hand in hand ; till the end

Leaving computers on overnight = $2.8 billion a year

2009-03-30T04:30:00.000-07:00

Admittedly I don't think much about it at all. I leave my laptop running overnight because I know it'll take five minutes or more to get things going in the morning -- not just booting up, but launching the various apps I start the day with, downloading my overnight email, filtering out the spam, and otherwise "getting settled."

But all the power wasted while computers are sitting idle overnight adds up, and one study has finally tried to measure it. The tally: An estimated $2.8 billion wasted on excess energy costs each year in the U.S. alone.

On a CO2 basis, that's 20 million tons of carbon dioxide, about the amount produced by 4 million cars on the road.

The full report is available for download here (scroll down to "PC Energy Report US 2009").

But big numbers like that become almost meaningless in an era of trillion-dollar bailouts, so to put the wasted energy in perspective, the study provides the data in terms you can better understand: If you run a company with 1,000 PCs left on overnight, you can save about $28,000 a year if they are turned off after hours. That's not chump change.

Of course, it's also a fact that your PC will function better if you restart it regularly, and nightly shutdowns can help you avoid having to suddenly reboot in the middle of the day when you'd otherwise be productive. So even though this little laptop, by my math, eats up only about a quarter's worth of power overnight, maybe it's a smart idea and ultimately a time-saver, too to shut it down after hours after all.

Beware Conficker worm come April 1

2009-03-30T04:27:00.000-07:00

In an event that hits the computer world only once every few years, security experts are racing against time to mitigate the impact of a bit of malware which is set to wreak havoc on a hard-coded date. As is often the case, that date is April 1.

Malware creators love to target April Fool's Day with their wares, and the latest worm, called Conficker C, could be one of the most damaging attacks we've seen in years.

Conficker first bubbled up in late 2008 and began making headlines in January as known infections topped 9 million computers. Now in its third variant, Conficker C, the worm has grown incredibly complicated, powerful, and virulent... though no one is quite sure exactly what it will do when D-Day arrives.

Thanks in part to a quarter-million-dollar bounty on the head of the writer of the worm, offered by Microsoft, security researchers are aggressively digging into the worm's code as they attempt to engineer a cure or find the writer before the deadline. What's known so far is that on April 1, all infected computers will come under the control of a master machine located somewhere across the web, at which point anything's possible. Will the zombie machines become denial of service attack pawns, steal personal information, wipe hard drives, or simply manifest more traditional malware pop-ups and extortion-like come-ons designed to sell you phony security software? No one knows.

Conficker is clever in the way it hides its tracks because it uses an enormous number of URLs to communicate with HQ. The first version of Conficker used just 250 addresses each day -- which security researchers and ICANN simply bought and/or disabled -- but Conficker C will up the ante to 50,000 addresses a day when it goes active, a number which simply can't be tracked and disabled by hand.

At this point, you should be extra vigilant about protecting your PC: Patch Windows completely through Windows Update and update your anti-malware software as well. Make sure your antivirus software is actually running too, as Conficker may have disabled it.

Microsoft also offers a free online safety scan here, which should be able to detect all Conficker versions.

Mixed Up Feelings

2009-03-23T04:24:00.000-07:00

Congrats bie for getting your new job in hongkie restaurant. I'm happy for her cause finally she gets a job and own income.

At the same time, every time she work there are always guys going up to her,flirting with her, wants to get closer to her and stuffs. Which bothers me in a way. It's not that I don't trust her its just the feeling of 'somebody picking on your girl' that kind of feeling.

I hope I could just get my internet business done as fast as possible so I could just give her money and take care of her so she doesn't has to work for the rest of her life. =/
Give me more time, I could reach that level in a few more years.

For the time being, I hope this job will go smooth and no guys disturbing you and stuffs.
Last but not least, iLOVEYOU always. (:
And I know you will too.

God please bless us with your power so that our relationship can go to distance.

This Month's Top 10 in iTunes Store

2009-03-14T23:09:00.000-07:00

All organized in sequence from 1-10.

Man Utd 2-0 Inter Milan (agg 2-0)

2009-03-12T05:33:00.000-07:00

Vidic heads in the opener for Man Utd against Inter Milan

Sir Alex Ferguson emerged victorious in the showdown with his old rival Jose Mourinho as Manchester United survived a nervous night against Inter Milan to reach the last eight of the Champions League.

Nemanja Vidic powered in Ryan Giggs' corner to give United the lead in the tie after only four minutes, and Cristiano Ronaldo rose to head home Wayne Rooney's cross three minutes after the interval.

But in between those two strikes, Mourinho's Inter were left to regret a succession of missed opportunities to grab a crucial away goal and put the skids under United's bid for an historic haul of five trophies.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic hit the bar with a first-half header and Dejan Stankovic missed a glorious opportunity as Inter failed to take advantage of uncharacteristic slackness in possession and defence from United.

We will be stronger in next round - Ferguson

There was still time for substitute Adriano to strike the woodwork again after Ronaldo's goal, but this was United's night and their bid to rewrite the record books is still on course.

Mourinho prowled the Old Trafford technical area for virtually the entire 90 minutes as he held out hopes of a repeat of his famous 2004 victory with Porto that sent United out of the Champions League - but it was all in vain as Inter fell victim to their own generosity in front of goal and the more clinical finishing of their opponents.

Inter dominated for spells, but there was an inevitability that they would be punished for their failure to score - and so it proved as United delivered the telling blows in an engrossing battle.

United never touched the heights, but once again they proved that they have perfected the habit of winning even when their best form eludes them.

Indeed, the result extended their unbeaten record in major European competitions to 21 - breaking the 37-year-old mark of Juventus.

Ferguson will be elated with the victory against a dangerous adversary in Mourinho, who was made to suffer the taunts of an Old Trafford gallery that has suffered at his hands before.

But the former Chelsea boss remained defiant to the end, standing alone on the touchline, but turning to congratulate the United backroom staff at the final whistle.

United will need to produce better as the champions of Europe continue on what they hope will be the road to Rome and another final, but they deserve the utmost admiration for the resilience they displayed in grinding out a priceless win.

The tie was played out against the backdrop of the Mourinho factor, and his mere presence guaranteed an atmosphere of pure theatre around a packed Old Trafford.

Vidic was recalled after his first leg suspension to bolster United's defensive resources, but it was his threat at set pieces that reaped dividends.

Mourinho could not repeat the success he has had at Old Trafford in the past

Mourinho, the great defensive organiser, will have been mortified to see the Serbian, hardly a secret weapon on these occasions, rise almost unchallenged to head Giggs' corner past Julio Cesar.

And yet, instead of settling the early nerves United may have been experiencing, the holders failed to build on Vidic's goal and barely survived a harrowing spell of pressure from Inter.

Ibrahimovic is one of the great enigmas of European football, often failing to justify his glowing reputation when the stakes are at their highest.

And he should have drawn Inter level after 28 minutes when he stole in unmarked on to the end of Maicon's free-kick, only to send a downward header against the bar with Edwin van der Sar beaten.

United were careless in possession, which did not help their cause with Inter growing in confidence as the half progressed.

Stankovic's long-range shot was turned to safety by Van der Sar before United relieved the pressure to almost grab that crucial second goal eight minutes before the interval.

Ronaldo nods in Man Utd's second to wrap up the win

Rooney's instant pass sent John O'Shea clear in the area, but Julio Cesar raced off his line to make the block.

Inter ended an absorbing opening half in the ascendancy, with Stankovic adding to the catalogue of missed opportunities when he somehow steered Ibrahimovic's pass over the top from point-blank range.

Mario Balotelli's clever pass then released Ibrahimovic for a volley that beat Van der Sar but flew inches wide.

Defeated Mourinho praises Man Utd

Mourinho must have felt a real surge of optimism at the start of the second half, and attempted to inject fresh impetus into his side replacing the sadly pedestrian Patrick Vieira with Sulley Muntari.

If he was upbeat about over-turning United again, it was a feeling that did not last for long as Ronaldo headed the second goal United craved after 48 minutes.

Rooney's cross was an open invitation for Ronaldo and he rose to flick an emphatic finish past the helpless Cesar.

The scoreline was a harsh reflection on the contribution Inter had made to the game, but they paid the ultimate price for their failure to make a lengthy period of supremacy count.

The burly Adriano replaced Stankovic in what amounted to a final throw of the dice from Mourinho, and he almost handed the Italian champions a lifeline when he stretched to turn Esteban Cambiasso's cross against the post.

United were being offered more space as Inter went for broke, and Cesar needed to be at his best again to deny Rooney, recovering well to block Dimitar Berbatov's shot after he was set up by Giggs.

Ronaldo tested Inter's defiant keeper one final time with a long-range effort, but by then the fight had drained out of Inter and United were on cruise control to the quarter-finals.

Man Utd: Van der Sar, O'Shea, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Ronaldo, Carrick, Scholes (Anderson 70), Giggs, Rooney (Park 84), Berbatov.
Subs Not Used: Foster, Evans, Fletcher, Gibson, Tevez.

Booked: Rooney.

Goals: Vidic 4, Ronaldo 49.

Inter Milan: Julio Cesar, Maicon, Cordoba, Samuel, Santon, Zanetti, Cambiasso, Vieira (Muntari 46), Stankovic (Adriano 58), Ibrahimovic, Balotelli (Figo 70).
Subs Not Used: Toldo, Maxwell, Cruz, Rivas.

Booked: Samuel, Muntari.

Att: 74,769

Ref: Wolfgang Stark (Germany).

Mourinho Punched a Fan in Old Trafford

2009-03-12T05:31:00.000-07:00

Apple Silently Released All New iMac

2009-03-06T03:38:00.000-08:00

The Greenest iMac Ever.
Highly recyclable and energy efficient, the new iMac is designed with the environment in mind.

Rated EPEAT Gold.

Through its innovative and environmentally friendly design, iMac has earned the highest rating of EPEAT Gold. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, or EPEAT, evaluates the environmental impact of a product based on how recyclable it is, how much energy it uses, and how it’s designed and manufactured.

Many harmful toxins eliminated.

Apple engineers have worked hard to eliminate many of the toxins that are a common part of desktop computer manufacturing, such as choosing arsenic-free display glass for iMac. They have also removed brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from circuit boards, internal cables, connectors, insulators, adhesives, and more. Apple not only removed these toxins from iMac, we've done the same for the aluminum-based MacBook family; the new Mac mini and Mac Pro; and the Apple LED Cinema Display, iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod nano, and iPhone 3G.

Highly recyclable.

Apple designers and engineers have integrated the entire iMac computer into an enclosure made from a single, solid piece of recyclable aluminum. The display is made of recyclable glass. Both the aluminum and glass materials are very desirable to recyclers, which means the raw materials used in iMac computers can be reused in other products.

More energy efficient.

The energy-efficient hardware components in the iMac work hand in hand with Mac OS X to create a system that can dynamically adjust power consumption to reduce the energy used overall. iMac uses an advanced power management system leveraged from the technology that makes the most of battery life in Apple’s MacBook family. To reduce energy consumption, the iMac hard drive spins down automatically when inactive. iMac also decides which processor — CPU or GPU — is best suited to perform a task efficiently. That means when iMac is idle, it’s using as little power as possible.

iMac meets the stringent low power requirements set by the EPA, giving it ENERGY STAR certification. iMac also meets the latest efficiency requirements of ENERGY STAR Version 5.0 Specification for Computers before the July 2009 effective date. ENERGY STAR 5.0 sets significantly higher efficiency limits for power supplies and aggressive limits for the computer's typical annual power consumption.

Power duo.

The latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors run at speeds starting at 2.66GHz with options up to 3.06GHz. And they include 6MB of shared L2 cache. Translation: iMac runs your applications faster and more efficiently than ever before.

Fast, faster, or fastest?

Every new iMac includes high-performance NVIDIA graphics standard. Now games run smoother, photos load faster, and pro applications have even more power. The 20-inch iMac with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor delivers up to 2.3x faster graphics performance.¹ The 24-inch iMac gives you even more graphics options. The NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics processor makes viewing web pages and searching through your iPhoto library smoother and more efficient. Or you can choose NVIDI

A GeForce GT 120 discrete graphics to take 3D graphics up a notch. For 3D graphics-intensive games or pro applications like Aperture and Motion, the NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 and ATI Radeon HD 4850 processors deliver the fastest graphics performance yet.

Congrats babyy!

2009-03-02T10:13:00.000-08:00

Babyy congrats for receiving your results with flying colors! (= The thing that made me most proud of is the Business Law you took. The book is so freaking thick and you can memorize the whole thing with and grade A! I’m glad that everything you prepared and the prayers i prayed for you did worked out pretty well. I know my blog is kinda lack of post but this is the come back post which is for you. :) The tough and rough semester you had been through, now is the semester that you don’t have to study like crazy, at the same time you can’t slack too aite? I’ll always be there to support you when you need me. ALWAYS. (=

Apps Store

2009-01-17T20:44:00.001-08:00

Congrats to Apple.Inc for achieving 500 million apps being downloaded! Thank you so much for bringing all these stuffs into our lives which made our life easier and fun. I'm still downloading your apps through my iPod Touch !

iLife and iWork 09

2009-01-17T19:38:00.000-08:00

Apple has updated its iLife application with a number of new features to iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand, but will it be enough to make you want to spend £54 on the upgrade? We managed to grab some time with the new software application at Macworld 2009 in San Francisco. iPhoto 09 The main focus in the application, and the keynote for that matter, is iPhoto. It gets three main new features amongst others - Faces, Places and more connect-ability with services such as Facebook, Flickr, and Apple's own MobileMe. Faces will allow you to organise your pictures via faces of people that you know. Using face detection technology the software will supposedly automatically work out who people are once you've told the software, and then allow you to find that person in your photos. Tagging people in photos is easy - merely a case of clicking on a Name Faces button and rather like Facebook you can select a face or multiple faces. Once you've done so you can then group your photos by that person - ideal if you want to find a picture of your wife or kids for example. Sounds great, in our play it worked a treat on the beautifully taken images that Apple had pre-loaded into the system, but people don't all take beautifully taken pictures all the time. So we downloaded a stack of photos from Flickr of us and friends, imported them into iPhoto to see whether the system would cope with average pictures rather than just great ones. The results, as you probably guessed, already are disappointing. The new software couldn't recognise one of our pictures, and even went as far as to suggest that we looked like an 8-year-old girl it already had in its iPhoto collection. Not wanting to give up that easily, we tried it with pictures of a friend. Still no luck. Face detection is, it seems, still very hit and miss. Luckily it's not the only trick Apple has up its sleeve for iPhoto: it has introduced Places as well. Taking advantage of the GPS geotag feature on the iPhone 3G, users who geotag images (you can also do it with other devices of course from Nokia, Samsung and Nikon to name a few) will be able to place them on a Google map that has been built into the software. Importing the images with geotag data automatically locates them on the map for you to see where you were when you took them. For those images already in your collection that aren't geotagged - and there are likely to be a lot - you can manually go back through them and add geo data based on the location (if you can remember it). It's a nice idea and one that is likely to appeal to the travel set, but if you're not one to wander much further than your home town, this isn’t going to get you excited. What might is the social networking features. Basically you can now sync your Facebook albums, better still you can use the Faces element in sync with Facebook. It's a nice touch and one that is likely to appeal to the web 2.0 crowd. Users will also be able to make slideshows with new templates and then transfer them to their iPhone or iPod touch in the same format. iMovie 09 After having such a radical update in iLife 08, it's understandable that iMovie 09 is more about tweaking the offering rather than yet another drastic overhaul. Here the key features that users get is the image stabilisation feature that will, post-shoot, stabilise your image so you can actually see what you were filming. It's like a software steadycam fix and will certainly help improve movies for the better. Elsewhere you get a precision editing tool so you can clearly see what you are doing in more detail and overall there seems to have been a stronger focus on making it easier to do everything - be it edit audio or insert a clip in another one. Like iPhoto, iMovie has also taken advantage of the world stage and you can set places of where clips were filmed. With this information you can then add graphics of you flying around the world - just like Indiana Jones movies (think Temple of Doom). We were one of the few to actually like the iMovie changes last year and the tweaks here only help to make it a better product. GarageBand 09 While we are sure there are new features and updates to the music software, the main focus here and one that will be most interesting to aspiring musicians is the addition of a learning element. You'll get nine free lessons in the box with the ability to buy further tracks to learn. Each lesson walks you through playing the song via a video tutorial and shows you the notes you've got to play and whether they are on a piano or guitar so you can follow. You'll also be able to plug in a piano or guitar and record your track to see how you're doing. However where Apple has impressed the most is that instead of getting some boring music teacher to teach you how to play Sting's Roxanne, they've gone to Sting and got him to do it instead. It means you get the artist teaching you in your home - a pretty compelling offer. Of course it's not just Sting. Although the demos we saw were mostly American singers, there are names you'd recognise - Norah Jones and Fall Out Boy for example - and you just know that Apple will keep adding more and more over time. Imagine learning Sweet Child O' Mine with Axel Rose - awesome. Currently only available for guitar and piano, Apple will also no doubt add more instruments if it takes off.

At the Apple keynote at Macworld Expo 2009 in San Francisco Philip W. Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing for Apple, has announced a new version of iWork for 2009. iWork 09 joins iLife 09 in updating Apple's fairly cheap and cheerful consumer software offerings last updated in August 2007. Keynote - Apple's presentation software - has been updated with a nifty new feature for iPhone owners that sees wireless control of the presentation taken care of via the iPhone. It will be available as an iPhone application from Apple's App Store for an extra 99 cents - UK pricing not revealed but presumably 79p. iWork ’09 is now available through the Apple store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple resellers for a suggested retail price of £69 or £54 if bought with a Mac. Keynote now also boasts new transition effects for moving between images, various new effects and CoverFlow-style swiping through slides. Apple's Word-rival Pages gets new themes, sees a tweak with a new viewing mode, and can play nicely with Numbers, Apple's spreadsheet application, for mail merge and the like. iWork 09 will be available immediately for $79 or for $49 if you buy it with a Mac.
These are the price that are currently selling in Malaysia.
The another alternative way is to download it from www.mininova.org . I've downloaded the iWork 09 from there but the iLife haven't release. Still waiting for it. (=

2009

2009-01-01T01:52:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year everyone!

These are the new year designs by Google and MSN this year. (:

5 Months!

2008-12-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

Our anniversary means a lot,
Much more than any another day,
I celebrate my love for you,
And cherish you in every way. Through passing time, our love still grows,
It lasts through all good times and bad.
Our future together still shines bright,
With more good times to be had!
Happy 5 Months Anniversary babyy!

Macworld 2009 to be Apple's last, no Jobs keynote

2008-12-16T18:16:00.000-08:00

Well, no wonder there wasn't much buzz around Macworld this year. Turns out Jobs won't even be at the keynote next month, and after that, Apple plans on skipping the event (if it's still around, that is) altogether.The news came in a surprise press release late this afternoon. Instead of Jobs (who's delivered the Macworld keynote since 1997) we'll hear from Apple marketing exec Philip Schiller, the statement said, which goes on to note:

Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers … Apple has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.

Of course, it's tempting to jump to conclusions about Steve Job's health (is he too ill to appear in public?) in the wake of Apple's announcement. But the L.A. Times tech blog quotes analyst Tim Bajarin says the move "is not a surprise," noting that Apple has been "talking about [pulling out of Macworld] for two years."

Indeed, Macworld itself—which was, in 2007, the venue for what was arguably Apple's biggest announcement of all, the original iPhone—might be the one on life support now, not Jobs, Bajarin told the L.A. Times. "It's going to make it much more difficult for Macworld to thrive without Apple as the anchor exhibitor," Bajarin said.

And consider this: In the past six months, we've seen a new iPhone, new iPods (including the redesigned Nano), and new MacBooks and MacBook Pros. The iMac line is due for a refresh—but given that they got a top-to-bottom makeover last year, I'd expect little more than a spec bump.

In other words: Apple may not have much to show at Macworld next month, so why pump up expectations with a Jobs keynote when there's nothing cool in the pipeline? Besides, whenever Apple does have something to announce, it simply hosts its own event, and journalists come running. Given that, who needs a trade show?

So, why do you think Apple is bailing on Macworld? Is the show doomed, or can it survive without Apple in attendance? Sound off below.

Maroon 5 - Call and Response: The Remix Album

2008-12-16T06:58:00.000-08:00

Remix albums rightfully have a bad rep. Too often they’re merely contract satisfiers. Easy ways to give big artists something fresh on the shelves or to separate dedicated fans from more of their dough. But “Call and Response” is everything the format could and should be. The band enlisted names big and small to get deep into its two-album catalog, and judging from the thoughtfulness of the contributions, they’re all pre-existing Maroon fans. Swizz Beatz uses an uncharacteristically loose and light hand on “If I Never See Your Face Again”; Mark Ronson gets Mary J. Blige to contribute a great vocal to his funky take on “Wake Up Call”; and Pharrell Williams’ “She Will Be Loved” is lo-fi and completely devoid of schmaltz or radio trickery. No one was trying to make new hits here or take their stock remix loop and carelessly plop it over an unrelated melody, they seem to just really love the songs.

Core i7

2008-12-13T08:36:00.000-08:00

We've already seen a few of Intel's new Core i7 processor, but if you're still craving some more details about Intel's latest and greatest you now have plenty more than that to chew on, with reviews, overviews, and yet more benchmarks pouring in left and right. As you might expect, most sites are describing the CPU as a very big deal for Intel, with the folks at Maximum PC even going so far as to call it the company's "most significant CPU launch in, well, ever." What's more, as those early benchmarks hinted at, it doesn't look like there's too many folks disappointed with the new processors, with even the "low end" Core i7 920 able to defeat the higher clock speed Core 2 Quad Q9650 "over and over" according to TechSpot, a feat due in large part to the CPU's on-die memory controller and Intel's new QPI technology. The first few systems shipping with the processor also look to have been fairly well received, with Slash Gear finding that Gateway's new Core i7 920-based FX6800-01e delivered a reasonable but not revolutionary upgrade over its Core 2 Quad-based predecessor, and Computer Shopper also finding plenty of things to like in new systems from Falcon Northwest and iBuypower, though the price of each of those systems is another matter. That, of course, is just skimming the surface, and if you've got a few hours to spare, you can find plenty more to keep you busy by diving into the links below.

Two summers ago, Intel helped change all we thought we knew about processors with the launch of their Core 2 micro-architecture. At a time when we thought processor development was beginning to slow down, Core 2 forced our minds to be changed, as the improvements over previous NetBurst products were rather significant.

Since that time, the CPU landscape has changed dramatically. At the time Core 2 first launched, Dual-Cores were still considered to be more of a novelty, and some still were unsure why they were even necessary. For those lucky enough to own one, however, the benefits became clear, and the multi-core revolution was quickly born.

At the same time, the thought of Quad-Core processors did little more than spawn laughter. After all, if most people couldn't take advantage of a Dual-Core, where did a Quad-Core fit in? Well, thinking about it didn't last too long, as Intel quickly followed up their initial Core 2 launch with a Quad-Core model in the fall of the same year.

As the amount of developers writing multi-threaded applications grows, the benefits of a Quad-Core CPU is better seen now than ever before. In fact, we posted a list just earlier this week that proves it. Whether you are a multi-tasker, media buff or someone who simply loves having a lot of headroom, Quad-Cores make an excellent addition to any new PC build.

Welcome to Core i7

Core i7 is almost here, but that will come as a surprise to no one, as potential release dates have been hovering around rumor-ville for months. The official response came last month, during IDF Taipei. There, Intel told the world that we would see Core i7 before the end of November, although no definitive street date was given.

Today's article will serve as a preview into what to expect from Core i7 from a performance perspective. This will become the first of a few different articles that we'll be posting in the weeks to come, which will target more specific areas of Nehalem and its platform. So, consider today's look as a good way to whet your appetite. There'll be more good stuff en route.

Core i7, or Nehalem as we've been calling it for the past year, becomes part of Intel's "Tock" step, which denotes a brand-new micro-architecture built on the current process node. "Tick" will come next year in the form of Westmere, a 32-nm shrink of Nehalem. If you are not up to speed on everything that the new micro-architecture brings to the table, the next page in this article was made for you.

When Core i7 hits the street, three models will become immediately available. This is a little different than most other Intel launches, which normally see the highest-end part released first. Instead, this launch will also see the release of both the mainstream and mid-range parts. This is a great thing for obvious reasons, so now the only thing to worry about is stock.

Processor Name	Cores	Clock	Cache	QPI/FSB	TDP	1Ku Price
Intel Core i7 Extreme 965	4	3.20GHz	8MB	3200MHz	150W	$999
Intel Core i7 940	4	2.93GHz	8MB	2400MHz	130W	$562
Intel Core i7 920	4	2.66GHz	8MB	2400MHz	130W	$284
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9775	4	3.20GHz	2 x 6MB	1600MHz	150W	$1,499
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770	4	3.20GHz	2 x 6MB	1600MHz	136W	$1,399
Intel Core 2 Extreme Q9650	4	3.00GHz	2 x 6MB	1333MHz	130W	$530
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550	4	2.83GHz	2 x 6MB	1333MHz	95W	$316
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450	4	2.66GHz	2 x 6MB	1333MHz	95W	$316
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400	4	2.66GHz	2 x 3MB	1333MHz	95W	$266
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300	4	2.50GHz	2 x 3MB	1333MHz	95W	$266
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200	4	2.33GHz	2 x 2MB	1333MHz	95W	$193

The top-of-the-line i7 processor will be the Extreme 965, at 3.20GHz. As is typical of all newly-launched Intel Extreme editions, this one will be sold at a price of $999 in quantities of 1,000. This means that you can expect a price of closer to $1,100 if you wish to own one. Moving downwards, the 2.93GHz model will sell for $562, while the mainstream 920 will be sold at $284.

Like previous Extreme products, the 965 will be a fully-unlocked chip with a Turbo multiplier capable of hitting 40x, the default being 24x. The 940 and 920 are capped at their stock multipliers (22x and 20x, respectively) and can only be overclocked by increasing the Base Clock, or BCLK for short. That tells us right away that these processors are going to be more of a challenge to overclock than anything from the Core 2 line-up, and we'll get into the specifics of why later.

We won't be covering overclocking to a great extent in this initial article, but stay tuned as we're preparing a dedicated article about it which will be posted at some point this week.

Comprised of 731 million transistors on a surface area of 263mm^2, Intel's latest processor is a little bit of a strange beast, since it's larger in areal density than its predecessor (214mm^2), but uses less transistors. Why that's the case exactly, I'm unsure. Each of the i7 processors to be launched later this month have identical pin and filter cap layouts on the back, which leads us to believe that each is identical inside, with the obvious multiplier and model code changes. In previous architectures, some of the filter caps would be laid out differently, or some would be missing on the smaller models, but not here. We could assume that smaller models, when eventually released, will look slightly different on the back.

As mentioned above, today's article is a preview, not a review, as there is a lot more testing that needs to be conducted that couldn't yet be focused on due to time. So, we'll be following-up with more specific content over the course of the next few weeks, including a deeper look at gaming performance and overclocking. We'll finish it all off with a proper "review" nearer to the official launch.

Today's article will be focusing primarily on two things. First will be simple performance scaling between the three new processors and three top processors from Intel's Kentsfield line-up, including the QX9770 and Q9450. The second will be a performance look at Core i7's new features, including Turbo and HyperThreading. I can assure you... these are results you won't want to skip over.

For a recap of the most important features of Nehalem, turn to the next page. Afterwards, we'll cover all considerations you should bear in mind if you plan to build a new machine with a Core i7 processor at the... uhh, core.

Where Amazing Happens

2008-12-13T01:15:00.000-08:00

Congrats Boston Celtics achieving 14th straight winning streak. Beating the New Orleans Hornets 94-82!

In the other hand, the kings of the west LA Lakers Kobe Bryant completes a monster one-handed jam as Kings' defenders look on. The Lakers got their revenge on the Kings in a 112-103 win. I think they want to come back to the finals again this season to take on the Celtics. Bring your A-Game Kobe! I bet the Celtics will beat you again. :P

Tracy McGrady of the Houston Rockets goes hard to the basket as two Warriors defenders try to stop him. T-Mac flirted with a triple double (21 points , 10 rebounds and nine assists) as the Rockets soared to a 119-118 win.The Houston Rockets are struggling to make it to the playoffs this season. They really worked hard but injuries just goes their way. This time they acquired Ron Artest to make their defense and offense stronger.

Congrats Allen Iverson for getting your 1st win after trading to the Detroit Pistons from Denver Nuggets. Allen Iverson goes toe-to-toe with Rasho Nesterovic as he attempts a shot. Iverson had 17 points and 12 assists in the Pistons' 114-110 win.

Jason Richardson plays in his first game as a Sun after being acquired by Phoenix in a trade that sent Raja Bell and Boris Diaw to the Bobcats.

Surprisingly O.J. Mayo is presented with the NBA's T-Mobile Western Conference Rookie of the Month trophy before a game against the Chicago Bulls. At first I thought that either Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls will get it or Micheal Beasly from the Miami Heat. Congrats OJ! You really got some "Mayo" on the court!

Dangerous Luncheon Meat

2008-12-02T07:48:00.000-08:00

There goes the world's yummiest luncheon pork.
Banned Can Food!
Cancer-causing antibiotic found in popular luncheon pork

SINGAPORE- The agent of a popular mainland canned pork product has initiated a recall and suspended sales after tests showed a sample contained a cancer-causing antibiotic.
The Center for Food Safety yesterday revealed this after laboratory tests showed a sample of Shanghai Ma Ling B2 340g pork luncheon meat (less sodium) was found to have traces of nitrofurans.
The batch number is B2 5 for the product, which carries a best-before date of December 26, 2009 . According to the sole agent, the canned pork was imported on only two occasions - last December and January this year. The scare spread when Singapore 's Agri -Food and Veterinary Authority detected carcinogenic traces in a consignment of canned pork from Ma Ling and Gulong food processing factories.
These brands have been banned from entering Singapore since August 2007 for containing nitrofurans( an antibiotic for pigs)
Chinese Malaysians please be cautious !-
Including Portuguese Malaysians (and Indians!) who enjoy this Luncheon Pork.

Sony Alpha 200

2008-11-20T03:54:00.000-08:00

The Sony DSLR A200 is now on sale, following the end of Alpha 100 production. Although it is without any doubt the Alpha 100 replacement mentioned by Sony executives in October 2007, when they first revealed that the 100 was no longer being made, it is not an exact equivalent and represents a mixture of upgraded performance and simplified specification. Because it has gone in two directions at the same time, the A200 poses a problem for A100 owners.

Some functions cost nothing to include in a camera as they are in shared modules (used on several cameras within a range). The maker decides to omit them to ensure entry-level models don’t compete with more expensive options. The best-known case is the original Canon EOS 300D. A Russian firmware ‘hack’ switched on many features of the semi-pro 10D when uploaded into the camera at the owner’s risk. The A200 - which forms the basis of the Alpha 300 and 350 live view variants - has some features of the original Alpha 100 omitted entirely but others apparently disabled in firmware. The same goes for the 300/350.

The Alpha 200 is little chunkier in thickness, taller and shorter end to end than the 100, sharing its almost non-existent left hand body projection. The differences are a millimetre or two. The construction though lacking an alloy skeleton has the same solid-feeling polycarbonate skin as the Alpha 700 and shares many styling points, notably the line or channel which makes the right hand grip look almost like an added component. The camera is larger than an EOS 450D or Nikon D60, though still a compact design at 130.8 x 98.5 x 71.3mm ‘excluding protrusions’. It weighs 532g without battery, memory card or neck-strap.

The A200 comes as a kit with the 18-70mm lens, appropriate for this price of camera (£399 retail in most UK stores), though we felt this lens does not do the Alpha 700 kits justice. The A200 would sell better if marketed with the 18-200mm SAL zoom which is now slightly outdated but good. When you open the kit, much appears to be made of SSS - Super Steady Shot - which, like dear old Intel, is ‘inside’. Just how they got away with that given Intel’s legal pursuit of other corporations using ‘XXXX inside’ as a marketing phrase, who knows?

The reason there is a duplicate orange label stuck to the hot shoe is because there is no hot shoe cover supplied with this camera. Sony’s Paul Genge (UK Technical Sales Manager for DSLRs) tells me that they did some market research, and found that Joe Average looked at the cameras they were producing, and concluded a) they had no built in flash because there was no button and the design didn’t make the flash obvious b) they could not use flashguns either because they had no hot shoe. The cover was fooling people into thinking it was just part of the body design, because other DSLRs don’t have flash shoe covers…

The flash itself remains the usual GN12 ISO100/m with coverage to the wide angle limit of 18mm (28mm equivalent), but it does not pop up as high that of the A100 or 7D/5D. The hinge is located further forward, to allow for a common design to the prism/eyepiece zone of the body used by the 200, 300 and 350. The 300 and 350 have their Live View system in this space. The A200 does not, but it gets the same design. This means the flash is closer to the lens axis, more likely to cast a shadow from lenses or lens hoods, and more likely to cause red eye.

As you can see, the result is very neat in design terms. The flash has auto pop-up, which some consider a nuisance, but this is easily disabled by using either a special no-flash mode (otherwise similar to the green auto-everything mode) or menu settings. It also has button-operated pop-up, instead of the manual lift of the 7D/5D/A100 which confused people into thinking there was no flash at all (explanation©Sony). The pop-up sound is quieter than with many cameras but of course no way as silent as a manually lifted flash. It operates as a controller for multiple off-camera wireless flash units, maintaining the Alpha system’s long history of offering wireless flash even at entry level. Wireless flash was a Minolta introduction - an industry first - and remains a great advantage of the system. The downside in the digital era is that all the wireless flash units pre-HS (D) specification became incompatible; you can however use Minolta or Konica Minolta branded flashguns as long as they are labelled HS (D), and you can mix them with new Sony heads or indeed the latest Sigma and Metz compatibles.

One thing which caught my eye was that the flash design allowed a 3600/5600 to be fitted, and the pop-up still lift fully. However, you can’t be clever and get a neat direct+bounce fill-in effect by having two flash units fire at the same time! After popping up the flash, you can fit a gun into the shoe, but only the main gun will fire. If you fit the big gun first, the flash will never pop up and can not be (the button is disabled).

The key differences

The built-in flash is probably the most visible difference in design and operation compared to the A100, but changes to the ergonomics and main controls hide many unseen pros and cons. Some of these are not apparent from physical changes like mode dial and control buttons.

Inside, the 10.2 megapixel CCD has been radically improved in light-gathering ability. Noise levels are better right from the base ISO 100 upwards, usable for social or commercial quality results at ISO 400 without any post-processing, and fine for news or sports at 800-1600. It is at least one stop better than the Alpha 100, and only the new high 3200 setting is visibly coarse. Overall the 100-1600 results are now comparable to the Nikon D80, originally the lowest noise user of this sensor type. No doubt there will be countless tests of noise and sharpness, but it took me very little time to judge the value of whatever changes Sony has made to the sensor and processing. In short, there is no loss of detail at all - the camera maintains the legendary low ISO sharpness of the A100 - and noise reduction has doubled the ISO equivalent rating at which you can shoot for any given quality.

The autofocus motor is 1.7X faster than the Alpha 100; this is immediately noticeable. Tests with a notoriously front/back focus prone lens, the 50mm f/1.4, showed greatly improved accuracy; in fact, rather better than any of the samples of the Alpha 700 I’ve used. The mirror-shutter action has lost the percussive clang of the 100 and previous Konica Minolta models, and acquired the smooth damped cycle of the 700. This single aspect pleased Shirley, who now has A200 in place of her A100, more than anything else. The viewfinder is modest with a 95% view at 0.83X and just 17.6mm eyepoint, but it’s not the smallest in this class and matches the Alpha 100.

The Super Steady Shot sensor-shift stabilisation is said to be improved by half a step to 2.5-3.5 shutter speeds, depending on the lens used. This technology has already been well-proven. The same piezos operate anti-dust sensor shake, a less effective innovation, but this type of CCD is not a dust magnet to start with.

The shutter is unchanged at 30s-1/4,000th with X at 1/160th (in the studio it tested fine at 1/200th but needed an FS-1100 type adaptor for the unique dedicated hotshoe to use either cable or Skyport sync - there is no coaxial flash cable socket).

Storage remains CompactFlash, a welcome resistance when so many budget DSLRs now use fiddly SD/MM cards. The card drive has been upgrade to be similar to the Alpha 700, with the card inserted ‘label facing you’, something most users find more natural than inserting with the back of the card visible. It has a firm feel with a definite ‘card home’ point, and the eject button does not need fiddly repeated half-pressing to be able to close the card door (a fault with the 7D and 5D). It’s not as well designed as the large topped A100 eject button though, and the door lacks any environmental sealing; the USB connector is still positioned under it, saving the outlay of wiring between the card drive and a more friendly position. Card writing speed, as evidenced by rapid formatting, is up there with the best but the buffer is small and only three RAW+JPEG files can be shot at 3fps continuously (or six raw, or unlimited Fine JPEGs). Unlike the Alpha 100, the 200 does not exceed its stated specifications even using a SanDisk Extreme IV card. What they say is what you get.

The lens mount is much improved. Sony has enlarged the metal ring on the camera body to give better support, enlarged the lens release button and fitted a kind of orange gasket which may be decorative but also seals against dust and water a bit better. The lens fit is more positive. The overall mount is a touch smaller than the A700. You can also see from this shot that the depth of field preview is missing from this body; it is also omitted from the A300 and A350.

The 200 uses Sony’s InfoLithium NP-FM500H 1650mAh cell, which is now standard across the entire Alpha range (it will also fit the discontinued 100, though this does not show percentage battery life readings as all the new models will). A full charge is good for 750 shots with flash used half the time, a very good figure. The earlier design for the Alpha 100, with no groove in the top, can not be used in the A200.

Auto ISO ranges from 100 to 400 by default, and can use intermediate settings like 160 or 250. Manual ISO setting is only in full steps. The only mode to use higher auto ISO appears to be Night Portrait which can range up to 800.

The raw file format is said to be .ARW2 like the Alpha 700 though the sensor is similar to the 100 which was .ARW1. Whatever the case, Adobe Camera Raw 4.3.1, Elements 5 and Lightroom 1.3 will open the files, as will IDC. I was fooled into thinking that C1 Pro V4 was handling them until I realised it was seeing the JPEGs and ignoring the raw files entirely - Aperture 2 also happily imported the files and showed thumbnails, but didn’t support them at the time of testing. LightZone, RawDeveloper, Raw Photo Processor, Bibble Pro, Silkypix, Apple Preview and DxO Optics Pro (all for Macintosh) were unable to convert or open the files even if some show a preview. They can be converted using the current version of Adobe DNG Converter, which then allows some of these programs to process the images. Conversion was very rapid. Since writing this report, most converters have become A200-300-350 compatible but some still lag behind like DxO.

The version of Sony Image Data Converter 2 issued with the A200 is the same as the one with the A700. There is no provision for tethered shooting.

The rear screen is improved to 2.7 inches. Rotating information and image orientation are both supported along with normal and simplified larger font info layouts. Above, my first selection of nine screen views. Starting at the top left and reading across in rows, we have the standard shooting screen - the only which appears when you press the shutter release half way, unless your eye is up to the viewfinder. If you press the MENU button when in this mode, you are always taken to the RECORDING (Camera icon) menu which has just two screens. Here you can set the usual key parameters. A new option is 16:9 or 3:2 under ASPECT RATIO. Unlike the A700, this only crops the JPEG and you do not get a 16:9 raw file.

Stepping through the menus, you then come to a single CUSTOM (Cogwheel icon) menu which really does not seem all that clearly distinguished from the first but affects different behaviour of controls, and then to a PAYBACK menu with two screens, the most important one having ‘Delete’ and ‘Format’ as its first two entries. In order to reach ‘Format’, you don’t have to step through the menus this way. Just press the playback arrow button on the back of the camera, and then the menu button; this jumps you straight to the first playback screen, and Format is a single move away. It is not as economical in button presses as the A700 interface to get there and complete card formatting, however.

The final menu is SETUP ( Wrench icon) with three screens, much as on previous models.

second set of screens starts with the Playback or Review modes on the top strip. You can also have playback on full screen with no shooting information. The centre example shows the new luminance plus R, G, B histogram display which is very welcome and can help you avoid channel clipping (though it is based, as always, on the JPEG and not the raw data). The right hand example shows a five-image index strip with selected larger view. These modes are cycled through by pressing the DISP (Display) button which also has a shortcut for adjusting LCD brightness.

The centre row starts with the Alpha 200’s equivalent of Quick Navi, Slow Navi (sorry about that, Sony!). You press the Fn (function) button to access this screen, and then navigate to one of the six panel choices. It is not possible to alter settings on the shooting display screen, which is how Quick Navi and several other good interfaces (Olympus, Nikon D40/60) work. You would imagine that with the large grey-out preview of the setting which is shown on these panels, active adjustment without a further button press to access a full display would have been possible. But you need to press the controller centre button, enter a full screen, and then adjust before confirming with the centre button or first pressure on the shutter release. The Alpha 100 is faster, needing only three steps to select parameter, press Fn button, then adjust; this needs four (press Fn button, select parameter, press enter button to confirm your selection and bring up adjustment screen, adjust). The Alpha 100 allows sequential adjustments without exiting adjustment mode, just turn the dial to a different function and the screen changes to that while remembering your previous adjusment. At the worst, the A200 requires twice as many actions as the A100 to make consecutive adjustments to two or more factors like WB and DRO. Fortunately it has a dedicated ISO button, the most commonly used adjustment, while the A100 has this mixed in with the other adjustments.

I have shown just one parameter selection and its adjustment screen here - AF Area - as an example above.

The camera dedicated buttons for ISO, Drive, and Exposure Compensation take you directly to similar adjustment screens (you can not reach these functions via the Fn button menus). The method for adjustment is identical. In the A700, the Quick Navi button is an alternative to dedicated buttons, and they can be set to take you to Quick Navi instead of their own function, as desired. In the A200 everything is segregated; there are no two routes to the same display. The Drive Button gives access to Exposure Bracketing in 0.3 or 0.7 EV increments only, 3 exposures, as with the A100; and similarly, to White Balance Hi or Lo bracketing, single frame or continuous.

Finally, bottom right of my grid of screens, I show the Flash Compensation screen. This is a real maverick, as you have to get to it by going to the Recording menu: press MENU button, Camera 1 screen, Flash Control, then select compensation. It is buried about as deeply as they can manage and there is no fast way to reach it. Yet, if you study this and the Exposure Compensation screen, you will see they are the same display, with just a move of the orange elements from top to bottom. The bad thing is that you can not just toggle between these two with, say, a downward or upward controller pad press, to be able to set a combination of the two and view it easily. This is almost essential for synchro-sun, slow speed sync and other special flash situations. Sony clearly does not see the A200 owner needing such control.

The screen for shooting re-orientates with the camera (except if you hold it upside down). All the other menus do not not do so, and this includes ‘Slow Navi’. With the A700, the Quick Navi screens allowing you to set all these parameters rotate for vertical holding. With the A200, they don’t, and this makes adjusting a vertically mounted camera via the menus shown above a minor pain in the neck - literally.

As for other changes, the left hand side now hosts a single control dial for modes. This is reduced in height, making it less vulnerable to knocks or stress. It does not feel very solid but clicks smoothly between settings, which include everything you need. The extremely useful Night Portrait mode remains, and a Sunset mode which invokes the special Sunset colour profile. These modes are identical to the A100. So are the Creative Style menu options of the A200, which exactly match the DEC adjustments of the A1oo. Like the A100, if you customise a particular setting like Standard, Vivid or AdobeRGB the custom settings you make (plus/minus 3 steps of sharpness, saturation and contrast) remain linked to that style. They are not carried to another style if you change, and they are not lost if you move to another style and then adjust that differently. Each colour/creative style profile has its own memory for the settings.

The Green Auto mode differs from the 7D and 5D but resembles the A100 and A700 in maintaining your RAW file shooting preferences as set. With the earlier KM models, selecting this mode (sometimes by mistake) would switch the camera from shooting RAW or RAW+JPEG to shooting JPEG only. With the Sony models, this does not happen and you can safely switch to the ‘emergency reset’ mode with Green Auto provides and be sure of getting RAW files. It is useful because it sets auto ISO (100-400), AF-A and Auto White Balance, and removes any compensation over-ride or other settings like manual focus you may have been using for a specific shot. Green Auto is not just for beginners. It can help you get a perfect grab shot when there is no time to reset lots of controls. It even over-rides the focus switch if it’s set to MF, and restores AF despite the switch being in a physical position for MF. Features like this distinguish the Sony user interface and are frequently missed entirely by reviewers who use other systems and don’t know what to look for.

The No-Flash mode next to the Green Auto is essentially Green Auto with a guarantee of the flash not popping up.

The rubber flap (well sealed, unlike the CF Card door) on the left end only covers two interfaces, one for the unique and expensive Sony AC adaptor which prevents you using third party battery packs, and one for the Minolta-Sony standard remote release:

Finally, it’s worth a couple more shots on this tour of the camera body. First, the overall rear screen layout and controls - you can see that even with illumination off and in direct light, the screen remains just legible:

The SSS switch is now orientated sideways as on the Alpha 300 and 350 (all previous KM and Sony models have this vertically aligned); the control pad is A100-type, not A700-type; the screen has an anti-glare coating which marks very easily, but there are notches for a protective cover present. The AE Lock button visible here and in earlier images does not function as a Spot Metering button. More on this later. The dioptre adjustment is similar to the A100.

The joypad is similar to the Alpha 100 but requires a greater shift of thumb position to use, being lower down. In Spot focus mode, pressing all or any part of the joypad will activate centre focusing. In Wide Area focus mode, pressing any part of the outer ring will activate wide focus mode, and the camera will select the sensor (no link to the part of the ring you press); pressing the centre button always uses the centre sensor. In Local point focus mode, pressing the outer ring will activate the sensor matching the part you press, and pressing the centre button, only the centre sensor. In every case, using the pad to select a focus zone also prefocuses if you maintain pressure for more than an instant.

The Exposure Compensation button doubles as AV (Aperture Variation) for Manual exposure mode, and in Playback mode, either to reduce magnification from a zoomed in view, or switch to 9 shots per screen index viewing from a standard view. The AEL button doubles as the zoom-in button during image review or playback. One press zooms in to 6.1X (the standard enlarged view), a second sustained press or series of incremental presses increases the zoom magnification in steps up to a maximum of 12X. The joypad navigates round the image when magnified.

The top view shows the generous size of the handgrip and its excellent finger-grip contouring, and the space free between the chamfered mirror box and the grip, for fingers. You can also see how deliberately the flash shoe is made to look like a flash shoe (fitting a cover is possible, but it does not meet flush with the body lines).

The bottom view does not tell the entire story, as a good vertical grip with full communication to the body can be fitted by opening the battery compartment; two of the cells can be installed in the grip, for around 1500-2000 shots at one go. This grip is shared with the A300 and A350. The camera body is Made in Japan, surely a good omen, though the 18-70mm is of course Made in China.

What’s missing?

Sony has cut the real price of this camera enormously. Missing out the flash shoe cover is just a tiny part of the overall saving. These items or features are also missing, compared to the A100:

Depth of field preview - button or any menu dedicated alternative.
The AE Lock button no longer functions as a Spot metering button. This has always been assignable in Alpha DSLRs, so you could choose between AE Lock just holding the exposure, or switching the metering to spot and holding it. Now if you want Spot metering, it must be set using the Fn button and screen interface first, otherwise the AE Lock just holds the reading from whatever metering mode you are using.
There are fewer ‘effective’ buttons because of the change from one assignable Fn button in the middle of a dial with seven function choices. The most noticeable effect is no direct WB button. A good range of WB settings including Kelvins and Magenta/Green CC correction is retained, along with a rapid custom white balance method. You access this through the Fn button menus. The Alpha 100 had one PASM plus scene mode dial, and one Function dial for setting White Balance, Dynamic Range Optimisation, ISO, Metering, Digital Effect, Flash Settings and AF behaviour.
There is no menu item to disable shutter lock when ‘no lens’ is detected or enable it when ‘no card’ is inserted. The workround for using T-mount lenses is that Manual exposure mode disabled shutter lock. The workround for being able to fire the camera with no card inserted does not exist - it even shows a review of the photo on the screen with the message ‘No Card’ but you can still shoot unaware of having lost images.
There is no Direct Manual Focus mode at all, and like the A100 there is no MF button (but that has DMF meaning you can manually focus any lens after the AF has locked). On the A200 you must use the AF/MF switch if you want to make any manual adjustment to focusing.
There is no mirror pre-lift when using the 2-second self timer. All previous models have this by default. The 10-second timer is normal (mirror and shutter fire at the end of 10 seconds) but the 2-second setting has lifted the mirror, locked focus and exposure, then released the shutter after two seconds for vibrations to die down. The Alpha 200 2-second delay is just a short self-timer.
You can not decide bracketing order.
You can not link or unlink flash and ambient over-ride by default (the main over-ride always affects both).
The special high key and low key settings pioneered by Konica Minolta (Lo80, Hi200) are omitted so there is no ‘wedding dress friendly’ ISO tuning.
Custom buttons on certain lenses can not be assigned different functions (they only operate as Focus Hold).
No MemoryStick Duo Pro to CF slot adaptor is provided; this £30 Sony accessory came free with every Alpha 100 sold.
Colour rendering appears to be slightly less vivid than the A100, but this may be my reaction to first using the A100 in a Moroccan summer and first using the A200 in a Scottish winter!
There is no flash shoe cover provided

What’s added?

There is a dedicated ISO adjustment button.
Overall noise levels are improved at all ISO settings without any loss of fine detail recording ability, amounting to about a one stop gain.
The ISO range now extends to a usable 3200.
AF motor speed is improved by 1.7X and genuinely offers faster focus with most lenses.
The mirror/shutter action is faster and sweeter in sound, and appears to be less prone to causing vibration.
Auto pop-up flash is added along with button-press manual pop-up, and autoflash operation in most modes (with ‘no flash’ option)
DRO and DRO+ work when shooting RAW+JPEG and will also tag plain RAW shooting so that Sony IDC uses its own software version of DRO.
Anti-shake SSS is improve by around half a step.
High ISO Noise Reduction at 1600 and 3200 ISO can be turned ON or OFF and is not mandatory (but the results are much better with it on!).
16:9 ratio JPEG shooting is added and the focusing screen marked to indicate this - the marks are also very useful for aligning horizons.
The LCD screen is larger at 2.7 inches but still the same standard 230,000 (960 x 240 vertical pixels) resolution as the A100 so slightly coarser in pitch.
Separate R, G, B and overall luminance histograms are provided for review and playback modes instead of luminance only.
The lens mount is improved, weather-sealing appears to be a step up from the A100, and overall build quality is tangibly better as well as looking rather neater (there are no metallic-plastic bluish components any more).
Buttons are separated, made larger and simplified in uses.
Magnification scale can be displayed during zoomed-in reviewing.
Battery Percentage Life is indicated and the InfoLithium cell performs better when recharged after partial discharge, especially with the optional twin charger ACVQ-900AM.
Flash exposure is improved, and slightly faster operation reduces the risk of shut-eye.
White Balance appears to be improved.

Conclusions

The disappearance of mirror-lift 2 second delay and T-mount or ‘no lens fitted’ compatibility are disappointing; I have two macro bellows rigs, one LensBaby, adapted PC and fisheye lenses, a microscope and spotting telescope all of which can only be used with manual exposure. Shirley does have a good microscope and adaptor, once used with her 7000. However, most microscope work would be with flash anyway.

The other omissions are less of a worry to me personally but many system users are aggravated by the loss of a rapid button-press shift to spot metering, and depth of field preview. The consensus is that the Alpha 200 is not a true replacement for the no-longer-made 100, which would have been transformed by using the improved sensor and image processing. It is much more of an entry level camera with user-set options reduced and simplified to avoid confusing inexperienced upgraders from consumer digicams.

Of more concern is that the live view versions, the £399 10.2 megapixel A300 and £499 14.2 megapixel A350 (body prices), share the same controls and firmware. The omissions on the Alpha 200 were intended to make the camera more reliable and easily understood for the newcomer to SLRs and that philosophy has carried across the entire new range.

With the only more customisable option for now being the £999 Alpha 700 body, there is too big a gap. What seems like a big range of four entry to semi-pro bodies from Sony for 2008 looks like too small a choice unless the Alpha 350 does indeed offer some enhancements to the user settings and functions of the shared body design. Sony say any other body - between the A350 and A700 - is very unlikely to appear this year.

In the meantime, we have no hesitation in switching from A100 to A200. Image quality is everything; it’s like moving from old High Speed Ektachrome 160 E4 to the later Ektachrome 400 E6 in one step. Your DSLR is really like your film, not like your cameras of the past. Once you could upgrade your quality when Fuji introduced Velvia, or Kodak invented T-grain; same camera, new film, better images. Now you change the DSLR body instead and you never think about what those thousands of exposures would once have cost you in film. The Alpha 200 is in practice a big improvement over the Alpha 100 and nearly a match for the Alpha 700 at ISO speeds 400-1600, without any visible issues like ‘watercolour’ noise-reduction processing effects.

I will deal with photo samples from the Alpha 200 later. We have only had the camera for a week, and a working week mainly spent indoors despite the sunshine; even sunny days don’t mean that much when the landscape is still midwinter and the most scenic winter areas are four hours’ drive away, with all of Scotland’s usual guarantee of near-darkness and belting rain when you finally get there! It may take a month or so to get a feel for what the camera does best. In the meantime, it does 3200 ISO at night pretty effectively:

That’s a 3200 ISO in-camera JPEG with NR turned on and the inset is a 100 per cent view, no post-processing used. Alpha 100 owners will be fully aware why the 200 is better on seeing this.

Watch these pages for more. I have not even done my report on Alpha 700 image quality yet as I’m still working on raw converters and trying to reach the right conclusions. Fortunately, the Alpha 200 seems free from issues of raw conversions destroying the image structure. I feel it brings Sony’s 10.2 megapixel sensor implementation level with the Nikon D80 use of the same sensor, previously the best around.

Obama RULES!

2008-11-13T03:01:00.000-08:00

Obama's winning argument

The U.S. economy has prospered under Democratic policies, and the candidate knows it. But the real battle begins once Obama takes the White House.

By Joe Conason

Reuters/Kevin Kolczynski

Sen. Barack Obama walks onstage with former President Bill Clinton at a campaign rally in Kissimmee, Fla., Oct. 29, 2008.

Nov. 1, 2008 | As Barack Obama delivers his closing argument, stumping across the battleground states, he seems increasingly confident in contrasting the success of Democratic policy with the failure of Republican ideology. During his Florida appearance with former President Bill Clinton as well as in other recent speeches, he has pointed to the bankruptcy of the conservative economic theories that he promises to discard. And he is utterly unfazed by the McCain camp's shrill cries of "socialism," perhaps because he knows the old red-baiting rhetoric has lost much of its power to bamboozle.

Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden speak during a rally for the Presidency at the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida - October 29, 2008
Bank Atlantic Center
10/29/2008

If Obama wins this election by a substantial margin -- the bigger the better -- then perhaps his presidency will mark the advent of a new progressive era in America. But the ideologues of the right won't simply disappear because their dogma is discredited. They will tell us, as McCain has repeatedly warned in his speeches, that "spreading the money around" is a bad idea that has been tried, as he put it, by the "far-left liberals." They will whine and moan about "tax and spend" and offer predictions of doom at every percentage increase in marginal rates on the very rich.

Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden speak during a rally for the Presidency at the Bank Atlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida - October 29, 2008
Bank Atlantic Center
10/29/2008

Unless Americans understand how the economy has worked -- and how this country was built in the past century -- it is entirely possible that those false prophets will once again block changes that the nation has needed for decades. That understanding should include a review of some very recent history, too.

Barack Obama holds an economic summit at Palm Beach Community College in Lake Worth, Florida
Palm Beach Community College
10/21/2008

When Bill Clinton and Al Gore entered the White House with a program for economic, social and environmental renewal, after the era of stagnation under Reagan and Bush, their plans were swiftly thwarted. A pitched battle over taxes and healthcare led to the historic Republican victory in the 1994 congressional midterm election. Clinton certainly was responsible for some of those failures -- and he eventually accomplished much nonetheless -- but universal healthcare, worldwide controls of carbon emissions, and many other profoundly important reforms were killed.

Barack Obama Campaigning at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas - January 11, 2008
Del Sol High School
1/11/2008

Is Obama destined to relive those experiences when he asks Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy and pass a huge economic stimulus bill? Perhaps not, but those are precisely the issues that led toward Clinton's confrontation with the Republicans and his party's historic defeat two years later. The Republicans refused to support his tax package, even though he cut spending to satisfy conservatives, and then persuaded gullible middle-class voters that he had inflicted the "largest tax increase in history" on them, which was untrue. ("We are buying a one-way ticket to a recession," whined Phil Gramm, the Republican senator from Texas who later became a top economic advisor to McCain -- and whose legislative gutting of financial regulation created the conditions that led to the current recession.)

Back Obama Campaigns For President In Las Vegas
Silverado High School
6/1/2007

Will anyone besides the pundits remember what happened then and why it is still relevant now? Not unless Obama himself educates the public -- as he alone now seems able to do. The country is undergoing a teachable moment that is certain to last for many painful months -- and if the new president doesn't seize that opportunity, then his adversaries surely will.

Presidential Hopeful Barack Obama Heads Rally In Las Vegas Clark County Government Center
Clark County Government Center
02/18/2007 06:03:51

What Obama needs to explain, over and over again, is that Democratic economic programs have succeeded in promoting growth precisely because they distribute national wealth more widely than the Republican tradition of trickle-down. The numbers have told the story for decades -- and the statistics detailing the Clinton administration's success and the Bush administration's failure have only reinforced the narrative.

Senator Barack Obama's Booksigning for The Audacity of Hope at Borders Books on Michigan Avenue
Borders Books on Michigan Avenue
10/17/2006 1:45:29 P

Consider the cumulative performance of the stock market. Until this year, the best data available showed that on average, equities increased in value by more than 12 percent during Democratic administrations, and by around 8 percent when Republicans were in power. The largest gains in the past 80 years occurred under FDR, Truman, Johnson and Clinton -- and when the awful declines of the past few months are factored in, the Democratic record will look even better.

Of course, stock prices alone provide an imperfect measure of national progress, especially from a liberal perspective. So Obama should point to similar statistics proving the superiority of the Democratic record on gross domestic product, job creation, unemployment, poverty, budget discipline, disposable income and inflation. His purpose should not be to score partisan points but to prepare the public for the struggle over spending and taxes that will mark his first two years.

For the moment, scaring voters is no longer so easy. The Republican administration is nationalizing financial institutions and Republican economists are demanding big federal spending initiatives. But if Obama wants to avoid the defeats of Clinton's first two years, he must consistently remind Americans what has succeeded and who has failed -- and why.

Lousy Sportsmanship by Chelsea

2008-11-13T02:39:00.000-08:00

Drogba apologises for coin throw

Didier Drogba throws a coin back into the away fans' end at Stamford Bridge

Didier Drogba has apologised for throwing a coin back into the crowd during Chelsea's Carling Cup fourth round defeat to Burnley.

The Chelsea striker, who also made a hand gesture to the away fans, was booked but the FA may take action.

In a statement on Chelsea's website, Drogba said: "I tried to celebrate the goal and I received some things at me.

"The big mistake I did was to throw it back so if someone was hurt I just want to apologise for it."

There were no reports of any spectators being injured. However, the Metropolitan Police said on Thursday that it was investigating the incident.

It occurred after the Ivory Coast forward put the Blues ahead in the 27th minute.

Drogba, 30, said: "This is not something I should show in a football match.

"It was an incident in the heat of the moment and I regret it. It was just a mistake and nothing more."

A Chelsea spokesman said: "We will deal with this in the usual way. We are aware there is an incident. But we will not discuss it further until we have seen the referee's report."

Chelsea boss Luiz Felipe Scolari said: "I have not spoken with Didier about any problem. The referee gave him a yellow card but I did not see what happened."

Burnley manager Owen Coyle said he did not see the incident.

It was part of a miserable night for Premier League leaders Chelsea, who suffered a surprise exit 5-4 on penalties following a 1-1 draw.

The FA may now decide to take action after examining referee Keith Stroud's report.

In 2002, Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher was sent off in an FA Cup tie against Arsenal at Highbury after throwing a coin back into the crowd. He received a mandatory three-match ban.

He was also interviewed by police but no further action was taken. However, Carragher was fined by the club and warned about his future conduct.

Cars Of The Soccer Stars

2008-10-28T02:30:00.001-07:00

David Beckham

Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet

Former Real Madrid star Beckham celebrated his move to the Los Angeles Galaxy last year with a new addition to his auto collection: a Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet. The world-famous athlete even used the $140,000 auto to pick up his Spice Girl wife Victoria from Los Angeles International Airport. Beckham's apparently a finicky driver; his agent says he has already traded it in for another model, but would not say which one.

Wayne Rooney

Lamborghini Gallardo

The Manchester United player may only be 22 years old, but he can already afford treats like the $200,000 Lamborghini Gallardo. And according to the gossipy British tabloids, he has already gone one further, putting an order in for a $340,000 Lamborghini LP640 Murcielago.

Thierry Henry

Aston Martin Vanquish

French striker Thierry Henry made his name at the British Arsenal, so it is no surprise that one of his reportedly prized possessions is a classically British sports car. The $350,000 Aston Martin Vanquish was James Bond's car of choice in the Die Another Day movie, but was discontinued in 2007.

Cristiano Ronaldo

Audi R8

One of the benefits of being a Manchester United player is that the luxury cars tend to come to you. Hence Cristiano Ronaldo's complementary Audi--part of the brand's sponsorship deal with the team--which otherwise would have set him back $200,000.

Alessandro Del Piero

Fiat 500

Italian star Del Piero is the captain of Juventus, a team effectively controlled by the Agnelli family, who also owns Fiat. That may explain why Fiat offered Del Piero his own exclusive "No. 10" white Fiat 500 mini car last year. Del Piero wears the No. 10 shirt for Juventus, and Fiat gave him the tenth newly revitalized model to roll off the production line. The "cinquecento" first made its name as a cheap and cheerful model for post-war Europe.

John Terry

Bentley Continental GT

Former England captain and Chelsea star John Terry is not shy when it comes to spending money, and his $180,000 Bentley is a case in point. Unfortunately, his decision to leave it for two hours in a disabled parking space may have cost him the position of England captain this year.

Didier Drogba

Mercedes SL65

Chelsea's classy striker may be struggling with injuries this season, but he can console himself with his $200,000 silver Mercedes. The SL-65 boasts a 604-horsepower V-12 engine and can go from zero to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds.

Rio Ferdinand

Bentley Arnage

The Manchester United player has run into trouble several times over his driving, but given his choice of wheels it is easy to see why. Ferdinand's 6.8-liter Bentley Arnage was given a baptism of strawberry yogurt by his teammates when he bought it in 2005, a prank which apparently did not get too many laughs out of the player.

Latest Soccer Team Valuations

2008-10-28T02:22:00.000-07:00

Rank	Team	Country	Current Value ¹ ($mil)	Debt/Value(%) ²	1-Yr Value Change(%)	Revenue ($mil)	Operating Income ³($mil)
1	Manchester United	England	1,800	60	24	394	111
2	Real Madrid	Spain	1,285	27	24	474	112
3	Arsenal	England	1,200	43	31	329	77
4	Liverpool	England	1,050	65	131	269	60
5	Bayern Munich	Germany	917	0	9	302	72
6	AC Milan	Italy	798	0	-3	307	54
7	Barcelona	Spain	784	7	47	392	92
8	Chelsea	England	764	0	42	382	-5
9	Juventus	Italy	510	5	-10	196	35
10	Schalke 04	Germany	470	48	0	154	36
11	AS Roma	Italy	434	12	94	213	48
12	Tottenham Hotspur	England	414	15	70	207	64
13	Olympique Lyonnais	France	408	7	19	190	15
14	Inter Milan	Italy	403	0	-27	207	21
15	Borussia Dortmund	Germany	323	57	63	122	31
16	Newcastle United	England	300	43	16	175	12
17	Hamburg SV	Germany	293	0	32	163	41
18	Werder Bremen	Germany	262	0	NA	131	11
19	Valencia	Spain	254	159	31	145	-49
20	Celtic	Scotland	227	11	23	151	48
21	Everton	England	197	30	24	103	-1
22	West Ham United	England	195	23	25	115	-22
23	Manchester City	England	191	63	-8	114	27
24	Aston Villa	England	190	12	36	106	-40
25	Olympique Marseille	France	187	0	19	134	13

Toughest Week I'm Facing

2008-10-24T07:20:00.000-07:00

This week wasnt a good week for me. Many things happened so fast even I myself is still in *why?* state. As i sit down and think, everything happens for a reason/purpose. 1st my mom get into an accident, which shocked me till the max. I'm glad she is alright, her car sent to the workshop. She banged somebody subconciously. After that things get tougher, I was on MC because I was sick. The doctor asked me to rest, my measurement was 39 degrees celcius. Kinda high for normal people. Then I got rashes on both my legs due to playing football under the rain in Bosch with my other trainees. Got an injection which was painful and numb on my right arm. Rested awhile, biee called and we started talking. At 1st it was alright, sooner as we talk till the part which i over reacted and said stuffs which hurts her the most. I regret for saying those words, next time think before saying. I learned my lesson. Always remember E + R =O, Event+Response=Outcome. I wanna thank her for making me become more tougher and mature. I wont cry that easily anymore. I sincerely apologize for what I've done and said.

Here is something specially for you,

I know I must have hurt you, caused you pain.
More, I know that I have lost your trust.
I wish I had that moment back again
To pulverize my carelessness and lust.
Sometimes we have to lose what we most cherish
To understand how much we are in need.
We play with life until we nearly perish
To dare the darkness, though within we bleed.
I need you as the sun must have a rose
To turn its empty radiance to glory,
Or as a nation needs someone who knows
The secrets of its long-forgotten story.
I know my need of you more than before;
Thus for my trespass you may trust me more.

Hope you'll like it or feel it. (:

I like these jokes :D

2008-10-21T05:07:00.000-07:00

Ah Beng - NEW STUFF

Ah Beng bought a new mobile.
He sent a message to everyone from his Phone Book & said,
'My Mobile No. Has changed.
Earlier it was Nokia 3310. Now it is 6610'

====================================
Ah Beng : I am a Proud, coz my son is in Medical College .
Friend: Really, what is he studying.
Ah Beng: No, he is not studying, they are Studying him.

==========================================
Ah Beng : Doctor, in my dreams, I play football every night.
DR: Take this tablet, you will be ok.
Ah Beng : Can I take tomorrow, tonight is final game.

===========================================
Ah Beng : If I die, will u remarry?
Wife: No! I'll stay with my sister. But if I die will u remarry?
Ah Beng : No, I'll also stay with your sister.

=========================================
Ah Beng : People consider me as a 'GOD'
Wife: How do you know??
Beng : When I went to the Park today, everybody said,
Oh GOD! U have come again.

===========================================
Ah Beng complained to the police: 'Sir, all items are missing,
except the TV in my house.'
Police: 'How the thief did not take TV?'
Ah Beng : 'I was watching TV news...'

=========================================
Ah Beng comes back 2 his car & find a note saying 'Parking Fine'
He Writes a note and sticks it to a pole 'Thanks for complement.'

=============================================
How do you recognize Ah Beng in School?
He is the one who erases the notes from the book when the teacher erases
the board.

===============================================
Once Ah Beng was walking he had a glove on one hand and not on other.
So the man asked him why he did so. He replied that the weather forecast
announced that on one hand it would be cold and on the other hand it would
be hot.

===! ===============================================
Ah Beng in a bar and his cellular phone rings. He picks it up and
Says 'Hello, how did you know I was here?'

================================================== =
Ah Beng : Why are all these people running?
Man - This is a race, the winner will get the cup
Ah Beng - If only the winner will get the cup, why others running?

================================================== =
Teacher: 'I killed a person' convert this sentence into future tense
Ah Beng : The future tense is 'u will go to jail'

================================================== ===
Ah Beng told his servant: 'Go and water the plants!'
Servant: 'It's already raining.'
Ah Beng : 'So what? Take an umbrella and go.'

================================================== ===
A man asked Ah Beng why Ahmad Badawi goes walking in the Evening and not
in the morning Ah Beng replied Ahmad Badawi is PM not AM.

Have a great day! Laughter is the best medicine. (: Hope you guys enjoyed it.

Man Utd bag gift from babyy

2008-10-19T07:50:00.000-07:00

bieeeeeeee! Thanks for the bag! I love it! I know it cost alot from your hard earn salary. So now I'm going to hunt something for you. :D

Saturday's Premiere League Results

2008-10-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 18 October 2008

Arsenal	3-1 (HT 0-1)	Everton
Nasri 48 Van Persie 70 Walcott 90		Osman 9
Bookings: Adebayor 34 Clichy 60		Bookings: Lescott 30 Hibbert 60 Pienaar 65 Osman 87

Aston Villa	0-0 (HT 0-0)	Portsmouth
Bookings: Young 64		Bookings: Johnson 43 Davis 60 Diop 75
		Sent off: Davis 81

Bolton	0-0 (HT 0-0)	Blackburn
Bookings: Steinsson 34		Bookings: Simpson 52 Villanueva 57 Kerimoglu 68

Fulham	0-0 (HT 0-0)	Sunderland
Bookings: Murphy 53		Bookings: Malbranque 34

Liverpool	3-2 (HT 1-2)	Wigan
Kuyt 37 Riera 80 Kuyt 85		Zaki 29 Zaki 45+2
Bookings: Dossena 39		Bookings: Valencia 71
		Sent off: Valencia 75

Man Utd	4-0 (HT 0-0)	West Brom
Rooney 56 Ronaldo 69 Berbatov 71 Nani 90
		Bookings: Zuiverloon 40

Middlesbrough	0-5 (HT 0-1)	Chelsea
		Kalou 14 Belletti 51 Kalou 53 Lampard 63 Malouda 67
Bookings: O'Neil 25 Alves 77

$850 Off Brand New Last-Gen MacBook Pro, $1000 Off Refurb

2008-10-18T00:55:00.000-07:00

Not a fan of the new MacBook Pro, but still want a new pro Mac? Amazon has an absolutely killer deal on the last generation MacBook Pro. They're dumping the former $2500 model for just $1650 after a $150 mail-in rebate. Again, you're getting a computer that was $2500 two days ago for $1650, a 33 percent discount. Update: If you're cool with a refurb, you can also get a whopping $1000 off this MBP model at the Apple Store.

Put in perspective, it would spank the similarly priced $1599 MacBook in benchmarks, and keep up reasonably well with the new model. Amazon is offering the rebate on regular last-gen MacBooks too, if you wanna go that route.

The Promo

2008-10-18T00:35:00.000-07:00

Thursday evening was the last day of 2bucks per plate at sushi king. Reached there at 6.50pm with biee and we lined up from the maindoor till next door nando's. Slowly a few people starts giving up in front and we LEVEL UP! :D Manage to get in at 7.20+pm sharing table with another couple. Everyone inside like just released from prison or "Prison Break sushi king Edition". Snatching plates of sushies like there is no tomorrow,so i might as well go snatch some for biee and myself. Its like oppurtunity only strikes once,either you take it or its gone. We both total up 14plates,quite an achievement. (: Kinda crazy but nice experience together with babyy. x)

This Weekend's Premiere League

2008-10-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 18 October 2008
Arsenal v Everton, 15:00
Aston Villa v Portsmouth, 15:00
Bolton v Blackburn Rovers, 15:00
Fulham v Sunderland, 15:00
Liverpool v Wigan, 15:00
Manchester United v West Brom, 17:30
Middlesbrough v Chelsea, 12:45
Sunday, 19 October 2008
Hull City v West Ham United, 15:00
Stoke City v Tottenham, 16:00
Monday, 20 October 2008
Newcastle v Man City, 20:00

I Shall Start (:

2008-10-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

Today is the the day i start on this blog and the day apple came out with their new 13' inch Macbook and Macbook Pro. I shall not change my macbook (white) till i really really need to upgrade in the future. :)

A Sight of New Taste:

New design. New features. New technologies.

All engineered to standards that don’t even exist yet.

Redesigned,Re-engineered,Re-Everything!

To build something truly different, you need to work in a truly different way. Apple designers and engineers work together through every stage of product development. It’s a partnership that makes innovation possible. And it’s exactly how the new MacBook was created. With its breakthrough unibody enclosure, industry-first features, and environmentally sound design, it’s a revolution in the way notebooks are made.

The New MacBook

Watch the video

The New MacBook

Watch again>

Until now, all notebooks were designed the same way. By assembling multiple pieces to create a single enclosure. But once you include all the necessary parts, you add size, weight, complexity, and more opportunities for failure. Solving a problem like this required more than an incremental change. It required a breakthrough. To create the new MacBook, the design and engineering teams devised a way to replace many parts with just one. That one part is called the unibody — a seamless enclosure carved from a single piece of aluminum.

Unibody Enclosure

Every MacBook starts its life as a single piece of aluminum. View

Of course, building only one part creates its own set of challenges. When you have multiple parts that are fastened together, tolerances don’t need to be perfect. You have wiggle room, both literally and figuratively. But when one part is responsible for many functions, it’s critical to manufacture that part with absolute precision, down to the micron. Every time. Millions of times over. There was only one way to achieve this level of precision: mill the unibody from a solid block of aluminum using computer numerical control, or CNC, machines — the kind used by the aerospace industry to build mission-critical spacecraft components.

When you pick up a new MacBook, you immediately notice the difference. The entire enclosure is thinner and lighter. It looks polished and refined. And it feels strong and durable — perfect for life inside (and outside) your briefcase or backpack.

Interactive Gallery

Explore all the design innovations of the new MacBook. View

The thickness of a notebook depends on the technology inside. LCD displays typically use cold cathode fluorescent lamps, or CCFLs, to create light and project a picture onto a screen. But that poses two problems. First, these lamps require more space, so the display can be only so thin. Second, just like the fluorescent lights in your home or office, the ones inside a CCFL display take time to warm up before they reach full brightness. That’s a lose-lose situation. And it’s why Apple engineers chose LED backlight technology for the new MacBook.

An LED backlight creates the same amount of brightness in less space. So you can make the structure that houses an LED display much thinner. And unlike fluorescent lamps, an LED backlight reaches maximum brightness instantly.

Look at the MacBook display and you’ll see another big difference. Glass. That edge-to-edge, uninterrupted glass display does more than look good. It also adds structure to the LED display beneath it. And there’s no metal frame (another extraneous part) to distract you from what’s onscreen.

Multi-Touch Trackpad

The spacious glass MacBook trackpad is also a button. View

The new MacBook trackpad has no button because it is the button. That means there’s more room to track, more room to click — left, right, center, and everywhere in between — and one less part. Apple designers and engineers spent countless hours considering things like sensitivity (how much pressure triggers a click?), audio feedback (what does the click sound like?), and friction over the smooth glass surface (what does it feel like?).

And that’s just the hardware. Apple software engineers had a large part to play in the development of the trackpad, too. They incorporated Multi-Touch gestures, including swipe, pinch, rotate, and the new four-finger swipe. The result is the largest, smartest, most ergonomic MacBook trackpad ever. It’s one of many details considered and reconsidered during the design process.

There’s a story behind each part. Take the thumbscoop, for example. It’s the indentation that allows you to open the display. If the scoop is too deep, you put too much pressure on the display to open it. If it’s too shallow, you struggle to open the display. It may seem incidental, but if the thumbscoop is well designed, it makes the difference between a bad experience and a good one. The challenge of the thumbscoop was to create a crisply machined scoop that was still comfortable to use. The designers at Apple worked on hundreds of versions of the thumbscoop — even examining them under an electron microscope — to get it right.

Then there’s the sleep indicator light. An indicator is functional only when it’s indicating something. Look to the right of the thumbscoop. You see nothing. Until you close the display and your MacBook goes to sleep. Then an LED glow appears from inside the enclosure. How? During the CNC process, a machine first thins out the aluminum. Then a laser drill creates small perforations for the LED light to shine through. These holes are so tiny that the aluminum appears seamless when the light is off.

The marriage of electronics and mechanical design makes the new MacBook as advanced on the inside as it is on the outside. The internal architecture has been reengineered from the silicon up. There’s a new logic board. A new chipset. And a new integrated graphics processor — a feat of engineering in itself.

Many notebook computers sacrifice graphics performance in order to save battery life. The new MacBook offers the best of both worlds. The NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor provides up to five times the performance of the previous-generation MacBook without draining your battery. So you can experience high-performance graphics ideal for playing 3D games or watching video.

Because Apple designs both the hardware and the software for the new MacBook, it’s easier to improve things like energy efficiency. Software tells the hard drive to spin down when it’s not in use. It tells the display and battery indicator lights to dim in low-light conditions. And it helps decide whether the CPU or the graphics processor would be best suited to the task at hand. That’s the kind of smart, integrated design that sets MacBook apart from other notebooks.

A Greener Notebook

Made from recyclable aluminum and glass, the new MacBook is greener than ever. View

Top-to-bottom integration also makes MacBook greener than other notebooks. Complete control over how the new MacBook is designed, how it’s manufactured, and how it’s packaged gives Apple an environmental edge. Take the MacBook display, for instance. Conventional CCFL displays use mercury to create a backlight and arsenic to prevent irregularities in the glass. The LED-backlit display on the new MacBook, on the other hand, is both mercury- and arsenic-free. LED backlight technology also conserves energy: This display requires 30 percent less power than a CCFL display.

Mercury and arsenic aren’t the only toxins absent from the new MacBook. Many computer manufacturers have only pledged to eliminate polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from their enclosures and circuit boards. Apple is removing not only PVC and BFRs, but all forms of bromine and chlorine throughout the entire MacBook.

Just how green is the new MacBook? It’s ENERGY STAR compliant, which means it meets the government standard for energy efficiency. It’s also earned EPEAT Gold status, the highest standard for environmental performance in the electronics industry. And every new MacBook is shipped in packaging that’s 41 percent smaller than any previous generation. That translates to fewer trees used for boxes and less fuel used to transport more MacBooks on fewer planes. And at the end of its long, productive life, you can recycle almost all of your MacBook.

Only Apple could make a notebook like this. Hardware and software. Design and engineering. Production and manufacturing. They’re all part of a single process at Apple. When you start using your new MacBook, you’ll discover what that means. The light and sturdy unibody protects the components inside. The LED-backlit display — along with the graphics processor that helps power it — gives you faster games and a brilliant canvas for your photos, movies, and more. The glass Multi-Touch trackpad feels as good as it functions. From the smallest detail to the biggest engineering breakthrough, the new MacBook truly is the next generation of notebooks.

From the stunning aluminum unibody to the powerful graphics architecture, the new MacBook makes progress a beautiful thing.

Square one: a solid block of aluminum.

Instead of assembling a notebook from many minor parts, the new MacBook was reinvented from just one: the new, solid-aluminum unibody enclosure. It gets full credit for making MacBook thinner, lighter, and even more stunning. But it’s not all beauty. Because of the unibody, this MacBook is also durable. It was designed to take on your world. So slip it into your backpack or briefcase and pull it out wherever you go — it’s impressive in any setting. Learn more about design

Even the keyboard is advanced.

The MacBook keyboard is solid, responsive, and comfortable. Just put your fingers on the crisp keys and you’ll feel pure typing bliss. An illuminated keyboard, a popular feature of MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, now comes standard on the 2.4GHz MacBook model. So when you’re in low-light settings such as airports or lecture halls, you can always see what you’re typing. It’s a luminous feature for anyone on the go.

Hey, where’s the button?

The amazing new trackpad doubles as a button — just press down anywhere and consider it clicked. No separate button means there’s 39 percent more room for your fingers to move on the silky glass surface. Now that Multi-Touch gestures have come to MacBook, all the function is in your fingers. Use two fingers to scroll up and down a page. Pinch to zoom in and out. Swipe with three fingers to flip through your photo libraries. Rotate to adjust an image with your fingertips. Using the new four-finger swipe gesture, swipe up or down to access Exposé modes and left or right to switch between open applications. If you’re coming from a right-click world, you can right-click with two fingers or configure a right-click area on the trackpad. The more you use the Multi-Touch trackpad, the more you’ll wonder what you ever did without it.

Simply stunning.

The beautifully seamless, remarkably thin design isn’t the only gleaming quality of the LED-backlit display. Open your MacBook and you’re instantly greeted by glorious full screen brightness. The aluminum enclosure is perfectly integrated with a glass overlay that stretches to the edge of the notebook, providing a completely unobstructed picture. Anything you view, including the glossy widescreen display itself, is a spectacular experience. The LED-backlit display is more power efficient. And it’s mercury- and arsenic-free, so it’s greener than ever. Learn more about MacBook and the environment

Cooler creatures. Richer worlds.

The NVIDIA GeForce 9400M brings up to five times faster, discrete-level graphics performance to MacBook.¹ That means high-end, high-speed 3D game-playing power. Graphics-intensive features in iPhoto and iMovie are smooth and responsive. Movies and video offer rich colors and fine details. NVIDIA performance even makes a difference as you flip through your music library with Cover Flow or use the Dashboard.

Graphics Performance

The NVDIA GeForce 9400M delivers up to 5x faster graphics performance.

View the performance chart

Take it all along.

With a hard drive up to 320GB,² you can load MacBook with movies, photos, and documents and take everything with you. You also have the option to upgrade to a 128GB solid-state drive, which has no moving parts, for enhanced durability. With the ultrafast 8x SuperDrive, burn everything you watch, listen to, or create onto DVDs and make room for even more.

Ports with possibilities.

MacBook is iPod, iPhone, digital camera, and external hard drive ready. You’ll find two USB 2.0 ports to connect a wide variety of peripherals. You’ll also see a Mini DisplayPort — a perfect fit for the new Apple LED Cinema Display. The MagSafe power port gives you a trip-proof connection to safeguard your system and valuable data. And you can use the Kensington lock slot to protect your MacBook, battery, and hard drive.

What a quantum leap looks like.

With a first-of-its-kind integrated graphics processor that delivers up to five times the performance in half the size, the new MacBook changes the game — and just about everything else you do on a notebook.

More performance. Less space.

Many notebooks skimp on graphics performance in favor of a smaller design. But the new MacBook uses a graphics processor that economizes space in a whole new way. A traditional computer logic board contains multiple components: the CPU, two chips that control communication throughout the computer, and the graphics processor. The logic board in the new MacBook contains only two components: The CPU and a graphics processor with all of the core logic built into a single chip. That graphics processor is the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, and it helps MacBook reach new levels of gaming performance — without sacrificing battery life.

Play faster.

Games get up to a 5x performance boost in the new MacBook.¹ Power your way through the 3D environments of Quake, Call of Duty, and Spore. Enjoy faster, smoother, more responsive gameplay. And marvel at how great those game graphics look: They’re crisper, they’re more finely detailed, and they make the most of the brilliant LED-backlit display.

Graphics Performance

The NVDIA GeForce 9400M delivers up to 5x faster graphics performance.

View the performance chart

Create faster.

The new MacBook is perfect for iLife applications, too. Whether you’re flipping through vacation photos in iPhoto, editing a family flick in iMovie, or building your own blog in iWeb, the new MacBook helps you create and enjoy photos, movies, and websites with ease.

Work faster.

The new MacBook makes quick work of iWork applications.² Big Keynote presentation? Great graphics performance means that your transitions (especially that really snazzy one) play smoothly, slides build without delays, and finely detailed graphics render perfectly.

Do everything else faster.

At the heart of every MacBook is Mac OS X Leopard. At the heart of Leopard is Core Animation: the technology that powers visually stunning user interfaces and application animations. It’s what makes iChat effects, Cover Flow, Time Machine, and hundreds of other graphical elements in Mac OS X possible. The improved graphics performance of the new MacBook makes everything you do in Mac OS X smooth and responsive.

Mini DisplayPort.

The new MacBook has a small port that makes a big difference. The Mini DisplayPort is a brand-new, industry-standard port. It delivers a pure digital connection to external displays — even large 30-inch displays — quickly and without a glitch. No more multiple-pin connectors with unwieldy screws; the ultracompact Mini DisplayPort gives you plug-and-play performance with the new Apple LED Cinema Display. And it supports VGA, DVI, and dual-link DVI connections, too.

Get the (really) big picture.

With a MacBook, you can work or play anywhere. But there are times when great graphics performance positively begs for more pixels. Introducing the Apple LED Cinema Display: the first display designed specifically for the new MacBook.

The new 24-inch Apple LED Cinema Display transforms your MacBook into a desktop computer in seconds. Plug in three simple connectors — Mini DisplayPort, USB, and MagSafe — and suddenly you have more room to work and play, plenty of space for peripherals, and an automatic charge for your MacBook. You don’t even need to take the power adapter out of your bag. And instantly, everything you see is bigger, brighter, and even more brilliant. Learn more

Greenest Macbook ever!

The new 13-inch MacBook embodies Apple’s continuing environmental commitment. It is designed with the following features to reduce its environmental impact:

Arsenic-free glass
Brominated flame retardant-free
Mercury-free

PVC-free
41% smaller packaging
Highly recyclable aluminum and glass enclosures

Fewer parts.

Greener parts.

The new MacBook is built with significantly fewer parts. And the parts that remain are significantly greener. Take the unibody, the foundation of the notebook itself. It’s a single piece of solid, recyclable aluminum that replaces dozens of extraneous pieces once destined for landfill.

Small volume speaks volumes.

Made from recycled material, the new MacBook packaging is 41 percent smaller than the previous generation. And that’s huge. It means less paper used for smaller boxes. It also means Apple can use fewer planes to transport the same number of products.