Anthem

Best Single: The Prodigy - Omen

Best Video: Mastodon - Oblivion

Classic Songwriter: Linkin Park

Spirit Of Independence: The Wildhearts

Icon: Alice In Chains

Best Album: Metallica - Death Magnetic

Best Live Band: Slipknot

Inspiration: Machine Head

Hall Of Fame: Limp Bizkit

Best British Band: Bullet For My Valentine

Best International Band: Slipknot

Britney Spears to be given teen award

2009-08-20T10:23:00.001+07:00

Britney Spears will receive a special award at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards.

The ‘Womanizer’ singer - who is due to perform at the annual event tomorrow night (09.08.09) - will be presented with the Ultimate Choice Award for her “extraordinary contributions to the entertainment industry”.

The 27-year-old star is also nominated in three categories, Choice Music Single, Choice Female Artist and Choice Music Tour.

She will be up against stars including Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Kelly Clarkson.

Britney’s performance will mark 10 years since the first Teen Choice Awards in 1999, where Britney - who is currently on a break from her world tour - was one of the performers.

The ceremony - which will be held at Universal City’s Gibson Amphitheatre in California - will also feature appearances from Black Eyed Peas, The Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus and Cobra Starship with Leighton Meester.

Source : http://www.music-news.com/ShowNews.asp?nCID=0&H=Britney-Spears-to-be-given-teen-award&nItemID=28524

GDC: Sony Reveals PS3 Slim, Slashes PS3 Price to $300

2009-08-20T10:02:00.000+07:00

Matt Peckham

Aug 19, 2009 12:52 am

And there you have it, the fabled Sony PS3 price cut as well as confirmation of a trimmer, slimmer iteration of the PS3 after over a year's worth of gossip and false leads and photo-forgeries. The PS3 slim looks, as you'd expect, kind of like a diet-PS3, except for the part where it's still full-featured only priced $100 less. Make that 33 percent smaller, 36 percent lighter, roughly as tall, but thinner, with a matte finish all around.

It certainly looks nifty, that much thinner, speaking as a guy who had to lug two Xbox 360s and PS3s and a Wii overseas in carry-on luggage. Never mind the fact that the original PS3 is just about the ugliest-angled console to come along in decades. But I digress.

The current 80GB PS3 had been selling for $400, though a few retailers slashed prices in recent days and fueled speculation a price drop was imminent. It's not clear whether the PS3 slim actually replaces the existing model or not, but if you don't care about aesthetics, the price of the PS3 just dropped across the board, meaning that as of tomorrow, you can buy an existing PS3 anywhere in the US for $300 (or depending on your international locale, 300 euros or 29980 yen).

PS3 Slim availability? By September 1, everywhere.

*Form Pcworld.com

Sony brings out a big-screen, general-purpose entertainment laptop with a budget-friendly price.

2009-08-19T18:15:00.002+07:00

Sony Vaio VGN-NW125J/T Review,Aug 13, 2009 by Darren Gladstone, PC World.

Forget playing games, how about a semi-stylish 15.5-inch widescreen notebook that's built with movies in mind? If this sounds appealing to you, then check out the Sony VAIO VGN-NW125J. For $800, this model offers up a decent experience--and a whole lot of software (some of it even useful).

The big selling points on the stickers scream: "HDMI-output (cable sold separately)!" and "A Stunning LCD!" That's as good a cue as any to tackle some of the multimedia claims for the VGN-NW125J. The 1366-by-768-pixel panel delivers good results on the 15.5-inch screen. Blue colors popped a little when you set the brightness to full blast (and tilt the screen back to a 45-degree viewing angle), but at midlevel brightness and contrast settings, the machine seems a little muted. Its glossy coating doesn't really help matters because it picks up a glare. Trying to watch episodes of Lost streamed over Hulu requires a little more monkeying with contrast than I'm accustomed to, but at least the effort pays off in the end.

Plug the NW125J into an HDTV set through the HDMI port and you can actually get a decent picture from the on-board DVD-ROM drive. Yeah, and that'd be one of my complaints. I know that Sony is trying to keep prices down, but for less than 100 bucks more, you can invest in Sony's VGN-NW180J/S that comes with a Blu-ray drive. Y'know, Sony's own home video format that the company is desperately trying to push on consumers.

On the audio side, the sound isn't exactly full--or cubemate-annoyingly loud. But it is crisp enough and even throws in some of that psuedo-spatial-sound tomfoolery to make it seem more "3D." However, the absence of good bass makes it a little hollow when you listen to Jack caterwauling about wanting to get off, and then back, on the island. In short, it's good for a base-level all-purpose machine, but not great.

For such a big notebook, I found myself hitting the wrong keys a disproportionate amount of the time. Are the keys comfortable? Yes, the cut-out buttons feel springy enough when you're typing--they are plenty large as well. It's even hard to find fault with the function buttons and the few shortcut keys that line the top row (buttons for quick Web launching, muting, and display toggling). I think the problem lies in the spacing of the keys. Though the NW125J is big and wide, the keys feel scrunched a little too tightly. About one and a half inches are on either side of the keypad--not a major gripe, more an observation.

Sony scores back a couple of brownie points by loading this laptop up with every major port or slot you're likely to want: three for USB and one each for HDMI-out (as mentioned earlier), VGA-out, FireWire, PC Express, and Memory Stick and SD cards.

Deeper in the guts, the 2.GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 CPU and 4GB of RAM should be enough to muscle through basic tasks and provide a little extra oomph, but they won't break any land-speed records. The NW125J winds up with a WorldBench 6 score of 80; a similarly loaded, and similarly priced, Gateway U7807u scored 84 in WorldBench 6 a while back, so the new Sony's score is a little disappointing. The lackluster, integrated GPU ensures that you won't be aiming much higher than casual games on this laptop (not a bad thing). As for its endurance, it's able to last 4 hours, 13 minutes in our battery drain tests. In other words it's a fairly average machine, able to last as long as most all-purpose machines already out there--the NW125J just tries doing it for less.

The software bundle looks promising for the most part, with only a couple of dogs in the mix. On the utilitarian side, you have the fairly vanilla VAIO Control Center that parks everything you'd need to tweak on the PC in one place. The SmartWi (for wizards) utility is a little goofy and caused more confusion than help. (Let me interject a little anecdote: I'm trying to set up a wireless connection and the Wireless wizard asks me to....plug in....an ethernet cable! Really?)

The boatload of multimedia-minded apps range from the not-bad to the not-needed. On the positive side: Roxio Easy CD Creator 10 and a couple of basic video- and photo-editing apps are the headliners, but here's something that had potential: the VAIO Content Exporter. Of course, it's only optimized to export content to three settings: PSP, Memory Stick, and Mylo. Would it kill Sony to acknowledge that other devices exist? Another dark-horse app worth noting is the PMB. It lets you manage and organize videos and pictures. A handy calendar view lets you put all your pictures in perspective. The biggest disappointment: The basic MusicBox is a prime example of trying to remake the wheel without rounding the edges. (I know that Sony wants to put its stamp on music software, but do we really need it at this point?)

The NW125J is an oversized and promising machine that does what it says: That is, give your kids the basics they need for the new school year along with a mild multimedia boot in the keister. But with limitations like the lack of a discrete GPU, I'm wondering if Sony could have made a couple of smarter moves to keep the price down at the $800 level.

Guitar Tapping lesson

2009-08-19T18:02:00.002+07:00

you can learn by looking at the video Tapping Tapping lesson.
click the url below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T27HpI6RKU

Dream Theater new Album "Black Clouds and Silver Linings"

2009-08-19T09:12:00.003+07:00

New York, NY:

Progressive metal veterans DREAM THEATER have announced BLACK CLOUDS & SILVER LININGS as the title of their tenth studio album. The band commenced work on the album – their second for Roadrunner Records, following up 2007's Systematic Chaos — in October of last year.

Roadrunner will release the record on June 23. In addition to the standard version CD, the album will also be available on vinyl LP, as well as a three-disc Special Edition CD that will include the full album, a CD of instrumental mixes of the album and a CD of six cover songs, the titles of which will be revealed at a later date.

Six weeks prior to the June 23 street date, Roadrunner will release one cover song per week through digital retailers.

Drummer Mike Portnoy and guitarist John Petrucci are once again at the helm as producers, while Paul Northfield mixed the record.

The band will embark on a world tour in support of the album beginning in Europe throughout June which will be followed by the second edition of the band’s PROGRESSIVE NATION tour featuring Zappa Plays Zappa, Pain Of Salvation and Beardfish throughout North America in July/August.

A video for the first single, "A Rite of Passage" will be shot in late March.

The track listing for BLACK CLOUDS & SILVER LININGS is as follows:

1. A Nightmare to Remember
2. A Rite of Passage
3. Wither
4. The Shattered Fortress
5. The Best of Times
6. The Count of Tuscany

*form IDTFC

Windows 7

2009-08-16T13:49:00.003+07:00

Windows 7 (formerly codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna) is the latest version of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and media center PCs.[2] Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009,[3] with general retail availability set for October 22, 2009,[4] less than three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista. Windows 7's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, is slated for release at about the same time.

Unlike its predecessor, which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 is intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being fully compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista is already compatible.[5] Presentations given by the company in 2008 focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup,[6] and performance improvements. Some applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, including Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, will not be included in Windows 7;[7][8] some will instead be offered separately as part of the free Windows Live Essentials suite.[9

Development
Main article: Development of Windows 7

Originally, a version of Windows codenamed Blackcomb was planned as the successor to Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Major features were planned for Blackcomb, including an emphasis on searching and querying data and an advanced storage system named WinFS to enable such scenarios. However, an interim, minor release, codenamed "Longhorn" was announced for 2003, delaying the development of Blackcomb.[10] By the middle of 2003, however, Longhorn had acquired some of the features originally intended for Blackcomb. After three major viruses exploited flaws in Windows operating systems within a short time period in 2003, Microsoft changed its development priorities, putting some of Longhorn's major development work on hold while developing new service packs for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Development of Longhorn (Windows Vista) was also "reset," or delayed, in August 2004. A number of features were cut from Longhorn.[11]

Blackcomb was renamed Vienna in early 2006,[12] and again to Windows 7 in 2007.[13] In 2008, it was announced that Windows 7 would also be the official name of the operating system.[14][15]

The first external release to select Microsoft partners came in January 2008 with Milestone 1, build 6519.[16] At PDC 2008, Microsoft demonstrated Windows 7 with its reworked taskbar. Copies of Windows 7 build 6801 were distributed out at the end of the conference, but the demonstrated taskbar was disabled in this build.

On December 27, 2008, Windows 7 Beta was leaked onto the Internet via BitTorrent.[17] According to a performance test by ZDNet,[18] Windows 7 Beta beat both Windows XP and Vista in several key areas, including boot and shut down time, working with files such as loading documents; other areas did not beat XP, including PC Pro benchmarks for typical office activities and video-editing, remain identical to Vista and slower than XP.[19] On January 7, 2009, the 64-bit version of the Windows 7 Beta (build 7000) was leaked onto the web, with some torrents being infected with a trojan.[20][21] At CES 2009, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the Windows 7 Beta, build 7000, had been made available for download to MSDN and TechNet subscribers in the format of an ISO image.[22] The Beta was to be publicly released January 9, 2009 and Microsoft initially planned for the download to be made available to 2.5 million people on this date. However, access to the downloads was delayed due to high traffic.[23] The download limit was also extended, initially until January 24, then again to February 10. People who did not complete downloading the beta had two extra days to complete the download. After February 12, unfinished downloads became unable to complete. Users could still obtain product keys from Microsoft to activate their copy of Windows 7 Beta which expired on August 1, 2009. The release candidate, build 7100, has been available for MSDN and TechNet subscribers and Connect Program participants since April 30 and became available to the general public on May 5, 2009. It has also been leaked onto the Internet via BitTorrent.[24] The release candidate is available in five languages and will expire on June 1, 2010, with shutdowns every two hours starting March 1, 2010.[25] Microsoft has stated that Windows 7 will be released to the general public on October 22, 2009. Microsoft released Windows 7 to MSDN and Technet subscribers on August 6, 2009 at 10:00am PDT.[26] Microsoft announced that Windows 7, along with Windows Server 2008 R2 were released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009. Windows 7 RTM is build 7600.16385 which was compiled on July 13, 2009, and was declared the final RTM build after passing all Microsoft's tests internally.[3]

Goals

Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek, suggested that the next version of Windows would "be more user-centric".[27] Gates later said that Windows 7 will also focus on performance improvements.[28] Steven Sinofsky later expanded on this point, explaining in the Engineering Windows 7 blog that the company was using a variety of new tracing tools to measure the performance of many areas of the operating system on an ongoing basis, to help locate inefficient code paths and to help prevent performance regressions.[29]

Senior Vice President Bill Veghte stated that Windows Vista users migrating to Windows 7 would not find the kind of device compatibility issues they encountered migrating from Windows XP.[30] Speaking about Windows 7 on October 16, 2008, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed compatibility between Vista and Windows 7,[31] indicating that Windows 7 will be a refined version of Windows Vista.[31]

Features

New and changed features
Main article: Features new to Windows 7
The new Action Center which replaces Windows Security Center

Windows 7 includes a number of new features, such as advances in touch and handwriting recognition, support for virtual hard disks, improved performance on multi-core processors,[32][33][34][35] improved boot performance, DirectAccess, and kernel improvements. Windows 7 adds support for systems using multiple heterogeneous graphics cards from different vendors (Heterogeneous Multi-adapter), a new version of Windows Media Center,[36] a Gadget for Windows Media Center, improved media features, the XPS Essentials Pack and Windows PowerShell being included, and a redesigned Calculator with multiline capabilities including Programmer and Statistics modes along with unit conversion. Many new items have been added to the Control Panel, including ClearType Text Tuner, Display Color Calibration Wizard, Gadgets, Recovery, Troubleshooting, Workspaces Center, Location and Other Sensors, Credential Manager, Biometric Devices, System Icons, and Display.[37] Windows Security Center has been renamed to Windows Action Center (Windows Health Center and Windows Solution Center in earlier builds) which encompasses both security and maintenance of the computer. The default setting for User Account Control in Windows 7 has been criticized for allowing untrusted software to be launched with elevated privileges by exploiting a trusted application.[38] Microsoft's Windows kernel engineer Mark Russinovich acknowledged the problem, but noted that there are other vulnerabilities that do not rely on the new setting.[39]

The taskbar has seen the biggest visual changes, where the Quick Launch toolbar has been replaced with pinning applications to the taskbar. Buttons for pinned applications are integrated with the task buttons. These buttons also enable the Jump Lists feature to allow easy access to common tasks.[40] The revamped taskbar also allows the reordering of taskbar buttons. To the far right of the system clock is a small rectangular button that serves as the Show desktop icon. This button is part of the new feature in Windows 7 called Aero Peek. Hovering over this button makes all visible windows transparent for a quick look at the desktop.[41] In touch-enabled displays such as touch screens, tablet PCs, etc., this button is slightly wider to accommodate being pressed with a finger.[42] Clicking this button minimizes all windows, and clicking it a second time restores them. Additionally, there is a feature named Aero Snap, that automatically maximizes a window when it is dragged to either the top or left/right edges of the screen.[43] This also allows users to snap documents or files on either side of the screen to compare them. When a user moves windows that are maximized, the system restores their previous state automatically. This functionality is also accomplished with keyboard shortcuts. Unlike in Windows Vista, window borders and the taskbar do not turn opaque when a window is maximized with Windows Aero applied. Instead, they remain transparent.
The Windows 7 taskbar, with the Desktop Window Manager disabled.

For developers, Windows 7 includes a new networking API with support for building SOAP-based web services in native code (as opposed to .NET based WCF web services),[44] new features to shorten application install times, reduced UAC prompts, simplified development of installation packages,[45] and improved globalization support through a new Extended Linguistic Services API.[46] At WinHEC 2008 Microsoft announced that color depths of 30-bit and 48-bit would be supported in Windows 7 along with the wide color gamut scRGB (which for HDMI 1.3 can be converted and output as xvYCC). The video modes supported in Windows 7 are 16-bit sRGB, 24-bit sRGB, 30-bit sRGB, 30-bit with extended color gamut sRGB, and 48-bit scRGB.[47][48] Microsoft is also implementing better support for Solid State Drives[49], including the new TRIM command, and Windows 7 will be able to identify a Solid State Drive uniquely.

Internet Spades, Internet Backgammon and Internet Checkers, which were removed from Windows Vista, were restored in Windows 7. Windows 7 will include Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Media Player 12.
Search Wikinews Wikinews has related news: Windows 7 will allow users to disable Internet Explorer

Users will also be able to disable many more Windows components than was possible in Windows Vista. New additions to this list of components include Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows Search, and the Windows Gadget Platform.[50] Windows 7 includes 13 additional sound schemes, entitled Afternoon, Calligraphy, Characters, Cityscape, Delta, Festival, Garden, Heritage, Landscape, Quirky, Raga, Savanna, and Sonata.[51] A new version of Virtual PC, Windows Virtual PC Beta is available for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions.[52] It allows multiple Windows environments, including Windows XP Mode, to run on the same machine, requiring the use of Intel VT-x or AMD-V. Windows XP Mode runs Windows XP in a virtual machine and redirects displayed applications running in Windows XP to the Windows 7 desktop.[53] Furthermore Windows 7 supports the mounting of a virtual hard disk (VHD) as a normal data storage, and the bootloader delivered with Windows 7 can boot the Windows system from a VHD.[54] The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) of Windows 7 is also enhanced to support real-time multimedia application including video playback and 3D games. That means that Direct X 10 can be used in a remote desktop environment.[55] The three application limit will be removed from Windows 7 Starter.[56]
Removed features
Main article: Features removed from Windows 7

A number of capabilities and certain programs that were a part of Windows Vista are no longer present or have changed, resulting in the removal of certain functionality. Some notable Windows Vista features and components have been replaced or removed in Windows 7, including the classic Start Menu user interface, Windows Ultimate Extras, InkBall, and Windows Calendar. Three applications bundled with Windows Vista — Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Mail — are not included with Windows 7, but are instead available for free in a separate package called Windows Live Essentials. Additionally, it is no longer possible to eliminate anti-aliased text from the user interface.

Antitrust regulatory attention

As with other Microsoft operating systems, Windows 7 is being studied by United States federal regulators who oversee the company's operations following the 2001 United States v. Microsoft settlement. According to status reports filed, the three-member panel began assessing prototypes of the new operating system in February 2008. Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research said that, "[Microsoft's] challenge for Windows 7 will be how can they continue to add features that consumers will want that also don't run afoul of regulators."[57]

Editions

In Europe, due to regulations imposed on Microsoft, the company had announced that Windows 7 would not ship with the company's own Internet Explorer in Europe because of allegations that Microsoft was restricting choice to European consumers. It was also announced that the upgrade versions of Windows 7 would also not be available in Europe due to the possibility of needing additional testing for how upgrades would react to the versions without Internet Explorer.[58]

Microsoft also proposed to the European Commission allowing users to download a competing browser from a "ballot" screen instead of providing a version of Windows completely without Internet Explorer installed at all.[59] In response to criticism involving Windows 7 E and concerns from manufacturers about possible consumer confusion if a version of Windows 7 with Internet Explorer were shipped later after one without Internet Explorer, Microsoft announced that it would scrap the separate version for Europe and ship the standard upgrade and full packages worldwide.[60]

Reception

Figures released by Amazon.co.uk in the UK shows that sales of Windows 7 in the first eight hours of trading surpassed demand of what took Windows Vista 17 weeks to achieve.[61]

Editions
Main article: Windows 7 editions

Windows 7 will be available in six different editions, but only Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate will be available for retail sale in most countries.[62] The other editions are focused at other markets, such as the developing world or enterprise use.[62] Each edition of Windows 7 will include all of the capabilities and features of the edition below it.[62][63][64][65][66] With the exception of Windows 7 Starter, all editions will support both 32-bit (IA-32) and 64-bit (x86-64) processor architectures.[67] According to Microsoft, the features for all editions of Windows 7 will be stored on the machine, regardless of what edition is in use.[68] Users who wish to upgrade to an edition of Windows 7 with more features can then use Windows Anytime Upgrade to purchase the upgrade, and unlock the features of those editions.[63][68][69]

Microsoft announced Tuesday, July 21, 2009 that they will be offering a family pack of Windows 7 Home Premium (in select markets) which will allow installation on up to 3 PCs.[70] The "Family Pack" will cost USD 149.99 in the United States.[70]

Hardware requirements

Microsoft has published their minimum specifications for a system running Windows 7.[71] Requirements for the 32-bit version are much the same as recommendations for premium editions of Vista, but the 64-bit version's are considerably higher. Microsoft has released a beta version of an upgrade advisor that scans a computer to see if it is compatible with Windows 7. [72]
Minimum hardware requirements for Windows 7[71] Architecture 32-bit 64-bit
Processor speed 1 GHz processor
Memory (RAM) 1 GB of RAM 2 GB of RAM
Graphics card Support for DirectX 9 graphics device with 128MB of graphics memory (for Windows Aero)
HDD free space 16 GB of available disk space 20 GB of available disk space
Optical drive DVD drive (only to install from DVD/CD Media)

Additional requirements to use certain features:[71]

* BitLocker requires Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 and requires a USB flash drive to use BitLocker To Go.
* Windows XP Mode requires an additional 1 GB of RAM, an additional 15 GB of available hard disk space, and a processor capable of hardware virtualization with Intel VT or AMD-V enabled.

iPhone

2009-08-14T21:00:00.000+07:00

This article is about the mobile phone sold by Apple Inc. For other uses, see IPhone (disambiguation).

The iPhone is an Internet-connected, multimedia GSM smartphone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Because its minimal hardware interface lacks a physical keyboard, the multi-touch screen renders a virtual keyboard when necessary. The iPhone functions as a camera phone (also including text messaging and visual voicemail), a portable media player (equivalent to a video iPod), and an Internet client (with email, web browsing, and Wi-Fi connectivity). The first-generation phone hardware was quad-band GSM with EDGE; the second generation added UMTS with 3.6 Mbps HSDPA^[17]; the third generation adds support for 7.2 Mbps HSDPA downloading but remains limited to 384 Kbps uploading as Apple had not implemented the HSPA protocol.^[18]

Apple announced the iPhone on January 9, 2007,^[19] after months of rumors and speculation.^[20] The original iPhone was introduced in the United States on June 29, 2007 before being marketed worldwide. Time magazine named it the Invention of the Year in 2007.^[21] Released July 11, 2008, the iPhone 3G supports faster 3G data speeds and assisted GPS.^[17] On March 17, 2009, Apple announced version 3.0 of the iPhone OS operating system for the iPhone (and iPod Touch), released on June 17, 2009.^[22] The iPhone 3GS was announced on June 8, 2009. It was released in the U.S., Canada and 6 European countries on June 19,^[3] in Australia and Japan on June 26,^[23] and will see international release in July and August.

*form wikipedia.org

NVIDIA VGA Card 9600GT

2009-08-14T14:02:00.000+07:00

NVIDIA VGA Card 9600GT(9600GT 512MB DDR2 256bit)

Bus interface: PCI Express 2.0 Support
Memory: 512MB
Memory Interface: 256 bit
NVIDIA.unified architecture with GigaThread.technology
Full Microsoft.DirectX.10 Shader Model 4.0 support
16x full-screen anti-aliasing
True 128-bit floating point high dynamic-range (HDR) lighting
NVIDIA.Quantum Effects.physics processing technology
Dual Dual-link DVI outputs support 2560x1600 resolution display
NVIDIA.PureVideo.HD technology
OpenGL.2.1 support
NVIDIA ForceWare.Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)
Certified for Microsoft.Windows Vista.
NVIDIA.Lumenex.Engine
Dual 400MHz RAMDACs
Discrete, Programmable Video Processor
Hardware Decode Acceleration
High-Quality Scaling
Inverse Telecine (3:2 & 2:2 Pulldown Correction)
Bad Edit Correction
Integrated SD and HD TV Output
Noise Reduction
Edge Enhancement
Dynamic Contrast Enhancement
Dual Stream Decode Acceleration
HDCP capable

Unit Price:USD 85/pc, EXW shenzhen shekou
Origin: china
Delivery Lead Time: 7 days for MOQ
Minimum Order:300PCS
Supply Ability: 400,000PCS/PER MONTH

Motherboard Intel P55

2009-08-14T13:57:00.000+07:00

Motherboard Intel P55

although not yet officially introduced, but the 2009 event computex ago, the Intel P55 motherboard is also one of the interesting attention. Motherboard with processor socket LGA 1156 is indicated for the processor with the name or password Lynnfield, also known as the core i5 will introduce in by intel.Motherboard with Intel P55 chipset also features support dengak SATA 600 interface.