News for Friday, 1 August 2003

Nec has just announced on CD Freaks site that in November there will be a DVD+R/RW burner able to burn DVD+R at 8x. DVD+RW will be burned at 4x. This info proves that it is becoming urgent for Pioneer to shift up gears!

Jérémie has been able to test a G5 Dual 2GHz

Those tests have been carried you using Logic Audio Platinium, with MacOSX 10.2.7 with a 2x2GHz G5 2GB RAM. For comparison, I have performed the same test with my Ti 867/768 RAM (OSX10.2.6) Test condition : Built-in audio controller with buffer set to 256 Samples, audio file extracted from the sound track of "Matrix" , already used for the demo at the WWDC. The test was based on the following procedure, first load a compression plug-in to normalize the audio signal, then try to load the maximum of "spectral gate" Logic audio plug-in, known to be the most CPU consuming plug-in, but fully Altivec optimized : Ti 867: 1 compression et 8 Spectral gates plug-in G5 2X2: 5 compression et 67 Spectral gates plug-in

Keep in mind that in addition 10.2.7 is not optimized for the G5!!!

Only few hours have been necessary to find another solution to unlock the volume controller of a 30GB iPod. Xavier just describes the new procedure :

The previous news concerning the partition containing the firmware was interesting. Personally, just because I curious, I have tried to restore my 10GB iPod (new model) with a firmware 2.0.1 downloaded from apple.com, mentioning that I was living in the US, and modifying my language parameters in OSX to US English.... and to my surprise, the restore procedure had a important effect : I could drastically increase the volume of my iPod. You can see a discussion on that particular topic in iPod fanatic forum : http://www.ipodfanatic.com/forumsprepa/viewtopic.php?t=3000

Yesterday on this site, an article was describing how to unlock the sound controller of a 30GB European iPod. And it was working fine, I did it successfully on my iPod. We said "it was possible" because the editor of this web site has received a letter from Apple advising him to remove this article to avoid any legal action.
In summary, and without any illegal information from our side, an iPod contains several partitions. The first one, which is not accessible, contains the iPod firmware. To unlock the sound controller, it was necessary and sufficient to replace the European firmware by a US version, via a terminal command to force the install of the US firmware on this partition. This was a matter of 20 seconds.
PS: sorry I did not keep the instructions, neither the US firmware.
[Update] More info to understand the procedure.
In the terminal, type:
diskutil list /dev/disk1 or diskutil list /dev/disk2.. till you get the following
#: type name size identifier
0: Apple_partition_scheme *9.3 GB disk2
1: Apple_partition_map 31.0 KB disk2s1
2: Apple_MDFW 32.0 MB disk2s2
3: Apple_HFS "name and capacity of the iPod" disk2s3
The second partition Apple_MDFW 32.0 MB contains the famous firmware which should be replace by the US version via a terminal command.

We just put online a test of the latest Gigadesign card @ 1GHz. This card has a 7455A processor which is well known for its overclock capacity.
Without modifying the voltage, this card was working properly @1.35GHz with its cache @337.5MHz.
gigadesign certifies that their cards are all capable to boot @ 1.2GHz.
Well, without touching the voltage, we have reached 1.35 GHz and it is a stable overclock!!!
We have use our recent contacts with Gigadesign to ask them what was the effect of overclocking regarding the warranty. The answer is quite clear.
Overclocking one of the Gigadesign cards DOES NOT void the warranty. You can even ask them some help by mail if you plan an overclocking.
But you do it at your own risk regarding your work, if your overclocked computer crash and by then you lose your data, that's your problem.
gigadesign even mentione that it does not void the waranty if you modify the voltage a little bit (0.05V), since it is safe anyway. But if you burn it, then you will have a problem !
And finally , a citation from Gigadesign :

We believe in Freedom, Liberty, and the Right to Choose Your Own Speed.

http://www.macbidouille.com/article.php?id=124

It' been possible for some time to have a Superdrive installed in a G4 Powerbook. But it took a return to customer service to have it done.
OWC now sells a 24x16x4x1x1x8x Superdrive with all screws needed and a documentation on how to DIY. It is fully compatible with G4 Powerbook from 400 to 667 MHz, even allowing the use of iDVD. It costs $399,95 (shipping and taxes not included). If you wish to have a look to the installation doc: OWCMercuryTiComboInstall.pdf

We were just told 1GHz Gigadesigns that came out of factory have a new G4 CPU, which had never made it to such a frequency. It is no more a 7455, but a 7455A like the former 1.25 & 1.33 GHz ones. We might also hopefully be able to overclock those cards even more. We'll try to find out ASAP so as to confirm or infirm this possibility.

On the site The Inquirer, a person has made some calculations. The RIAA that defends the Majors commercial interests intend to sue every people that share music over the Web. Which are namely 60 millions in the US. Should the RIAA initiate 75 cases a day, which is enormous, they'll need 2,191.78 years to catch'em all. By that time, it's a good guess things would have changed a bit. Event to catch a thousand of them, months of preparation and years of proceedings will be needed.
We are persuaded this repressive posture is not a solution to put an end to a behaviour that, though undoubtedly illegal, has become a mass habit. The success of the iTunes Music Store gives proof that people are ready to pay for a goof quality service.

Thx 2 Paul 4 the info.

I love those machines called "roller coasters". Many programms exist to simulate this undescriptable sensation on a PC, but here's that the best of them has made its way to MacOS X: No Limits! This sofr consists of two parts: a rail editor enables to create or reproduce very precisely one's favorite roller coaster, and a simulator that allows one to try it ("onride" photos, videos,...). No Limits! for mac is still under development, but according to its programmers, they should finalize it soon. Take a look to their site: http://www.nolimitscoaster.de/. The Mac info is at the bottom of the page. and here's a promising photo...

IchatUSBCam just arrived in finale version (Thx Thierry, see preceding news on that theme).
This software enables iChat AV to work with a USB camera.
It also brings along other functionalities:
- Adds support of DV cameras on G3s.
- Eliminates thee minimal 600 MHz config for video.
- Adds a settings menu for video display.
This final version costs $9,95 and it's worth it.
http://www.ecamm.com/mac/ichatusbcam/

The British authorities have forbidden the use of the iTrip on their territory. According to british law actually it takes one a license to use a radio transmitter. The importater couldn't obtain any derogation...

Someone who installed it on Powerbook G4 550 has made a discovery that will delight users of portable Macs !

Having installed it on a PowerBook, I noticed no unusual behaviour of the battery. This one lasts its normal lenght, about 6 to 7 hours when not using too intensively .

Thx to Banana who's made us notice the outcoming "final" version of VLC 0.6.1.
www.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/0.6.1/macosx/vlc-0.6.1.dmg
For those who don't know it, [French soft] Video Lan Client reads DivX, VCDs, DVDs... under OS X only.

After the announcement that Macway would offer MacDrive with ICE drives, we decided to test this software quickly.
We hence got hold of a PC under Windows XP Pro equipped of a Firewire. Then we installed Macdrive.

Once the CD key was entered and the soft was registered, it took only seconds for the soft to install. After ther PC was rebooted, we plugged in a 30 Go ICE HD:

As shown on the screenshot, Windows acknowledges HFS+ without pb. We then took on read and write tests that went on perfectly well, without calculating the drive speed, but exchanges seemed to be quite as fast as with a Mac.

Just for fun, we also plugged an iPod that was recognized too. Yet the MP3 files were as invisible as on a Mac. Other utilities would have enabled us to visualize them, yet it wasn't the aim of our test.
Macdrive really DOES what it is supposed to do, ie mount Mac volumes on a PC. This is quite a smoother solution than the one of formatting them in FAT, which slows exchanges on a Mac and above all prevents the installation of a Mac OS system on the disk.

Panther makes us wonder every day a bit more. "le_mackeux" on our forums posted the results he reached with BenchUT2003 under X.2.6 and X.3. He uses a G4 Quicksilver 933 with a Radeon 9000 and 1.5 Go RAM. Tests were done under 1280*1024 resolution with demo flyby-citadel
Under X.2.6:
Score 37.00
Min FPS 11.42
Average FPS 36.94
max 121.27
Under X.3:
Score 55.95
Min FPS 17.4
Average FPS 57.026
max 192.117
Score improves by more than 30% ! One would end frustrated by all the time wasted since X version 0 !

Think your iPod is too dull ? The Japanse site Power Design suggests you use a shell.

You may also submit them the model you'd created to have a unique iPod. FLUO sent us his:

Also notice that this site sells protection stickers to cover your iPod thus protecting it from scratches.

Thx 2 Yannick 4 the information.
Amazon.de allows to preorder Mac OS X.3 for €159,99. Foreseen delivery date is December 2003. It's quite risky to sell this OS with so much advance, without really knowing when it shall hit the market.Yet it's a good free advertising idea.

Mac Observer makes a sad constation about buymusic.com. Though it was possible to access it with a Mac via Safari until last Wednesday, it's now impossible to do it otherwise than with IE under Windows systems ! This add-on seems to have been made to please Microsoft.
If you wih to have fun overcoming this limitation:
Quit Safari.
In terminal use the following command line : defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
Launch Safari again and in the menu Debug/ User Agent, choose Windows MSIE 6.0.
You'll see you can access buymusic again.
Knowing though that altogether with the Mac, it's also Linux, Unix, BeOS platforms that are shown the exit door...

Thx to all those who've given us those infos.

Roughly speaking, only IE 5 or more will do : no Netscape, no Mac, no Opera. Deactivate Javascript to overcome this limitation. Anyway, there aren't many risks MacUsers would prefer this service to the iTMS.

Xbitlabs had made a huge comparative test of 10 DVD burners. It is so thorough that you'd perhaps get lost in the figures. To sum up, if you own a Pioneer DVR A05/105 that's not a shame. If you own a 104, no surprise, it's slower and access times are much slower, which will impact the install of huge softwares from CDs or the horrific Unreal Tournament 2003 that's already so slow with a fast drive. It's a shame 106 isn't taken into account in this comparison.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/dvd-roundup.html