Change has come to America

     Finally a big change in the States.
     I was hopping Obama will win the elections but I was skeptical. It will be an enormous change not just for America but for the whole world. In the first place, Obama will be the first black president in the history of the USA. Seen only in movies until now... :D
     It's very interesting if we consider that black people were slaves in the past and now...one of them has become President of USA. This is democracy.

     Will this change end the war in Iraq? Obama promised that he will retreat the American troops from Iraq in 16 months. 
     War against the terrorism will continue anyway: that's a good thing. I not agree with war but the terrorism must be stopped. (of course, not applying Bush’ tactics...)
     Also Obama will close the famous and controversial prison from Guantanamo Bay until the end of 2009; anyway I am curious about the changes from America. Will this bring peace on Earth?! (even if we are in no "official" war there is a physiologic one against terror) Let's hope. Because even if some deny that America rules the world...he really does. 70% of what is happening on Earth is controlled ....by the USA.

4tehfan.Dejavo

How can Europe and America be in a financial crisis?

How can Europe and America be in a financial crisis?
This is a question that ran into my mind when I saw yesterday paper. How can a big super power country, like America be confronting with this kind of problems. Well as we can see in our paper, TV or on the web, that Bush has a big pimple in his economy. The open minded say that this problem occurs because of the large number of Americans that are out of work, but there are some rumors that say that this crisis was predicted 3 years ago. I also read in an article that they need 700 billions $ plan to save their economy, yes I know a big sack of money. Even so there are some skeptics that don’t believe that it will work, because they believe that you can’t cover a 45 Trillion $ hole with 700 bills. 
The numbers are big and European banks like Fortis and Dexia had to be rescued from bankruptcy. Fearful of a massive bank run as the credit crunch spread from the US to Europe, Ireland guaranteed the countrys bank deposit.
What is happening? What does it mean? Well this means that in a few years we are going to get poorer and of course this crisis is going to be felt more by pour people. Some say that it is a moment for a war to start, other say that we are going back to the stone age like in the Flinstone’s cartoons, what do you thing?

 

4tehfun.And3street

18th september, UEFA CUP

    Thursday night was the night of the UEFA CUP. More then 30 games were disputed with interesting and somehow "shocking" results.

    My favourite team, Poli Timisoara, who played last night with Partizan Belgrad, after a 16 year of absence from the UEFA CUP, didn't handle the pressure and unfortunately lost. But...I am optimistic and I hope that in the next game they will smash them. Let's hope :D

Anyway here are the result:

 FK Moscow 1 - 2 FC Copenhagen (0 - 1) 
 Litex Lovech 1 - 3 Aston Villa (1 - 1) 
 Cherno More 1 - 2 Stuttgart (1 - 0) 
 H. Tel Aviv 1 - 2 St Etienne (0 - 1) 
 S. Belupo 1 - 2 CSKA Moscow (1 - 0) 
 Ostrava 0 - 1 Sp. Moscow (0 - 0) 
 Brann 2 - 0 La Coruna (2 - 0) 
 Feyenoord 0 - 1 Kalmar (0 - 0) 
 Hamburger 0 - 0 Unirea (0 - 0) 
 Nancy 1 - 0 Motherwell (1 - 0) 
 Omonia 1 - 2 Manchester City (0 - 0) 
 Portsmouth 2 - 0 Guimaraes (1 - 0) 
 Wolfsburg 1 - 0 Rapid Bucharest (1 - 0) 
 Slavia Prague 0 - 0 Vaslui (0 - 0) 
 Austria Wien 2 - 1 Lech (0 - 0) 
 Besiktas 1 - 0 Metalist Kharkiv (0 - 0) 
 Zilina 1 - 1 Levski (0 - 0) 
 FC Timisoara 1 - 2 Partizan (1 - 1) 
 Nijmegen 1 - 0 Dinamo Bucharest (0 - 0) 
 Bellinzona 3 - 4 Galatasaray (1 - 1) 
 Kayserispor 1 - 2 PSG (0 - 1) 
 Young Boys 2 - 2 Club Brugge (1 - 1) 
 Santander 1 - 0 Honka (0 - 0) 
 AC Milan 3 - 1 Zurich (1 - 0) 
 Brondby 1 - 2 Rosenborg (0 - 1) 
 Dortmund 0 - 2 Udinese (0 - 2) 
 D. Zagreb 0 - 0 Sparta Prague (0 - 0) 
 Sampdoria 5 - 0 Kaunas (3 - 0) 
 Sevilla 2 - 0 Salzburg (1 - 0) 
 Rennes 2 - 1 Twente (1 - 1) 
 FK Borac 1 - 4 Ajax (0 - 2) 
 Napoli 3 - 2 Benfica (2 - 1) 
 Everton 2 - 2 St. Liege (2 - 2) 
 Tottenham 2 - 1 Wisla (1 - 1) 
 Braga 4 - 0 Artmedia (3 - 0) 
 Maritimo 0 - 1 Valencia (0 - 1) 
 Setubal 1 - 1 Heerenveen (0 - 0)

4tehfan.Dejavo

  

17th september, UEFA Champions League

  Last night were disputed the games in the last four groups of the UCL. The results were:

Group E
Manchester United 0 - 0 Villarreal
Celtic 0 - 0 Aalborg

Group F
Steaua 0 - 1 Bayern München
Olympique Lyon 2 - 2 Fiorentina

Group G
FC Porto 3 - 1 Fenerbahce Istanbul
Dinamo Kiev 1 - 1 Arsenal

Group H
Juventus 1 - 0 Zenit Sankt Petersburg
Real Madrid 2 - 0 BATE Borisov

  A few little surprises, but all in all, expected results. My favourite team is Steaua, and tonight I'm sad because they lost in a match the could have al least made a draw. But that's the game, you sometimes maybe deserve a result, but you can't get it...
  No comments for now, meybe on the next matches.
  Buh bye.

4tehfan.meHIGH

First day of UEFA Champions League 08/09

  Last night, on the 16th of september took place the first day of UCL. The results were:

Group A

  - AS Roma 1 - 2 CFR Cluj
  - Chelsea 4 - 0 Girondins Bordeaux

Group B
  - Panathinaikos Atena 0 - 2 Inter
  - Werder Bremen 0 - 0 Anorthosis

Group C
  - FC Basel 1 - 2 Sahtior Donetsk
  - FC Barcelona 3 - 1 Sporting CP Lisabona

Group D
  - PSV Eindhoven 0 - 3 Atletico Madrid
  - Olympique Marseille 1 - 2 Liverpool

  There were some expected results, but one big surprise happened! CFR Cluj, a team unknown in Europe, won the match against the well known AS Roma. It was a great game, in which the romanian team showed everyone that they can be considered a good team, and that they have to be taken into considerantion.
  Well, that's it for now, i'll come back with the rest of the groups.

4tehfan.meHIGH

9/11

9/11. What does it mean? For me...a tragic day, which marked our history. I will never forget that day. It was really spooky and creepy. 7 years…I am thinking what knows a 7 year old child about that day? What is he supposed to learn at scholl about 9/11? I hope the truth. Heh...good one. What is the truth?! Maybe one day we will find out.

Unfortunately the years go by and slowly we will remember less. But we must not forget that even if we become indifferent in years, that day, September 11 2001, changed our history and it will always be in our memory. Something like this cannot be forgotten.  

4tehfan.Dejavo

Uefa Champions League groups and Uefa Cup first round draw

  Hey, as you football fans know, on the 28th and 29th of August, Uefa has drawn the groups for CL and the first round for the Cup. I searched for all this info on the net, but i didn't find all if this on the same page, so i think this will be useful for you:
  UCL Groups are:

    GROUP A
      Chelsea
      AS Roma
      Girondins Bordeaux
      CFR Cluj

    GROUP B
      Inter Milano
      Werder Bremen
      Panathinaikos
      Anorthosis Famagusta

    GROUP C
      FC Barcelona
      Sporting Lisabona
      FC Basel
      Sahtior Donetk

    GROUP D
      Liverpool
      PSV Eindhoven
      Olympique Marseille
      Atletico Madrid

    GROUP E
      Manchester United
      Villarreal
      Celtic Glasgow
      Aalborg

    GROUP F
      Olympique Lyon
      Bayern Munchen
      Steaua Bucharest
      Fiorentina

    GROUP G
      Arsenal
      FC Porto
      Fenerbahce
      Dinamo Kiev

    GROUP H
      Real Madrid
      Juventus Torino
      Zenit St.Petersburg
      Bate Borisov

  It seems we'll see some nice matches this autumn!
  Next is the Uefa Cup first round:

      AC Milan-FC Zurich
      FC Timisoara-Partizan Belgrad
      Hertha Berlin-St Patrick
      Branik Ostrava-Spartak Moskova
      Metalist Harkov-Besiktas Istanbul

      Portsmouth-Vitoria SC
      Kaiserispor-PSG
      Sevilla-Salzburg
      WFL Wolfsburg-Rapid
      Sampdoria-Kaunas

      Maritimo-Valencia
      Dinamo Zagreb-Sparta Praga
      Manchester City-Omonia Nicosia
      Young Boys-FC Brugge
      Nancy-Motherwell

      Everton-Standard
      Napoli-Benfica
      Bellizzona-Galatasaray
      Nijmegen-Dinamo
      Santander-Honka

      Apoel-Shalke
      Litex-Aston Villa
      Austria Viena-Lech Poznam
      Vitoria-Heerenven
      SK Brann-Deportivo La Coruna

      Slavia Praga-FC Vaslui
      Brondby-Rosenborg
      Slaven-TSK Moscova
      Cernomore Varna-Stuttgart
      Rennes-Twente

      Ajax-Borac
      Tottenham-Wisla
      Fc Copenhaga-FC Moscova
      Zilina-Levski Sofia
      Borussia Dortmund-Udinese


      SC Braga-Artmedia
      Feynoord-Kalmar
      Hamburg-Unirea Urziceni
      Hapoel Tel-Aviv-St. Etienne

  There are many teams in the Uefa Cup, and I want to see if there are going to be any surprises, like in the past years.
  For now, good bye!

4tehfan.meHIGH

Problems with Nokia phones with a 2MP camera

   A while ago I had a Nokia 6288 phone with a 2mp camera, you probably know the model. It's very nice, classic, a business phone. Everything was great...until I made my first "night picture". A total disaster. And I mean it.

   First I thought I am stupid and I did not press the right button, but doing the second picture and seeing the result...ups..."houston...we have a problem". And a big problem it was. All my pictures were with green/blue lines on them. Very sad. And for a phone which costs this much (300 euro) I think it is not normal. Of course, being a new phone, it had warranty so I took it back. They send it to a firm which represents Nokia in Romania and when after 2 weeks it came back...I had THE SAME PROBLEM!!!!!!! I sad "what the..." and the answer came instantly: "all Nokia phones with a camera of 2Mp have this problem. We have nothing to do. Sorry." Well, I'll be damned. Why didn't I know this before I bought the phone. 

   I looked up the Internet to find info about this and it seems that it's true. It's stange but it is true. For instance, a friend of mine has a Nokia N73 with a 3,15 Mp camera....his pictures were great...until 5-6 months passed away and then it started to have problems. Problems like mine. The pictures have blue lines on them and the quality has dropped down.  Probably the camera of Nokia phones with 3,15 mp last longer at the beginning :P

   Do you have a Nokia phone with a 2Mp camera?! Did you notice this kind of problem with it?

4tehfan.Dejavo

Sensational show at the Olympics!

  One of the powerful country in the world, China was chosen to be the guest for the 29 th edition of the Olympic games. I can't seem to remember one more spectacular show than the one held in Beijing. So much activity: popular dancing, fulminant fireworks, over 10000 artists, Sara Brightman (beautiful british singer) and milions of colored lights all combined in an harmonious show.

 This is the first time in the history of the Olympics  when this extraordinary games are developed in China. I personnely don't agree with all the stunts during the show, because I don't think that runinng with a torch suspended against a crane is a good idea. It's their life like Bon Jovi would say: "It's my life and it's now or never...."  

Over the next 16 days we should expect to see powerful sportsmen, all fighting for one true moment of glory.

We all wish them GOOD LUCK ;)

4tehfan.and3street

 

HTC Touch Diamond Vs Apple iPhone 3G

  Mobile phone technology revolutionized communication and now smart phones offer a lot of features which conventional mobile phones donot. Even though many smart phones are already available in the market, few of them are as good as the two that I'm going to tell you about.
  The Diamond from HTC and the much awaited Apple iPhone 3G

  Re-defining the perception of advanced mobile phones… the HTC Touch Diamond™ signals a giant leap forward in combining hi-tech prowess with intuitive usability and exhilarating design.
  Highlights
2.8-inch touch screen, with four times the pixels of most phones.
Vibrant TouchFLO 3D user interface, responding perfectly to your finger gestures when scrolling through contacts, browsing the web, and launching media… all vividly displayed as photos and artwork powered by the 3D graphics processor.
HTC Weather - providing a constant view of weather at home and abroad.
Surf and download at broadband speed with HSDPA internet connectivity.
3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera for quality stills and video.
4GB of internal storage to preserve more photos, music, files and exchanged data than ever before.
Integrated GPS for use with maps software for a full turn-by-turn satellite navigation experience.

  Introducing iPhone 3G. With fast 3G wireless technology, GPS mapping, support for enterprise features like Microsoft Exchange, and the new App Store, iPhone 3G puts even more features at your fingertips. And like the original iPhone, it combines three products in one — a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device with rich HTML email and a desktop-class web browser. iPhone 3G. It redefines what a mobile phone can do — again.
  To purchase and activate iPhone 3G, you need the following:
-Credit card
-Social security number
-Valid government-issued photo ID
-Current wireless account number and password or PIN (if you’re new to AT&T)

  If you already own an iPhone, remember to sync it with iTunes one last time before you get your new iPhone 3G.
  
  All information posted here i took from the official sites of the phones - from what I see, even thow I don't own none of this phones, i would surely buy an HTC - it seems to me more designed, and more reliable - what do you think???
  I hope to find out the general oppinion on these 2 phones.
  C ya next time!   

4tehfan.meHIGH

Have any idea on Mini-DV or Firewire?

  Mini-DV is a format that all camcorders are using. DV comes from "Digital Video". This format is also used for saving in digital form a DV movie on a computer or on a DVD-recorder. They al must have a firewire connexion. A Firewire connexion is used to transfer a big amount of information, for example between a digital video camera and a computer. Almost all modern digital camcorders have included this connection since 1995, as do the vast majority of high end professional audio interfaces. Since 2003 many computers intended for home or professional audio/video use have built-in FireWire/i.LINK ports, including all Sony computers, all but one of Apple's computers (the MacBook Air), and many of its older iPods. It is also available on many retail motherboards. Well that's it, I'll get back with HDMI, HD and DivX stuff.

4tehfan.and3street

Do you trust your credit card? Check this out

  I was searching over the net for some online news  and I found an interesting interview from Perry Tancredit, seniour product manager from the firm called Verisign. He was asked by a BBC reporter if our credit card is secure and he said, I quote: "Credit and debit card information is just not incredibly secure" well that's a relief for the people from the entire world that are keeping they're money on credit card. This guy is in charge and responible with fraud detection. Just read what he said next: "Regardless of how strong the security measures, and how vigilant, the weak part of the chain is there is always a human who is responsible and who has overall control over the information."Ou yes he also give us some sort of plan on how to protect yourself from different thiefs but I will get back to that later, know I will just leave you with one thought: "assume that there will be some sort of fraud on your account sooner or later".

4tehfan.and3street

Have fun with your studies! 10 rules to make it easy!

  Nobody likes to study, I know it sucks and of course if you have to study a bunch of things that are completely uninteresting, but after a good search over the Internet, I found 10 rules to a better study of any kind. I assure you that you are going to learn more efficient and faster than the usual if you respect these rules:

1. Don't begin learning only if you are in a good psychological condition, starting from the desire for learning and the curiosity for the studied material, mental lucidity.

2. Don't try to learn when your brain is tired, if your angry or upset of something, because you will force yourself for nothing.

3. Learn everything in a logic kind of way, not mechanical, because it's much easy and the brain assimilates better the information.

4. Atack the learning lesson from outside to inside, from the skeleton text through the actual content, do this by parts.

5. Establish many connexions between the memorized information and the information that need to be memorized.

6. Use your imagination, fantasy, and project through this tools the text you are trying to learn.

7. Constantly repeat your lesson, use a schedule  to do that and avoid the stress and forgetfulness.

8. Try if the text is allowing you to learn through jokes and humorous connexions or through logical formulas.

9. Some lessons can be recorded on tape or cd, if you can, try to record you information and play it every time you want.

10. Reward yourself each time you have a positive result.

4tehfan.and3street

Kobe Briant leads the US team to victory!

  What just happened, the Russian coach may say, it looks like the game discussed between Russia and US turned up bad for the russian team.

  The game took place on july 3rd in Shanghai and what a game it was. The score was 90-68. The american offensive key was Kobe Briant scoreing up to 19 points. Here is a short brief about the game, were we can see the best plays of the game and why the crowd shouted Kobe Briant MVP of the game.

4tehfan.and3street

Wimbledon cup

  On July 7 th, Rafael Nadal became a true giant of tennis. It was for the first time in his career, when he finally won the Wimbledon singles title.
  His final match against Roger Federer was one of the most spectacular game played ever in the history of tenis. The game lasted five hours and the score was 6-4 6-4 6-7 6-7 9-7. Both players played with a lot of passion but at the end the five time champion Roger Federer was defeated.
In The Times news paper Rafael Nadal said: "It is the most emotional of my victories, but I don’t want to compare what is more important. In the final set I was just trying to focus on my serve. I had played two awful points in the fourth-set tie-break, two really awful points, but this is the Wimbledon final. You do not stop trying to win.

4tehfan.and3street

Clubs in Ibiza

  Ibiza, Ibiza, the legendary night clubbing destination and the dream of those who were born to party all day and all night. If you are a party lover and you love house music, than this is the place for you.
  Here the rich and famous, young and trendy wants to be seen on the dance flor listening to the best dj's in the world. DJ's like Roger Sanchez, David Morales, Frankie Knuckles, Judge Jules, Pete Tong, Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk, Sasha, John Digweed, Armin Van Buuren, Erick Morillo, Graham Sahara, and David Guetta will keep you awake no matter if it's night or day.
Just check out these clubs to understand better what am I talking about:

PRIVILEGE
SPACE
PACHA
AMNESIA
ES PARADIS
EL DIVINO
EDEN

  Each club has its own characteristics, and I assure you that if you go there during the season starting from June you are going to have the time of your life.

4tehfan.and3street

Free GSPTV online

As you know in Romania a new and unknown TV station - called GSPTV - will broadcast all the soccer games from the First League. It seems like everything is ok BUT this TV station can be watched by only 20% of our conutry's population!!!! Is this fair? I think you know the answer if you are on this page because, like me, you try to watch this soccer games live on the Interent.

Well, we live in Romania so we are creative (this is how we were made by mother nature :P ) and we have solutions to every problem.

First, you have to download and install a program called Sopcast. You can find it on the following web page:

http://www.sopcast.com/

After that go to this web page: http://myp2p.eu/index.php?part=sports

There you can find all the sport mathces that are played that day. Just click on the little TV icon from the right and the match will begin.

Have fan! 

For any questions pls do not hesitate to write ;)

4tehfan.Dejavo

TOP 10 GOLD RULES to PROMOTE a BLOG or WEBSITE

  There are a lot of ways to promote a blog, to get it known by many people who come back for information that you post on your blog.But there are only 10 gold rules to do it in the best way!
These rules are very simple to implement, so everyone can do it!

1.   LINK BUILDING: Exchange links with other bloggers
2.   Join communities at MyBlogLog
3.   Use del.icio.us
4.   Join FORUMS: AuthorityBlogger
5.   Join GROUPS: Google
6.   Distribute articles: Write a guest post for another blog
7.   SUBMIT A PRESS RELEASE: Free-Press-Release.com
8.   USE GIVEAWAYS: Write tutorials for something you know well
9.   CREATE SOME BUZZ: ReviewBack (blog review exchange)
10. TRY TO GET AWARDS: Apply for website awards or Blogger’s Choice Award

  This are the most important rules that guide you to get your blog or website promoted.We hope that this will help you to get the number of visitors you want!

Ali CAMPBELL - the legendary voice of UB40 - live in Timisoara

  On the 3rd of august, Ali Campbell made a great show in Romania, Timisoara. The legendary voice of UB40 sang both hits of the band (like Kingston Town, Red red wine, Can't stop falling in love), and new songs of his solo carrier.
  There were about 2.000 people who enjoyed a great live performance which ended with spectacular fireworks!

Iphone v2....new features?!

What about the new IPhone which still is not on the markets?!

I heard that the new software will include a lot of new features, many of them beeing older features seened on the v1 but this time "upgraded". When will it appear...I think neither Apple  don't know that! :P

The iPhone is a great phone. I don’t think many people will disagree with that. But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect; far from it. There are still many features missing, and some things that are just wrong. Thankfully, Apple has the ability to add and fix many of the things we all want to see through a firmware update. While reading Gizmodo’s wishlist for the firmware 2.1 update currently in beta, I thought about the features I’d like to see in coming software updates. 

Gizmodo has all of the most requested features and fixes on their lists. Things like less crashes, speeding up programs, video recording, wireless syncing, and, of course, copy and paste. But I’ve got a couple more features I’d like to see.. 
Better GPS functionality - I’d like to see a way of recording my location, and syncing it with photos that I’ve taken with a different camera in iPhoto. Pictures could sync with iPhoto, and then take the location data from the iPhone and automatically geotag them based upon matching time codes.
Better Bluetooth functionality - I want to be able to use a pair of stereo bluetooth headphones with my iPhone. An iPhone plus a bluetooth keyboard could be a killer ultra portable setup. And, with bluetooth, you could add GPS to the original iPhone. 

That’s all I have right now to add. What else would you like to see in coming firmware updates?

Microsoft admits Vista failure

WITH TWO OVERLAPPING events, Microsoft admitted what we have been saying all along, Vista, aka Windows Me Two (Me II), is a joke that no one wants. 

It did two unprecedented things this week that frankly stunned us.

Dell announced that it would be offering XP again on home PCs. The second that Vista came out, Microsoft makes it very hard for you to sell anything other than Me II. It can't do this on the business side because it would be laughed out the door, but for the walking sheep class, well, you take what you are shovelled.

This is classic abusive monopoly behaviour, Microsoft wrote the modern book on it. It pulled all the major OEMs in by twisting their arms with the usual methods, and they again all fell into line. Never before has anyone backpedalled on this, to do so would earn you the wrath of Microsoft.

But Dell just did. This means that Me II sales are at least as bad as we think, the software and driver situation is just as miserable, and Dell had no choice but to buck the trend. If anyone thinks this is an act of atonement for foisting such a steaming pile on us, think again, it doesn't care about the consumer.

What happened is, the OEMs revolted in the background and forced Microsoft's hand. This is a big neon sign above Me II saying 'FAILURE'. Blink blink blink. OK, Me II won't fail, Microsoft has OEMs whipped and threatened into a corner, it will sell, but you can almost hear the defectors marching toward Linux. This is a watershed.

The other equally monumental Me II failure? Gates in China launching a $3 version of bundled XP. Why is this not altruism? Well, it goes back to piracy and how it helped enforce the MS monopoly. If you can easily pirate Windows, Linux has no price advantage, they both cost zero.

With Me II, Microsoft made it very hard to pirate. It is do-able, you can use the BIOS hack and probably a host of others, but the point is, it raised the bar enough so lots of people have to buy it. Want to bet that in a country with $100 average monthly salary, people aren't going to shell out $299 for Me II Broken Edition?

What did MS do? It dropped the price about 100x or so. I can't say this is unprecedented, when it made Office 2003 hard to pirate it had to backpedal with the student edition for about $150. This time though, things are much more desperate.

If you fit Microsoft's somewhat convoluted definition of poor, it still wants to lock you in, you might get rich enough to afford the full-priced stuff someday. It is at a dangerous crossroads, if its software bumps up the price of a computer by 100 per cent, people might look to alternatives.

That means no Me II DRM infection lock in, no mass migration to the newer Office obfuscated and patented file formats, and worse yet, people might utter the W word. Yes, you guessed it, 'why'. People might ask why it is sticking with the MS lock in, and at that point, it is in deep trouble.

So, it did the unthinkable, and dropped the price. I won't bother to hunt down all the exec quotes saying how people can't afford clean water would be overjoyed to sell kidneys to upgrade to the new version of Office, but they are out there. This was a sacred cow, and it is now hamburger backed up against the wall.

These two actions by Microsoft are proof of what I suggested three years ago. Microsoft has lost its ability to twist arms, and now it is going to die. It can't compete on level ground, so is left with backpedalling and discounts of almost 100 times.

What we are seeing is an unprecedented shift of power. It is also an unprecedented admission of failure. And the funniest part about the moves made? They are the wrong things to do. Microsoft is in deep trouble

4tehfan.Dejavo

UEFA Cup DRAW

Also today, 1th August 2008, took place the drawings for the UEFA CUP.

The full draw for the second qualifying round of the Uefa Cup is as follows:

Southern section:

Siroki Brijeg (Bosnia) v Besiktas (Turkey)
Braga (Portugal) v Zrinjski (Bosnia)
Lokomotiv Sofia (Bulgaria) v Borac Cacak (Serbia)
Aris Salonika (Greece) v Slaven Belupo Koprivnica (Croatia)
Omonia Nicosia (Cyprus) v AEK Athens (Greece)
Vllaznia Shkoder (Albania) v Napoli (Italy)
APOEL Nicosia (Cyprus) v Red Star Belgrade (Serbia)
Deportivo Coruna (Spain) v Hajduk Split (Croatia)
Litex Lovech (Bulgaria) v Hapoel Ironi Kiryat Shmona (Israel)
Vojvodina Novi Sad (Serbia) v Hapoel Tel Aviv (Israel)
Maccabi Netanya (Israel) v Cherno More Varna (Bulgaria)


Central-East section:

VfB Stuttgart (Germany) v Gyor ETO (Hungary)
FC Zurich (Switzerland) v Sturm Graz (Austria) 
Lech Poznan (Poland) v Grasshoppers (Switzerland)
Slovan Liberec (Czech Republic) v Zilina (Slovakia)
Metalurgs Liepaja (Latvia) v Vaslui (Romania)
Young Boys (Switzerland) v Debrecen (Hungary)
WIT Georgia Tbilisi (Georgia) v Austria Vienna (Austria)
Suduva Marijampole (Lithuania) v Salzburg (Austria)
Interblock Ljubljana (Slovenia) v Hertha Berlin (Germany)
Legia Warsaw (Poland) v FC Moscow (Russia)
Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk (Ukraine) v AC Bellinzona (Switzerland)


Northern section:

Djurgarden (Sweden) v Rosenborg Trondheim (Norway)
Manchester City (England) v Midtjylland (Denmark)
FC Honka (Finland) v Viking Stavanger (Norway)
Queen of the South (Scotland) v Nordsjaelland (Denmark)
Ghent (Belgium) v Kalmar (Sweden)
Aston Villa (England) v FH (Iceland)
Stabaek (Norway) v Stade Rennes (France)
Haka Valkeakoski (Finland) v Brondby (Denmark)

FC Copenhagen (Denmark) v Lillestrom (Norway)

Elfsborg Boras (Sweden) v St. Patrick's Athletic (Ireland)

The first legs are set to be played on 14th August, with the return fixtures a fortnight later.

4tehfan.Dejavo

UEFA Champions League DRAW

Today, 1 August 2008, took place the drawings for UEFA Champions League.

Here are the teams and the matches, some of them very interesting:

Anorthosis/Rapid Vienna v Olympiakos
Vitoria Guimaraes v Gothenburg/Basel
Shakhtar Donetsk v Domzale/Dinamo Zagreb
Schalke 04 v Atletico Madrid
Aalborg/Modrica v Rangers/Kaunas
Barcelona v Beitar Jerusalem/Wisla Krakow
Levski Sofia v Anderlecht/BATE
Standard Liege v Liverpool
Inter Baku/Partizan v Fenerbahce/MTK Hungaria
Twente Enschede v Arsenal
Spartak Moscow v Drogheda/Dinamo Kiev
Juventus v Tampere/Artmedia
Brann/Ventspils v Marseille
Fiorentina v Slavia Prague
Galatasaray v Steaua Bucharest
Panathinaikos/Dinamo Tbilisi v Sheriff Tiraspol/Sparta Pragu

The matches will be played on 12/13 and 26/27 August 2008

4tehfan.Dejavo

Tibet, Human Rights and the Beijing Olympics

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

When the 2008 Summer Olympics were awarded to Beijing in July 2001, expectations were high that China's desire to showcase the Beijing Games, amplified by the bright light of international scrutiny, would push the country toward political liberalization, media freedom and respect for human rights. Yet the government's overriding short-term concern with maintaining social order and political stability during the August Olympics has resulted in a visible tightening of state media controls and Internet censorship, and stepped-up harassment of human-rights activists.

In recent months Beijing police have detained dozens, if not hundreds, of protesters, petitioners and whistle-blowers, and the Asian giant's treatment of Tibet has become front-page news across the world. Expected to help open China up, the Olympics have paradoxically served to close China down further.

With the clock ticking down to the August 8 Opening Ceremony, attacks on China's human-rights record at home and abroad have begun to converge and overlap, giving rise to an energetic, if somewhat inchoate, Olympic boycott movement. Last year, a distinguished group of Chinese political activists publicly renounced Beijing's grandiose wish for Olympic glory, stating, "We know too well how these glories are built on the ruins of the lives of ordinary people." They were joined by the co-designer of Beijing's stunning new "Bird’s Nest" National Olympic Stadium, Ai Weiwei. In a video widely viewed on YouTube last fall, Ai famously gave film director Steven Spielberg the finger after Spielberg signed on as artistic consultant to the Beijing Games.

In the past few months, the list of prominent international Olympic naysayers has grown to include Britain's Prince Charles, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Parliament Vice President Edward McMillan-Scott, actress Mia Farrow, nine Nobel Prize winners, 119 U.S. lawmakers and even Steven Spielberg himself. Reneging on his Olympic consulting commitment in mid-February, Spielberg stated that he could no longer conduct business as usual while Darfur continued to deteriorate.

Spielberg's defection put Chinese leaders squarely on the defensive. Fearing a bandwagon effect, the Beijing Olympic Committee declared that China was actively engaging in "quiet diplomacy" to alleviate human suffering in southern Sudan. A few days later, a Foreign Ministry spokesman announced that Chinese policy in Burma (Myanmar) was one of promoting a "democratic process of reconciliation and peace." And at the end of February, the Chinese government announced that it would resume its suspended human-rights dialogue with the United States, which was broken off at Beijing’s initiative in 2004.

Just as things were beginning to calm down, in mid-March a series of anti-Chinese protests broke out in Tibet, some of which turned violent. After watching passively for a few days, the government cracked down severely on alleged rioters. In this situation of heightened tension, the start of the worldwide Olympic torch relay in April provided the occasion for a series of angry confrontations between pro-Tibetan and pro-Chinese demonstrators in Paris, London and San Francisco.

With the Olympic torch having ignited the flames of fervent, conflicting Chinese and Tibetan nationalisms, Beijing's leaders find themselves in a difficult bind. Their obsession with ensuring social order and political control at home is now clashing head-on with their equally strong craving for Olympic prestige and approval abroad. Powerful political cross-currents have thus been set in motion. As this contradiction continues to deepen, no one can be sure how it will play itself out. Meanwhile, the spotlight on Beijing shines ever more brightly.

The Beijing Games, in which China has invested so much hope for its image, are proving to be a powder keg for political protest. The outcome is far from clear, as Richard Baum '62, celebrated UCLA professor of political science and author of the upcoming China Watcher: Confessions of a Peking Tom, makes clear in this edited version of an op-ed piece that appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review in April.

Intel vs. AMD: Today's generation compared

Intel vs. AMD: Today's generation compared

I SUPPOSE YOU COULD SAY we've conducted plenty of CPU reviews in our time, but we just can't bring ourselves to slow things down. The release of Windows Vista and a round of price cuts by AMD prompted us to hatch a devious plan involving Vista, a new test suite full of multithreaded and 64-bit applications, fifteen different CPU configurations, and countless hours of lab testing. That plan has come to fruition in the form of a broad-based comparison of the latest processors from AMD and Intel, ranging from well under $200 to a cool grand, from two slow CPU cores to four fast ones, from the lowly Athlon 64 X2 4400+ and Core 2 Duo E6300 to the astounding Athlon 64 FX-74 and Core 2 Extreme QX6700. 

So, how do the latest processors stack up in Windows Vista? Will a sub-$200 CPU suffice for your needs? Have price cuts allowed the Athlon 64 to catch up to the Core 2 Duo in terms of price-performance? What about power consumption and energy efficiency? Can any of these processors stand up under the weight of killer new games like Supreme Commander? Can I possibly squeeze any more questions into one paragraph? Keep reading for answers to all of these questions and more. 



The matchups
The setup for this one is fairly simple. We're directly comparing processors from Intel at AMD at a range of price points. Intel has had a lock on the overall performance lead since the Core 2 Duo first hit the scene, but AMD has made clear its intention to maintain a competitive price-performance ratio. To do so, AMD will have to meet or beat each of the processors in Intel's current desktop lineup, which looks like so: 
Model Clock speed Cores L2 cache (total) Fab process TDP Price
Core 2 Duo E6300 1.83GHz 2 2MB 65nm 65W $183
Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz 2 2MB 65nm 65W $224
Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz 2 4MB 65nm 65W $316
Core 2 Duo E6700 2.66GHz 2 4MB 65nm 65W $530
Core 2 Extreme X6800 2.93GHz 2 4MB 65nm 75W $999
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz 4 8MB 65nm 105W $851
Core 2 Extreme QX6700 2.66GHz 4 8MB 65nm 130W $999

Intel does offer lower cost options like the Core 2 Duo E4300 and its Celeron value-oriented processors, but our list includes the meat of the lineup. 

AMD, on the other hand, offers a dizzying array of Athlon 64 X2 models, from 3600+ to 6000+, generally in increments of 200 (or is it 200+?). Not only that, but AMD often sells multiple products under the same performance-related model number, just to keep smug members of the general public from becoming overconfident. For instance, the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ comes in a 90nm "Toledo" flavor that runs at 2.2GHz, has 1MB of L2 cache per core, and is intended for Socket 939 motherboards. The X2 4400+ also comes in the form of a 65nm chip code-named "Brisbane" that runs at 2.3GHz, has 512K of L2 per core, and slips into Socket AM2 mobos. Several of these features—fab process, clock frequency, cache size, and socket/memory type—may vary within the same model number. 

With that said, we've chosen the following members of the Athlon 64 lineup as the most direct competitors to their Core 2 counterparts. Because we live in the now, all of these are newer-style Socket AM2 processors: 
Model Clock speed Cores L2 cache (total) Fab process TDP Price
Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.3GHz 2 1MB 65nm 65W $170
Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6GHz 2 1MB 65nm 65W $222
Athlon 64 X2 5600+ 2.8GHz 2 2MB 90nm 89W $326
Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 3.0GHz 2 2MB 90nm 125W $459
Athlon 64 FX-70 2.6GHz 4 4MB 90nm 125W x 2 $599
Athlon 64 FX-72 2.8GHz 4 4MB 90nm 125W x 2 $799
Athlon 64 FX-74 3.0GHz 4 4MB 90nm 125W x 2 $999

As you can see, AMD has a fairly direct answer for most members of the Core 2 range. Things start to get shaky at the high end, where the Athlon 64's lower performance takes its toll. The Athlon 64 X2 6000+ sells at a discount versus the Core 2 Duo E6700, and AMD has no answer to the Core 2 Extreme X6800, Intel's fastest dual-core processor. If you match up the two product lines against one another, the results look something like this: 
Model Price Model Price
Core 2 Duo E6300 $183 Athlon 64 X2 4400+ $170
Core 2 Duo E6400 $224 Athlon 64 X2 5000+ $222
Core 2 Duo E6600 $316 Athlon 64 X2 5600+ $326
Core 2 Duo E6700 $530 Athlon 64 X2 6000+ $459
Core 2 Quad Q6600 $851 Athlon 64 FX-72 $799
Core 2 Extreme QX6700 $999 Athlon 64 FX-74 $999

So the comparisons are remarkably direct, by and large. 

These things are never entirely simple, though, so we should roll out some caveats. One of the big ones involves those FX-series processors. You'll need two of them in order to populate a Quad FX motherboard, so they're priced (and listed above) in pairs. However, there's currently only one Quad FX motherboard available, and it costs about $350, which throws the value equation out of whack. 

The value equation sometimes goes off-kilter the other way when AMD employs guerrilla price-war tactics like selling the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ for $125.99 on Newegg, well below the slower 4400+. AMD has several of these "Crazy Hector" deals going at Newegg right now, and none of them seem to involve the Athlon 64 models we've identified as direct competitors to specific Core 2 Duo models. That's probably an intentional facet of AMD's strategy. This practice throws a wrench in our nice, neat comparsion, but there's little we can do other than tell you about it. 

One other thing we should tell you about is why we've included two versions of the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ in our testing. Regular readers may recall that we've already tested the 65nm version of the 5000+ against its 90nm predecessor and found that the 65nm one had lower power consumption. But the 65nm version also has a slower L2 cache, so we've tested the 65nm and 90nm chips head to head to see how the slower cache affects performance.

4tehfan.Dejavo

START

This is a new beginning...of a new blog

This blog will be for the fans of music, sports, and hi-tech.

4 teh fan team hopes you'll enjoy the posts.