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| 08-30-05 / 11:30 PM : The Age of Ilathid : a free Myst like (cjed) |
| Game The Age of Ilathid is an opensource project (developped by some french people) that uses the Myst concept to create 9 new "Ages" to explore. Cyan Myst editor approved this project, as for as they don't make money with it. From the new trailer, the realization seems even better than in original Myst games. In fact it is far more better than the two Rhem episodes (commercial) also derived from Myst. There was another game in this category, Alida, that was high rated.s |
| 5 comment |
| 08-30-05 / 10:35 PM : Garritan Jazz & Big Band (cjed) |
 Garritan, famous editor of the Garritan Personnal Orchestra, ships Jazz & Big Band, a 4 Go library for Kontakt, aimed at Jazz (299$). We find here a huge collection of saxes and brass, with the addition of piano, bass, guitars, drums and percussions. Some demos are available on the site. Except brass and some sax, these instruments do not sound so punchy. However, the included Steinway B cannot be worse than the Steinway D from Kontatk 2 library... An amazing link, at the end of the demos page. |
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| 08-30-05 / 02:12 PM : All particular stuff you do (cjed) |
| To go further with "about what friends do", i invite you to post in comments the urls of your sites/blogs, in order to add them in the Links section. You can also speak about any of your original activities : art (draw, painting... music), "exotic" sport, book. |
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| 08-29-05 / 11:54 PM : Myth I & II revival on OSX (cjed) |
| Projectmagma allows fans to play again Myth (revolutionnary game from Bungie, like was Halo some years later in another category) and Myth II on MacOSX. Some explanations on this article from macobserver. |
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| 08-29-05 / 11:46 PM : First reviews of SW Battlefront (cjed) |
| StarWars battlefront, that led to high expectations on mac, is shipping. Primary tests are very encouraging. Let's start with a short article from Macworld, and continue with a more detailed review from jeuxmac.com. |
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| 08-29-05 / 09:04 PM : Interview of Brad Oliver (cjed) |
| MacGamer offers a (short) interview of Brad Oliver, famous programmer responsible for the MAME port on the mac. He now works for Westlake Interactive. He says MacMAME is good at benching computers. This emulator has been developped for 10 years, and brings more than 6000 arcade games to the macs and pcs. These games from 80's and early 90's mostly used Motorola 6x00 (and later 68k) processors. Here is the perfect companion for this kind of game. |
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| 08-29-05 / 08:33 PM : Rio stops mp3 players (cjed) |
| Rio stops production of mp3 players, due to to iPod supremacy. After september, 30, only support will be provided. If we consider that Apple's competitors on the online music market are yet unable to beat the ITMS, we can dream about the success of upcoming MacIntel, PC compatibles. Personnaly i disliked the Rio players appearance, their size, and was sceptic concerning the audio quality of their D/A converters. |
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| 08-26-05 / 11:00 PM : My last movies reviews (cjed) |
| No traduction yet, please switch to french mode. |
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| 08-25-05 / 11:05 AM : 4 new sample songs (cjed) |
| Here are 4 new sample songs from the Library (mp3 256 kb). These songs have been remixed in 2004 (orginal mix from the JV880 dubbed with a new mix from the XV5050). (These songs are copyrighted. They have been deposited at the Syndicat National des Auteurs Compositeurs) Dynamic (1998) remix 2004 Emotional (1997) remix 2004 Expect (1997) remix 2004 Tendance (1998) remix 2004 |
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| 08-22-05 / 10:13 PM : The geek attitude ! (vincent) |
| Here is a funny test to evaluate your own geek attitude, in french but it is freely adapted from a US website Innergeek . I'm sure that Jérôme will beat me at that survey ! |
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| 08-21-05 / 10:27 PM : To speak about friends : the Doune's site (cjed) |
| Olivier, alias Doune Super Sweet is a talented composer and keyboardist (mainly electro music, but also pop, with some orchestral sections sometimes) I met a year ago. The band he founded recently, Doune, is giving concerts and was nominated in various contests (also worked for TV documentary soundtrack). The Doune's new site, very original, provides samples of their songs, some photos and lyrics. A seven titles self produced CD can also be purchased. My favorite songs are In2222, Son indiférence, and Who is the ennemy (beautiful orchestration), featuring Ana's voice. |
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| 08-21-05 / 03:20 PM : Let's have fun with finns ;) (vincent) |
| Some jokes coming from our finnish friends, Connected To Finland. There are some funny translations in english ! |
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| 08-21-05 / 01:31 AM : Unreal Engine 4 in progress (cjed) |
| Computerandvideogames publishs an interview of Epic VP, about the development of the Unreal Engine 4. Despites the recent licencing of the UE 3, Epic says they already started the project two years ago, and that the next generation engine will widen the gap with its competitors. Already, the UE3 is fabulous (see recent news). |
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| 08-20-05 / 10:40 AM : MJ : The Ultimate Collection (cjed) |
 I recently noticed that a MJ collector shipped some months ago. It contains 5 CDs that cover all era ot the artist, and a 2h concert DVD at Bucarest. As it is the only one available, and as the concert DVD alone costs 16,50 euros, the 55 euros for the collector are raisonnably priced i find. Moreover a lot of unreleased songs (really) are included, and finally it will allow to rediscover some songs with a better quality (some of us have them on K7... or even vinyls !)The Ultimate Collection |
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| 08-20-05 / 10:20 AM : Starwars Episode III : 3 months before the DVD (cjed) |
 The DVD of the last Starwars chapter will be available november, 18, 2005. Light on the projectors ! |
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| 08-20-05 / 12:58 AM : ATI Radeon 9600 Pro Mac & PC compatible (cjed) |
| Ati ships a Mac and PC compatible version of its Radeon 9600 pro. This 256 MB card is priced 199$. Surely a good addition for an old G4, as the 9800 pro (275 euros) requires a G5, and the 9600 Pro is compatible with Core Image and Quartz 2D Extreme (for an incredible boost in display). Finally the 9600 Pro is able to operate with the Apple 30" LCD display. On the other hand the 9000 Pro (installed by default in G4 MDD) is sold 125 euros, and it does not manage these technologies. |
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| 08-20-05 / 12:39 AM : Myst V : beyond that, the demo (cjed) |
| What a pleasure to discover the availibility of a Myst V demo today, following the recent preview. This one takes 475 Mo (15 mn download time with my rate of 460 ko/s tonight, that is close to 4 mbits/s) ! The night might be short... |
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| 08-19-05 / 01:04 AM : Full Iridium theme for Tiger (cjed) |
| Sagefire.org provides a macosx theme, named Iridium, that applies to all windows (including Finder and others applications) the aspect introduced by Tiger in the Preferences panel. I like it better than the iTunes appearance that spreaded in all OSX since Panther. The theme can be installed using ThemeChanger or ShapeShifter. |
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| 08-18-05 / 12:56 AM : Myst V preview (cjed) |
 Gamespot published a preview of the forthcoming Myst V end of the Ages, expected for september on PC and mac (see also the new screenshots).Is is probably the last article before the whole review. |
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| 08-18-05 / 12:52 AM : Last Quake IV's news (cjed) |
 Worthplaying.com published this week two articles on the forthcoming Quake IV (expected Q4 2005 on PC et Xbox) : the former upon new functionnalities (details on singleplayer and multiplayer modes, various new screenshots), and the later, an interview of Tim Willits, from Id Software. I never played Doom III, however the screenshots show some inspiration from that game. Perhaps there will be a true scenario this time (see PC gamers critics) ! |
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| 08-17-05 / 11:05 PM : Miroslav Philharmonik : another orchestra ! (cjed) |
 This is definitively the "Symphonic libraries" year, IK Multimedia ships Miroslav Philharmonik, a library of 1300 instruments (7 Go total), including the usual orchestral instruments families, plus choirs samples. The patchs list shows their memory usage, that is lower than in Symphonic Orchestra Gold (hence the higher instruments count. Perhaps the sampling is not chromatic).Miroslav Vitous, famous jazz bass player, is the creator of the original orchestral samples bank of the same name, that was the best in this area for years. These samples are well known for their warmth, despites a lower memory size. When listening to the demos, it is obvious that the sounds have personnality and are fat, especially the strings ensembles (famous). Moreover the virtual instrument (derived from IK SampleTank) includes a specific reverb (Classik Studio Reverb), that leads to an incredible depth, in fact better than SO Gold's reverb trails. For now it is difficult to judge of the overall quality, as it would imply listening to demos from the same songs. Until end september the introduction price allows a substantial save (from 499 down to 419 euros) ... however i won't be able to buy all of them !s |
| 2 comment |
| 08-17-05 / 12:50 AM : Zero G's Nostalgia : 40 years of synths (cjed) |
 The famous samples editor Zero G announced Nostalgia, a 1300 patchs library containing synth sounds from the past 40 years (in only 1,3 Go space). Besides most classics, we find here sounds from the D50, M1, SY85, Korg Wavestation and Prophecy, Kawai K5000, organs (B3, Farfisa), drumboxes samples (HR16, nostalgia...), synth strings, and finally special effects and atmospheric sounds.The number of instruments covered is huge and the patchs list can be downloaded. I wonder how all of these sounds can fit on so less space. I have doubt concerning the number of multisamples, and when you know how horrible sampled synth can sound (i remember the synth sounds on the Roland's Techno card)... However the two demos provided on the site deserved the library for a punchy and warm sound (notably the drums, FM bass, Vangelis analog bass from Blade Runner's theme, ... and the wonderful shakuachi used in the Ushuaïa gingle). After all Zero G pioneered in that domain and its products always had positive reviews. As usual the soft operates as a specific Kompakt virtual instrument. |
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| 08-17-05 / 12:11 AM : Quake 3 engine source code soon (cjed) |
| In his keynote at the QuakeCon 2005, John Carmack revealed that the Quake 3 engine's source code will be released under GPL within a week. He wishes that commercial games using it would do the same, although it is highly improbable for past games. Hence for 3D engines fans like me (developped a whole 3D engine from scratch five years ago when i was student, that implemented Z buffering, Gouraud and Phong's shading...) it is a great news. However recent 3D engines make a lot of use of 3D graphic cards (for Z buffering for example) and frameworks (such as OpenGL), therefore the interesting stuff can be hidden. |
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| 08-16-05 / 11:31 PM : A map of the Paris's subway for the iPod (cjed) |
 The famous iPodGeneration site unveiled a map of Paris's subway for the iPod photo and new iPods. An overall picture presents the zones, that are clickable (selection through the well), and lead to a detailed view (zoomed view).s |
| 2 comment |
| 08-16-05 / 02:25 AM : My 7 Symphonic Orchestra demos online (cjed) |
| I finally ended up with publishing on the dedicated soundsonline forum my seven demos made with EastWest/Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Gold. It is there. I also decided to add a link to my first rock/pop song made entirerly with Kontakt 2, MK2Chorus (not easy because for me these samples aren't so punchy and then it takes a long time for ideas to surface). |
| 1 comment |
| 08-15-05 / 03:23 AM : Syndication : RSS export (cjed) |
| For those who don't like the greys colors on the site... a new link allows to retrieve news as an RSS flow (in english or french, according to the mode currently in use). Then a resume can be viewed in your prefered RSS news reader : look how it renders in the great NetNewsWire or the famous Safari RSS from Tiger. |
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| 08-13-05 / 12:35 AM : Account creation (cjed) |
| Sign in is now managed automatically (email validation), through a link below the login area. It does not give access to compositions however (requires a separate account on the Darwin Streaming Server). The language is now defaulted to english. |
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| 08-11-05 / 09:56 PM : StudioCase number 2 (vincent) |
| Steinberg should release sooner or later the new StudioCase, now in red color, with the same plugins as the previous. If there is The Grand2 and SL3/SX3 like version of Cubase SE, I may want to buy it ! |
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| 08-11-05 / 04:53 PM : History of the DXs (cjed) |
 In an article from Soundonsound published in 2001, we discover the whole story of the Yamaha DXs FM synthesizers. In particular we find pictures of the less known DX1 and DX5. As for the TX81Z and other last 4OPs models (YS200/TQ5/V50), it is said that they were 16 bits (14 bits converters in the first DX 6OPs). |
| 1 comment |
| 08-11-05 / 01:56 PM : Interview of a Theremin player (vincent) |
Yet another interview, of Pamelia Kurstin on MacMusic.org. The instrument that she is playing perfectly (that's impressive in itself) is the oldest synth ever created but not very well known, hence I think she's not famous to the wide public eyes. She will be on tour in europe during next winter, including in Paris as far as I know. Few days ago, I've seen concert from rock band Dyonisos in which the violin player was also playing with Theremin sometimes ! |
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| 08-11-05 / 01:16 AM : Site referenced by Yahoo, Stats (cjed) |
| Google took few weeks to refer the site, starting march. Four months later it finally appears in Yahoo search engine, with a higher number of incoming links (including my CV, at rank number one). I would like to thank Peeyo for having posted a link from his own site (i did the same in my Links-->Site design heading). After few months the popularity of the site is surprinsing, 1200 visits and close to 50 000 hits, including 5 percents from US, and some percents from other european countries. This is why i started translating the news last days. All of this without substantial work to progress in the ranks (except writing many articles, but outgoing links count less in the algorithm used). Finally thanks to Vincent for having posted many comments and having collaborated to writing news. |
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| 08-09-05 / 11:48 PM : OpenGL 2 / Direct3D : the last fight (cjed) |
| While Silicon Graphics and the OARB have finally ratified the OpenGL 2.0 specifications (and his shading scripting language), Microsoft drops a bomb announcing that Windows Vista will not support OpenGL natively. In fact the instructions will be emulated through Direct3D equivalent APIs, that will affect considerably the performances. Worse, 3D softwares, if used in window mode (ie not fullscreen) won't be able to use OpenGL simultaneously with the OS graphic effects ! So Microsoft is pushing PC developpers to their limits, forcing them to use Direct3D over OpenGL. Besides, in the macworld, MacOSX supports 77% of OpenGL 2.0 (and 100% of OpenGL 1.x) APIs at this time. |
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| 08-09-05 / 11:21 PM : What if Apple had a plan under the hoods (cjed) |
| Some people (including John Dvorak in a recent article) think that the Intel chip preventing OSX from running on regular PCs, is a lure. And that Apple will, shortly after Mactel ship, release OSX on all PCs. What about the Sony announce of willing to use OSX on the Playstation (yes, OSX works on Cell, indeed assertions from Apple that these chips are too specialized to run a complex OS). Recent co-working between Apple and Sony (video, etc.) leads to the idea that all is tied : Apple would fight Microsoft (its historical ennemy) on the PC front, while Sony would take care of the console market to push away Microsoft's Xbox (and IBM would, indirectly, participate). What if the three companies had made a secret agreement to end up with the Microsoft era ? In fact, after his victory against cancer, perhaps Jobs thought he has only a single life, and that it is time to compensate mistakes made in the past.s |
| 2 comment |
| 08-09-05 / 04:49 PM : Interview of Stockhausen (vincent) |
| A new article from the news website Monde.fr : the interview of Karlheinz Stockhausen, one of the founders of the concrete or electro-acoustic music. He gives his vision of musical composition and the use of the always renewed technologies. He is sometimes rude with other musicians, but we discover his strange and original life style, as well as his music. I remember from my early music lessons (20 years ago) listening to scores that were played by a normal orchestra but distorted by the use of many electronic filters, which must have been quite weird to hear live ;). Btw. some of his concerts are given in the complete dark, unless the vision brings something to the masterpiece, such concept does not sound idiot. On the contrary the end of the interview dealing with ethic questions let me in doubt. We can't always agree on everything... |
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| 08-09-05 / 04:32 PM : Nano-replicants are coming (vincent) |
| No traduction yet, please switch to french mode. |
| 1 comment |
| 08-07-05 / 06:21 PM : Site internationalized (cjed) |
| The site is now also available in english (switch using links above login area). Recent news will be translated further, work in progress. |
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| 08-04-05 / 11:30 PM : Black & White 2 screenshots (cjed) |
 Lionhead has posted various screenshots of Black & White 2, the sequel of the famous strategy game where the player plays as...God ! As usual we found a personnal and original design mark. The game should be out at the end of the year. No demo annouced yet but trial version will be available late august at the Leipzig Games Convention 2005. [Update] A video is also available. |
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| 08-04-05 / 10:59 PM : Reference Portal site (RSS agregate) (cjed) |
| We knew RSS flows container sites in the mac community (like macsurfer.com), then we'll have to count on newsvortex, a french site very interesting (like a portlet view). It covers all computing media (mac, pc, console, games, hardware, etc.) and provides a nice price comparator. |
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| 08-04-05 / 10:41 PM : NI Kontakt 2 upgrade promo : big deal (cjed) |
| Native Insruments made a promo for the upgrade to Kontakt 2 (from a NI product, such as Kompakt or player included with samples libraries like SO Gold). As we can save up to 50% (250 euros final) I decided to catch up. Moreover Kontakt 2 management of Dfd is better than Kompakt's one (unusable), and it has not the annoying bug when releasing the sustain pedal (no reverb trails in Kompakt there, resulting in dry sound). Furthermore Kontakt 2 comes with 2 DVDs (15 Go), including a nice Steinway D as some said (will compensate its absence in Gold in regard to Silver, and will allow to compare it with the Roland Complete Piano card), Vienna Symphonic Library Strings (to check rumor saying they have a warmer sound than the SO Gold's ones), a church organ, a famous Rhodes, cool electric guitars, drums and a convolution reverb. All the infos |
| 1 comment |
| 08-04-05 / 09:34 PM : MOTU Symphonic Instrument (cjed) |
 The MSI samples library, announced some weeks ago, is making on stores. It gathers 8 Go of orchestral samples (also organ, choirs and piano) and a convolution reverb. It is there for the demos. Some sounds are original compared with SO Gold's ones, but finally they are missing dynamic, and also render much more synthetic, notably strings and brass. However it's cheaper (300 $). |
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| 08-03-05 / 09:24 PM : Apple Mighty Mouse (cjed) |
 As says Jacqui Cheng of Arstechnica, "Unless you've been stuck in an elevator for the past 24 hours, you've heard that Apple has released a multi-button mouse called the Mighty Mouse". In his very detailed review he reassures that there is no risks of intempestives right clicks, as left click has priority over right click (in terms of surface covered). And with defaults preferences the left and right click actions are identical, so the user experience is the same as with the classic Pro Mouse.A settings pannel allows to map various actions to the twos lateral buttons, and to the scroll bar, such as controlling Expose or Dashboard. Triggering of the buttons is followed by generated sounds (from a small internal pizzo speaker), that enhances the feed-back, and the scroll bar not only allows to scroll vertically, but also horizontally (on OSX only), and even in diagonal. Finally the scroll bar is clickable. |
| 1 comment |
| 08-03-05 / 01:20 AM : Synclavier : the legende sampled (cjed) |
 The Synclavier is a legendary synthesizer, that paved the way in seventies for modern workstations, based on multiple synthesis (FM, additive, sampling up to 100khz in 16 bits, DtD, graphical display for editing, OS, magneto-optical disks). Made famous by Michael Jackson and is work on sound (Thriller bell sound, deep strinfs), it costed no less than 1,5 MF first, and average 100 000$ later.ILIO company sells a CD-Rom of Synclavier strings sounds (Akai, Roland, Kurzweil, SampleCell). There is a demo and the included sounds list is available. All infos on the Synclavier line Complete description in french and photo Reviews at harmony-central |
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| 08-02-05 / 01:16 AM : Katie Melua DVD : On The Road Again (cjed) |
 Who has never heard about Katie Melua, this blue jazz singer with a so delightful voice, in fact she stayed at the top of the UK's charts for weeks last year. What a pleasure to stand ahead a new DVD of her in the store last week end... and i thought i was well informed. So i didn't resist to the temptation (i said to a friend), although i was septical about this, will there be reharshed medias, ever known, like these Norah Jones insipious DVDs ? Furthermore this one is a double DVD set (two times 80 minutes). So i was expecting some fake stuff.What a mistake i made having this thought, i only saw the first DVD for the moment (wich titles are recorded the same place, without any visible cut), but i can ever say it is wonderful. More than the stunning quality of picture and sound, what impressed me so much was the generosity and simplicity surounding the young woman (just 20), and her expressive and adorable brown eyes. Rare grace here and a so uncommon voice, so many emotions to share, no star system there... The players of her band are excellents, pro (and older) musicians : the guitarist, the guy at drums, the woman at the contrabass, the pianist (also producer of Katie), the trumpet's player and the keyboardist (two young people - the later, an original, demonstrated how to play the B3 on the Triton, having a key held on by a match, while he continued playing a solo...). The surprise came at the middle of the concert when the band played a rearranged version of The Cure's famous song "Love cats"... what a good choice ! Moreover there is plenty of new songs in the concert (some from the unreleased next album). Known titles are well reproduced and not boring, which is rare whatever show you see. |
| 1 comment |
| 08-01-05 / 01:19 AM : Windows InstallaVista Beta 1 (cjed) |
| The first beta version of Vista, alias Longhorn (such a name change that caused so many problems at Microsoft - because this name was ever used by another company), has been sent to developpers (the final release is programmed for 2006). We can ever found a detailed
review. Vista adds a new search engine alla Spotlight (slower, not as smart or elegant), a column browser that tends to immitate the one in MacOSX, a very identical organisation of preferences, some ideas taken from OSX for the interface : dynamic shadows, transparency, pulsating windows buttons when cursor comes above... Well, as usual with Microsoft it is not good looking, and there doesn't seem to be a mere composition engine under the hoods (like Quartz Extreme 2D). We can reasonably say that, in spite of its billions, Microsoft didn't even caught up MacOS X beta (2000) in terms of interface quality and frameworks complexity. The best of the "show", the menu bar, putted below the navigation tabs in IE 7 ! |
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