| french | english |
 |
|
| Sign in | |
| 02-27-08 / 08:23 PM : Centrino MacBook in June (cjed) |
| As new MacBook bring SSE4, Intel should ship starting June new centrino 2 solutions, including very low consumption processors (5,5W for a dual core 1,2Ghz, that is probably faster than a G4 1,25Ghz), FSB at 1066Mhz and a new GMA X4500 chipset (2 times more powerful than the GMA X3100, and allowing hardware Blu-Ray decoding). |
| Post a comment |
| 02-26-08 / 10:23 PM : New MacBookPro : the best choice (cjed) |
| As expected Apple a presented the new MacBook Pro, fitted with multitouch trackpad, and with the long awaited Penryn processors (6Mb of L2 cache at the processors frequency, SSE4 instructions that are necessary for good performance in pro audio&video softwares - imacs use the old processors with SSE3 instructions, that are still less powerful than G4's Altivec). The best model (price/performance ratio) is the entry level one, at 1999$, the 256Mb more (512Mb total) VRAM on the second model being unuseful, and other differences being minimal (slightly more powerful processor, 50Gb more disk space, one additional USB slot). The 500$ price difference isn't probably worth, considering the RAM is the same (2 Gb) in all three models. The 20"imac at 2,4Ghz, fitted with only 1Gb ram and a Radeon HD2600 Pro graphic card, is less powerfull (and also less portable and without multitouch nor LED backlit) and is however priced very close (1499$). We can then expect soon a price drop for the imacs. The new updated MacBook are very less interesting compared to the new Pro models : 1499$ for the MacBook 2,4Ghz (same Penryn processor with SSE4 but half the L2 cache), little screen size (and not LED), GMA video chipset, no firewire 800, no multitouch. In this case the 500$ price difference is more than worth. |
| Post a comment |
| 02-25-08 / 12:30 AM : AfGroove : Symphonic groove (cjed) |
 This song is based on an Artist Rhythm loop (through a convolution effect), a K2 pad and SO Gold XP :AfGroove |
| Post a comment |
| 02-23-08 / 03:10 PM : 20th composing anniversary (cjed) |
| Since 2008 start I've been composing from 20 years, as I started with upright piano in late 1987, and used a little later a Yamaha PSS270, 2 operators FM and stereo (see Songs section, year 1988). I haven't got any recordings from this instrument but a year later I remixed some songs with the PSS680 (a few dozens of songs recorded on tapes, that have been digitalized and remastered after the site creation). A very thank to people that allowed me to discover music making and synths. However only songs made since my first samples library buy (Symphonic Orchestra Gold, first in summer 2005) are provided (that is one hundred, from about 650 songs total), as they correspond to my new approach, started with the site creation : free music, and rights protection (creative commons nc&nd licence that doesn't allow commercial use nor derived work, and legal SNAC deposit). I haven't had any problems since (no rights infringments), and non commercial uses most of the times leaded to kind asked permissions that I always accepted. I even received recently in reward a DVD from a small local production company that used 3 songs. Numerous kind messages through mails, or comments at musique-libre.org are the most important. Some people would even buy me new instruments to improve the result (see a recent comment at musique-libre) ! :-) Some communities like Jamendo provide a donation system (not required however to listen to songs) but the files are available in master (CD) quality. I consider that full quality musics (and polished work) shouldn't be released for free, there should be a cost (variable, depending on the use, personnal listening or use in a non commercial project). Therefore I only provide songs in MP3 quality (great 192kbits encoding however), and they aren't all completed (more were the ten first years, but I had more time). The song Emotional (1996, see at musique-libre.org, last page) is ranked 43th over 20 000 songs total in the global ranking. Good listening !s |
| 2 comment |
| 02-22-08 / 11:16 PM : Site pages display speed problem : fixed (cjed) |
| Pages display on the site was very very slow since some time. In fact it was due to the pagerank calculation. The requested server that provides the rank for the current page takes sometimes minutes to respond (notably for the Songs section). This info has been removed, and the site is now blazzing fast. |
| Post a comment |
| 02-22-08 / 10:31 PM : Optimus Maximus OLED keyboard available (cjed) |
 Lebedev's Optimus Maximus keyboard, presented close to 3 years ago, is finally available. At 462$ (far more cheaper than initially planned) it brings 113 OLEDs (48*48 pixels resolution) that allow to display not only pictures (16 bits colors), but also videos (at a min 10fps rate). The layouts are stored on SD cards.We can see an interactive demo here and the provided OSX settings panel (10.4.8 required) there. |
| Post a comment |
| 02-22-08 / 10:26 PM : Apple multitouch surface (cjed) |
| A new Apple patent about a multitouch surface has been unveiled. This single hardware allows typing, poiting, scrolling and handwriting, without the need for various devices (mouse, keyboard, drawing tablet). |
| Post a comment |
| 02-21-08 / 10:41 PM : PCmag : review of MacOSX 10.5.2 (cjed) |
| PCmag provides a review of MacOSX 10.5.2, there is their conclusions : Leopard again raises the question of whether to switch from Windows to a Mac. I've found Vista to be a major disappointment that tends to look worse the more I use it. I still use Windows XP for getting serious work done in long, complicated documents. But OS X is easier to manage and maintain and I vastly prefer OS X to Windows for Web-browsing, mail, and especially for any task that involves graphics, music, or video. Leopard performs all such tasks even better than previous versions did—and Leopard is the only OS on the planet that works effortlessly and intuitively in today's world of networked computers and peripherals. Leopard is far from perfect, but it's better than any alternative, and it's getting harder and harder to find good reasons to use anything else. |
| Post a comment |
| 02-19-08 / 10:25 PM : Multitouch preferences / ipod Shuffle / HD-DVD (cjed) |
| A patent about a control panel to set the multitouch behaviour (up to 4 sensitive points) is presented by Macrumors. Meanwhile Apple dropped ipod Shuffle prices (now 49$ for 1Gb and 69$ for 2Gb) and Toshiba announced the end of HD-DVD (that Apple doesn't care as they sell HD movies through the iTUnes store, and they also were on the Blu-Ray side). |
| Post a comment |
| 02-16-08 / 11:39 PM : Leopard : Resolution Independant / CoreUI (cjed) |
 One of new Leopard features presented two years ago is resolution independant display of widgets, that is a guaranted real controls size whatever the screen's pixels density. It allows better reading on a 20" display (1680*1050 resolution, that is normally intended to 22" displays). Moreover we can modify the global scale factor, for example to display bigger controls (not a basic zoom with interpolating as in LCDs, but a whole new rendering). However there is still problems with controls spacing, it isn't consistent with scale factor changes and some applications can behave bad (Apple presented new guideline during the WWDC2007, to ensure new applications display correctly whatever the scale factor selected). This new feature should be activated in 2008.Apple created CoreUI framework to manage widgets display at various scales. It uses bitmaps (bigger ones) as base textures combined with vector graphics for simple shapes. So it can explain the 30% drop in UI performance showed by xbench (there may be also some hooks to plug CoreAnimation in the future). |
| Post a comment |
| 02-16-08 / 11:24 PM : Quartz GL (cjed) |
| In its long review of Leopard published in October, ArsTechnica presented QuartzGL the ultimate evolution of Quartz 2D (QuartzGL is the new name for Quartz 2D Extreme). Quartz 2D Extreme was included in Tiger but it was desactivated by default. In fact, to see performance gains, applications had to be rewritten, as QuartzGL optimizations are somewhat opposite to the way of designing drawing with the original Quartz 2D. But hopefully under Leopard Quartz GL can be activated selectively, for some applications (and windows) only. So it allows a smoother transition. |
| Post a comment |
| 02-13-08 / 11:34 PM : Apple TV 2.0 : reviews (cjed) |
| First reviews of Apple TV 2.0 are available here and there. The HD rentals movies quality is better than DVD quality.s |
| 3 comment |
| 02-11-08 / 11:20 PM : 10.5.2 update / security update / WO 5.4.1 (cjed) |
| The long awaited 10.5.2 OSX update is now available. It notably adds hierarchical navigation in docked folders and a separate graphic drivers update to apply after the OS update. A security update is also provided. We can finally find a 5.4.1 update to WebObjects. |
| Post a comment |
| 02-11-08 / 11:07 PM : Price cut on iPhone / iPod Touch ? (cjed) |
| A rumor states that Apple would drop by 100$ on month end iPhones and iPod Touch prices, during the release of the iPhone/Ipod Touch SDK. In fact is may be just doubling the flash memory included in the various models, the iPod Touch 8 Gb being discontinued, and replaced by a 16Gb version at the same price (299$). |
| Post a comment |
| 02-11-08 / 10:56 PM : Safari 3.1 WebKit : 2,5x faster (cjed) |
| Computerworld reported benchs of the version of the Safari WebKit engine (r30123, November, 2007), that brings a huge 2,5x performances gain over Safari 3.0.4 (the same compared with Firefox 3.0 beta3). The new WebKit should be part of Safari 3.1. We also learn that Icab 4, whose development has started again, is now using WebKit. |
| Post a comment |
| 02-10-08 / 11:35 PM : EZ Rock drummer (cjed) |
| This shorts intro (15s) uses EZDrummer for drums (with added bass and guitar from Kontakt 2 - through amp sim). : EZRock |
| Post a comment |
| 02-08-08 / 11:54 PM : Special event : february (cjed) |
| AppleInsider states that Apple might prepare a special event for late February. Would be useful as the stock felt (from 200 to 120$ since the Macworld). |
| Post a comment |
| 02-06-08 / 11:05 PM : ArsTechnica : MacBook Air review (cjed) |
| ArsTechnica provides a full review of the MacBook Air. It is less powerful than the MacBook, and benchs show OpenGL performance of both (share the same X3100 graphic chipset) 6 times less than MacBook Pro performance (GeForce 8600M GT). |
| Post a comment |
| 02-05-08 / 11:24 PM : iPhone 16 Gb / iPod Touch 32 Gb (cjed) |
| Apple added new models of iPhone and iPod Touch, respectively 16Gb and 32 Gb (499$ each). We can also see results of the iPhone for the four quarter 2007. |
| Post a comment |
| 02-03-08 / 10:16 PM : Radeon 9600 Pro / ATI Displays / unstretched (cjed) |
| We can find at anandTech an old review of Radeon 9600 Pro Mac&PC Edition. The pdf documentation on ATI site includes ATI Displays screenshots where we can see an overscan settings tab (Display Scaling, allows to select a stretch value in percent, so centering without stretching should be possible). However this utility (4.5.7 version, now compatible with OEM cards without the need for Radeon Enabler freeware, including G4 MDD OEM Radeon 9000 Pro) does not provide such settings tab on a G4 MDD with the Radeon 9000 Pro (OEM). Then the 9600 Pro may be required (the 9800 Pro being too power hungry, being too hot and leading to high noise) despite being overpriced (199$, no price cut since its introduction in 2005). Recent cards 4 times more powerfull cost half the price. |
| Post a comment |