Celebrating 20 years of Nonsense, Powered by Cats' Natural Intelligence.
Two more reviews for Vista PC’s are coming in the pipeline.
The first one is Gateway GT5404 Desktop. It’s similar to Gateway GT5408 but with slightly less feature (read the review here).
The second one is HP Pavilion a1700n.
I’ll post it within the coming week. Stay tuned.
Apple has posted an article on South Park Studios on its website as part of the Pro Profiles.
UPDATE:
Roadrunnerrecords.com mentions that the digital single will be on sale on April 14th. The release date might be different in different countries/territories.
According to Roadrunner Records UK, Megadeth’s first single off “United Abominations” CD will be released on April 23rd as digital single. It is currently unclear if “A Tout Le Monde (Set Me Free)” digital single will only be released exclusively in the UK. The single might appear on iTunes Store, Napster, Zune Store, etc.
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.co.uk/news/sendto.aspx?newsitemID=15562
Megadeth‘s “United Abominations” is scheduled for release on May 15th, 2007. The single “A Tout Le Monde (Set Me Free)” was originally rearranged and re-recorded as bonus track/B-side for Japanese market and for the future special edition of the CD. The new version of the song features vocals by Christina Scabbia (Lacuna Coil) and additional original guitar solo by Glen Drover. The video for the song was shot in Los Angeles on March 8th and 9th, shortly before Megadeth went on the road supporting Heaven and Hell (Dio-era Black Sabbath).
“Set Me Free (A Tout Le Monde)” was released as radio single on March 16th, 2007. Dave Mustaine explained that the song is now titled “A Tout Le Monde (Set Me Free)” for the CD and “Set Me Free (A Tout Le Monde)” for the radio.
Megadeth “United Abominations” Line-Up:
Dave Mustaine – Lead Vocals, Lead, Rhythm and Acoustic Guitars
Glen Drover – Lead and Rhythm Guitars
James LoMenzo – Bass
Shawn Drover – Drums
Megadeth DVD “That One Night – Live in Buenos Aires” is now available for purchase at Amazon.com. It was released on March 06, 2007.
This Gateway® GT5408 Desktop is one of three Vista PC’s I worked on shortly after Windows Vista was released. The other two are Gateway® GT5404 Desktop and HP Pavilion Slimline s7700n PC.
Specifications
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E4300 dual-core Processor 64-bit processor with Intel® EM64T Technology (1.80GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache)
Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Chipset: Intel® 945G DH Chipset(Viiv™)
Memory: 1024MB dual-channel DDR2 Memory (2 x 512MB), 533MHz (PC4200). Expandable to 4GB (2x2048MB) 667MHz (PC5300)
Video: Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with up to 224MB Shared Video Memory – VGA port
Audio: 8-Channel (7.1) High Definition Audio
Hard Drive: 320GB SATA II (7200rpm, 8MB cache)10
Optical Drives: 16x multiformat dual-layer DVD±RW drive
15-in-1 Digital Media Manager™ (Memory Card Reader)
56K ITU V.92 ready fax/modem (RJ-11 port)
Intel® 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)
6 USB 2.0 Ports (2 in front, 4 in back)
2 IEEE 1394 port “FireWire” (1 in front, 1 in back)
1 Parallel Port, 1 Serial Port
2 PS/2 Ports (Keyboard and Mouse)
5 Audio (Rear): Front/Headphone (Stereo), Rear (Stereo), Center/Sub, Microphone, Line-in/Side (Stereo), plus S/PDIF Optical
2 Audio (Front): Microphone, Front/Headphone (Stereo)
1 PCI-E x16, 1 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI
Out of the box, Gateway GT5408 Desktop is somewhat an adequate performer. It does have an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor for nice performance potential. It comes with 1GB of RAM (2x512MB) and an integrated Intel GMA 950 with up to 224MB shared video memory. That leaves 800MB of RAM to the system. Booting Windows Vista on this PC is a little bit painful. Right of the bat Windows Vista is using 700MB-900MB of RAM and settles around 500MB.
To increase the performance of this computer, consider upgrading the Memory to at least 2GB and/or installing a decent Video Card with minimum of dedicated 128MB of video RAM.
This computer comes with an optical mouse and a USB-powered stereo speaker. The mouse is nice enough to use. The speaker lacks low frequency and sounds terrible when it comes to music.
…….to be updated
Apple updates iTunes again, 11 days after version 7.1 was released.
iTunes 7.1.1 addresses a stability issue and minor compatibility problems in iTunes 7.1.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
In somewhat related news, Apple has also re-released iPod shuffle Reset Utility and renamed it to simply iPod Reset Utility. The utility supports 1st and 2nd generation iPod shuffle. (03.15.2007)
About iPod Reset Utility 1.0 for Windows
Use iPod Reset Utility to restore the following iPod models back to their factory settings, when iTunes is unable to do so:
– iPod shuffle (1st Generation)
– iPod shuffle (2nd Generation)
iPod Reset Utility 1.0 for Mac – 3.4MB
iPod Reset Utility 1.0 for Windows – 2.2MB
If you’re using Windows Vista and iTunes, please read the following Apple knowledgebase:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305042
Following “The Hand That Feed” and “Only”, Nine Inch Nail’s “Survivalism” is released in GarageBand Format. (104MB)
Nine Inch Nail also plan to release every track on “Year Zero” in GarageBand format (and maybe others) gradually for the next few months.
From nin.com:
Surprise! Click here to download the multitrack session for Survivalism in GarageBand* format. No strings attached. Similar to what we did with The Hand That Feed and Only. You now have the ability to reconstruct / deconstruct Survivalism any way you choose. We will soon present the details on where you can upload your own mixes so get to work and have fun with this!
[We plan to release every track on the album this way over the next few months… Keep checking back]
*Mac OS X with GarageBand 3 Required
In lieu of Patch Tuesday, Microsoft releases Service Pack 2 for 64-bit Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sp2/overview.mspx
Windows Server 2003 x86 (32-bit) Service Pack 2
WindowsServer2003-KB914961-SP2-x86-ENU.exe – 372.0 MB
Windows Server 2003 x64 (64-bit) and Windows XP x64 (64-bit) Service Pack 2
WindowsServer2003.WindowsXP-KB914961-SP2-x64-ENU.exe – 350.9 MB