A rather interesting article of DownloadSquad tells us about the trial version that Nero offers for its Nero 9. I had already mentioned that there are solutions to pay nothing in order to get Nero 8 in free download (see lower), but it goes quite far.

1. You must give them your email address to download the trial version for Nero 9 – What do they want it for? Some Spam database address?
2. The installation brings an Ask.com tool bar – Why do we want this?
3. At the end of the installation, you are requested to transmit (anonymously) some additional information – What data? Why?
4. At first launch, you are requested your email address again – Those guys have no memory, I guess…
5. The free version does only data discs (no audio discs) – This is nothing more than the really free software programs shown below
6. Knowing that, the splash screen start only use is to show you what you don’t have in the free trial version – Speak about teasing me!
7. Of course, the uninstall process does not fully clean your machine – They are not even able to do it, or not even polite enough to do it…
8. With 55MB to download, this is only 20 to 50 times bigger than the real free alternatives!

So, I suggest that you turn to other options that are really free and well-polished:

• Download free Nero 8 CD/DVD burner
• Download 5 free replacements for Nero

Intel X25-M (SSD)

This is what is strongly suggested by an article published in The Register indicating that the Santa Clara giant would have suspended the shipments of its 2nd generation of X25-M SSD drives, because of a data corruption issue. We are waiting for a firmware update to correct this problem from what appears to be a tremendous product with low power, high performance and nice price.

Caution seems justified here.

Intel X25-M

SSD drives are those disk drives that are not using rotating platters with data stored magnetically, but that are based upon a set Flash memory components (so, without any mobile part, and with a performance that has nothing to do with even the fastest magnetic hard disk drives). SSD drives are expensive but, with costs are plummeting, the most expert and demanding users are starting to look at them dreamingly.

But everything shows that the SSD drives are not all equal (there is still an intense competition at this apex of performance). We see many a product recommended, often without all the technical arguments.

The “A look at SSD performance in Windows Vista – The more things change…” article from Geoff Gasior (The Tech Report) is definitely full of little gems because of that: It comes after a large number of tests (and many articles on the same subject) and compares finely the most representative products of the market.

Without telling it all (read the article. It’s worth it and you will learn many things), there are a few important conclusions drawn:

• Initial performance is usually much reduced after some time and some even light use,
• X25-M from Intel is probably the best drive around, the most well-balanced (recommended for a purchase in the short-term),
• The OCZ Summit is the faster in write operations (Intel is an ace of reading),
• the differences between suppliers come more from the controller used (Intel, Samsung Indilinx) than from the the brand.
• The arrival of Windows 7 (with its TRIM feature support) will probably change the situation (all the more because TRIM support is not yet certain from Intel) and, if you can wait, you will be better being patient and hope for Windows 7 and the new products and new firmwares made just for it.

photo credit: Ivan Zuber

If you have Windows installed on your PC, you may have noticed one surprising thing: File copying is amazingly slower than what it was in previous editions of Windows or on other kinds of computers. The exact reason is a bit unclear (some say that it is linked to some Digital Rights Management features kicking in any time you copy a file, but this is still unproven to my knowledge) but this became a very annoying issue for people who have to copy either lots of files (backing up your daily work is a good example – by the way, did you make your daily backup yet?) or some very big files (moving video files around your computer is the archetypal example).

This situation led to the appearance of a few optimize file copy utilities (a software category that did not exist a few years ago, but a useful one). Let’s look at 4 of them which have the enormous advantage of being completely free:

• SuperCopier: Its strong advantage is that -after installation- it replaces completely the default Windows copy for drag-and-drop (it works nearly without thinking about it)
• FastCopy is fast but forgets mostly about being beautiful. However, it has a few interesting (and unique) options to configure the way the right-click menu appears.
• RichCopy is the internal Microsoft solution to their own bug/issue. Amazingly configurable, you can setup profiles for different uses (probably too much for most users, though) but I couldn’t find how to insert it in the right-click menu.
• CopyHandler: You can’t get more technical than this one! Options include things as obscure as buffer size depending on the type of file copy you do (disk-to-disk, directory-to-directory, disk-to-CD/DVD, etc.) The best little gems here include the possibility to pause/restart file copying, shutting down the computer at the end of a copy session, or scheduling a copy session for the next login.

All of them get rid of the usual flying folder kind of window and replace it with a more technical-looking window with progress bars and more optional lists of details.

Anyway, even if I can recommend all of them (a little preference for SuperCopier), remember that they are not even useful (in terms of copying speed) in Windows XP or Windows 2000. But, if you are using Windows Vista (mostly) or Windows 7, you should seriously consider them.

Windows 7 official wallpapers

Look at the full set of the Windows 7 wallpapers. This is the upcoming version of Windows (after Windows Vista, it seems that Microsoft intends to switch back to a numbering scheme). Most of them may be colourful, but with very smooth surfaces where your icons will be appearing quite neatly and they offer a nice contrast.

Fresh Impact Crater Formed between February 2005 and July 2005
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

So, I was quite interested when I stumbled upon the collection of pictures taken by the HiRise (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera installed on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter). Shooting photos of Mars surface, this photo camera brings extraordinary color images that provide nice patterns to be used as background for your Windows desktop (or even Linux or Mac desktop) and can be renewed quite regularly: Their catalog is available on the University of Arizona web site.

Furthermore, they provide an enormous resolution for their images which is a very good way to extract any size you may need for your extra-high-resolution background or to cover your 2- or 3-LCD display. Or even more. If you feel that there own selection of wallpapers is not enough:

• 800×600
• 1024×768
• 1152×864
• 1280×960
• 1440×1080
• 1600×1200
• 1920×1440
• 2048×1536
• 2560×1600

You can still stick to the original size (JPEG-2000 format images range between 0.5GB and 3GB).

And the good news is that there is no copyright restrictions, so you could do pretty much what you want with them: Really free desktop wallpapers.

Those elements resulting from the observation of long-term markets and futures, they have quite good reliability. But if the recession does not seem ready to end, why this move up? As a matter of fact, memory buyers are probably preparing themselves for the arrival of the new Windows 7 and its unavoidable additional resource demands. Furthermore, while many processors (specially from AMD, but not only) may be using DDR3 memory but also older DDR2 with no perceivable performance loss, the transition from DDR2 to DDR3 is slowly happening. And this is pushing DDR3 quantities up.

So, if you have a clear need today, I would recommend you to buy your DDR3 memory now. But if you think that you can use DDR2 memory (if you have to ask, that’s your situation), you’d better wait for the relative price slowdown that will be happening on DDR2.

you merely change the size of the Windows desktop and all your desktop icons are forcefully moved around against your will. After one or two of these, you’d be ready to cry, while backing up the position of the icons would be enough, before connecting a new screen, or attaching your laptop to a video-projector, etc.

Up to now, you could only cry and reposition the icons. But here comes DesktopOK. What can I say? It does exactly what you want and what you need: a mere backup, a simple restore and your icons come back where you wanted them.

Simple et necessary.

• On Windows, it’s enough to use the bootable CD-ROM of Ophcrack which is available as Open Source. Reboot and watch the software program find the Windows Administrator password…
• Ophcrack also works on Mac (and Linux) but with OSX10.4, it’s enough to use the Apple installation CD and to choose “Utilities” to run “Reset the password”. On OSX10.5, you’ll have to reboot, press Command+S, then type the following at the prompt:

fsck -fy
mount -uw /
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist
dscl . -passwd /Users/UserName newpassword

• If on Linux, if boot is controled by GRUB, it’s enough to press ESC during the boot sequence to choose ‘Recovery Mode’ which will will start you as root without even knowing the password. Just change it now…
• But even better (or worse), on Linux again, here is a list of 10 ways of resetting a lost linux root password

Plus ou moins inspiré de JoeTech.

Everything changes as I found some freely available information available on the Internet. For example, AMD-ATI (designer and manufacturer or graphics cards for personal computers) published a small presentation video.

You can’t see much, it’s too short? Here come detailled videos from the Institute for Interconnecting and Packaging Electronic Circuits (IPC): IPC Training/Certification Videos. You will find there videos detailling all the stages of manufacturing and nearly all the significant technologies included in the manufacturing of electronic boards.

Most of them are available on YouTube and Google Video.

For those who went through all these steps and are still willing to learn, I also have a very intersting and much more technical presentation on a parallel issue and technology item: lead-free soldering. As a matter of fact, for years, the electronic industry has used a large quantity of lead (a cheap metal very attractive because it can become luidi at a relatively low temperature). but with the disappearance of a lot of the other sources of lead in our environment (lead poisonning (also known as saturnism, plumbism, Devon colic, or painter’s colic) is a medical condition caused by increased levels of the metal lead in the blood leading to neurological damage) electronic waste was adopting a bad sheep reputation. We are currently in the center of an intense transition to safer technologies. But it’s a whole industry which has to adopt completly new techniques and abandon very solid body of evidence and state of the art knowledge to learn uing “lead-free soldering”.

If you are ready for 30 minutes of concentration and listening, here is a video conference about this issue and a specific part of it: Electronics engineers like me will learn a lot about reliability of lead-free soldering.

From GraphJam.

1. TCO (Total Cost of Ownership): Linux is less expensive in an enterprise because of the high cost of per-seat licenses.
2. Desktop: Nowadays, Linux is as easy as Windows for most entry-level users.
3. Server: So many servers are now running on Linux.
4. Security: Windows progressed a lot recently, but is still the target of a lot of malware, virus, Trojans, etc. that Linux has avoided by immunity through faster problem fixes.
5. Flexibility: Linux is amazingly able to adapt itself to various applications and environments.
6. Package management: Installation of new applications in Linux is years ahead of the dinosaur Install-Software solution of Microsoft.
7. Community: Not that the Linux community would be larger, but it is so much more active and willing to support all kinds of users.
8. Interoperability: Windows works well with Windows. For the rest, just go to Linux if you want to interoperate with Apple OS X, various Unix systems, various Linux distributions, OS/2, PlayStations, PDAs, and… Windows.
9. Command line: You may not need to use it, but when times come for it, Linux command line is worlds better than Microsoft mock-up.
10. Evolution: Do you remember the feel of going from XP to Vista? Do you remember how many times Microsoft forced you to upgrade machines? Linux is much more adaptable and provides a proven smooth path to newer, better versions.

• dozens of nature-oriented images (including some cartoons) on UsingMac.com;
• ligthning and storms (15 images).

Downright spectacular.

Here are a few ideas of (free) software programs that may be useful here:

• Ultimate Defrag (from DiskTrix) is clearly a defragmenter wet dream. The only trouble? So many options that you won’t be able to sleep.
• Smart Defrag (from IOBit) will help you defragmente several disc or several partitions at the same time.
• Partition Find and Mount will do its best to find again lost data on a damaged hard disc drive.

Now, the editor publishes CDBurnerXP Portable (download it for free). It goes on a USB stick and can follow you everywhere.

Main advantage: When my PC stops working perfectly, I can easily recognize what changed. Usually, I (like everybody else) say that I did not touch anaything before it stopped working. Bit when I check, I can find wat I did.

It also works for the configuration of a Local Area Network… even in a company. But beware of not writing down passwords that would then be left in an open paper book…

This should be the reason to go through a last minute list of all the recent screenshots and videos displaying the best images of this FPS game coming from Russia.

• Interview videos (from VE3D)
• Screenshots (from VE3D)
• Trailer (from GameTrailers)
• Trailer in HD (from GameTrailers)

Last but not least, the official game web site essentially confirmed the specs of the game that we provided a few weeks ago already.

But EA is preparing a kind of follow-up. It’s all about following the deeds of a character already found in Crysis. this time, in Crysis Warhead, you are Sergeant Sykes (”Psycho”). It is not a sequel to Crysis (even if everybody was disturbed by the abrupt end essentially opening to the following two episodes in the series), but a a parallel approach to the same part of the scenario.

Nevertheless, what PC configuration will be needed? EA told us that software optimisations will help a lot the users with relatively small PC configurations, who were unable to play Crysis correctly (EA said that a 400€/$620 PC would be enough for the “High quality” settings).

Minimum requirements

• Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ or Intel Core 2 Duo E6550
• Memory: 2 GB of SDRAM
• Graphics: DirectX 9.x on GeForce 66xx or Radeon X16xx

Recommended requirements

• Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ or Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
• Memory: 2 GB of SDRAM
• Graphics: Radeon HD4870 or GeForce GTX260

See also: Image gallery at IGN.

• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky will be shown by GSC Game World in Los Angeles for the Electronic Entertainment Expo (with probable availability in the stores around the end of August)
• Image gallery 1 on IGN
• Image gallery 2 on IGN
• Analyse/preview du jeu en français sur JeuxvideoPC.
• Analyse/preview du jeu en français sur ImpactVirtuel.
• And still the required PC configuration to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky