isidorus schrijft dat Martijn Bevelander, de jongen die als beroep domeinkapen heeft, Smallzine dreigt met een rechtzaak omdat ze het domein martijnbevelander.com hebben geregistreerd om door te verwijzen naar hun Martijn Bevelander dossier:

De registratie van het domein martijnbevelander.com door SmallZine is domeinkaper Martijn Bevelander in het verkeerde keelgat geschoten. Woensdag 20 april ontving de redactie een brief, een fax en een e-mail van de advocaat van Martijn Bevelander. Zoals de vaste lezers weten, volgt SmallZine al geruime tijd de handel en wandel van de omstreden internetondernemer. Het werd daarom tijd voor een online dossier over Bevelander, zoals SmallZine wel meer specials maakt rondom terugkerende onderwerpen. Het adres www.martijnbevelander.com leek ons uitermate geschikt om naar dit dossier te verwijzen.

Bevelander is betrokken bij diverse registraties van andermans namen als internetdomein. Zo is onder andere xylifresh.nl in bezit van Bevelander en dus niet van Maple Leaf dat de Xylifresh-kauwgum op de markt brengt. (Bevelander laat het domein overigens wel naar een site van Maple Leaf verwijzen.) Ook beheert hij dagobertduck.nl, omdat deze eend zijn grote idool is. Zo druk doende met andermans merknamen, zie je de eigen winkel natuurlijk wel eens over het hoofd. Tot onze verbazing bleek het domein martijnbevelander.com nog beschikbaar te zijn. We registreerden het en nu wil Bevelander dat weer ongedaan maken, desnoods met een kort geding. SmallZine is niet van plan hieraan mee te werken onder het motto: Bevelander heeft nu wel genoeg domeinnamen.

Ik vraag me af waarom ik ineens moet denken aan het spreekwoord: een koekje van eigen deeg krijgen .

The Register heeft een artikeltje gepost waarin zij een aantal faktoren noemen waarmee zij de huidige leveringsproblemen bij AMD denken te verklaren. Gisteren schreef CNN al dat AMD de enorme vraag naar Athlon processors, mede ontstaan door produktieproblemen bij Intel, niet meer bij kan benen. Er lijken geen serieuze produktieproblemen te zijn, alleen ken men op dit moment niet aan de enorme vraag voldoen omdat Fab30 in Dresden nog niet produceert. Pas na de introductie van de Thunderbird en Spitfire zullen we de eerste processors uit Dresden zien verschijnen:

The first factor was that an inability of distributors to get enough supplies from Intel had led their resellers to start asking for AMD chips instead. This trend has been exacerbated by swingeing price cuts AMD makes on its Athlon prices later on this week, which have had the effect of making the microprocessor more attractive.

The second factor is that AMD's fabrication capabilities are not, as yet, sufficient for them to supply as many Athlon chips as they would wish to. Fab 30, AMD's Dresden plant, is not expected to start producing chips in volume for several more weeks.

The third factor is that AMD itself was restricting supplies of some of its microprocessors as they reached an end-of-line situation, in advance of its simultaneous roll out of its up and coming Thunderbird and Spitefire chips in June.

Unexplained komt het trieste nieuws bregen dat de maker van PKZIP (de voorloper van winzip en verwante programma's), Phillip W. Katz is gestorven op de leeftijd van 37 jaar door het drinken van te veel alcohol .

M I L W A U K E E, April 22 — A man who developed one of the world’s most popular pieces of computer software has died at age 37. Phillip W. Katz died of complications from chronic alcoholism, according to the Milwaulkee medical examiner’s records. Katz’s file-compression software is used around the world. “In early days, compression was all done with software because there was no hardware to do this stuff,” said computer science professor Leonard Levine at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “So Katz put together a program called PKZip, the Phil Katz zip program.” The compression software made communication between computers faster and less expensive. “His program was instrumental in inexpensive, dependable communication,” Levine said. But, he added, “what I felt was most important about it is the fact that you can get it for free and not pay for it.” Nearly all program files downloaded from the Internet have the suffix .zip, meaning they are compressed in the format Katz developed.

D.A.R.R.Y.L. schrijft dat er op het forum van SysOpt.com een interresante post is te vinden waarin wordt uitgelegd hoe je een beta BIOS op een nVidia kaart kunt gebruiken / uitproberen zonder daarvoor eerst het BIOS te flashen. Op die manier hoef je niet bang te zijn dat je kaart onbruikbaar wordt door een eventueel fout BIOS, omdat het oude BIOS na een reboot weer actief wordt :

I'm sure all the nVidia users here have either used or heard of nVidia's leaked refrence drivers. They usually are updated more often, have better stability and performance, and newer options than the vendor drivers. What if I told you the same thing was true for reference BIOS's.
You might wander, "what if I flash my card with a reference BIOS, and it fails on bootup?" There's a simple answer, it's called VGABIOS. It is a leaked utility from nVidia that will allow you to run the latest BIOS without flashing your own. It is a ms-dos TSR program that loads the BIOS from your autoexec.bat file. It then sets the BIOS commands to be directed to it and the BIOS file it loads. It's also extremely easy to use, and low on resources if you use the ms-dos lh (loadhigh) command. A sample line might be:

lh c:\vgabios -fULTRABT.ROM

[...] The only reason I mention this is that stability for my TNT-2 has been seriously affected by using the latest BIOS. I haven't suffered the first crash, and beleive me, I've tried to. I haven't seen if my chip will o/c any higher, since it usually tops out at 160mhz with extreme cooling. My next plan is to actually flash my card with this BIOS, but I want to try it out awhile longer before attempting that. I will also warn people, that flashing a card with an non-vendor specific BIOS can limit its functionality, and possible destroy the hardware. I would recommend using VGAFLASH, as if it screws up, a fresh reboot will resolve your problems. Make sure everything works before putting this file on autoexec.bat . But even then, ig you have problaems, a quuick reboot to safe mode DOS, and deletion of the command line from the autoexec.bat will fix everything. It gets a lot more complecated when dealing directly with your cards EPROM chip.

Je kan op deze pagina in de BIOS sectie de nieuwste TNT1, TNT2 en GeForce BIOS files vinden samen met progjes om ze te gebruiken en te flashen.

The Source brengt ons op de hoogte van deze VideoLogic DigiTheatre review bij Thresh's Vuurpeleton:

"Voor de prijs van $399 ben jij eigenaar van dit setje. Een must voor diegene die van hun computer en DVD player een thuis bios willen maken. Bij Thresh's FiringSquad schroeven ze het ding ook even open":

found the satellites to have pretty good imaging, not the type of imaging that made the speakers disappear, but good enough to generate a uniform sound field. One reason for this is rotating tweeter on the satellite. I like direct sound better than reflected sound, so I aimed the tweeters at my seating position. A nicer touch would have been to offer these same satellites for the rear channels, instead of having a single driver in the rear. Today most surround channel data isn't full range, but many new movies are using creative mixing techniques that do treat the rear channels to a full range signal.

Vocal tracks were clear and open, competitive with the Cambridge systems, but without the transparency of the more expensive VideoLogic Siroccos. The Klipsch Promedias are a little brighter than the DigiTheatres and have a little more kick with the subwoofer. I found it rather difficult to individually characterize the sound of the DigiTheatres as everything seemed to work well together. This synergy really came together when I switched from standard music listening to full-fledged Dolby Digital.

I was impressed with the shear amount of volume that could be coaxed from the system given the modest power ratings. I could get the music blasting to the point where I was afraid I was going to receive my neighbor's wrath, without incurring too much distortion or other signs of audible distress. The DigiTheatres aren't as loud as the Klipsch speakers, but they are loud enough for most medium sized rooms.

BravOman schrijft dat ZDNet een klein stukkie heeft geschreven over de Iiyama VisionMaster 451 19 inch monitor:

"De Iiyama VisionMaster 451 is de opvolger van de populaire Iiyama VisionMaster 450. Deze 19" monitor is door zijn speciale short-neck architectuur nauwelijks kleiner dan een standaard 17" monitor en kan tevens een mooi resolutie van 1920x1440 op 75Hz aan. Helaas maakt ie geen gebruik van een platte beeldbuis":

Iiyama's latest 19in Vision Master CRT monitor features a concave screen, rather than the more fashionable flat screen, but this doesn't diminish the quality of the display in any way. The 19in screen is able to offer an 18in viewable area that is easy on the eyes and that produces impressive, sharply defined images.

It supports top resolutions of 1920x1440 at 75Hz refresh rates, although we wouldn't advise straining your eyes to use it for Windows desktop display. The recommended 1280x1024 resolution at a flicker-free refresh rate of 100Hz is far healthier for the retinas, and can be viewed in full 32bit colour.

Despite the size of its screen, the Vision Master 451 features a short neck and a very small footprint stand that takes up very little unnecessary space on the desktop. With overall dimensions of 450x446x447mm, the one bulky element is the depth, which is to be fair no larger than many 17in monitors currently on the market.

insane meldt dat Metallica al weer succes heeft met de rechtzaak tegen Napster, de Indiana University volgt het voorbeeld van de Yale Universiteit en heeft gisteren besloten dat Napster ook van hun Universiteit moet verdwijnen om het niet tot een rechtzaak met Metallica te laten komen:

Indiana University yesterday followed the example of Yale to re-impose a ban on controversial 'seek, locate, download' MP3 music software Napster.

Like Yale, Indiana's move was made in response to the legal action launched last week by metal band Metallica.

On Wednesday, Metallica said it would remove Yale from its lawsuit, which primarily targets Napster itself but also named five US universities the band alleged were aiding and abetting Napster's encouragement of music piracy. Metallica said yesterday it would now drop Indiana from the suit, too.

Like Yale, Indiana University denies any liability toward Metallica. "We now believe, however, that our faculty, staff and students could incur legal exposure if they use this technology. Until those unresolved legal issues are clarified, it seems prudent to block the site," said a university spokesman.

HardwareCentral heeft een comparison gemaakt tussen twee RAID controllers namelijk, de Iwill sIDE RAID66 en de Promise FastTrak66:

As one of only two ATA-66 RAID cards available today, the sIDE RAID66 has the potential to gain a fair market presence, and find its own little niche. Of course, when only two products are competing in a single arena, there is much interest in how they compare. Given that, it was only natural that the question we received more than any other after our review of the Iwill sIDE RAID66 was: “How does it compare to the Promise FastTrak66?”.

The FastTrak66 isn’t Promise Technology’s first entry into the IDE RAID arena; that was its original FastTrak. The only real difference between the original and the FastTrak66 is the latter’s UDMA/66 capability. When we factor in the time spent adapting the original FastTrak, Promise has well over a year worth of experience with IDE RAID on its side, making it the seasoned veteran in this competition. Granted, Iwill has its fair share of experience with SCSI and even IDE controllers; however, this is its first venture into the world of IDE RAID. In any event, the Iwill card looked to be a good, solid performer, at least capable of giving the FastTrak66 a run for its money.

[...] Deciding upon a "winner" at the end of a comparison is sometimes easy, and sometimes very difficult. Having fully explored both cards, I find this a very difficult decision to make. Both cards clearly have faults and strengths. Thus, one card may be the right choice for one type of user, and yet the absolute worst choice for another. In light of this, I will not draw a general conclusion, and say ‘Card X is better than card Y”. Instead, here are some general statements; based upon the type of user you are, decide which factors are more important to you, and make your decision based on those criteria.

De Promise FastTrak66 bleek gemiddeld net iets beter te zijn dan de Iwill controller maar is ook duurder (je kan natuurlijk ook een Promise Ultra66 ombouwen naar FastTrak 66 ).

Bij tbreak hebben ze een plaatje kunnen bemachtigen van de box van de Creative GeForce II GTS. Het plaatje is een beetje klein maar je kan er nog net het woord Gigatexel op lezen :

Er staat onder de doos ook 'the first 3D accelerator to break through the gigatexel barrier', wat erop wijst dat ze deze kaart eerder op de markt willen hebben dan de Voodoo5-6000 .

Bij de Techgrounds hebben ze een review gemaakt van WingMan Force Feedback Mouse! Ze vinden dat de mouse prima werkt in games waarin muis force feedback wordt ondersteund en waar het goed geïmplementeerd is :

For a while I have been a big fan of force feedback joysticks and steering wheels. They help to give games another dimension and provide the player with a more immersing experience. Logitech, one of the leaders in controller devices has recently released Wingman Force Feedback Mouse. I was really anxious to try this product.

[...] Next on my test list was Soldier of Fortune, one title from a pretty solid list of games that natively support force feedback mice. I was really impressed by how much force feedback added to the feel of the game. Each firing of a shotgun, slashing of the knife or my favorite, the machine gun are all accompanied by a satisfying kick-back. The Wingman mouse manager software permits using the mouse in games that don’t natively support mice but have force-feedback features built in either for steering wheels or joysticks. I tried it with the latest build of Microsoft Motorcross Madness 2 and an older Need for Speed III. Although the manager did not have a profile for Motorcross Madness 2, I simply set the mouse in the joystick mode (accomplished through a key combination) and used the regular PS/2 mouse to navigate menus. The feedback that the WingMan mouse provided in these two titles was not as good as with the native games, but it was still very noticeable.

Hier dan de stats van zaterdag, nogmaals verzorgt door OezieWoezie.

En hier zijn ze weer, de stats.

De DPC Hitparade Top 10 van 22 april 2000

1. 65,808 [Dutch Power Cows] wiho(1, Totaal:8,113,749)
2. 49,005 [Dutch Power Cows] Interior Lulu(2, Totaal:2,805,327)
3. 15,301 [Dutch Power Cows] BaDMaN(130, Totaal:117,281)
4. 9,373 Shellshock & Sir Soes [Dutch Power Moo's!](29, Totaal:462,349)
5. 8,987 2fast4u [Dutch Power Cows](21, Totaal:557,213)
6. 6,837 [Dutch Power Cows] SYTE|X(264, Totaal:49,147)
7. 5,734 [DUTCH POWER COWS]USRFORCE CLAN(28, Totaal:465,297)
8. 5,595 [Dutch Power Cows] ActionQuakers United(214, Totaal:70,439)
9. 5,594 [Dutch Power Cows] Oezie Woezie(74, Totaal:217,993)
10. 5,560 [Dutch Power Cows] Jobe(22, Totaal:541,401)

En de nummers 11 tot en met 20:

11. 5,035 [Dutch Power Cows] Stoffel(303, Totaal:40,069)
12. 4,419 [Dutch Power Cows] DPC Civility Team(62, Totaal:234,591)
13. 4,258 Franky18 [Dutch Power Cows](714, Totaal:9,151)
14. 4,114 [Dutch Power Cows] Sub-Team Hack BV(26, Totaal:486,992)
15. 3,749 marco.brugman(537, Totaal:15,965)
16. 3,712 Richard Zuidhof(27, Totaal:485,646)
17. 3,666 [Dutch Power Cows] Eddict(24, Totaal:496,379)
18. 3,288 grimlock0(202, Totaal:74,744)
19. 3,029 VLS(161, Totaal:95,737)
20. 3,018 [Dutch Power Cows] ThE RaVeR(32, Totaal:378,690)

De Top 15 teams van 22 april 2000

1.( 1) 737,639 Slashdot.org
2.( 1) 697,878 AnandTech
3.( 2) 598,740 Russian Team
4.( 0) 499,004 HackZone Team -- Combined power of Russia and exUSSR countries
5.( 0) 462,642 Dutch Power Cows
6.( 0) 411,826 #DeathMatch
7.( 0) 384,417 The Amiga RC5 Team effort
8.( 0) 368,015 Team EvangeLista (Macs Rule! :-)
9.( 0) 364,914 Team Warped (OS/2)
10.( 2) 279,909 Libertarians for Privacy (Freedom Works!)
11.( 0) 269,242 Japan FreeBSD Users Group
12.( 2) 231,734 Japan Windows NT Users Group
13.( 2) 207,934 L0phT Heavy Industries
14.( 3) 204,690 Team Slacker
15.( 4) 199,285 CCC.de

Teams om ons heen (total stats):

15.( ) Czech RC5 Team (Tot:97,677,233, Gis:132,917)
16.( ) CCC.de (Tot:89,612,994, Gis:199,285)
17.( ) Team OS/2 Japan (Tot:82,700,911, Gis:192,564)
18.( ) #DeathMatch (Tot:80,388,178, Gis:411,826)
19.( ) Dutch Power Cows (Tot:74,198,881, Gis:462,642)
20.( ) PINGUIM: Portugal Is Now Going Up In Megakeys (Tot:73,428,740, Gis:139,160)
21.( ) Team FreeBSD (Tot:69,656,140, Gis:171,644)
22.( ) SysOpt.com/Tweakit.com (Tot:69,588,851, Gis:152,239)
23.( ) LinuxNET RC5 (Tot:67,918,367, Gis:60,564)
(Teams waarvan de score van gisteren ontbreekt, hadden geen score in de top 100!)

Wanneer halen we ze in:
Czech RC5 Team: 72 dagen
CCC.de: 59 dagen
Team OS/2 Japan: 32 dagen
#DeathMatch: 122 dagen

Dutch power cows is vandaag 5e en heeft een kans van één op 74 om de sleutel te vinden!

De stats van vrijdag, verzorgd door OezieWoezie (invaller voor Marc die weekendje weg is ):

hier zijn weer de dagelijkse stats.

De DPC Hitparade Top 10 van 21 april 2000

1. 70,002 2fast4u [Dutch Power Cows](21, Totaal:548,226)
2. 49,402 [Dutch Power Cows] Interior Lulu(2, Totaal:2,752,482)
3. 38,360 [Dutch Power Cows] wiho(1, Totaal:8,047,941)
4. 13,595 [Dutch Power Cows] teampje KoHa(9, Totaal:772,551)
5. 12,860 [Dutch Power Cows] BaDMaN(149, Totaal:101,980)
6. 9,053 Shellshock & Sir Soes [Dutch Power Moo's!](29, Totaal:452,976)
7. 6,902 jgroot(84, Totaal:184,701)
8. 6,041 [Dutch Power Cows] ActionQuakers United(228, Totaal:64,844)
9. 5,932 [Dutch Power Cows] Sub-Team Hack BV(26, Totaal:482,878)
10. 5,824 [Dutch Power Cows] Jobe(22, Totaal:535,841)

En de nummers 11 tot en met 20:

11. 5,456 [Dutch Power Cows] #GamePoint(287, Totaal:42,411)
12. 5,384 [DUTCH POWER COWS]USRFORCE CLAN(28, Totaal:459,563)
13. 4,860 Richard Zuidhof(27, Totaal:481,934)
14. 4,347 [Dutch Power Cows] DPC Civility Team(63, Totaal:230,172)
15. 4,116 [Dutch Power Cows] Eddict(24, Totaal:492,713)
16. 4,067 [Dutch Power Cows] TEX(56, Totaal:254,180)
17. 3,900 [Dutch Power Cows] Oezie Woezie(75, Totaal:212,399)
18. 3,859 grimlock0(208, Totaal:71,456)
19. 3,813 [Dutch Power Cows] Graasland(848, Totaal:6,073)
20. 3,788 marco.brugman(607, Totaal:12,216)

De Top 15 teams van 21 april 2000

1.( 0) 826,523 Russian Team
2.( 0) 822,949 Slashdot.org
3.( 0) 739,120 AnandTech
4.( 0) 701,591 HackZone Team -- Combined power of Russia and exUSSR countries
5.( 0) 531,746 Dutch Power Cows
6.( 1) 410,337 #DeathMatch
7.( 1) 399,007 The Amiga RC5 Team effort
8.( 2) 369,936 Team EvangeLista (Macs Rule! :-)
9.( 1) 368,682 Team Warped (OS/2)
10.( 1) 294,146 Japan Windows NT Users Group
11.( 2) 288,505 Japan FreeBSD Users Group
12.( 0) 271,785 Libertarians for Privacy (Freedom Works!)
13.( 2) 249,758 Team Hungary STB+
14.( 3) 230,666 Ukraine RC5
15.( 1) 222,766 L0phT Heavy Industries

Teams om ons heen (total stats):
15.( ) Czech RC5 Team (Tot:97,677,233, Gis:205,579)
16.( ) CCC.de (Tot:89,612,994, Gis:193,275)
17.( ) Team OS/2 Japan (Tot:82,700,911, Gis:217,932)
18.( ) #DeathMatch (Tot:80,388,178, Gis:410,337)
19.( ) Dutch Power Cows (Tot:74,198,881, Gis:531,746)
20.( ) PINGUIM: Portugal Is Now Going Up In Megakeys (Tot:73,428,740, Gis:141,092)
21.( ) Team FreeBSD (Tot:69,656,140, Gis:174,636)
22.( ) SysOpt.com/Tweakit.com (Tot:69,588,851, Gis:154,821)
23.( ) LinuxNET RC5 (Tot:67,918,367, Gis:64,953)
(Teams waarvan de score van gisteren ontbreekt, hadden geen score in de top 100!)

Wanneer halen we ze in:
Czech RC5 Team: 72 dagen
CCC.de: 46 dagen
Team OS/2 Japan: 28 dagen
#DeathMatch: 51 dagen

Dutch power cows is vandaag 5e en heeft een kans van een op 74 om de sleutel te vinden!

fkooman schreef vanmiddag dat Ahead wat info over een nieuwe versie van Nero, 5.0, op hun site heeft geplaatst.
Het programma zal op 30 april (huh? op een zondag? ) gereleased worden.

New Features in Nero 5.0 version (available starting from April 30th):

• Multiple Burning
• Super Video CD
• Video CD (VCD) Still Images and Slideshows
• Powerful Audio filters
• M3U Playlist support
• CD Database support
• Twin VQ audio compression support
• Copying of CD Extra and Multisession CDs

Meer info hierover vind je hier.