Bob's Blog Space

RMClock Utility update (version 2.0)

2006-02-15T12:09:00.000+08:00

Version 2.0 of the popular CPU power/clock management utility has been released. More info can be obtained at http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml

Changes in version 2.0 include:

Completely new user interface design, new icons.
CPU frequency and CPU/OS load system tray indicators.
Integration with Windows power management and standard LCD backlight interface.
Flexible per-profile and per-power source PST, ODCM and Windows power management settings.
Improved ODCM management with user-customizable throttle states table feature.
New CPU performance level management logic allowing instant multiple-states PST/ODCM transitions.
Determination and support for new CPUs: Intel Pentium D and Pentium Extreme Edition 900 series, Intel Core Solo and Core Duo processors (preliminary); new Intel logos.
Support for "non-mobile" versions of ICH4 and ICH6 south bridges in Intel Centrino mobile platform advanced settings.
New command-line profile-changing options (-nextprofile and -prevprofile).
Fixed CPU frequency display on older Intel Pentium 4 models (Northwood/Willamette).
EIST/DBS settings (Intel Pentium 4 / Pentium M advanced settings) are now always remembered, regardless of the "Remember these settings" option.
Added user-definable delay (as a registry setting) to the management procedure start (on startup and resume from standby/hibernate).

Download available at http://cpu.rightmark.org/download.shtml

It's 2006 (more than a month over already!)

2006-02-15T12:04:00.000+08:00

Well.. it's a little over a month since 2006 and school life's back as the usual chaos-ness..

With the dawn of the new year, it's good to expect some nice tech stuffs coming this new year..

... so have a nice day and enjoy the new year..

Windows Vista. Brings clarity to your world

2005-07-29T02:09:00.000+08:00

Microsoft released the name as well as Beta 1 of the upcoming Windows codename "Longhorn". Named "Windows Vista" which means "plesant view" (or to be exact, "sight" in Italian), this new (Beta 1) release of Windows Vista is in beta stage and only opened to appointed beta-testers.

With a major re-make of the OS, including major interface enhancements and other security and performance enhancements. All these additions bumps the system requirement for Windows Vista to a higher level, requiring a system with 1++GHz processor, 512MB RAM, and a "compatible" graphic processor that can handle all the interface effects (transparencies, sliding, squeezing, etc. of the window components). Sources said that current beta release only allow these fancy GUI effects on systems that sports ATI Radeon 9800 cards and nVidia 5900 cards.

The current Beta 1 release is only limited to invited beta testers only, Beta 2 that would be scheduled to debut at the 4th quarter of 2005 or early 2006 would be targeted to the public audiences.

The current Beta of Windows Vista is also said to be very buggy and hardware compatibility is also limited, interested users can obtain a beta copy by signing up as a beta tester or wait for the release of the 2nd Beta... or obtain it through B!tTorrent (*cough*)... or by sending Microsoft's Jim Allchin, Group Vice President of Platforms, (read: the guy in charge of Windows and it's forthcoming codename 'Longhorn' beta program) a 2-pound chocolate..

More info can be obtained at the following websites:
Official Microsoft Windows Vista Site
BetaNews - Microsoft Explains Windows Vista Name
WinBeta - Exclusive: WinBeta reveals Microsoft codename 'Longhorn' beta 1 to be released tomorrow
VistaArticles - Articles on Windows Vista

6th Harry Potter Book Released

2005-07-28T20:45:00.000+08:00

The 6th book in the Harry Potter series is released on the 16th of July 2005. Titled "Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince"

Here's some information extracted from a website called Veritaserum.com

From JKRowling.com:
- The link between Chamber of Secrets and Half-Blood Prince relates to a discovery Harry made in 'Chamber' that foreshadows something that he finds out in 'Prince'.
- Tom Riddle is not the Half Blood Prince (he is Voldemort).
- Arthur Weasley is not the Minister of Magic.
- Crucial information in The Half-Blood Prince was originally planned to be placed in Chamber of Secrets, the second book.
- The HBP (half-blood prince) is not Harry or Voldemort.
- There will not be two chapters in book six titled "Lupin's Papers" and "The Lovegoods in Court."
- An excerpt from HBP: "He looked rather like an old lion. There were streaks of grey in his mane of tawny hair and his bushy eyebrows; he had keen yellowish eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and a certain rangy, loping grace even though he walked with a slight limp."
- More characters will die in book six.
- Three chapter titles from the Half-Blood Prince: "Spinners End" (Chap. 2), "Draco's Detour" (Chap. 6), and "Felix Felicis" (Chap. 14)
- Neville and Luna will not date.
- Harry's shortened stay at the Dursley's (see below) will not result from another court case - rather, he will be leaving for "a much pleasanter reason."
- The new Gryffindor Beaters will be completely new finds of the new Captain's.

From August 2004 Edinburgh Book Festival:
- Grawp will become more controllable in the sixth book.
- There will be a new character called McClaggan.
- We will see a bit more of Rita Skeeter.
- Petunia Dursley is not a Squib, as she is a muggle, but there is more to Petunia than what meets the eye; we will find out what that is.
- Life gets "quite tough" for most of the characters, especially Harry.
- We will see more of Blaise Zabini, who was recently confirmed as male.
- Dudley Dursley is not the Half Blood Prince.
- Professor Lockhart will not appear in future books.

From March 2004 World Book Day Chat:
- We'll find out more about Peter Pettigrew and what happened to him.
- Harry will tell his nearest and dearest about the prophecy when he's ready.
- The wizarding world is really at war again, and Harry has to master his own feelings to make himself useful.
- Muggles are noticing more and more odd happenings now that Voldemort has returned.
- We will find out more about the circumstances of Voldemort's birth.
- Tonks and Moaning Myrtle will be back.
- Harry won't stay with the Dursleys all summer; in fact, he will have his shortest stay yet.
- We'll see more of Narcissa Malfoy.
- Hermione and Draco will not date (duh...)
- We'll find out more about the relationship between Snape and Sirius in their Hogwarts days.
- Harry won't get back together with Cho Chang.
- Winky will never be in the same state she was prior to the events of Goblet of Fire.
- We will find out more about Grawp, the giant (Hagrid's half-brother).
- There will be a new Minister of Magic.

Gonna get this book myself.. soon... :p

ZoneAlarm 6.0.631.003 Released

2005-07-28T20:38:00.000+08:00

The ultimate personal firewall for your PC to protect your PC from intruders, ZoneAlarm, has been updated to version 6.0.631.003.

Simple to use and effective, download it at Download.com

Revamped CNet Download.com

2005-07-28T20:33:00.000+08:00

Check out the revamped Download.com. Now with the new "greeny & yellowish" look.

RightMark CPU Clock (RMClock) Utlity 1.6 Released

2005-07-28T20:26:00.000+08:00

Check out the latest RightMark CPU Clock Utility version 1.6 at http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml

Now with added features and bug-fixes..

Version 1.6 Changelog

New P-States Transitions management with user-definable P-States table feature.
New unified PST/ODCM management scheme (when both PST and ODCM are used).
Single set of profiles for PST, ODCM and PST+ODCM management schemes.
Added optional OS load-based management (a workaround for Intel Centrino platform).
Removed "Run HLT command when OS is idle" option.
Fixed restoring of Advanced CPU settings upon resume from Standby/Hibernate modes.
Added more configuration options for AMD K7 CPU family.
Added power management-related chipset configuration options for Intel Centrino platform (i855/i915M series).
Added FID/VID transition stabilization time setting for Intel Pentium 4 and Pentium M processors.
Fixed Transmeta LongRun Table Interface info.
Added independent AC and Battery settings for Transmeta processors.
CPU Load and Throttled Clock are now reported as "N/A" when CPU does not support necessary features.
Added logging period limiting and log file "rotating" (when max logging period elapses and at the program startup).
Added command-line parameters support (CPU info dump, profile change and exit commands).

Omega Drivers for ATI Graphics

2005-07-28T19:50:00.000+08:00

Check out this set of pre-tweaked ATI Catalyst drivers from Omegadrive..

The Omega Drivers are tweaked to support all Radeon graphic cards from the 7xxx series till the Xxxx series. It also supports ATI's Mobility Radeon chipsets from M6 and up. This set of drivers provides some tweaks and allow you to customize almost every expect of your graphic card.

Proven to provide performance gain for your ATI card, this driver is ideal for gamers that demand maximum performace from their graphic card. The Omega Drivers also provide maximum control over all aspects of their graphic card and some adjustment switches that are usually not accessible through normal Catalyst drivers.

The Omega Drivers is also perfect for notebook users with ATI graphics as the Omega Catalyst supports all ATI Mobility chipsets from the M6 and up, plus the driver is also frequently updated, and is usually released after each Catalyst release.

With a special edition ATI Tray Tools added to provide maximum graphic driver settings control together with loads of other additional feature that might come in handy.

Download the latest Omega Drivers from http://www.omegadrivers.net/ to unleash the full potential of your ATI Graphic Processor.

Notebook CPU Undervolting

2005-05-24T12:25:00.000+08:00

Since I have my own laptop now, it is my tradition to keep looking for ways to tweak it to the max. After lurking around several Internet forums, I found out that I could under-volt my lappy processor..

Yes! It's not overclocking, it's not over-volting, but it's under-volting.. The main goal of undervolting is to try to reduce the level of voltage that is required to run the CPU (thus allow a cooler operating CPU), while maintaining maximum system stability without sacrificing performance.

RM Clock Utility is the application required to do undervolting on your laptop.. tested to run on most Intel Pentium-M processors, but it should run on systems with other processors that supports P-State Transitions..

More info can be found in this post at Notebook Forums

Apple with an Intel Inside?!

2005-05-24T11:55:00.000+08:00

It seems like Apple wants Intels to make their CPUs..

According to Reuters.com, it seems that Appple Computer Inc. have been in discussion and which could lead into a decision to use chips from Intel Corp.

While Apple may use Intel chips in their Macs, but some forummers stated that Apple is more interested in Intel's Dothan processors (Pentium-M) than their desktop counterparts. This could be true since the current line of PowerBooks are using PowerPC processors from IBM that deliver adequate performance, but at a price, in which IBM's PowerPC processors require more juice to power them.

So.. it seem like the elusive Apple would not be too elusive after all.. with a dab of Intel Inside, I wonder how this will affect IBM in producing PowerPC processors for Apple..

Minesweeper Trick

2005-05-23T02:21:00.000+08:00

Found an "old" cool trick for Windows' Minesweeper game..

This trick is used to reveal the mine underneath the tile (you can call this a cheat, but I called it a trick.. :D)

To reveal the mine, with your cursor inside the minesweeper window type "XYZZY" then press Shift-Enter and Enter. A white dot should appear in the upper-left corner of the screen. If it turns black, your cursor is resting on a mine.

This trick works best if your Windows background is black. Also note that the code will not work in all versions of Windows

Life's like that...

2005-05-23T01:32:00.000+08:00

And now.. more on Bob's new boring life..

Well, you couldn't ask for more (literally).. with college studies ahead, I can't seem to afford crapping around here and there.. but with some effort, I do hope that I can balance my college life and my Internet life.. :D

The Acer TravelMate 3202XCi lappy that I got for my college use can't do any better than I expected.. All it wants is to visit the Acer service centre all the time..

Now it's my college semester break, can't be any better if it wasn't for the damn pipe-renovating work at my house.. Just hope that I would not stink after several days of improper bathing..

Now all I have to do is to wait for the next semester to start and hopefully that everything will get better by then.. and hopefully that the school will have WiFi access installed by then..

KaZaA Lite is Resurrected!

2005-01-01T13:02:00.000+08:00

Yo, KaZaA Lite fans out there, I've just discovered (maybe a bit late) a new generation of KaZaA Lite P2P client that has been released by the fans of KaZaA Lite.. It's called KaZaA Lite Resurrection and it's quite similliar to the old version of KaZaA Lite (and the KaZaA/Morpheus in the early days) with several added features. This software is ad-free/spyware free so do check it out P2P fans!

http://www.filesharingplace.com/p2pclients.php
http://klr.no-ip.com/

What a year!

2005-01-01T02:43:00.000+08:00

Man.. year 2004 has been a year filled with loads of events.. from the computing world to the real-life world.. I can't just seem to keep up with the events in the world these days..

The year 2004 has just passed a few hours ago, and I'm still wide awake, not able to sleep but to think on the things to do in the new year.. and also what had happened last year..

In my computing adventure, I have just learned the "art" of overclocking last year.. my interest in overclocking started when I got a Radeon 9550 graphic card a few months ago. I started with browsing several Internet sites and found out that this is a card that can be pushed to the extreme limit.. so my overclocking journey started with the tweaking of the graphic card and I was addicted to it.. now, the card was barely the same as it was used to be.. and it performed a lot better on my PC than an un-tweaked card (and should be better on a newer system)..

With several attempts to "enhance" my antique old PC, I have also ventured into the computer modding industry where I have first completed my project on modifying the outlook of my old computer by giving it a complete colour treatment from the PC casing to the monitor, to the keyboard.. I can say I learned a lot about computers..

This is the year where I started to join a computing forum and got addicted with it.. CHIP Malaysia Online Forum is the forum where I first got seriously in the foum business.. it's a wonderful place where I get to know a lot from other computer user.. it's not just strictly restricted to computing, but it's a place where we can share our computing experience while have fun knowing and chatting with each other..

As for my schooling journey, I hoped (and prayed) that it would not just end there. Finishing my SPM is such a relief, but getting the result in late Febuary is a shocking business.. so do hope (and pray) for me to get better results..

As for my life, there's been a lot of challenges. Just recently, I've just started to apply for a driver's licence, and man, it was not as easy as I think.. with a lot of rules to remember and skills to practice, I still have a long way to go before obtaining my licence to drive..

Speaking of the past events, there's been the terrible tsunami that hit many of the country including Malaysia where a total of more than 100, 000 people suffered deaths.. it's the biggest event of the century and I do hope that help will be given to the people who suffered lost relatives and the loss of properties..

Until then, I shall stop my bragging about the past year and start the new year with a new resolution.. God bless, and happy new year (2005)..!

6-months of inactivity and I'm back?

2005-01-01T02:26:00.000+08:00

Well, it's been almost (if not more) than 6 months I've touched on my blog. So here it is, I'm starting it again in this new year of 2005! With months of agonising school life, it was hard to maintain both my study and my blog, so I decided to leave it a side for a while.. but no fret, now I'm back, I've decided to update this blog as often as posibble in this new year..

Happy New Year to you all and may God bless you all!

- Bob

Photo Sharing IM anyone?

2004-07-22T16:10:00.000+08:00

Boy.. it's been a long time since my last blog... well.. no big deal..

Straight to the topic then..
Photo Sharing + IM.. Newest trend in town.. but sadly, few people in Malaysia know about it at the time of writing this blog. The concept is quite new and quite nice as it uses P2P sharing technology (P2P stands for Peer-to-Peer, similar to those that you use to download those "jolly-roger branded" MP3s (cough!) off the Internet.

This new service offered is called Hello, which is operated by the people who made Picasa photo management program, which is now owned by Google... (talk about ownership these days..)

Feature wise, it has almost all the basic features a simple user that would need to conduct an IM session. With simple interface, and almost no configuration needed from the end user, plus the important part of the photo sharing and buddy-list-type system included makes this IM cum photo sharing service a snap to use.

With close intergration with the Blogger blogging service, users can upload photos and use photos to blog their way through their blogs without logging into the Blogger website.

This is indeed a nice piece of software, if you ask me.. so.. anyone interested should head to http://www.hello.com/ to sign up get a copy of Hello photo sharing IM for free. If you are really interested, please also check out Picasa, a photo management program, now offered FREE by Google at http://www.picasa.com/

iZotope "Good 'ol" Vinyl

2004-06-30T00:39:00.000+08:00

This is a free (yes, free!) audio processing plug-in that supports Pro Tools 6.1+ (HTDM, RTAS, and AudioSuite Windows), VST, and DirectX interfaces. It is the ultimate lo-fi filteration plug-in that uses 64-bit processing, up to 192kHz sampling, advanced filtering, modeling, and resampling to create the most authenic 'vinyl' sounds. It can also be used to create almost true-to-life modern ways of audio distortion effects.

iZotope Vinyl Plug-In (VST Mode) in Adobe Audition 1.5

There are several tweaks that the user can adjust to further distort the audio to make it 'older'.
Mechanical Noise - adjust the amount of turntable motor rumble and noise.
Electrical Noise - adjust the amount of internally generated electrical noise, such as 60 Hz grounding hum.
Wear - control how worn out the record is, from brand new to played a few thousand times.
Dust - adjust the amount of dust on the record.
Scratch - increase/decrease the number and depth of scratches on the record.
Warp - adjust the amount of warping and the warp shape for the record - from no warp to the edges totally melted and warped.

The plugin however is a little buggy. It refused to work in DirectX mode while I'm using Adobe Audition 1.5, forcing me to use it in VST mode. Maybe this is due to some of the problems in Adobe Audition 1.5 because I am able to use it in full DirectX mode using Cool Edit Pro 2.1. Sound effects are second to none and it provides the most simple way of getting some 'old moods' into the music today without much fuss. For those who wants more advanced tweaking and processing on audio distortion, there is also a much advanced plug-in that came with the name iZotope Trash that is not limited to only process music but to add real-life effects and distortions to musical instruments. It also uses the same 64-bit percision processing core to generate such realistic effects.

For the MP3 fans who wants to add some zest to your music, consider to get the seperate iZotope Vinyl plug-in for Winamp which can be obtained from here.

The Easter Egg
There is an "almost hidden" easter egg that will show the credit for the plug-in developers.
Just follow the steps below to view it:

Start the plug-in.

Click on one of the four screws that 'hold' the 'front cover'. You will see the screws fall off their place (literally).

Finish clicking any three screws will cause the 'front plate' to fall off, dangling sideways.

Finish clicking all four screws will cause the 'front plate' to fall off completely, displaying the plug-in developer credits.

Click on any part of the screen to put back the 'front plate' (return to the normal interface). Double-click any one of the screws while "un-screwing" them will cause all the screws to re-screw back to their places.

Brand New "Cool" Audition

2004-06-27T12:47:00.000+08:00

For those who used Cool Edit Pro before, you would know that both Adobe Audition and Cool Edit Pro have something (well, almost everything) in common. That is to say, they are exactly the same software which had just switched hands. Adobe brought over the Syntrillium company that makes Cool Edit Pro some time ago and tweaked it and changed its name to Adobe Audition.

The Nice-and-Easy interface of Adobe Audition 1.5

For you can see in the screen shot, it looks just almost exactly the same as Cool Edit Pro, but with some changes and minor tweaks in the interface and the software core. Nothing much had changed except that it (in my experience) uses more memory and consume more resources than Cool Edit Pro.

However, there are new items added like the in-house CD burning feature that cannot be missed. There are also one added extra feature which is the multi-channel encoder that lets you create, well, 5.1 channel surround sound audio files. The end file format which can be in multiple single channel wave file, a single multi-channel wave file, or the 'new' WMA Professional Audio multichannel Codec *.wma file.

Overall, this is a good audio editing software that suit many individuals. With some minor tweaks from the original version, this is already a nice updated version that can be put to use for some time.

P2P The New Way

2004-06-25T23:42:00.000+08:00

While the music record companies are trying their best effort to stop P2P file sharing for free, prople around the world are using P2P clients like KaZaA, iMesh, LimeWire, Morpheus, etc. to get their MP3s off the net. While there are some clients who gained much popularity, like KaZaA and Morpheus, from the P2P crowd drung their 'golden years' are now starting to degrade. As a result, users are now limited in many ways to prevent them to download high-quality MP3s off their service. For example, users of KaZaA will frequently found that most of them cannot download MP3s with the bitrate higher than 128 Kbps. Although there are hacks for it, still, the hacks are not efficient enough, users will have to keep updating their KaZaA client in order to download high-quality MP3s successsfully without any errors.

Open Source, Open Freedom
There is however with an open standard, users are able to share high-quality files wihout being feared downloading a whole 3 minutes of nothing but buzzing noise. Introducing WinMX from FrontCode Technologies. They use a decentralised WinMX Peer Network to enable users to share files freely as well as the "open" type of network (OpenNap) which users can connect to access privately owned servers. Although the interface of WinMX is quite cluttered, however despite the features and the quality of downloads, plus the absence of spyware and advertisements, the clutterness of the interface can be ignored.

Get WinMX at WinMX.com

Harry Potty and The Prisoner of "Far-Far Away"

2004-06-25T18:16:00.000+08:00

With the release of 2 "new" movies recently.. one from Warner Bros. and one from DreamWorks, I had been twitching to go and see these 2 movies. Of course, if you still don't know what I'm talking of, it's the two new movie, Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban and Shrek 2.

Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban
Well, this is the 3rd Harry Potter movie and in this new flim, there had been many changes from many aspect. They've changed the director, some of the cast, and they even changed some part of the script (!), making it a little 'un-original'. Unlike the previous 2 movies, they altered the story line so much that it doesn't actually seem to be what Harry Potter "supposed to be".. (they've removed and altered some scenes and added some scenes that wasn't supposed to be in the movie). Plus, the effects that in this movie are not quite nice, compared to the previous two movies. Enough of all the negative points, I personally think that the director should do much better than this.. Keeping much to the story line and don't add and alter too much of the story line. Overall, this movie is a little disappointing, despite that the 2 previous Harry Potter movie looks more "professional"...

Shrek 2
Although I didn't see the 1st Shrek movie, from the 2nd movie, I can get some idea on how the first movie go. This movie overall is quite funny, despite being a computer animated flim. The story line are humerous, mixing in elements from the medival ages with the social lifestyle and elements of today. It will sure give it's audiences a good laugh..

The Big 'G'mail

2004-06-24T17:46:00.000+08:00

For those who are really tech-savvy and gone through the every inch of the Internet, you might have probably found out about the Google Gmail service. It offers users a whole 1 Gigabyte (Yes, you heard me, ~1000MB) of web mail storage space!

I've been trying to get on one of these Gmail account for some time and I have been able to get one finally when I log into my old Blogspot account and found a link to the sign up page. For those who wants to get one Gmail account, don't bother to sign up at Blogspot now because the link is only available to those who are frequent bloggers in Blogspot.

Logging into the Gmail account, I've found out that the web mail interface is somewhat to the popular Google Search interface. It also have a search bar on top of it to find any e-mail in the huge pile of e-mail (once you get enough mails to fill in your 1GB space). Sending e-mail however require some time, probably several minutes in order to receive it on the other end. This was probably due to the heavy load of the mail server handling all the 'huge' e-mails that the Gmail users are sending around.. As for the available attachment size, I've heard people sending an attachment as big as 10 Megabyte!

With all these 'out-of-this-world' features, Google will be expecting some serious business and other e-mail operators will have to bump up their service in order to meet competition. Many Gmail users will find delight that instead of serving fancy graphics/flash/animated ads, the Gmail currently will be serving Google Text-based ads, making the life of dial-up users a whole lot easier!

It's A Whole New Blog..!

2004-06-24T13:45:00.000+08:00

Welcome to my blog..
Just for your information, this blog site will be updated with tech-related information, besides that, it will also contains non-tech related information for you all to view. Please enjoy your "stay" here..

Thank you.
Bob