Archive for August, 2007

Logitech G9 Gaming Mouse

Published by
admin
at August 24, 2007 in Cool, News and Hardware. 1 Comment

Logitech G9Customize your mouse to meet your performance and comfort needs.

Doesn’t that sound nice? Could this finally be a mouse that give comfort and performance, in which both and be modified for your individual needs? Quite possibly. The Logitech G9 Gaming Mouse has got interchangable grips for comfort, and a 3200 dpi laser engine with full-speed USB (up to 1000 reports per second) for performance. Heres an overview ripped right off of Logitech.

Performance

  • Interchangeable Grips: Use the included Wide Load and Precision grips to get a fit and feel that’s best for your playing style. The satin texture and fuller shape of Wide Load add extra comfort while the DryGrip technology plus compact shape of the Precision grip give you unmatched fingertip control.
  • 3200 dpi laser engine with Full-Speed USB: Get uncompromising speed and accuracy from a high-performance Gaming-Grade laser engine—plus instant cursor response with Full-Speed USB (up to 1000 reports/second).
  • Game settings to go: Take your personal mouse preferences with you. The G9 saves mouse settings in onboard memory—store up to 5 profiles (including keyboard macros, dpi settings, and LED color) on the mouse and play your way—without additional software installation*—on any computer.

  • G9 Laser Mouse

    Control

    • MicroGear™ Precision Scroll Wheel: Use Logitech’s exclusive MicroGear™ scrolling technology for precise, click-to-click scrolling—perfect for quick weapon selection. Or switch modes for frictionless, hyper-fast scrolling.
    • Adjustable sensitivity: Shift from pixel-precise targeting to lightning-fast maneuvers without pausing the action. The G9 gives you instant access to multiple sensitivity levels between 200 and 3200 dpi, without driver installation.
    • Weight tuning system: Prefer a heavier or lighter mouse? Use the weight cartridge and up to 28 grams of metal weights to customize your G9 for just the right feel.
    • Polytetrafluoroethylene feet: Super-slick feet glide effortlessly across almost any surface.

    G9 Laser Mouse

    Comfort and Convenience

    • Custom-color LEDs: A color LED display indicates the current sensitivity level and profile settings. Personalize the color LED display by choosing from hundreds of colors.

    More grip styles: Swap out your grip for a new look and feel. In addition to the provided Wide Load and Precision grips, other grip styles are available for purchase.

Its got weights, great dpi for fps gamers, a bit of bling with the lights, and the unheard of interchangeable grips. Finally, maybe I can get a mouse that “fills up” my entire hand! But… I guess we’ll have to wait until sometime in September for this to come out. If you are really psyched about this mouse coming out, you can use this link to sign up for Logitech’s notification service. They’ll email you when the mouse comes out!

Thanks for reading, next up either the new g15 keyboard, or Microsoft’s awesome new Sidewinder mouse!

Flyakiteosx messing up your computer? Here’s a possible reason why…

Published by
admin
at August 21, 2007 in Solutions, Microsoft and Applications. 10 Comments

I used to use Flyakiteosx, and I really liked it. Before I go into this, you can read my previous post regarding flyakiteosx, or, heres a quick summary of what it does, right off flyakiteosx.com

FlyakiteOSX is a transformation pack. It will transform the look of an ordinary Windows XP+ system to resemble the look of Mac OS X. The installer simply automates the process of replacing critical system files, setting registry tweaks, and installing extras such as cursors, sounds, visual styles, etc. FlyakiteOSX DOES NOT contain any spyware or ad-ware of any kind. All files needed for FlyakiteOSX are stored in the Windows directory in a folder named ‘FlyakiteOSX’ that is hidden by default. All registry values for FlyakiteOSX are written to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\FlyakiteOSX.

What I liked about this program, is that it did everything for me, really quickly, and made everything look nice. The alternative to flyakiteosx, is going all over the web, downloading a bunch of tools. When someone puts it like this, the best choice is obvious, as it was for me. Anyway, the program was great, before it drove me to completely reset my computer all the way back to how it was when it came out of its box. Basically, at one point, flyakiteosx just stopped loading, messed up all my services, and lagged my computer. In addition to flyakiteosx not loading, I could not change the theme of my computer at all, and was forced to use the Windows Classic theme (yeah, I couldn’t even use the blue windows default theme). It probably did some other terrible  things, but I have tried to forget.

Possible Reasons Why

If this has happened to you, chances are you either installed Microsoft Office 2007, or installed MagicISO and its mounting utility, MagicDisc. I think that Office 2007 is a possibility, because, well, it all happened right after I installed it and restarted my computer. Noticing this, I tried to uninstall Office 2007, with no success. The uninstallation always failed. I could uninstall flyakiteosx, and did so, but the problem still remained. Using the computer became quite difficult. It seems that flyakiteosx alters system files for Office 2003, and I guess those interfere with what Office 2007 tries to put in place, messing things up. If you can find a way, get rid of both programs.

I also mentioned that MagicISO with MagicDisc could also end up doing this to your computer,  be sure to uninstall this, and upon your next restart, things may be back to normal. In fact, after I wiped my computer and tried to use this program (without flyakiteosx, or Office 2007), the program screwed my computer the same way it did before I wiped my computer.

So… before you go and get that recovery cd and lose all your work, try to uninstall all of these programs, reboot, and see if things go back to normal.

Hope this helps, and thanks for reading!

btw, before I did wipe my computer, I already had my external hard drives full, and ended up only being able to back up all my media by using every single 4.7 GB DVD I had in my house… :(

DirectX 10.1 to be downloadable

Published by
admin
at August 20, 2007 in Microsoft and News. 5 Comments

Microsoft has now announced that there will be a DirectX 10.1 preview (demo) availiable for download, as well as XAudio2, Microsoft’s replacement for DirectSound.

According to Microsoft’s website…

Direct3D 10.1 is an incremental, side-by-side update to Direct3D 10.0 that provides a series of new rendering features that will be available in an upcoming generation of graphics hardware.

  • TextureCube Arrays which are dynamically indexable in shader code.
  • An updated shader model (shader model 4.1).
  • The ability to select the MSAA sample pattern for a resource from a palette of patterns, and retrieve the corresponding sample positions.
  • The ability to render to block-compressed textures.
  • More flexibility with respect to copying of resources.
  • Support for blending on all unorm and snorm formats.

This tech preview provides an early look at these features and the handful of new APIs that support them. The August 2007 Direct3D 10.1 Tech Preview requires the Windows Vista SP1 Beta which will be available to MSDN subscribers once it is publicly released.

So, I guess those of us that have already bought DX10 cards do not need to fret, 10.1 is just gonna be another download.

Thanks for reading!

UHarc, noticeably better compression than winRAR.

Published by
admin
at August 19, 2007 in Cool. 8 Comments

Although winRAR dominates the web today, that is not to say that it is the best compression utility out there. One such example is UHarc.

UHarc is a solid, high-compression 386+ DOS and Windows file archiver with multimedia support. It is written by Uwe Herklotz and is available in binary form, free only for non-commercial use.

Memory requirements depend on the compression method used (e.g., -mz needs less than -mx). Comparisons between WinRAR and UHarc generally show smaller filesizes with UHarc but a relatively substantial increase in decompression time (but much faster than PAQAR4, etc).

The latest beta is 0.6b (01 Oct 2005), but since 0.6a it has completely replaced the 0.4 and older archive headers and is not backwards compatible. There is a known limitation that archives must be smaller than a total of two gigabytes unpacked size, although there are some reports that it is possible to compress a 6gb unpacked sized archive.

Because of the difficulties of using Uharc with the commandline by some people, some GUIs have been created to simplify and allow the use of Uharc through a simple and modern graphic interface.

Wikipedia

As you read above, files compressed with UHarc are smaller than that of those produced when using winRAR. To see this myself, i did a little test.

The Test

For this little test, I found a folder on my hard drive containing 9.00 MB of data. For both winRAR and UHarc, the compression mode was set to Best. I then compressed this same folder individually with each program, and have recorded the file size of the compressed file, and the time it took to do so.

The Results

winRAR - 9.00 MB file compressed in about 4.03 seconds, with the compressed file at 6.93 MB.

UHarc - 9.00 MB file compressed in about 25.27 seconds, with the compressed file at 4.37 MB

So, winRAR beat UHarc by about 21.24 seconds for time-to-compress. However, UHarc topped winRAR by 2.56 MB.

Wait a minute, only a 2.56 MB difference? Well, even though the difference here doesn’t appear to be much, that is just because we compressed a small file to begin with. If, on the other hand, we had compiled a 100 MB file, or a 1 GB file, the differences would be much more significant. To show this, either tonight or tomorrow, I’ll start compressing a large file in both programs, and will post the results. Check back later for the update!

The UHarc program with GUI that I use, is UHARC GUI by Brhack 4.0.0.2. that you can download at http://www.softpedia.com/get/Compression-tools/UHARC-GUI-by-Brhack.shtml

Disc Burner Or Software Not Found - The quick solution for Itunes

Published by
admin
at August 19, 2007 in Solutions. 99 Comments

So, today I opened up iTunes to burn the 8 songs that I had just bought in their online music and video shop service. The program recognizes that a blank disc has been inserted into my cd drive, and notifies me that I can now burn a playlist. I put all my new songs into a playlist, make sure that everything is checked, and then i hit the “Burn Disc” button. After a bit of processing, the following message appeared in status box: “Disc Burner Or Software Not Found”. Seeing this, I immediately checked my Burning settings under Preferences, and saw that my DVD/CD burner was display there. So, I thought to myself, “What could be the problem ?”

I went to My Computer, right clicked on the drive and tried to look for updated drivers, and rolling back wouldn’t do any good since I couldn’t remember ever updating them in the first place. After a bit of searching, I found that the problem had been caused by the program Daemon Tools and the SPTD update that comes along with it. Some users found their solution is just uninstalling the program and altering/removing SPTD.sys (I didn’t read through it, because this wasn’t an option for me). However, I wanted to keep the program, and there was no way that I was going to uninstall/reinstall every time I needed to burn a disc. The program is also very easy to use, so I didn’t really want to use a substitute like Alcohol 100%. So, I found out a way to keep Daemon Tools, and be able to burn through iTunes.

The Solution:

Below are links to download an addon to daemon tools that upgrades the SCSI connection and fixes this iTunes bug. The addon is called, SPTD v1.50 X64

You can download them at http://disc-tools.com/download/daemon+sptd+md5sum, just look for SPTD v1.50 X64, and select the one right for your computer.

Or, I could just place direct download links here for both the 32-bit version, and the 64-bit version… I think I will…

Download pic

SPTD v1.50 X86 (32 bit)

SPTD v1.50 X64 (64 bit)

After you download it, just install it.

Thanks for reading! If you still have problems, or just want to say thanks, you can comment it here.

 

 

Protected: If Business Meetings Were Like Internet Comments (Computer related humor)

Published by
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at August 19, 2007 in Funny and Cool. Enter your password to view comments

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Vote for your favorite header

Published by
admin
at August 17, 2007 in News. 4 Comments

Hey! So, Omnamo.com needs a new header. I’m not a photoshop expert, but I guess I know how to use it. Below is a download link to a RAR file containing all the header that I have made for this site. Now, I just need help choosing one.

Please download the file, extract it, and vote here (in a comment), on which one you think is best.  Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

THANKS!

Download HERE

Gainward Releases Bliss 8600 GT 1024MB

Published by
Pasha
at August 15, 2007 in News and Hardware. 70 Comments

Gainward released their 8600GT today, and packed with it, 1GB of DDR3 ram. As awesome as this might sound to many of readers, 1GB on an 8600 is just pointless. The clock speed is still too slow to really run new DX10 games at respectable settings. (If you are looking to get an 8600, buy the 8600GTS OC. ) The 1gb of ram is really just a selling point to the ill-advised consumer. Only in the future, if developers really decide to implement higher resolution objects into their games, would it actually help. It may be a great investment for the future DX10 games. In my opinion, a big gigabyte of slow 128bit memory- interface is only good for one thing, producing heat.

Here are the official specifications off the Gainward website:

GPU Clockspeed: 600 MHz
Memory: 1024MB 2,0ns DDR2
Memory Clockspeed: 1000 MHz

Now I can’t wait for someone to say that their 1gb 8600 is faster than someone else’s 8800GTX with 760mb of ram.

DirectX 10.1 not just another download?

Published by
admin
at August 15, 2007 in Microsoft, News and Hardware. 6 Comments

NOTE: Updated article at http://omnamo.com/?p=47

 

According to an article published on the Inquirer…

 

At the SIGGRAPH event, Microsoft spoke about the upcoming new installment to the DirectX line, DirectX 10.1. The new software is to be released with the Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1). This may be exciting and all, especially for all of us out there who have spent money already to procure a DirectX 10 card, but bad news may potentially lie ahead. Rumor has it that this new software will require new hardware along with it, meaning users will have to spend more money to get what they thought could be obtained with a free update. Basically, just like you need new hardware to get from DX 9 to DX 10, you may need new software to get from DX 10 to DX 10.1. However, at this point in time, none of this has been announced officially by Microsoft. With that in mind, and change possible, here is some good news: (ARTICLE UPDATE AT http://omnamo.com/?p=47

 

But these gamers shouldn’t fret too much - 10.1 adds virtually nothing that they will care about and, more to the point, adds almost nothing that developers are likely to care about. The spec revision basically makes a number of things that are optional in DX10 compulsory under the new standard - such as 32-bit floating point filtering, as opposed to the 16-bit current. 4xAA is a compulsory standard to support in 10.1, whereas graphics vendors can pick and choose their anti-aliasing support currently.

DX 10.1 will supposedly need Vista SP1 and new hardware, the two things that most users will not have, and will not want to spend their time and money to get. Of course, developer implementation will also be needed for it to be used. Surely, with this being the case, the new update will be minuscule, and will not affect gamers who have already spent their money on top of the line DX 10 cards.

 

With developers struggling to justify including DX10 features in their games (see the recent comments by John Carmack and Mark Rein), they’re going to be about as likely to further limit their product’s market as they are to start developing NES games again. This is especially true given the incredibly limited benefits 10.1 is bringing to the party

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=41577

ARTICLE UPDATE–> http://omnamo.com/?p=47