Archive for July, 2006

You thought that they wouldn’t dare: From the 2nd of August, Microsoft is going to charge 1.50$ per download of the beta version of Microsoft Office.

Yes! Now, there are so many crzay people willing to test a bug-ridden version of Microsoft Office that the firm from Redmond can make them pay for this privilege.

I had given the advice of not installing this beta, with good reasons. But here is one more that I did not see coming: You may have to pay for the official right to crash your PC. It’s up to you to see if it’s worth the effort. I still think it’s not and I keep going and downloading free OpenOffice.

Source: ClubIC.

Probably to prepare the arrival of the D80 digital SLR, Nikon started to send the price of the D50 down. People interested should be looking for under-275$ offers that are starting to appear on all price comparison search engines.

I suggest that the best location to look for them are the targetted ads appearing on this page and the different photo-related pages of my web site. I already saw several of them refering to the D50.

At least, that is what appears from the paper/features comparison done on this dutch web site between the Nikon D80 and the Sony Alpha A-100.

You want to buy a microprocessor, you were thinking about a double core CPU? Think twice before opening your wallet right now for one of the new new Intel Dual Core 2 Duo (certainly the best product for the time being – it will be available before the end of the month): AMD prices will drop by about 50%.

They cannot fight on pure CPU performance, indeed. At least, not in the coming weeks. Thus, AMD would be prepared to slash its prices by 2. This is not confirmed yet, but taking into account our previous comments here, you can really expect a price war. The impressive features (and benchmark results) of the Intel Dual Core 2 Duo simply have put this one in overdrive.

So, if you want to buy new hardware, you just have to wait a few weeks more. September sales will certainly be attractive. Students willing to buy their first computer will like it.

I use some of the proxies servers given on the web site and they work well (even though a little slow as could be expected). Allow me to provide a web address where to test the efficiency of the proxies:

http://www.anonymat.org/vostraces/index.php

Advertisments shown by Google on web sites (like mine) are subject to various types of frauds. For example, there are site owners who rush to click their own ads in order to increase their earnings (sometimes using software packages or robots, even if this is prohibited by Google whatever mean you use). There is also those who click of the ad banners of the competition (hoping to have them spend uselessly their marketing budget).

Whatever the origin, this is a permanent competition between the sword and the shell. Google must defend its customers buying ad space (marketers), minimize the problem (to avoid them being afraid) and to fight/chase fraudsters (in order to keep it all down).

But here is also Click Monkeys a web site that pretends to offer you the best way to automate your Google AdWords/Google AdSense frauds. Ok! This is all a pun, and not a serious business proposal. But I loved the idea of organizing international ad fraud using trained monkeys

The rumour has just been launched by TheInquirer.net: AMD, the microprocessor manufacturer could buy ATI, the designer of system chipsets and graphics chips.

Of course, questions are still open before the public proposal (on Monday) to the shareholders (for example, “where will AMD find the needed money?”). But the merger would bring significant advantages to both partners, including:

• Linking microprocessor + chipset would allow to close the gap with Intel similar offer.
• nVidia would certainly appear weaker in front of the two giants Intel and AMD/ATI.

To be confirmed quickly. This is confirmed (see comments below).

Stock photography in general, and more specifically taking pictures of shiny little objects like jewels, has always been a difficult task for the amateur and professional photographer alike. Usually, we would look for help from the side of pro photographers. But, I found good advice from jewelers… and plenty of it.

Among the tips from the jeweler’s bench, there is a library of articles about how to take good stock images of jewels.

Recommended.

These photos of China are some of the most beautiful that could be found. Simply one example taken out of the long list of these strongly colored images:

Everybody already knew that September (with the Photokina) would be seriously animated by the arrival of a lot of new products in the market of digital SLR cameras (DSLR = Digital Single Lense Reflex). Sony already presented its Alpha A100 (available in the best stores online and offline in few days only). Nikon starts to tease us about the replacement for the D70 and D70s (they started to be visibly older despite their excellent characteristics). There is not a lot to see apart from the resolution: Welcome to the 10 mega-pixel world.

Pentax prepares its K10D for the Photokina. When will we see the matching announcement from Canon?

Her Majesty the Queen Elisabeth II and her royal subjects take energy savings very seriously indeed. They noticed (in a document recently published by the Energy Review) that electrical appliances in sleep mode consume 8% of domestic energy. Let’s admit that this is impressive and tackling with waste cannot be a bad idea.

What’s the solution?

If you are at home or at the office, you just have to think about swithcing off the appliance or the computer with the big red switch instead of the small green switch (or to just unplug it). It won’t take long to switch on again, but your electricity bill will plumet.

If you have legislative power in a developed country like the United Kingdom, you just have to prohibit the presence of standby buttons on appliances sold in the UK (TV sets, . a Si vous êtes législateur au royaume Uni, il suffit d’interdire le mode veille sur les appareils domestiques (téléviseurs, washing machines, computers, etc.). I don’t know if it will work out, but it’s defintely an innovative approach to this problem.

Source: Technology Times.

I previously presented here my opinion about several tools to collect statistics for a web site (Alexa.com, Performancing metrics, Webalyzer). Then, I started by writing about the existence of Google Analytics, the still-in-beta-test offer from the American search engine giant. But I could not test it because Google did not provide an invitation to the evaluation in time for the review. This is correted now. Google sent me an invitation last month and, with the added experience, I can now share my understanding of this product.

(more…)

There was already a Pirate Party in Sweeden (along with ThePirateBay.org): Piratpartiet. But things are speeding up neatly in those days with the appearance of two French-speaking parties:

• In France, le Parti Pirate prepares actively the Presidential elections of next year.
• In Belgium, le Parti Pirate.

But, of course, this is only part of it since there are some more in other countries:

• USA
• Italy

Visibly, the Internet users do not want to let the traditional politicians handling their will to download files on the Internet.

And I am true to my word. Despite what could be your first reaction, there is nothing unsafe here for your children. There is nothing filthy here.

Or, how is it possible to misunderstand something if we do not look long enough.

[This is safe for work].

The new multicore processors from Intel just arrived. They are supposed to offer exceptional performance (with two computing cores in a single package) for an outstanding price.

The first real tests are popping up all around the web:

• RegHardware
• Presence-PC
• clubIC
• Hardware.fr
• TT Hardware
• Tom’s Hardware (fr)

Mostly, this is a magnificent machine for a substantially lower price than originally expected from multicore technology. All applications do not take advantage of two cores, but in some cases, this becomes a boon (for example, in FarCry, an Intel Core Duo X6800 does from 20% to 30% more than an AMD Athlon 64 FX2; But both processors are priced around 1000€).

Intel visibly took very seriously the task to challenge the recent crown of AMD in terms of pure performance. The next offers from AMD will be interesting to watch. All this happening in a commercial environment that looks quite favorable to price falls (see my previous articles), we must keep an eye on how all this evolves in the near future (including for the entry-level processor offers).

Nærfoto (Bjørn Rørslett) is the web site of a nature photographer. You will not find landscapes from Nordic Norway, but colorful images that strike the eye.

A cool whiff of air in the middle of Summer.

After long years of operation, Windows 98 is officially dead today (11 July 2006). As a matter of fact, this is not news and Microsoft was slowly reducing the efforts and even in June they refused to patch a security issue arguing that it would be too much effort (and that they couldn’t care less).

Win98 is dead, long live Window XP!

STOP! NO! If we look at the tables from Microsoft Windows XP SP1 will be dead in October 2006 already. Did I hear the word acceleration?