May 2006

cover_May 06.ai

4/28/2006

5:46:09 PM

Tested: Nvidia’s fastest 3D cards Decide: PC or Console

www.chip-india.com

at the heart of technology May 2006

Volume 3

Issue 6

Rs 100

Subscriber’s Copy

Want to add punch to your home business? Or tell the world about your life? Then create a website! 34 C

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First look:

Apple’s Intel-based Mac

Now SMS us! WORKSHOP

Vinyl to Digital Learn to convert old tapes to digital-quality CDs 104

FEATURE 94

Inside search engines Answers in 0.0012 seconds? Here’s how

Also available in Bangladesh Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, U A E

MFD & r e Print ing Guide p Shop

12 MFDs reviewed

64

Be it printing, scanning, faxing or copying, we test it all

26 external drives

52

Need to take files with you? Find your data partner here

Digital makeover

108

Expert tips on facial touchups using Photoshop

Olympus Stylus 720 SW: Compact and tough

EDITORIAL

7

Release, damn it!

P

I’d rather go with a current technology that serves my present needs other than languish, waiting for the next big thing

atience has never been one of my virtues. Since I was a kid, during those preChristmas days there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to figure out what was under the Christmas tree. The knowledge of an impending event used to drive me crazy with anticipation. These days, while I don’t go around pulling out my hair waiting for the next product release, I have noticed something rather disconcerting—over the past few years, several companies have been conveniently extending deadlines on their product releases. Be it Sony’s interminable promises of their PS3 (last I heard, they promised it hitting stores in November this year), or Microsoft Vista (along with the rest of their long-winded Vistavariants to follow), to even game releases (I’ll bet all you gamers can’t say S.T.A.L.K.E.R. without shaking your head in frustration, then wistfully recalling that fascinating preview video released at E3 last year). Sure, it’s in a company’s own interest to release bug-free and defect-free products while catching the crest of the next big buying wave. But after their initial teaser releases, sneak previews and specification “leaks” die down, their viral marketing strategies start to lose luster, leaving behind a whole lot of frustrated consumers. Besides the frustration, these delays translate into significant financial repercussions within the industry. In the case of Windows Vista, Microsoft was originally supposed to release the OS back in 2005. This got pushed to October 2006. They are now pegging the release date to January 2007. Clearly, it’s not a delay of a few months here. It is clear that several corporate and domestic buying decisions have been postponed as a result of these delays. And the cascade effect continues—system integrators typically require six to eight weeks to integrate specification changes into their product lineup. This tends to weigh in at the higher end of the delays with something as significant as a new OS. Besides ironing out bugs, developing and stabilizing drivers for locally available hardware, their technical support teams would also need to familiarize themselves with the new system to be able to respond effectively. Things are no different on the hardware front. Take your pick—Blue-ray, HD-DVD, WiMAX—we’ve all heard them being trumpeted for at least a couple of years, while products based upon these epoch-making technologies are still nowhere in sight. It is clear that companies invariably choose to delay a launch in favor of waiting to integrate an additional “big feature” into their products. But the effects of such delays are felt everywhere—the support companies who depend upon larger organizations for their product rollouts, the enterprises who wait to migrate their systems to efficiency-boosting technologies. As we continue to go about integrating newer technologies into our lives (both intentionally and unknowingly over the course of our days), it is high time that companies honor the need to deliver these technologies on time. Consumers are not as patient as companies assume they are. More so, in this day and age where technology stalwarts are doing a brilliant job at creating compelling products, the next best choice for the consumer is actually a pretty good choice. Being the impatient person I am, I’d rather go with a current technology and product that serves my present needs other than languish, waiting for the next big thing. But maybe that’s just me.

| Marco Angelo D’Souza [email protected] MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

Contents MAY 2006 64

32 Biolab on a

52

Chip

NEWSWIRE 22 Embracing the PC The Intel-powered Community PC introduced to meet rural needs is equipped to withstand the challenges faced by villages in India.

32 Biolab on a Chip Biochips are being used to detect various diseases at the very onset, warning us of of endemics and biological poisons.

COVER STORY 34 Get Web-enabled Learn the diverse ways of putting up and running a web site using either free or paid web hosting services.

HARDWARE 40 Top Gear

72 Nvidia Fights Back! Nvidia builds competition for rival ATI with their new range of GPUs.

76 When Intel made Apple Apple’s new Intel-based notebook sports a spiffy look and feel so quintessential of the brand, and clubs a bagful of features.

78 Fuel Cells on the Move With their dynamic energy storing capacities, fuel cells are going to take the world of mobile power by storm. They facilitate a more environmentfriendly form of energy storage.

APPLICATIONS 84 Software Center Read our reviews on a range of tools for home and office use, displaying marked advancements in features and performance.

Our Test Center boys get close to an array of products and give you a lowdown on their multi-faceted features.

Portadata

90 Narrowed Viewing Now you have the freedom to watch what you want. Get access to esoteric content with the help of a new breed of broadcasting technology christened narrowcasting.

92 Waking up to WiMAX WiMAX heralds the era of costeffective, convenient Internet access in the nation’s web horizon. Find out about the action in India.

94 Search Power An in-depth analysis of the significant and cogent functionality of search engines.

HANDS ON 104 Recreating Music An exemplary workshop discerning the unique ways in which audio cassettes can be recycled to audio CDs and MP3s.

108 For Skin that Glows

52 Portadata

Photoshop lends that magical touch to your age-old portraits, working wonders for your skin and attributing that total image makeover.

A comprehensive test run of flash memory based and hard drive based external storage solutions.

64 Eco Imaging Scanning, copying, faxing, printing at an affordable cost with MFDs.

Eco Imaging

34 INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

94 Search Power

72

Nvidia Fights Back! 84

112 XP in your pocket

| Products Tested

130 Call of Cthulhu

Learn the simple but meticulous procedures applied to booting Windows XP from a USB flash drive. It is fun!

Come explore the deeply intriguing dark corners of the earth in the scariest game churned out by game developers this year.

132 The Lord of the Rings: The

UNWIND

Battle for Middle-Earth II

124 PC vs Console The subject that stimulates intense debate in the gaming world today is whether PC gaming is superior to console gaming or vice versa. Find out more…

128 Star Wars: Empire At War A game that gives you the power to plan your galactic conquest and command an entire war in the Star Wars universe.

Get ready to step into a Middle-Earth not witnessed before. The sequel has all the elements necessary in an RTS game with the power to get you addicted. new build

134 Commandos Strike Force While the previous versions stuck to squad-based tactical missions, the latest entry in the Commandos series puts on the garb of a first-person shooter game. Improvement in this version is indicated in the less time taken to complete the missions.

Regulars Town Square

16

Letters

18

Technology Landscape

82

Dr. CHIP

100

Olympus U 720 SW

Tips and Tricks

115

…46

Game Reviews

128

Last Word

148

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

Software Center

Hardware

40

Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe, Asus PW191, Cowon iAudio U2, Gainward Sound Xplosion, Gigabyte Triton Chassis, Leadek WinFast A7800GS, Logitech X-530, Olympus U 720 SW, Plustek OpticBook 3600, Sony DRU-820A, Xerox Phazer 3117

External Storage

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Apacer HandySteno HT-203, Buffalo RUF2-S512-BS, Corsair Flash Voyager, Kingston DataTraveler II Plus Migo, PQI Cool Drive U339, PQI Cool Drive U339 Pro, Transcend JetFlash 120, Zion UltraDiskPro, Buffalo Drive Station HD-HB160U2-EU, ExBoot EXB-0131, Maxtor OneTouch III FireWire 400/USB 2.0, Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo, Seagate Pushbutton Backup 200GB, Seagate Pushbutton Backup 400GB, Western Digital Media Center, Western Digital Essential, Buffalo MiniStation USB 2.0, ExBoot EXB-0121, LaCie Mobile Hard Drive, Seagate Portable Hard Drive, Transcend StoreJet 2.5, Western Digital Passport, LaCie Carte Orange, Seagate Pocket Hard Drive, S-Media Hi-Tech Microdrive, UMAX Pollux 300

MFDs

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Brother DCP-115C, Brother MFC-410CN, Brother MFC-620CN, Brother MFC-3240C, Brother MFC-5840CN, Canon Pixma MP150, Canon Pixma MP450, Canon Pixma MP500, Epson Stylus CX4700, Epson Stylus CX3700, Lexmark X3350, Lexmark X4270

Disk Contents MAY 2006 | VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 6

Mobile: AVANT GO REMOTE DESKTOP FOR MOBILES 2.1

Internet: AOL EXPLORER FIREFOX 2.0 YAHOO MESSENGER 7.5

Multimedia: QUARKXPRESS 7 PLATO VIDEO TO IPOD CONVERTER MAGIX AUDIO CLEANING LAB 10

Security: ASHAMPOO MAGICAL SECURITY ANTIVIR PERSONAL EDITION

Utilities: FREE ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE (BUSY UL 3.0) WINZIP 10

Developer: VISUAL BASIC EXPRESS 2005 ACEHTML PRO 6.05

Game Addons: Game Demos: TOM RAIDER: LEGEND BLAZING ANGELS: SQUADRONS OF WWII GALATIC CIVILIZATIONS II

Videos: BLAZING ANGELS: SQUADRONS OF WWII ROGUE TROOPER POSEIDON

LOTR: BATTLE FOR MIDDLE EARTH 2 1.02 PATCH

Movie Trailers: THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT AN AMERICAN HAUNTING

Game Trailers: FIFA WORLD CUP 2006 THE ELDER SCROLLS IV OBLIVION, MORTAL KOMBAT: ARMAGEDDON

Linux: FEDORA CORE 5

Game Demos: ICE AGE 2: THE MELTDOWN IRON WARRIORS: T-72 TANK COMMAND VIRTUAL POOL 3

Quick Quote MAY 2006 | VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 6 GENERAL MANAGER - PUBLISHING

Krishna Tewari EDITOR

Chennai O K Gurumurthy Phone: (044) 28295050-54 Fax: (044) 28295060 [email protected]

Marco Angelo D’Souza

CHIP is a great resource for first-time products, providing fair reviews of their capabilities Moninder Jain, Director South Asia, Logitech

ASSOCIATE FEATURES EDITOR

Carol D’Costa SENIOR COPY EDITOR

Sharmistha Dey

Hyderabad Vasudevan Iyer Phone: (040)55622211 Fax: (040) 23393488 Kolkata A. K. Roy Phone: (033) 2468637, 2468638 Fax: (033) 2462964

WRITERS

Ashutosh Desai, Pradosh Mitra TEST CENTER

Soham Raninga Anand Tuliani, Gaurav Seth MULTIMEDIA COORDINATOR

Anup Pillai

New Delhi Pranav Saran [email protected] Jitendra Kr. Gupta (D) (011) 55303287 401-409, Prakashdeep Building, 7 Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi – 110 001. Phone: (011)55303278,79,80,82 Fax: (011)23327884

DESIGN

Vishwanath Vanjire, Pramod Jadhav, Jagdish Limbachiya, Dinesh Desai, Rushikesh Masurkar, Manoj Tandel, Umesh Dahiwalkar, Ravi Parmar

CIRCULATION

PHOTO EDITOR

CHIP INTERNATIONAL

Shirish Karale MULTIMEDIA & WEB

Hemant Charya SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR-PROJECTS

Brian Pereira WRITERS

Arunabh Arora, Rahul Athalye, Olivia Yardi HEAD MARKETING

Ganesh Lakshmanan EDITORIAL OFFICE

Intelligent Computing Chip, TBW Publishing & Media Pvt. Ltd. `A’ Wing, Ruby House, 2nd Floor, J.K. Sawant Marg, Dadar(W). Mumbai - 400 028. INDIA Phone: (91 22) 24232323, Fax: (91 22) 2430 2707 E-mail: [email protected] BUSINESS OFFICES

Mumbai (Head Office) Martin Wilson, [email protected] Sagar Salunkhe [email protected] TBW Publishing & Media Pvt. Ltd. `A’ Wing, Ruby House, 2nd Floor, J.K. Sawant Marg, Dadar (W), Mumbai - 400 028. INDIA Phone: (91 22) 24232323, Fax: (91 22) 24302707 E-mail: [email protected] Bangalore Harish Kamat, [email protected] 12th Floor, ‘C’ Wing, Mittal Tower No.6, M.G.Road, Bangalore – 560 001. Phone: (080)559 7282,83,84 Fax: (080)559 7285

National Circulation Manager Kumar Mohanani ([email protected]) Editorial Consultant International Wolfgang Su, Poccistrabe 11,80336 Munchen CHIP is also published in the following countries China Czech Republic Germany Greece Hungary Indonesia Italy Malaysia Netherlands Poland Romania Russia Singapore Thailand Turkey Ukraine TBW Publishing & Media Pvt. Ltd. does not take the responsibility for returning unsolicited material sent without due postal stamps for return postage. No part of this magazine can be reproduced without the prior written permission of the publisher. TBW Publishing & Media Pvt. Ltd. reserves the right to use the information published herein in any manner whatsoever. Copyright 2004 INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP For all international subscription enquiries, contact the subscription department, Intelligent Computing CHIP ([email protected]). Intelligent Computing CHIP is printed by A. S. Vadiwala and published by K. V. Rao on behalf of TBW Publishing and Media Pvt. Ltd. and printed at Infomedia India Ltd, Plot No.3, Sector 7, Off Sion-Panvel Road, Nerul, Navi Mumbai – 400 706 and published at TBW Publishing and Media Pvt. Ltd., `A’ Wing, Ruby House, 2nd Floor, J.K. Sawant Marg, Dadar(W). Mumbai - 400 028. INDIA is an internationally protected trademark owned by Vogel Burda Communication GmbH Cover Design: Pramod Jadhav, Dinesh Desai

www.chip-india.com INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

16

TOWN SQUARE

THIS MONTH ON chip-india.com

Town Square G

reetings! The month of April was really hectic as there was a lot of activity online. On last check, the number of registered users had grown to 22,200. The rate at which new members are registering at our site again confirms the fact that if you need any technical help or want to share your technical knowledge with others, then chip-india.com is your best bet. The various sections in our forums have been buzzing with activity. We found some interesting topics posted by some of our members. The most interesting one was posted by “dweller” who informs us how to make a web cam work via infrared. Just visit http://homepage.ntlworld. com/geoff.johnson2/IR/ and you will get a stepby-step procedure. In the site the owner, Geoff Johnson, has provided screenshots so that you don’t have any difficulty understanding the entire process. The next useful tip we found was posted by “hellrider” in the Internet section. He basically explains how to free up 20 percent of your bandwidth that Microsoft preserves. The steps are as follows: Click on Start and then navigate to Run. Type gpedit.msc. Under the Local Computer Policy, double click on Administrative Templates. Double click on Network and then on QoS Packet Scheduler. Here, you will need to right click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. Click on Properties and then on Enabled. Also, set the bandwidth limit (percentage) to zero. However, there are two things that you need to keep in mind before you can try this trick. The first is you will need to have a login account with administrative privileges. The second is that this trick is only for Windows XP Pro. If you have the Home edition, then you cannot try this out. In the Games section, “qdalz” invited all the forum members to visit the site that he had made for a LAN gaming cafe called Technopoint. The

URL for the site is www.technopoint.in. When we visited the site, we found that it gives complete information regarding the games that are played in the cafe as well as specifications of the machines that are used to play these games. It even features a full-fledged forum that allows you to share your expertise in gaming. It also has individual sections for FPS, RTS, sports and racing games. Another post that caught our eye was by “lionelxp” in the Hardware section. It includes a complete price listing of all the PC components that are available today in the market. No matter what you are searching for, you will find the price for it in this post. If you are planning to buy a new PC, you must definitely check out this post as it gives you a fair idea of what components can be bought within your budget. We would like to bring to your notice an incident that occurred in the past month because it deserves a special mention. Most of the members went on strike demanding that unless some new features were added to the web site or a completely new web site was launched, they would continue the agitation. As a result, no new topics were posted in any of the section. Newly registered members were affected since they could not find answers to their queries in Know-How. So we plunged into action immediately and as promised, we enabled avatars for the first time in our forums. Now the forums indeed look impressive with each member trying to get an avatar which is better than that of the other member. We have also planned a host of other features for the web site. In due course of time, they will be implemented and you will not need to go on a strike again. Do keep writing in and tell us what you want to see in the magazine, what software or games you want included on the cover discs, etc. We will make a note of your suggestions and if appropriate, will surely incorporate them. See you guys next month. ■ | Anup Pillai INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

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LETTERS

Letters Dear CHIP, I am a practising doctor from Baroda, Gujarat and was just about to buy a laptop when I came across your March issue. I read the article on the laptop comparison thoroughly. I was just wondering why some of the big brands were omitted from the comparison. I was mainly concerned about Toshiba and HP/Compaq. As you will agree, choosing a laptop is really difficult and I need a quick answer so that I may arrive at a decision on my dream laptop as soon as possible. Sincere regards and thanks once again for the lovely article demystifying the whole big issue for me. Vivek Hello Vivek, Yes, in this day and age, selecting a laptop can truly be a Herculean task given the sheer variety of products within a given price range. We’re glad you liked our comparison besides putting the various products through their paces, we aimed at providing a relevant view of specifications and performance levels of today’s laptop technologies. Given the fact that there are so many varieties of laptop brands in the markets (many of which were non-existent even a year ago!), procuring products for such a comparison has always been a challenge. However, over the course of this comparison, the majority of the brands were pro-active in making their products available to us to meet with our deadlines. Some brands such as HP/Compaq and Toshiba were unable to have their laptops sent across for reasons ranging all the way from a refresh in product lines to not

Umesh Dahiwalkar

being able to dispatch the devices in time. Since our deadlines are sacrosanct, we had no choice but to omit them this time around. As we do regular tests of products in our standalone test section, expect to see their reviews in our forthcoming issues. Team CHIP Dear CHIP, Another great issue! In your March issue, the gaming section was super as were the articles on power supply and dressing up Windows XP. I have one request which I have been trying to get across to you for a long time. Please conduct an anti-virus and firewall shootout. You review so many securityrelated programs and there are so many newer ones being released that it is hard to choose which is the best for a given application. It would be great if you could present them in a single product comparison. I also request you to review stuff that the ‘common Indian PC user’ can afford. No doubt, the Test Center reviews the best hardware available but please do also feature shootouts of things like generic input devices (which are significantly cheaper than the top-of-the-line Microsoft and Logitech products), cabinets, power supplies, etc. To conclude—for the past two years, I have always noticed that the “Red Hot” software on the tools CD is an image, video, audio or text editor. Please include something new and unique in your forthcoming CDs. I know that you guys put in a lot of hard work into each issue and may not be able to look into all the suggestions but I believe that there is room for improvement even for a magazine like CHIP! Amit Patnaik Hello Amit, The topic of anti-virus and security software is an interesting one. These applications are sciences unto themselves—given the breadth of programming expertise that needs to go into a software application like an anti-virus program. So evaluating them justly requires plenty of resources by way of live virus samples, not to mention the hundreds of test beds required to test infection methods, etc. Even with infection types, these have proliferated from file-level and e-mail infections to newgeneration threats through chat, spyware, adware to even mobile viruses. And there are hundreds INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

LETTERS

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

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LETTERS

Letters Now you can SMS us!

Since we like knowing what’s on your mind and what you think about our magazine, we now bring you another way to get in touch with us. Have something to say about a test review? Liked a feature story? Was the workshop useful? SMS us your feedback! Here’s how: For comments on a story, create the following message: ICCO Example: ICCO The cover story was very useful You can write as much as you want in your comment! To rate a story, product review, etc look out for the story tag at the base of each article and use it as follows: ICCP <Story tag> Example: ICCP PWS 5 The “Story tag” is mentioned at the base of every story in the magazine and the “Rating” is on a scale of 1 to 5. Finally, send your messages to 7007. Cheers!

70 07 ICCO

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of newer infection types cropping up every day. Since we are not fully equipped with the systems required to do complete justice to an anti-virus comparison, we prefer not to conduct one solely on the basis of an application’s features. However, we do have plans to collaborate with standardsbased test centers that have dedicated resources for virus threat analysis and countering processes. But this may take more than a few months. While we do have a fair amount of product tests focusing on the more affordable hardware and software products, we do try to achieve a good balance of ‘high-end’ products with the more affordable variants. You will see this in the increased number of product tests around computer cabinets and input devices over the last few months. Finally, regarding the types of applications featured in the Red Hot section of our Tools CD, we’ve created a dedicated mail ID to receive feedback on our cover disk contents. So, do write to us at [email protected] with suggestions on such applications and we’ll try to incorporate as many of these in our future issues. Team CHIP Dear CHIP, We, the staff and officials of the Department of Science & Technology (Govt. of West Bengal), run an Office Library named “Aniwksha” at Bikash Bhawan in Kolkata. Ever since we have started subscribing to your magazine, it has found favor with many of our Aniwksha members. The way you cover technology topics and the manner in which it is put forth is really fantastic. We have solved plenty of our daily problems after reading sections like your Tips and Tricks. Through your various hardware and software product tests, we have gained practical information on the performance and price of various products and it is easy to see them presented in a nice tabular form. Also, the cover stories are of great interest to all of us. We preserve all of your magazines. We have just finished reading the March 2006 issue. And we want to tell you that we receive your magazines very late, usually in the last week of the month. In fact, we have still not received a copy of the November 2005 issue and the same was informed to your office over mail last month. It will be of great help if you would be kind enough to

send us a copy of the November issue at the earliest. Expecting an early reply. Amiya Kumar Kalidaha Dear Amiya, Thanks for the kind words about our magazine and apologies for the respective issue not reaching you on time. This information has been passed on to our subscription department and they will be taking the necessary action. Team CHIP Dear CHIP, Thanks to you. We have received the November05 issue of CHIP magazine. Thank you for your prompt action and also for following up with our request. Amiya Kumar Kalidaha Dear CHIP, I have been a regular follower of your magazine for almost two years now. We have just started a pocket PC enthusiasts’ site at www.indippc.com with an active forum of around 150 (and growing) members. Now that Windows’ mobile platform is getting popular in India with all the O2s and Imates coming in (we really liked your review of the Atom by the way), we thought it was about time we had our own community site. I think we are the one and only Pocket PC enthusiast site for India. We would like if you could tell your readers about this initiative. We would also appreciate if Pocket PC/Palm enthusiasts from the CHIP team could visit our forums and share a tip or two with our readers. Hoping to get a positive response from you. A little support will indeed go a long way. Vinit Gupta Dear Vinit, With data becoming more portable, having access to one’s documents while on the move is getting increasingly important. This is a good initiative you’ve started and will certainly be a practical resource to handheld users here in India. We wish you all the best in this endeavor. Team CHIP

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

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NEWSWIRE

Embracing the PC Intel’s Community PC has been built in a way that it can face the challenges of rural India

T

he Indian rural sector is on the throes of witnessing a revolution in coming face to | Joydeep Bose face to technology. Several information Director, Emerging Markets and Platform communication technology programs sponsored Group, Intel by the Government of India have got the rural race jumping on the tech bandwagon. But although India is being touted as the next tech super power, it only has a miniscule 4 percent of PC population. In such a scenario, Intel’s “Discover the PC” project makes sense because the country has not been able to bridge the digital divide completely. This project is Intel’s initiative to make the benefits of computer usage more broadly available to all developing nations. Part of this “Discover the PC” project is a unique PC platform designed to meet the needs of the rural populace in India. In an interview with CHIP, Joydeep Bose, Director, Emerging Markets and Platform Group, talks more on the Community PC.

Q: How will the Community PC meet the practical needs of the rural populace? How will it help in educating the PC-illiterate race? JB: The Community PC is an innovation undertaken by Intel after intensive ethnographic studies in rural India. Intel realized that the villages needed computing to improve their efficiency of business, improve productivity and manage their growth and address social needs like education and health. It also recognized that villages in India need the computing power to meet social, educational and health needs as well smoothen the process of administrative functionalities. As rural India is transcending from an agricultural economy to a trading economy, the dynamics also change—there is a growing need for efficient and productive tools. Also, as quick delivery of knowledge is possible through computing-based devices, it becomes even more important to have access to the specialized technology that can address such educational and practical needs. Our research revealed that providing community services through ICT can help the rural folks have access to such technology and thereby,

raise the their living standards. Given this premise, the platform to provide ICT and community services must be able to withstand the challenges of rural India, which are harsh climatic conditions, power blackouts, ability to control assets and reducing the ownership cost. The result of this research is the “Community PC”. This PC has been constructed in a way that when denuded to tough weather conditions such as extreme temperatures, high dust levels, problems of fluctuating power supply and lack of IT support in remote areas, it can still function properly. One of the usage models of the Community PC is to use it as a device to help users understand and learn the educational content in addition to computer and software skills.

Q) The Intel-powered community PC is part of the Discover the PC initiative. What other projects are part of this initiative? JB: The community PC is one among many offerings from Intel as a part of the Discover the PC campaign. There are other products like the Affordable PC, Education PC and others, which will be launched soon as a part of this campaign.

Q) Will the ruggedized PC help in computing better? JB: The ruggedized PC will ensure that the PC runs for a longer time without failure in harsh conditions, thus proving the overall utility and longevity of the productive PC. The redesigned motherboard has been optimized for power consumption and will hence, result in better utilization of the available power for computing.

Q) How will the Community PC platform work? Tell us about its architecture. JB: The Community PC has been developed exclusively to fit into rural India. This PC caters to the needs of the villages and is also equipped to adapt to the varying climatic and topographic conditions prevalent. The unique features of the Community PC are: INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

NEWSWIRE

• • • • • •

It runs on a car battery in cases of fluctuating power supply. It consumes less power. It’s thermally redesigned chassis can withstand extreme temperatures. It is fitted with a dust filter to combat problems related to high dust levels. It is enabled with value added software like Power and System Management. The CPC has a unique feature called Asset Management that can be used to provision and de-provision the PC based on business logic. One key application of this feature is “Pay per use”.

Q: What is Jagruti or Awakening initiative all about? Do you think such an initiative will help bridge the digital divide and how? JB: Jagruti is the name of the campaign for the community initiative by Intel. It is a Community Awakening initiative to bring together various players in the ICT space—the government, OS vendors, independent software vendors, NGOs, kiosk service providers and Intel. Everyone has a part to play in order to bridge the digital divide and thereby, the initiative to channel the efforts of the ecosystem around this objective. It has four key pillars: a. The rugged hardware platform and peripherals from Intel and its OEMs. b. A low cost wireless connectivity solution from Intel, OEMs and Telcos/ISPs. c. A community alliance of 30+ software vendors for rural applications through Intel’s ISV network. d. A financing model to provide access to capital to rural entrepreneurs. Jagruti is the umbrella program for a single window rural computing solution.

Q) Where is this Community PC available? What will its cost be like? JB: The Community PC can be bought from our OEMs. Depending on the configuration, we expect our OEMs to quote in the range of Rs 23,000 Rs to 25,000 for this product, which would include everything along with the 8-10 hour power backup solution.

Q) How is the Community PC different from MIT’s $100 PC? JB: We don’t want to comment on other

people’s/companies’ projects. I guess, all these programs aim at providing technology to aid human life and in that respect they are similar. Intel’s Jagruti is not a not-for-profit initiative. Additionally, the Intel Community PC is not a watered down PC. Rural India does not want cheap second-generation products. They are looking for products, which will be operational in their environment and where the applications would add value to their lives. Intel has been successful in developing this value proposition.

Q) You have mentioned about these community kiosks and plans of community platforms to be set up on them. How are these platforms going to be put up? What necessary steps are being taken in this respect? JB: There are several ways in which these kiosks and platforms would be set up in rural India. Some of them would be: a. With the help of the “Common Service Centers” initiative of the Government of India. b. PC for government offices in rural India through e-governance. c. PC kiosks for railway stations/rural telecom Internet cafes across the country. d. PC kiosks in post offices across rural India. The key to every deployment is applications and connectivity, business viability and access to capital, all of which are covered under the Jagruti initiative.

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products, expanded choices and increased purchasing power will improve the quality of life. Rural entrepreneurship will result in economic enrichment. Increased penetration of trade and finance will benefit farmers and the other poorer segment. All of the above are expected to generate both direct and indirect employment opportunities.

Q) How is Jagruti different from Microsoft’s Saksham project? JB: Jagruti and Saksham are complementary programs. Microsoft and Intel are integral pieces to bridging the digital divide and are working together in these initiatives.

Q) What are the other initiatives that Intel is taking in this sphere and in collaboration with who? JB: Intel is involved in several initiatives both in the computing as well as in the connectivity sphere. It is working actively with the Government of India—with various organizations like the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, state e-governance organizations, NGOs, ISVs, OSVs, banks and other public sector organizations. In the industry, we have key partnerships with Microsoft, Yahoo, RedHat, Oracle, TCS, IL&FS, NIIT, among many others.

Q) Are there any plans to introduce lowcost laptops for educational needs? JB: We are working on several platform concepts including education centric laptop for the emerging market. We shall divulge the details as we have them.  | Sharmistha Dey

Q) How far do you think these kiosks will help in generating self-sufficiency among the rural folks? JB: Rural empowerment will be generated by new services and information that improve productivity and raise incomes for illiterate people. It has a multiplier effect in sustaining “involved” welfare building of social and economic communities and finally, integrating the village population to India’s mainstream economy.

Q) How will the ruggedized community PC platform generate employment opportunities? JB: Access to information—to new

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

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Story code: NWI (See Readers’ Letters for details)

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NEWSWIRE

Interpreting emotions

Snakebots come to rescue

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t’s fairly easy to understand the meaning of a facial expression and then analyze it. But for those afflicted by autism, the experience is entirely different. It is not only difficult but they are also completely unable to ascertain the feelings expressed through facial expressions. However, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have come up with a novel computer-vision system, which can do the mind reading for those who are not able to do so. At the Body Sensor Networks 2006 international workshop, two researchers from MIT’s Media Lab wore tiny cameras mounted on wire rods extending from their chest to demonstrate how this system works. The facial expressions and the head movements captured by the cameras are fed into a desktop computer, capable of analyzing the data from the video feed and give an estimate of the individual’s mental state in the form of a color-coded graph. Besides the graph, the system is also equipped to provide a visual, audio or tactile feedback to the wearer. Interestingly, all these functions take place simultaneously and the applicant does not lose any time to infer what an expression indicates during a conversation. This system finds out that missing link, which makes it hard for a person suffering from Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to determine another’s emotion or thought. Additionally, the graph helps in drawing comparisons on the behavior of a normal person from that of one who’s suffering from autism and quantify them to identify the problem better. Presently, researchers are working on evolving the system into a wearable PC, enabling the user to get a response even if he or she is on the move. Research is also being carried out on Asperger Syndrome, an ailment similar to autism but milder.

eal snakes are dangerous as one snake bite might end your life but the snakes we talk about here are life-savers. These robot snakes team up with fire workers to trace human existence under debris. These snake robots are the invention of 37-year-old Howie Choset, professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He and his team have spent years in developing such robots which can slither through collapsed buildings in search of victims trapped due to natural disasters, fire or other emergencies. Choset recently claimed that these robots are also capable of climbing up and around pipes. It is this particular feature that distinguishes his robot snake from the several others. Rescue workers who have worked with such a snake robot claimed it to be

a highly effective tool as it can move into areas that are apparently impenetrable. At the pace of taking out one stone at a time to rescue a person, the time consumed for such an operation is around 90 minutes. Keeping these factors in mind, Choset designed a snake robot that can move into the rubble and get the victim out in the shortest span of time without causing him any harm. The lightweight aluminum or plastic bodied robots have the length of an arm, embedded with camera and electronic sensors and can be controlled by a joystick. The “Breadstick” and “Pepperoni” as they are called will be able to sense their way up through the shards just as good as their human operators.

Laptop, PC thieves gypped

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oday, mobility among the workforce has increased the risks of PC or laptop theft or misplacement by employees, thus leaving the personal or customer’s data stored completely unprotected. So in case you have lost your laptop or PC, don’t worry. California-based Everdream provides you with the solution of tracking them down, keeping the data securely locked within. Everdream’s Theft Recovery Managed Service (as the application is called) is capable of retaining control over lost or stolen PCs and laptops by encrypting or deleting the data contained therein. To enjoy the benefits, a user needs to install the application in

his computer first. In case of theft or misplacement, the device already installed in the computer automatically connects it to the web-based management console named Everdream Control Center (ECC). Immediately after the connection is established, the ECC transfers a software package that encrypts or deletes the data from the hard disk. Consequently, a collection of network information regarding the PC or laptop is gathered at ECC to locate and recover the machine. Though recently launched, this product has been appreciated by a number of corporate firms dealing with sensitive information.

Dinesh Desai

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

NEWSWIRE

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Deciphering calligraphy The hidden “F”

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nalyzing handwriting or writing style have been considered an art so far. But with the advent of a calligraphy-deducing application developed by Virginia-based Gannon Technologies Group, the practice will acquire a more scientific approach. Gannon Technologies unveiled their technology at the annual meeting of American Association for the Advancement of Science, where they were armed with a dozen computers and a database of 500 handwriting samples, all of which were reproductions of a single paragraph titled “London Letter”. The company claims that their application can differentiate varied forms of handwriting while simultaneously matching different samples of the handwriting of the same person.

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team of scientists engaged in military research recently came to the conclusion that when it comes to reading web pages, most readers read in an “F” shaped pattern. Taking into consideration the eye movements of 232 readers, it was found that a reader generally reads in a horizontal movement first. This is followed by their eyes moving downwards a bit and then, ensues reading across in a second horizontal movement covering a shorter area than what it was previously. Finally, the user scans the content on the left side of the page in a vertical movement. Sometimes it could be a systematic scan while at other times, it could move faster just throwing a glimpse at the text. If a page contains some images or a box at the top right, it is noticed that a viewer

usually concentrates over there leading to some distortion in the “F” shape. All these movements when tracked through a heat map—with red colors defining the mostly viewed area, yellow indicating the lesser and

blue signifying the least viewed area—gave the shape of the letter “F”. The study reiterates the guidelines for web designing and writing web content—since the user doesn’t read text thoroughly, the first two paragraphs must contain the most important information comprising subheads, bullet points followed by information in the realms of the text.

Xtra in Xbox Here, the key functional area is statistical analysis. From size to curvature gradation of each and every character, the instrument measures more than 200 different parameters of a letter or a digit. Currently, the group is also attributing a substantial amount in research and development to prove that the technology attains the same accuracy level as that of DNA analysis. It is felt that this technology of evaluation will assign a scientific precision to the forensic investigators’ or document examiners’ efforts. Presently, this discerning is solely dependent on manual skills to judge and draw a conclusion on whether a writing style presumed to be somebody’s is truly his. But the prosecutors can challenge these conclusions as they are aware about the fuzz factor and the lack of proper technology to substantiate such arguments. However, with the new technology in hand, the handwriting experts should calibrate their scale of opinions ranging from “certainty”, “highly probable”, “merely probable” and “no conclusion” to something more specific and figurative.

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ow Xbox gamers can customize their gaming experience by availing the interesting option of replacing game characters with that of the ones in the downloaded movies. Xbox Live has teamed up with Paramount Pictures to offer their members some new movie titles which includes Mission: Impossible III and Nacho Libre. The titles will come with HD formatted movie trailers, exclusive theme pack and graphics. Stars such as Jack Black of Paramount

pictures have been roped in to play online games with the regular gamers. This tie-up is Microsoft’s second attempt to bring movie entertainment to Xbox gamers. The first tie-up with Epic records in March 2006 provided Xbox gamers the chance to download highdefinition free music videos from Xbox Live Marketplace. Xbox Live users are also allowed to download exclusive content like interviews and contests to play games with their favorite artists. Such alliances may lead to a bigger development yet to take place in the movie industry—permitting download of full-length movies in consoles. Hollywood is seemingly not very comfortable with download of movies but with the increasing focus on the digital realm, this advancement is bound to be inevitable and Hollywood better agree if they wish to retain their popularity in the digital world. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

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NEWSWIRE

XXX Zone alert to track kids Robot in labor

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XXX new way to deal with paedophiles has been found. A California-based technology firm has teamed up with Joe Dawson, whose 11-year-old daughter Jessica was kidnapped and killed last year, to introduce the first cell phone that uses GPS to alert parents when a child is walking near a sexual predator’s home. The application, christened “Child Predator Zone Alert by SMS” is also known as CAT Trax. It claims to provide the parents a GEOFENCE zone built around every listed child predator within a certain zip code. It will notify parents through mobile or pager text messages when their child enters any such zone. To determine if a child is within a “Safe Zone” or to track the direction and speed of a CAT Trax, parents can call the toll free number of CAT Communication or log on to their web site www.cattrax.us. CAT Trax is currently only available on Sprint IDEN mobile service. Registration to this service involves paying only a monthly subscription. One needs to have a GPS and a Java handset. Currently Sprint IDEN service is available on selected Motorola handsets. The service will also enable parents to restrict incoming and outgoing calls as per pre-selected numbers. This way, parents wouldn’t need to get anxious about the numbers their kids are dialing or receiving calls from. Depending on the maturity of a child, parents may add numbers a kid dials on the phone or receives calls from. They can also provide their kids with the liberty to communicate further by releasing certain features of the phone blocked by them earlier. CAT Communication claims that their service will also help parents fight problems like children getting lost or falling prey to child predators.

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sing patients as guinea pigs for medical studies claim around 98,000 lives annually in the United States. To end such preventable medical errors, Dr Paul Preston, an anesthesiologist at Kaiser Permanente’s (a hospital chain) along with with Miami based Gaumard Scientific Co have developed Noelle, a life-like high-tech mannequin. This robot is being used in the recently introduced four-year pregnancy care training program. Noelle has already become a star in Paul’s training program and is being employed in 30 of Kaiser’s hospitals. Such training programs have also been introduced at 22 hospitals in Idaho of which five are already using Noelle. The price of this model ranges from $3,200 to $22,000 depending on the ability to best approximate a live birth. Noelle can be programmed for a variety of complications and cervix dilation. At times, she can labor for hours and unexpectedly give birth to a

breach baby in a matter of minutes. Taking guard against all sorts of possible complications that may arise during childbirth, David Isaza, an engineer with Gaumard, sat in the labor room and sent wireless signals to Noelle from his laptop. With a key stroke, he inflicted complications in Noelle overriding any pre-programmed instructions. Noelle is helping to teach doctors and nurses how to take proper care of women in labour.

Reversal of roles

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n this tech-age, teachers turn table with students in a bid to sharing knowledge of technology. Megan Kennedy, an eighth grade student of Hill City School of Kansas, recently exemplified it. She participated in a program called GenYes (Generation of Youth and Educators Succeeding), where kids teach teachers how to use technology. Kennedy’s project engaged her in working with a local kindergarten school teacher along with two of her classmates to integrate an Apple iMovie into a lesson about clocks. Together the team created a 3-minute movie showing a 5-year-old at various time periods in a day with the Jackson Five song “ABC” playing in the background. As part of the project, Kennedy showed one of the teachers how to upload the video from the camera clips and add titles at the bottom of the slides. Kennedy plans to carry forward her project to next year by creating a web site for the teacher and linking the movie to it. Projects like these are becoming a trend these days. In areas like California, Texas, Arizona, New York and other parts of the

US, a kid’s knowledge of technology is being increasingly recognized. Scott Parker, a teacher at Hill City School, believes that these projects create a win-win situation for both students and teachers. Students learn career skills like collaboration and meeting deadlines and teachers get on-the-job training in technology for classroom lectures. Along with acknowledging a student’s technical know-how, projects like GenYes have another objective. According to advocators like Jamal Hicks, a teacher of social studies and technology at Jonas Salk Middle School in Sacramento, California, 98 percent of students at Jonas Salk don’t have access to PCs at home. For the first time this year, the seventh-graders participated in a technology literacy project named TechYes, where students are rewarded for their proficiency in computers and are even attributed credits for teaching other students various tech skills. Hicks says projects like these bring a student in the US at par with his international counterparts who are more acquainted with technology. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

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Poll: Does your computer play DVDs? (See Readers’ Letters for details)

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Chuck bulbs for OLEDs Nano car gets an engine

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XXX he time is near when we will discard bulbs and fluorescent tubes and settle for the windows of our home to lighten the room after sunset. This is possible with the help of OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Devices) that stay transparent even when turned off, implying that if they are installed as skylights or windows, they will allow natural light to flow in during the day and create a mimic of the same light at night. After spending 13 years in studying OLEDs, researchers Stephen Forrest and Mark Thompson from the Princeton University and University of Southern California, invented an efficient single color display for the first time. They used a three-layer (one each for red, green and blue) light source to emit white light. This display is now ready to enter the next-gen cell phones. For any OLED device with multiple layers, each layer is a semi-conducting material of organic compound, where the electrons of the organic molecules jump at a higher energy level for a short span. As the electrons come back to their lower energy level, they release the surplus energy in the form of light. Forrest and Thompson added dopant (chemical impurities) to these organic compounds to emit colored light from these materials. This is how OLED emanating red, green and blue light were combined to generate white light. OLEDs can be installed at multiple places like walls, curtains, cabinets and tables to receive more light compared to that received from a bulb or tubelight. A regular bulb emits 15 lumens per watt-hour of energy whereas an OLED will discharge 25 lumens per watt-hour and it will also last longer. While a bulb lasts 1,000 hours and a fluorescent tube 10,000 hours, an OLED will 20,000 hours. This way even the cost of energy consumption is reduced.

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rom what we knew, the nano car that has been much in the news basically used to be an engine-less car made out of organic molecules. These cars used gold plates as its tracks which ensured the wheels did not get stuck to the surface. Instead, the wheels were dragged by an electromagnetic field controlled by a remote. But now the three-by-four nanometer car has finally got an engine. The car has been developed by Jim Tour and his colleagues at Rice University, Houston. The developers say that the car is so small that around 20,000 of them could get parked on the tip of a human hair. The nano-car’s molecular motor contains a pair of bonded carbon molecules rotating in one particular direction when illuminated by a specific wavelength of light. While checking the movement of the inherent hydrogen atoms, Tour’s team made use of nuclear magnetic resonance— the technique applied to monitor the

movement of atoms and molecules (similar to MRI) and found that the engine is capable of propelling the car. Tour expects the car to travel at a speed of 2 nanometers per minute with the newly inserted engine. The gold track comprises the chief source in making the car move completely on its own with its molecules consuming the entire energy absorbed from the light. As of now, there are no plans to replace the gold track with anything non-metallic as the microscope generally used to monitor the movement of the car needs a metal base to deliver an accurate reading.

Just C’ALL!

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ow you need not carry your credit cards, discount cards, cell phone, music player, apartment and car keys separately. All you need to carry is C’ALL, the all-in-one device, handling everything you found difficult to manage. Measuring 54x85x6 mm, its biometric system works on fingerprints and so your privacy is taken care of. Being a multipurpose device, C’ALL is not restricted to any specific type of service. For example, if you have two credit cards—one using Visa’s network and the other exercising Mastercard’s network—you need to specify one from the list of networks that you would like to opt for and again select the bank, whose credit card you would wish to employ. While using C’ALL as a phone, you first need

to select the service provider and then dial the number or receive a call. C’ALL also serves the purpose of a videophone. It can even switch functionality, exchanging the role of a mobile phone to that of a computer by just getting plugged to a keyboard enabled to run any operating system—whether it be Mac or Windows. C’ALL functions as a library, video- and music shop. You can read, listen to and watch all that you want. Go to a public online library or buy all that you want in any shop of the world. It is also a gaming device having the support of network gaming. With C’ALL, you’ll never get lost. This is because the GPS functionality of C’ALL updates aerial photos from the Internet and is therefore capable of keeping a track of your movements. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

Biolab on a Chip

Biochips can identify various diseases before they spread, warn of the possibility of epidemics and biological poisons and even detect spoilt food

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ith the fear of diseases proliferating as quickly as they are these days, in the near future you might have to pass through a health exam while crossing the borders of a country. A blood test can quickly provide vital information, for instance, whether you are carrying a particular virus or not. Recent advances in science have enabled testing of blood samples on a chip card. The blood will be absorbed into the chip through capillaries on the card. Chemical reactions can be carried out inside the chip’s miniature test sites. All this will be done on a card which has a biolab on it. The size of the card is the same as that of a credit card. The biochip, which combines biology and modern semiconductor technology, is just one of the many developments promised by medical diagnosis technology. It is a chip that can quickly recognize an illness or perform genetic testing. One important advantage of this chip, among other things, is that it will be useful in fighting deadly outbreaks. So far, epidemics such as bird flu have been difficult to control because identifying the virus is a slow and complicated process. Biochips can be programmed to accurately identify a particular virus. Virus identification is performed through electric signals from a series of sensors on

the silicon chip, while the programming is biochemical in nature. “Each molecule in nature has a corresponding match for purposes of identification. These molecules can be identified with by a biochip”, says Dr Rainer Hintsche from the Fraunhofer Institute of Silicon Technology (ISIT). Viruses and even bacteria can be isolated from blood samples if a biochip has been equipped with the correct antibodies. The chip can function as a genetics laboratory if it has capture elements for DNA molecules. Outside the medical field, biochips are finding important roles. They can be designed to analyze food, detect poison or trace the presence of biological weapons. Hintsche, together with two other inventors from Infineon and Siemens,

German Future Award recipients— Dr Walter Gumbrecht (Siemens), Dr Rainer Hintsche (Fraunhofer ISIT), and Dr Roland Thewes (Infineon) with biochip plans. Infineon has since left the project while Siemens and Fraunhofer have advanced biochip development

received the German Future Award for developing universal biochip applications. “The technology that we are using at ISIT is truly one-of-a-kind”, says Hintsche with conviction. “Here, for the first time industrial technology is being used to combine a chip—just a common everyday chip—with the world of chemical and biochemical analysis.” Biochip research has been on since the year 1983. Since 1991, various microsystems have been developed at the Fraunhofer ISIT. The main focus at the Fraunhofer Institute has been the planning of sensors for mobile construction. In a sterile room with an area of about 2.500 m², ISIT produces chips at a capacity of 200,000 wafers a year. In another separate room under yellow lighting, where silicon sheets are processed, other materials such as gold, copper, sulfur, acid and biochemical substances are used in producing these chips. To gain connections to the biological realm, these silicon chips are equipped with ultra-fine gold electrodes, tipped with firmly embedded capture molecules. To create these electrodes, developers relied on existing technologies such as using gold contacts from conventional chips for electrodes. Between the gold and the biomolecules is a layer of what is called the “coupling chemical” by its discoverers. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

NEWSWIRE

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MASS APPLICATIONS DNA TEST ON A CARD Siemens simplifies genetic analysis with Quicklab, a minilab—the size of a credit card. Biochemical reactions can be identified in the many channels and cells of the card. However, the reader still needs to be shrunk to PDA size before it can be marketed

Virus check At ISIT, the chip has been developed in a way that antibodies can be installed onto it as capture molecules through the “sulfur bridge” process on gold electrodes. “Since we began, we have succeeded with every type of biomolecule without any exception”, says Dr Ralf Dudde at ISIT. However, the real problem lies elsewhere. Virus stockpiles in contries like the United States are always tightly shut, without the chance of anyone accessing them. But the Robert-Koch Institute in Berlin helps in creating antibodies. The portion of the chip where the capture molecules are located resembles an array of tiny cells. Under the microscope, you can see a fine screen of gold electrodes in each element of the array. In order to detect multiple components in parallel, a biochip has to be equipped with many cells. Smaller biochips have 10-20 cells and can identify several other viruses. Just like in an inkjet printer, a single sample-head equips a chip with capture molecules. For genetic tests, larger chips are used with as many as 1,000 cells in their arrays. The factor that allows the construction of compact and cheap biochips is the detection system based on electricity. We no longer need light sources, lenses and filters as we did for conventional optical identification where a biomolecule is tagged with fluorescent coloring. Now, biological identification can take place on a chip electrically. This reduces the cost of the test to 1/10 of the usual. As a mass-production product, biochips can be produced cheaply using industrial semiconductor production methods. MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

Siemens Medical Solutions is one of the companies that plans to mature biochip techniques for the market as a molecular diagnostic system called “Quicklab.” “Siemens is certain of the potential of the biochip market”, says Prof Erich Reinhardt of Siemens, as he presses for and promises the realization of the project in the near future. With the “Lab on the chip”, Siemens is aiming at a monster market. Every year, molecular diagnosis represents as much as a 1 million Euro market. Based on the principle of “Blood in, info out”, the analysis of samples at TKP, clinics and practising doctors will be able to get faster, more accurate results with biochips. For example, a large lab facility could take one or two weeks to deliver the results of a SARS test. An electronic biochip could deliver the same result in 1 hour! Dr Joern Mosner, Quicklab project manager at Siemens, estimates that by 2009, new biochips will begin to receive medical certifications. Furthermore, clinical applications starting from prototypes will make their way to mass market products. A few years down the line, it will be possible to get an instant blood test done the moment you arrive in a new country. At the moment they rely on a single-

Links www.isit.fhg.de: Fraunhofer Institute for Silicon Technology www.deutscher-zukunftspreis. de/newsite/ 2004/kurzbeschreibung_ 01.shtml: A simple explanation of the biochip project www.medical.siemens.com: Siemens Biotechnica

There is no molecule a biochip can’t identify. Biochemical programming using the right antibodies for capture, makes the “Lab on a chip” universally applicable in several fields. It can recognize diseases, toxins and genes. This makes the minilab attractive for military as well as for medical use use detector about the size of a credit card–where the chip, capillaries and cells are located–and a reader which records data. A single highly integrated chip will take over all the analysis that the card would handle, and organic diodes would instantly show the results.

Biochip implementations For further development, researchers have taken to many branching paths. They are also creating portable devices for use in diagnostics on field. With a weight of 2 kgs, the first generation of these products are small enough to be used for testing anything from milk in transport tanks to antibiotic wastes. Air samples can also be checked for E coli bacteria or decaying meat can be instantly detected in supermarket shelves using food sensors. “Toxins are also important”, says Hintsche”. However, large chips are not required; small biochips are enough to detect certain toxins. Firefighters, military and civil defense are field-testing devices that can detect anthrax or sarin gas. Biochips are also suited to detect biological weapon threats. In a major exercise, defense technology producer, Diehl, has tested gear developed at ISIT along with doctors and emergency paramedics and expects to make use of its application in the upcoming World Cup. For too long, researchers elsewhere, in Asia and the US, have also been searching for the best combination between biology and silicon chips. And sooner or later, it will be found. ■ | Manfred Flohr

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Get Web-Get on the Web and advertise

Coverstory

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nlike the real world, the Web offers an infinite number of possibilities for reaching out. You could be a home user interested in telling your family, friends or the world at large about your hobbies and experiences; you could even be an entrepreneur with a flair for cooking or freelance designing wanting to get your name and skill sets out to potential customers. No matter what the situation, having a web presence puts you in a different league altogether—right up there with the professionals! But where do you start? How do you go about deciding where to host your web site? Can you sell your wares directly off your web site? How do you monitor how popular it is? All these questions are potential stumbling blocks on the path to web presence. We all know that broadband penetration in India is on the upswing—in cities, the number

Dinesh Desai

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TECH VACATIONS

| COVERSTORY

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- enabled! yourself or your hobbies!

of 256 kbps+ Internet access connections stands at about 7.5 lacs at present and this is expected to increase to 90 lacs by the end of this year, according to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). Even basic Internet access is reaching smaller cities and towns due to the spurt of deployments by service providers, using wired and wireless technologies. All this implies that more people have the means to access online information. There’s another interesting trend—people are gradually growing accustomed to surfing the web from devices other than their desktop computers. With the plummeting prices of laptops and Internetcapable mobile phones, it’s not unusual to see folks checking their mail or surfing the Web while in transit. Apart from disseminating information, a growing number of web sites today have services embedded online. Whether it is online purchase of

products, downloadable ringtones or live RSS feeds from personal blogs, Internet usage has become far more utilitarian other than just being gimmicky. With talk of newer wireless infrastructure (in both cellular technologies and wireless Internet technologies like WiMAX), this trend is not about to abate. While in the past it was preferable to have a web presence, in this day and age it is mandatory, particularly if you want your business and popularity to grow. So jump on the web bandwagon—it’s easier than ever these days!

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

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COVERSTORY

| TECH VACATIONS Q: What are the benefits of having a web site? A: A web site not only allows anyone and everyone access to online space, it is also capable of incorporating a lot of things within that space such as text, images, photographs, audio and video files. So if you are a person who likes to put down everyday details in the form of notes or you are one who owns a small business, a web site is one space where, if you put up your stuff, you are bound to be viewed/read globally. There’s huge scope for business— consider the fact that there are over 20 million online shoppers. Also, the proposition of doing business online is indeed luring when you get a prescient account of the profits that can be incurred by online businessmen. To top it all, the online audience is growing by the day and therefore, the scope for business growth is immense. Even if you are not a businessman, you have the opportunity to exhibit your skills and/or collections to the largest set of viewers. If you wish, you can have all those viewers comment or place feedback on the work that you have displayed online. Not only that, your online presence can attract people who share the same views as that of yours and all you folks can discuss on a topic which you feel important and relevant. This way you create and become part of an online community. More importantly, a web site gives you a unique identity. Your web site gives you a status that is singularly your own. Sharing your profile, product or any other information with anyone becomes easy as people can access all of it at the click of a mouse.

Q: I’m interested in creating a web site of my own. But I want to do it just for fun. Will I have to shell out any money for it? A: To whet your appetite of having fun on a web site, you can avail the opportunity offered by several companies in the form of free online space. There are a number of companies that offer free online space for your personal web site such as www.yahoo. com, www.wanadoo.co.uk, www.freewebs. com, to name a few. Even Google has come

up with their free web site offer (www. google.com). You as the web site owner need to keep in mind a couple of things such as how much space you are going to get to upload your web site, whether you are getting enough space to upload photographs, audio/video files apart from text and photographs, enough space for e-mail separately. Check whether you have the liberty to design your web site or if there are any limits for data transfer during a day or week or even a month. Although free, these web sites come with different kinds of hidden costs attached. Firstly, you will not be able to name your web site as desired by you. These companies will have their names attached along with the name that you have decided to opt for. For example, you will never be able to name your web site as “myname.com”; rather your web site would be “companyname/myname.com” (the company name here stands for the name of the company offering you online space). Secondly, your page will be nearly filled with advertisements, banner ads at the top or at the bottom, box ads at the sides, pop-up ads, sliding ads and all possible form of ads which the space offering company deems fit to rake in some moolah out of the space that they have offered you for free. Thirdly, a web site with someone else’s name along with yours is not a professional approach to establishing your online identity. It is as if you have borrowed someone else’s room and that person makes sure he announces it to every visitor who comes to visit you.

Q: I want the web site I create to be named after my grand daughter. How do I do that? A: The web site that you create should have a domain name. This is very important for any web site as it is the name by which your site will be known. When you plan to create a web site, you need to contact a web hosting company who will ask you for a name for your web site. This is the juncture when you can assign a name. This name can range from anything to everything, even your granddaughter’s name will work fine. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TECH VACATIONS

The only thing that you need to understand is “availability”. If the name you have suggested has not been used by anyone else before, then you can surely have it. For example, if you want your web site to be named “www.greenapple.com” while a web site with that name already exists, then you have to think of some

different name. Remember your web site name should be short, simple and easy to remember. Once you find the name you want to use is available, the next step is to register the name with that web hosting company so that no one else can use it. After registration, you can call your web site with

| Training institutes NIIT Useful links for course information

http://www.niit.com/index.asp (click on link “Individuals” | select India from the country list and click on “Go” | click on “Locate a center”

Email

[email protected]

Arena Multimedia Useful Links

http://www.arena-multimedia.com/coursesshort.htm# http://www.arena-multimedia.com/courses/shorttermcourses.htm

Email

[email protected]

Phone

022-28272300

| Service providers Web development companies

Goradia Infotech E-mail

[email protected]

Brandmantra.net Web site

http://brandmantra.net (click on “Why Us” | Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on “Get a Free Website Consultation”)

Email

[email protected]

Web hosting service VSNL providers E-mail Tel no.

[email protected] Delhi

011-55501234

Mumbai

022-56578765

Kolkata

033-23554045

Chennai

044-25360093 / 044-25366740

Bangalore

080-56629000

Sify E-mail

Customer Support: [email protected] Product Information: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

| COVERSTORY

37

the name you have chosen. Now all you need to do is design your site and put it up.

Q: I have heard there are sites that offer web hosting services. What kind of services are these? A: To put up your web site, you need to contact a web hosting company. These companies have their own web sites that enlist all the services they offer. You can visit their site as a customer, check their list of services and then register your domain name straightaway to avail their services in uploading your web site. Web hosting companies charge a certain amount for their services. Therefore before you go ahead and decide on a web hosting company, you need to check the entire list of services that you can avail from them. Even before registering your domain name, check on the space first. You need to keep in mind that your web site might have photographs, which implies you will require more space. Usually, a 100-page web site can be accommodated within 50 MB space. Also, check the bandwidth your web hosting service provider is offering. Bandwidth is consumed every time a user visits your web site. You need to check that the amount of bandwidth your web site is using is less than the bandwidth allotted to you. If not, then you either did not get adequate bandwidth or the file size of each and every page needs to be reduced. Among other services, you need to check the level of security you are offered to retain the privacy of your data; the support that you get from your web hosting company (whether it is 24x7 or not), server type (for example, Windows or Linux) provided by your web hosting service provider, etc.

38

COVERSTORY

| GET WEB-ENABLED

Q: I don’t know how to design a web site. Will the web hosting service provider design it for me? A: Web site design indicates how a web site page will look on the screen when it gets downloaded. This is again a very important aspect of a site. If you are hosting your site with some free service provider like Yahoo or Google, you will be allowed to use their design templates to design your site. You need not have to be a designer to work with those templates, they are highly self-explanatory but they have certain limitations. You might not be allowed to modify the template as per your requirement; if you wish to use the site for conducting business online, these site templates will hardly serve any purpose. Web hosting service providers generally don’t provide any support for designing web sites. At this juncture, you might need to get in touch with web developers. These people are experts in understanding your requirements and designing a web site that exactly meets your needs. Web developers charge you a certain amount (ranging from Rs 300-400) for developing the site. Another advantage of working with web development companies is that they take care of domain name registration and also provide web hosting services. So sift through the points you had checked to decide on a web hosting company and then opt for a web development company. However, if you still feel your web site must have the personal touch, you can try your hand in designing your site. Refer to the table for a listing of good training institutes in the previous page.

Q: Does this mean the hosting service guys will also maintain my web site? A: No, web hosting service guys generally do not maintain a web site. But if you don’t want to maintain it yourself, you can take

the support of web developers who are masters in providing maintenance support. Their support services range from adding or deleting content, replacing sections, adding or deleting product information and photographs in case you are an online businessman. At times, these web development companies even go ahead to process an order bought online from your web site. Their maintenance support starts from the time an order is placed to when the product is ready to be shipped. They take care of everything from documentation of an order, tracking an order, checking whether the payment is complete or not to making the overall business process hassle free. For the above tasks, there is a minimum charge of Rs 200– 250.

Q: Is it safe to have personal information on my web site? Will hackers be able to deface my site? A: The Internet is full of prowling monsters waiting to hack into your personal information. Therefore, you need to take that extra care so that your personal details don’t get pilfered. It is always advisable to refrain from putting up any private information on free web sites as they do not guarantee security for your data. A good web hosting service provider offers a near-perfect secure environment to store personal information or data although there might not be an assurance for 100 percent security. In fact, before choosing a web hosting service you should check this parameter very closely. More so, if you are planning to do online business where you need to deal with your customer’s credit card information. You need to check whether the web hosting service providers are using SSL (Secured Socket Layer), which is almost mandatory for business sites. If you are a bit more concerned then get in touch with your service provider to find out what level

of security they implement. The level of security is usually defined with the help of bits of information. The greater this number, the higher the security. Currently, 128-bit security is considered standard. If you don’t want to get into the nuances of security, then you need to consult a web developing company. They provide you with security services. All you need to check is whether you are getting a firewall for protection or if any third party anti-virus application takes care of security.

Q: How do I conduct business online? A: So you have your web site up and running and now want to use it as a medium for selling your products. For this you will need to consider some way in which you can accept credit cards on your site. Credit card payment option allows you to take advantage of impulsive buyers (including international customers), who want to purchase your product immediately after reading its features. This is because credit card payment automatically takes care of the currency differences. There are two ways in which you can accept credit cards on your web site: By using your own e-cashier (merchant account): To do this, you will need to find a bank that will allow you to open a merchant account. You can check with your local banks for more information on this. Through a third party merchant: There are numerous companies that are willing to accept credit card payments on your behalf in exchange for various fees and percentages. This is explained later.

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

GET WEB-ENABLED

The next question that might crop up is which method you should opt for. We recommend that you go for the third party merchant as it is very convenient to use. If you are unsure about the response that your product is going to get, then it is advisable to go for this merchant. Also, the initial cost of setting up your own merchant account is very high as compared to that of a third party merchant. The chances of being gypped are also minimal while using a third party merchant. You will have to choose the third party merchant according to the product that you will be selling on your web site. If you are a software developer and want to sell your software, then you can tie up with Digibuy (www.digibuy.com). They charge a service fee of 13.9 percent per transaction. Alternatively, you can choose Clickbank, who charge you a one-time setup fee of US$ 49.95 and a transaction fee of US$ 1 plus 7.5 percent of the sale price. For selling physical products (products that are delivered to the customer’s doorstep), use CCNow (www.ccnow.com). There’s no setup fee but they charge you 9 percent per transaction. You could also choose the popular PayPal (www.paypal. com) as your merchant. They charge you $0.25 for transactions of $15 and below while for transactions above $15, you will be charged 1.9 percent plus $0.25 per transaction. If you want to keep things simple, just register yourself at www.ebay.in and then provide your username on your site. Persons who are interested in buying your products will do so by logging onto eBay. eBay itself uses PaisaPay as its merchant. The buyer pays eBay (and not the seller) through a credit card. The seller is credited for the payment once the bank confirms the transaction. eBay then verifies all confirmed PaisaPay transactions and then sends either a cheque or a demand draft to each seller on a regular basis.

Q: Are there any forums where I can discuss more about web site development? A: There are a number of web sites from where you get information about choosing good web hosting companies MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

| COVERSTORY

39

| Additional functionality Learn here how you can add features to your web site.

Adding a guest book to your web site: Guest books allow visitors to your web site to provide their names and e-mail addresses and leave comments about your site. Many sites offer free guest books that display entries of your viewers and allow you, the page designer, to delete old or inappropriate entries. The steps are as follows: First, check if your web hosting service allows you to add a guest book. Check out the various sites that offer free guest books. Carefully read their terms and conditions and then follow the stepby-step process in order to determine how your guest book looks, and what questions need to be included. Write down the code that will be given to you. Now all you need to do is to insert this code to the appropriate section on your web page and then advertise it to visitors by mentioning about it. Adding RSS feeds: RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication or Realtime Simple Syndication. RSS is an easy way of getting fresh content for your web pages. RSS feeds are streaming content that you can add to your web site for free. RSS feeds are freely available over the Internet. Some of the major players in the RSS world are Yahoo, CNN, Reuters, to name a few. The simplest method by which you can add RSS feeds to your web site is using software called RSS Content Builder which will get RSS feeds in both PHP as well as Javascript format for your web pages. Alternately, you could visit as well as discuss issues about web development, some of them are www. webmasterforumsonline.com; www. daniweb.com (Click on “Web development” then click on “Web Design”); www. knowledgestorm.com (Type “Web development” or “Web design” to search for forums); www.netaspace.com/hm/ home.aspx and the like. With most of these

www.tickermyfeed.com and simply follow the procedure mentioned there. If you search the Net, you will find a wide array of options for adding RSS feeds to your web site. Adding a counter: How many people have visited your web site? You can display the number of visitors by adding a graphical counter to your page. It is a little box at the bottom of your web page that has numbers on it. Every time someone visits your web site, the number will increase thus telling you as well as everyone else who visits your site as to how many people have been to your site before. Some of the prominent counters and their features are mentioned here. TextCounter: This hit counter comes in Perl version, a C++ version and a graphical version. This is a very simple counter that just lists the number of visits your page has had. Analog: If you want to try something different then we recommend Analog. This counter gives you all the regular data like how many people have visited your web site. It also breaks it down into countries and gives you the option of displaying the results in 35 different languages. NBCiCounter: This one not only places a counter on your page to keep track of visitors, it also provides you with a log that keeps track of page views by date, day and time. Now you can also find out what sites people surfed before arriving at yours and what browser they are using. The really cool thing about this is that you can receive an hourly breakdown of page views—know what day and what time visitors arrive at your site. sites you need to register first and then put up your queries. Even in yahoo groups, you will gest links like Webmonkey, HTMLHaven, php_king where you can discuss your concerns about web site development as well as get information about different scripting languages that are oft used for development of web sites.  | Pradosh Mitra & Anup Pillai

Jagdish Limbachiya

40

Top Gear

Hardware

W

e had an array of products this month. The Asus PW191 is the first 19-inch widescreen LCD monitor we reviewed and it is arguably the best looking LCD in the market. It was indeed nothing short of a celebrity in the Test Center. The iAudio U2 player is an excellent choice for music lovers wanting to equip themselves with a good sounding MP3 player that does not hurt the wallet. The Triton case from Gigabyte gives you an absolute bang for the buck; it’s a worthy investment if you are serious about the thermals inside your computer case. Shutterbugs going on a summer vacation should consider the Olympus 720 SW;

it adds an important dimension to the ultra-compact digital camera segment—it is shockproof and water-resistant. Gamers now have a strong option for a surround sound speaker setup—the Logitech X-530 delivers good quality sound at high volume levels and the aggressive pricing makes it a very attractive offer. The same cannot be said about the Leadtek 7800GS AGP graphics card, it commands a heavy premium for being the most advanced AGP graphics card in the market. Hardcore PC enthusiasts should start saving for the Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe motherboard; it offers unrivaled features including support for the latest eSATA based external storage solutions.

| The Ratings Explained The products in the individual and comparison tests share exactly the same test procedures. Each product in Top Gear is rated on a scale of 5 for different key parameters: Performance, Build Quality, Features, Ergonomics and Warranty. These vary according to the characteristics of the hardware. For instance, ergonomics (ease of use) is not important in a graphics card and therefore, it will not be evaluated for this. A product’s Overall Rating is calculated by assigning weightages to each evaluation

parameter—the more important a parameter, the higher is the weightage allotted to it. In addition, there is a Value for Money rating, which is calculated from the performance and the features of the product, in relation to the price. High performance and lots of features at a low price translates into a better Value for Money rating. This rating is calculated using current prices. Note: The prices mentioned here do not include taxes. Hence, they will vary according to the taxes applicable in the city or state where you buy the product from. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TESTED

| HARDWARE

41

LCD Monitor

ASUS PW191 Specifications: 19 WXGA screen, Maximum Resolution 1440x900, Viewing Angle 150°(H) / 130°(V), Pixel Pitch: 0.285mm, Display Colors: 16.2 million, Brightness: 330 cd/m2, Contrast Ratio- 600:1, Response Time: 8 ms

Price Contact Phone E-mail Website Warranty

Rs 29,000 Richard Chen

022-40058894 [email protected] www.asus.com.tw 3 years

RATINGS Build quality Ergonomics Performance Features Overall Rating Value for money

Looks can kill!

T

his widescreen LCD monitor is a head turner. To start with, the black piano finish frame coupled with a brushed silver stand lends superb styling. The design is uniform and very simple, similar to the plasma screens. Getting down to the specifications and features, the PW191 has a 19-inch WXGA LCD screen with a maximum supported resolution of 1440x900 and a 16:10 screen ratio. The brightness is rated at 330cd/m2 and the contrast ratio is an impressive 600:1. With a pixel pitch of 0.285mm, the PW191 sports 8 ms response time. The viewing angle is pretty standard at 150°(H) / 130°(V) and it provides both D-Sub as well as DVI connections. The LCD comes with built-in speakers; the speakers are rated at 2 W RMS each. The swivel design allows 5 to 25 degrees forward and backward adjustment of the LCD panel while offering 120 degree adjustment laterally. The PW191 also offers 90 degree pivotal adjustment for vertical viewing, enabling you to change the orientation from landscape to portrait through the software provided along with the product. The portrait mode is suitable for working with long charts and documents. The OSD is integrated into the frame. Being touch sensitive, the back-lit OSD controls come to life when icons at the bottom right corner are tapped.

Performance: The PW191 is an impressive product with excellent brightness and contrast matched by pristine image quality. The overall color reproduction is good but the color accuracy is slight off the mark for professional use. The colors are a bit too vibrant, which helps in gaming and watching movies but does not aid graphic designers. Working with multiple documents is a charm, the wide aspect ratio and large screen size makes it very convenient. The text is sharp and with a native resolution of 1440x900, the LCD is perfect for office applications. Coming to gaming, the 8 ms response time is acceptable and we did not experience ghosting while enjoying a thrilling racing experience with Track Mania Sunrise or NFS: Most Wanted. The 19-inch widescreen display makes a huge difference when watching movies. The vibrant colors and sharp contrast ensures a near cinematic experience. The swivel design offers a lot of flexibility but it takes some effort to get the position right and it’s not as easy as it could be. It would have been a better idea to provide a lock which can be released for adjusting the position. Secondly, the display quality is great provided you use the DVI option. Using the analogue D-Sub input, we experienced banding and inconsistency in

display. The viewing angles are also a little tight for a 19-inch widescreen monitor. The color accuracy deviates noticeably when moving sideways. The touch sensitive OSD controls were inconsistent in reponse. However, Asus assured us that the problem was with the sample piece in particular and not with the product in general. The builtin speakers are average in sound quality; don’t expect them to replace your desktop speakers. For: Excellent brightness and contrast, killer looks; impressive swivel and pivot adjustments; superb build quality. Against: Slightly restrictive view angles; inconsistent performance when using D-Sub input; colors too vivid for designers.

The touch sensitive controls are located at the bottom right of the LCD

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

SMS us

to 7007 (See Readers’ Letters for details)

42

HARDWARE

| TESTED

Motherboard

Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Specifications: Socket 939, ATI CrossFire Xpress 3-200 North Bridge, ULi M1575 South Bridge, 2 x full 16x PCI-E slots, 7.1-channel Realtek ALC 882 HD audio, Silicon Image SATA controller, SATA On-the-Go, 4xSata II Ports, 8xUSB ports, 2 xIEEE 1394a connectors, 2xATA 133 connectors, 1xFDD connector

Price Contact Phone E-mail Website Warranty

Rs 12,000 Jeffery Huang

022-40058894 [email protected] www.asus.com.tw 3 years

RATINGS Build quality Ergonomics Performance Features Overall Rating Value for money

CrossFire at its best

T

he Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe is based on ATI’s latest CrossFire Xpress 3200 chipset codenamed RD580 or “Skeletor”. Like Nvidia’s NForce 4 SLI-16x, the new chipset features two dedicated 16x PCI-Express lanes for unprecedented CrossFire performance. The RD580 follows the 110 nm fabrication process and is just about 39 mm2 in size, making it the smallest Northbridge in the market. The ULi M1575 Southbridge supports 2xIDE connectors and 4xSATA II connectors with support for RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD configurations. In addition to this, the board also packs in an internal SATA II port and an external SATA port on the back panel controlled by the Silicon Image 3132 SATA controller. There’s nothing missing from the board—it is replete with 8-channel high-definition audio, dual gigabit LAN, 2xIEEE 1394a connectors, 8xUSB ports and 3 PCI slots. The back panel of the board sports PS/2 and parallel ports, coaxial and optical S/PDIF outputs, 4xUSB ports and six universal audio jacks. Layout: The board follows a fan-less design with both the Northbridge and the Southbridge featuring passive aluminum heat sinks. The overall layout of the motherboard is excellent. The area

around the CPU socket is clutter-free without any intrusive capacitors, allowing easy mounting of large heat sinks. The SATA II ports controlled by the Southbridge are intelligently placed close to the edge of the board below the Southbridge so that massive graphics cards like the X1900XT don’t get in the way of SATA cables. Also, the PCI-E slots are well spaced so that there’s enough breathing space even with huge cards in dual-GPU setup. Performance: To make sure the motherboard performs at its best, we stressed it with top-end components installed. Just as we had expected, it did not leave us disappointed and belted out thunderous performance. The test scores reveal that the A8R32 is a beast of a performer. At present, it is the most powerful enthusiast CrossFire motherboard in the market. So, take this motherboard home and get set for next-generation gaming of the ultimate kind. For: 2xdedicated 16x PCI-Express lanes; excellent layout; 7.1-channel high definition Azalia audio; optical and coaxial S/PDIF-out; excellent feature-set. Against: The bundle doesn’t include

the cable for using the SATA-on-the-go feature. TEST RIG Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Memory: 2 x 512 MB PC3200 Kingston HyperX ULK2 Hard drive: Western Digital Raptor 740GD Graphics card: ATI Radeon X1900XT SCORES 3DMark 2003: 17434 marks 3DMark 2005: 10520 marks PCMark 2005: 3621 marks SiSoft Sandra 2005 Pro CPU Arithmetic Whetstones: 19820 Dhrystones: 9171 Memory bandwidth: 4,685 MB/s Everest Ultimate 2006 Read Sequential: 66 MB/s Random: 60 MB/s Write Sequential: 68.5 MB/s Random: 64.5 MB/s INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TESTED

| HARDWARE

43

Headset

Gainward Sound Xplosion Specifications: 6-channel headset, self-adjusting headband, 6-channel USB sound card, audio extension cable, IR remote control.

Price Contact Phone E-mail Website Warranty

Rs 2,450 Mediatech India

022-26361111 [email protected] www.mediatechindia.com 1 year

RATINGS Build quality Ergonomics Performance Features Overall Rating Value for money

Personal surround sound

I

f you think surround sound can only be delivered by a multi-channel speaker system, here’s something that will make your jaws drop. The Gainward Sound Xplosion is a multi-channel headset which sports discrete drivers for each channel —front, rear and center subwoofer. To fit heads of all sizes, it features a self-adjusting cushioned headband. Upon wearing it, the headset fits comfortably without the need to adjust the length of the headband. The cushioned ear pads over the earphones add more to the comfort. These pads have been included so that your ears don’t hurt after a long music session or a movie. For audio input, the headset features a generous six-feet audio cable emerging from the left headphone. A suitable soundcard or a motherboard having onboard multi-channel audio output is required to enjoy the thrill of surround sound. But in case you have neither, don’t worry! The Gainward Sound Xplosion is an all-round package which also includes an external six-channel USB soundcard—the Gainward Music 2 Go. It resembles a puck and has volume control buttons on top surrounding the backlit Music 2 Go logo. Audio inputs and outputs are located at the sides. Stereo, mic and

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

S/PDIF inputs are located on the left and the six-channel output jacks are located on the right. After installing Music 2 Go like any other USB device, it requires a bit of fine-tuning in order to adjust the sound mode and equalizer to get the desired sound quality. After finding an IR receiver on the soundcard, you’ll be even more surprised to find a credit card-sized IR remote control as part of the package. It has all the controls that are present in the remote control of a DVD player. However, using it requires InterVideo WinDVD 5 installed on the PC. A licensed copy of WinDVD 5 also forms a part of the mega package. Performance: The Sound Xplosion is targeted mainly towards gamers and movie buffs, who require an immersive sound experience to get more thrill out of games and movies. Of course, this one

The headset sports discrete drivers for multi-channel sound

is a headset and you cannot expect it to deliver the quality of surround sound that multi-channel speakers emit. However, the in-depth sound is quite perceptible since it features support for six discrete sound channels. Overall, the sound quality is good except for the mids and the lows being below average. We suggest that instead of buying an expensive headset costing you more than a thousand bucks, shell out some more money and get a multi-channel headset as well as an external multi-channel soundcard. Considering the features for the price, the package is definitely a big bang for the buck. You won’t regret putting in your money for this one. For: Good clarity; six-channel USB sound card; S/PDIF I/O. Against: Average bass; surround sound not as immersive.

Audio extension cable and IR remote control are an added bonus

44

HARDWARE

| TESTED

MP3 Player

Cowon iAUDIO U2 256MB Specifications: Flash Player, 256 MB memory, FM, Microphone, records FM, Line-in recording, Rechargeable Li-Polymer battery, 20 hours rated battery life, 95 dB signal-to-noise ratio, Weight: 34 gms (Li-Polymer battery included)

Price Contact Phone E-mail Website Warranty

Rs 4,800 Lipap Systems Pvt Ltd

022-28743457 [email protected], [email protected] www.iaudio.com 1 year

RATINGS Build quality Ergonomics Performance Features Overall Rating Value for money

Pocket this performer

W

e all are quite familiar with players from Apple, Creative and iRiver. Let us introduce to you Cowon, an internationally acclaimed contender in the potable audio market. We have with the IAUDIO U2, a very popular player from Cowon. But does it live up to the hype it has created? Let’s check it out. Design: The U2 is the smallest MP3 player we have reviewed so far; it weighs just 34 gms with the Li-Polymer battery included. The display is backlit and has a blue background light. But even though the display is small, it packs in a lot of information. Features: As soon as you plug the U2 into the PC’s USB port, it’s recognized as a removable storage device. You just need to

Size comparison: The U2 vs an AA-sized battery

drag and drop the songs. The U2 is easy to navigate; we didn’t even need to use the manual. It is capable of making on-the-fly playlists i.e. it can even create playlists when not connected to the computer, an extremely indispensable feature. The U2 is capable of voice and linein recording; it also has FM included. Performance Audio Quality - The sound quality is phenomenal. We compared it to one of the best sounding MP3 players—the iRiver IFP799T. Keeping all the settings at default, we loaded both the players with the same audio track. We found the U2 way better. The highs were distinct and detailed and the bass was tight and punchy. Battery Life - It employs a rechargeable

Li-polymer battery life with a rated battery life of 20 hours. With extensive usage, it lasted us 16 hours, a good 4 hours short of the rated battery life. FM - With a player like this, you wouldn’t want to use the FM, but if you do, the FM quality won’t disappoint you. We were informed that the 1 GB variant has a street price of just Rs 6,500, an absolute killer deal! We recommend you to go for the 1 GB model instead of the 256 MB one. For: Doesn’t require drivers for Windows XP (just drag and drop songs); excellent sound quality; small and extremely light; can playback ogg files. Against: Average microphone recording ability.

USB cable, USB plug, lanyard, line-in cable, case, earphone covers and earphones

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TESTED

| HARDWARE

45

AGP based graphics solution

Leadtek WinFast A7800 GS TDH Price Contact Phone E-mail Website Warranty

Rs 21,000 Zebronics

022-26616202 [email protected] www.zebronics.net 3 years

RATINGS Performance Features Overall Rating Value for money

Gaming graphics

G

amers on the AGP platform have something to cheer about—the 7800GS AGP is here! The Leadtek Winfast A7800GS TDH is the most powerful AGP based graphics solution that money can buy. Using the 7800GS chipset, the card comes with 256 MB of 256-bit memory. Being the first AGP card based on the 7800 series chipsets, the GPU uses 16 pixel shader units and 6 vertex shader units as compared to 20 pixel shader and 7 vertex shader units in the 7800GT. The Geforce 7800GS from Nvidia uses the 110nm G70 core that is clocked at 375 MHz and the 256 MB GDDR3 memory is clocked at 1.2 GHz. The package is pretty impressive with two full game titles—Prince of Persia Warrior Within and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. The box contains driver and utilities disc, DVI-VGA converter and TV output cable. Performance: The 7800GS is your best bet if you want an AGP card that can run all the current games at maximum

details. Looking at the bigger picture, the performance is a tad disappointing when compared to the 7800GT, which consistently stays ahead of the 7800GS. We tried over clocking the card; we were able to push the clocks to 425 MHz/1.35 GHz, the performance gain was between 3-7 percent depending on the benchmark. For: Fastest AGP card with ShaderModel 3.0 support; good software package. Against: Slower than the 7800GT and 7600GT; overpriced.

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MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

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3DMark 2003 15515 13419 12731 12007 9495

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HARDWARE

| TESTED

Digital Camera

Olympus Stylus 720 SW Specifications: 7.1 MP CCD, 3x optical zoom, 5x digital zoom, 115,000 pixels 2.5-inch TFT LCD, 28 preset shooting modes, 19.1 MB internal memory, Rechargeable Lithium-ion LI-42B battery, Weight 149 gms, Dimensions 91x58.7x19.8 mm, storage using XD-picture card

Price Contact Phone E-mail Website Warranty

Rs 22,995 Olympus India

022-22854495 [email protected] www.olympus.com 1 year

RATINGS Build quality Ergonomics Performance Features Overall Rating Value for money

Zoom in

T

he Stylus 720 SW is a unique offering from Olympus. Taking a leaf out of the tough notebooks, this one is a tough camera that is capable of withstanding the occasional drops, spills and splashes. The 7.1 MP ultra compact digital camera is a shock proof and waterproof device, promising to withstand a 5-foot drop and also allowing image capture under water up to 10 feet. The 720 SW makes use of light but durable shock-absorbing materials throughout the interior and incorporates the same sealant technology used in Olympus underwater housings. Offering 3x optical plus 5x digital zoom, the camera has an impressive 2.5-inch LCD screen which dominates the back side. Aimed at the point-and-shoot user, the 720 SW offers 28 preset modes that should satisfy most of the users. There are some very unique and specific shooting modes that are specifically meant for capturing images under water. You have a choice of four modes when clicking underwater which also includes a macro mode for close-ups under water! There is a special digital image stabilization mode that is meant to avoid blurry images due to handshake. Being “digital” in nature, there obviously isn’t any optical image stabilization mechanism. The camera

simply increases the ISO levels and employs fast shutter speed to minimize the blur. Another unique feature is the Bright Capture technology, which helps you take better pictures in low-light conditions. It automatically lightens the preview in the LCD monitor by condensing light information from groups of neighboring CCD pixels into each pixel of the LCD. This allows you to see an onscreen image that will more closely resemble the final print. The display is 4.5 times brighter than those of other digital cameras, making it easier to compose shots in dark or subdued light. Performance: The Stylus 720 SW is a zippy performer with fast focusing. The image digital stabilization feature works well with good lighting conditions but is no match for the optical image stabilization.

The 2.5-inch LCD screen is bright and very efficient. The controls on the cam are straight forward but the menus and navigation can improve a bit. Build quality is truly exceptional with an all metal body and a shiny steel finish. The results of the image quality tests were impressive. The camera can capture good details though the colors were a little on the softer side when compared to that of the Canon IXUS 750 and IXUS 50. It captures movies at 640x480 but it can only do that at 15 fps. In all, it is a good ultra compact camera that is stylish and rugged. For: 28 preset modes; waterproof and shock proof; 2.5-inch LCD; excellent build quality. Against: Images are a little soft; menu interface can improve; 640x480 movie capture at only 15 fps.

The Stylus 720 SW comes with Lithium-ion battery and takes XD-picture card for storage

The menu interface is simple but not as user-friendly as that of the Canon cameras INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TESTED

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DVD Writer

Sony DRU-820A Specifications: Writing speeds -16x DVD+/-R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD +/-R DL, 5x DVD-RAM, 48X CD-R, 32x CD-RW

Price Contact Phone E-mail Website Warranty

Rs 3,250 Rashi Peripherals Pvt Ltd

022-55090909 [email protected] www.rptechindia.com 1 year

RATINGS Performance Features Overall Rating Value for money

Burn it all

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ony’s latest entrant, the DRU-820A, has the added functionality of DVDRAM recording. Let’s have a look at what else it has to offer. Design: One thing we really like about Sony DVD burners is their faceplate design. The white bezel has a silver upper section giving it a smart look to the otherwise bland design. With the 820A, Sony has gone just a little different. They have used grey text instead of blue on the silver upper section, giving a good contrast if installed in black chassis. An additional black bezel is bundled along. Features: Sony adds DVD-RAM recording functionality making it a true multi-recording device. (DVD-RAM is a disc specification other than DVD-R and DVD+R. It’s not compatible with most DVD recorders and most of the standalone DVD players cannot read DVD-RAM discs. DVD-RAM is more suitable to data back-ups and use in camcorders than DVD+/-RWs). The bundled CD is for Windows, the package includes Nero 6.6 and the product manual. Three manuals (quick installation guide, bezel changing guide and Software installation guide) are shipped along with the drive. The manuals

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

are well written and pretty illustrative. The Sony DRU-820A incorporates BenQ’s exclusive Dual Cooling System (DCS) which features an Anti-Dust Cooling System and Air Flow Cooling System to reduce the risk of over-heating during high-speed reading and writing. The popular BenQ 1640 and 1650/55 drives are equipped with the same. Performance: Once again, we will compare the Sony DRU-820A to the BenQ 1640, one of the best drives we have tested. CD: The 820A has excellent CD read speeds, almost similar to that of the BenQ 1640, the only gripe being that it

reads CD-RW at 40x whereas most of the competitors can do it at 48x. CD-R and CD-RW burning is very fast and has excellent media compatibility. DVD: It has excellent DVD read speeds. DVD-R media support is good but the writing quality is average. DVD+R writing quality is good. Overall, it’s an above average DVD writer and the future firmwares should improve DVD-R write quality. Pros: Can read/write DVD-RAM; very good reading speeds. Cons: Average quality DVD-R burn; does not support disc quality (PI/PO) checking. Media type

DCS-dual cooling system

BenQ 1640 Sony DRU-820A

Media type DVD+R DVD-R DVD+R DVD-R

Read Speed X (Average) Sony BenQ 1640 DRU-820A 35.96 36.61 11.81 11.97 11.22 9.04

Pressed CD CD-R pressed DVD DVD-R DVD+R Dual layer

36.87 37.39 12.08 12.08 12.09 9.07

pressed DVD+R Media Rated Speed 16x 16x 16x 16x

Speed 11.47x 11.96x 11.85x 11.96x

Time 5:47 5:47 6:19 6:08

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HARDWARE

| TESTED

Computer Case

GIGABYTE Triton chassis Specifications: Mid-tower (200x400x480mm WxHxD), Net weight - 7.5 kgs, 2x120 mm fans (front and rear), full aluminum case and front bezel, thumb screws, 5x5.25inch external drive bays, 2x3.5-inch drive bays (external), 3x3.5-inch drive bays (internal for hard disks), Front USB (2 No), Audio (mic and headphones) and Firewire ports

Price Contact Phone E-mail Website Warranty

Rs 2,990 Gigabyte Technologies India Ltd

022-30616666 [email protected] www.gigabyte.in 1 year

RATINGS Build quality Performance Features Overall Rating Value for money

Case delight

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igabyte has just forayed into the case market in India and the lineup is very impressive. Let’s get up, close and personal with Gigabyte’s Triton. Design Exterior - This case exudes sheer class in the looks department. The body has a good paint job with a matt finish. The highlight here is the front bezel. Made of aluminum with a brushed texture, it gives the case a very rich and sophisticated look. Normally, the front bezels are made of plastic. Even the faceplates for the 5.25-inch and 3.5-inch drive bays are made of the same brushed aluminum material. Interior - The internal structure is made of aluminum. Features and installation The Triton has no sharp edges and it is pretty much safe working inside the case. Gigabyte highlights that it follows a tool less design and indeed so. It uses thumb screws to fasten the side panel to the case. For the optical and the floppy drives, it uses a slide and lock mechanism. You just need to slide the drives inside the bay, align it and lock it with the plastic clip-lock mechanism. You can mount up to 5 optical drives and 2 floppy drives. The mechanism for hard drive installation is the most innovative. You just need to

align and fit one strip with threadless screws on either side of the hardrive and insert it in the hard drive cage. One minor gripe is that after the hard drive is in place, there is still little room for it to vibrate when in operation (since the hard drive has moving parts). We would have liked the hard drive to be held in place by using rubber washers like the way Antec does thus leaving no room for movement. The hard drive cage can accommodate three hard drives. The case is water cooling ready with holes at the rear for easy passage of pipes. For proper grip and stability, it has very good quality rubberized feet that are also good looking, hence adding on to the aesthetics. Gigabyte has paid attention to

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every detail and has also included a soft case cleaning cloth. The manual is precise and well illustrated. Case ventilation and cable management The Triton has two 120 mm fans, one for rear exhaust and one for front intake. We consider it an ideal arrangement since 120 mm fans move more air than 80 mm fans besides making lesser noise. It has a honeycombed grill on the side panel and also has a “Prescott” side duct which assists in tunneling out the heat directly from the processor. It has two plastic buckles to assist in cable management. For: Innovative toolless design; very good build quality; brushed aluminum front bezel. Against: None.

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1. 120 mm rear fan, tooless PCI card installation mechanism and pre-cut holes for water cooling setup 2. Side panel duct 3. Tooless optical, floppy and hard drive Installation and 120 mm front fan blowing directly over the hard drive cage

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TESTED

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Speakers

Logitech X-530 Specifications: Total RMS power: 70 watts RMS, Satellites: 45 watts RMS (2 x 7.4 watts front, 15.5 watts center, 2x7.4 watts rear), Subwoofer: 25 watts RMS, Frequency response: 40 Hz – 20 KHz, Signal-to-noise ratio: 96 dB

Price Contact Phone E-mail Website Warranty

Rs 6,995 Logitech Electronic India Pvt Ltd

022-26571160 [email protected] www.logitech.com 1 year

RATINGS Build quality Performance Features Overall Rating Value for money

Sound abound

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he Logitech X-530 is an entry-level 5.1 speaker system that attempts to provide the best surround sound PC audio for its worth. It also introduces a technology that lends depth to the sound, something that is often found lacking in the value 5.1 speaker systems. The improvement comes from Logitech’s patented FDD2 technology that avoids the uneven sound response created by conventional dual-driver designs. The Frequency Directed Dual Driver (FDD2) satellites basically make equal use of both the drivers to produce mid as well as high frequencies. The 5.1 speaker system is rated at a total of 70 watts RMS. The left, right and rear satellites are rated at 7.4 watts RMS while the center is rated at 15.5 watts RMS. The subwoofer takes the rest of the oomph with 25 watts RMS. The overall rated frequency response is 40 Hz - 20 KHz and the satellites come fitted with dual 2-inch drivers while the sub is powered by a 5.25-inch ported driver. The right satellite holds volume control and a headphone jack for private listening. The bass volume controls are at the back of the subwoofer. The speaker system looks simple and very professional and the overall construction is pretty good for an entry-level system. The rotating satellite

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

stands offer a good degree of flexibility and can also be wall mounted if desired. The only real negative point so far is the absence of a dedicated control unit. The placement of controls on the right satellite makes it very inconvenient to reach out for the satellite for every small volume adjustment you need to make. A dedicated volume control unit with separate controls for front and rear satellites along with a headphone jack would make the X-530 more impressive. Performance: We started the performance tests with music playback quality. The overall sound stage is very impressive with good depth. The bass is surprisingly deep for such a small subwoofer. The mids are fairly well pronounced, thanks to the dual 2-inch drivers. On the downside, the high frequencies are a little weak and the lower mids get muffled when the volume is pumped up. These are the generic areas where most of the value 5.1 speaker systems fail to perform and hence it’s not surprising. Being a 5.1 speaker system, the emphasis is more on gaming and movies rather than music and the X-530 does a good job at it. Positional audio in Doom 3 was near perfect while DVD movies were enjoyable, courtesy a uniform sound stage and excellent surround

effects. The X-530 is pretty loud and with the volume knob cranked at 70 percent, there was no distortion or crackling. The sub does get a little boomy at high volume levels but it can be tweaked using the bass control at the back. Overall, an excellent choice for gaming and watching movies— the X-530 hits the sweet spot! For: Excellent surround sound and positional audio; fairly loud; good bass response; well priced. Against: Average for music, lacks a control unit.

Dual driver satellite with volume control (right) and the connections at the back of the subwoofer, along with bass control

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HARDWARE

| TESTED

Suits the office

Laser Printer

Xerox Phaser 3117

Specifications: Dimensions: 354x297.4x210 mm, Weight: 5.5 kgs, monochrome laser printer, 600x600 dpi print resolution, 8 MB RAM, USB 1.1 interface, Windows 98/Me/2000/XP, Linux

Price Contact Phone E-mail Website Warranty

Rs 4,500 Xerox India Limited

011-39012000 [email protected] www.xerox.com/india 1 year

RATINGS Build quality Ergonomics Performance Features Overall Rating Value for money

Plustek OpticBook 3600

Specifications: Dimensions: 453 (w) x 105 (h) x 285 (d) mm, Weight: 3.96 kg, Optical resolution: 1200 dpi, Interface: High speed USB 2.0, Lamp type: Cold cathode Rs 13,650 Mahendra Lalwani

011-2696 4070 [email protected] www.telexcell.com 1 year

RATINGS Build quality Ergonomics Performance Features Overall Rating Value for money

he Xerox Phaser 3117 is a monochrome laser printer that has entered the market at an affordable price. It comes with very basic features and is easy to use. Since it is a laser printer, you need not worry about buying new cartridges frequently. A Phaser 3117 comes with a “starter toner cartridge” that can print a thousand pages of text. The printer is a bit smaller (in depth) than some of Xerox’s costlier laser printers. The paper tray can hold up to 150 sheets of A4 paper and needs to be open when the printer is in use. If the tray could hold paper and stay closed, it would save some desktop space. Installation was quite hassle free and printer configuration was easy too. Very basic options are provided for tweaking the printing settings—print resolution, toner quality and darken text. Files containing basic black text of varying fonts and sizes were printed continuously. The printer has a short warm up and was able to churn out 20 pages in just one and a half minute. The output is good with black text while shades

of grey appear grainy. This was noticed even more when a vector image was printed. Do not expect it to reproduce details very well. Print quality of an A4 image was average and showed that the printing tonal gradation was not its strong point. Performance: It printed 15 pages of this image in a little over a minute. Files containing a lot of graphics and textin-color were used to test the quality of print. It was just about able to reproduce reflections and gradations in images and text present in the file. If you are looking for basic text printing for your office or your project, then this printer will suit your needs. For: The printer has an affordable price tag; ideal for small offices that heavily rely on text printouts like balance sheets, forms, etc. Against: Quality of grey tones even at the best possible settings is below average. Paper tray cannot be closed after paper is loaded.

Scan in a flash

Scanner

Price Contact Phone E-mail Website Warranty

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he Plustek OpticBook 3600 is a scanner with a difference—apart from its regular job of scanning text and photos, this one is specifically designed to scan books. What sets it apart from other scanners is its innovative design and speedy operation. As compared to the slim and sleek scanners, this 10 cm thick machine eats up a big chunk of desk space. However, keeping in mind the prime function of scanning books, it features an excellent design. The lid opens horizontally and adjusts automatically to accommodate even thick books. The scanner features a comprehensive and an intuitive control pad. You can choose to scan a book or a sheet of paper and the functions of buttons change accordingly. In case of a book, you can scan an entire book page-bypage using the book pilot, scan text or choose between color or grey scale modes. For a sheet of paper, the buttons

offer useful functions like scanning to e-mail or printer, OCR and scanning using custom or regular settings. The functions of the buttons are served by the bundled applications which make these tasks a breeze. The software package includes ABBYY FineReader 5.0, Presto! PageManager 6.0, Ulead PhotoExplorer 8.0 and Ulead PhotoImact XL SE. Coming to performance, the OpticBook 3600 works at jet speed! It takes just around 3 seconds to preview a page and 8 seconds to scan an entire page at 300 dpi. The overall quality of scanning is good but the reproduction of sharpness could have been better. This scanner is aimed at small offices, libraries or individuals with a regular need of scanning books or simply requiring scans in a flash! For: Super-fast; good bundled software; easy to use; ideal for scanning books. Against: Bulky; it weighs a bit low on sharpness of the scanned images. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TESTED

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

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PORTADATA Looking to buy an external storage solution? Our comprehensive test includes a wide variety—get flash based, hard drive based et al here

Vishwanath Vanjire

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

EXTERNAL STORAGE COMPARISON

H

istory has a nice way of putting things in perspective. Imagine this—the first hard disk drive was a monstrosity consisting of 50 platters, each two feet in diameter. It required four able-bodied men to lift it into the back of a truck for transportation. And all of this provided a grand total of 5 MB of storage space—just enough for a single MP3 song! Oh, and it cost US $ 50,000. Over the next few pages, you’ll see portable storage gizmos where you don’t need to bring along your buddies to transport them and where sizes have shrunk down to 1.8-inches, weighing in at about 40 grams. On the capacity front, the largest external hard disk you’ll see here is a cool 1 terabyte (1,000 GB)—space enough for about 2 lakh MP3 songs or 13,300 albums. And prices range from Rs 1,500 to Rs 45,000—wide enough to accommodate all kinds of buyers. Indeed, storage has come a long way! With practically every aspect of our lives—our communication, our entertainment, our work—crossing over into the digital realm, each of us creates plenty of data these days. With our lives and jobs demanding increased levels of portability and adaptability, having the ability to take your data with you is an important personal and professional edge. To answer this need, the markets are replete with a multitude of products— each offering a wide range of storages capacities, form factors and technologies. When it comes to external storage, the two broad technologies used are Flash and hard disk. The first clearly has the advantage of being completely in solid-state (which means no moving parts) and is therefore, sturdier and more resilient as compared to hard disks. However, hard disks offer

| HARDWARE

53

a far lower price-per-MB compared to Flash. What emerges is an interesting mix of choices that pretty much addresses every type of need for portable data consumers. Capacities range from 256 MB to over 500 GB and sizes range from the diminutive, wearable devices weighing in at under 30 grams to pocket-sized funky-colored metallic gizmos to ones that are about the size and weight of a brick. Chances are that we’ve all used some sort of portable data device (like a floppy disk or a recordable CD) in the past. Compared to these, today’s external storage devices feature other interesting enhancements that greatly extend their usability. For example, many of these offer software that facilitates easy data backups along with on-the-fly encryption for added security. And since they are all USB-based, the process of plugging in, backup up and removing is literally child’s play. Last but certainly not the least, these devices are way faster than any CD or floppy you’ve ever used. Most of them are able to transfer data almost as fast as your hard disk drive can deliver it. For example, while it takes about 5 minutes to burn a CD on today’s quickest drives, even the slowest of these external storage devices can copy a CD-full of data in under 2 minutes. The fastest and that too, in under 25 seconds! While CD-Rs clearly serve a different application but if you’ve been using one to transport your data between computers or holding your daily work files, it’s high time you got yourself one of these little portable storage devices. Whether it’s pure data space or whether you plan to wear your important files on a storage device as an accessory, you’ll find them in here. And you certainly won’t get a slip disk carrying it with you!

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

SMS us!

Story code: HCE (See Readers’ Letters for details)

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HARDWARE

| EXTERNAL STORAGE COMPARISON

Test Process Categories: The products have been divided into two main categories on the basis of the medium of storage. The storage medium is either flash or hard disk based. Since disk-based storage devices are available in varying form factors, which is simply because of the hard disk’s platter size. These devices use either 3.5-inch, 2.5-inch or 1-inch drives to store data. This distinction on the basis of size has been made mainly on the grounds of functionality. For example, the 2.5-inch and microdrive (1-inch) products are for those who need high-capacity ‘pocketable’ solutions. This classification helps us in pitting like-sized devices against each other and aids you in making a smart buying decision.

Features: As you can see, a quarter of the pie chart has been allotted to an external storage drive’s features. Each drive was marked on the sort of interface it offered for data transfer. A device, for example, that supports ‘Hi-Speed USB 2.0’ will score more than a USB 1.1/2.0. In the same way, drives that support FireWire 800 are given more merit than ones that support FireWire 400. These are crucial as these standards boil down to data transfer rates, which in turn reflects on performance. Similarly, a hard disk-based device with large buffer will score over its counterparts. Practical features like the nature of power source used and the presence of a write protect switch on the device have also been considered. The power can be sourced via the USB-port, integrated into the device or available with an external power adapter. An important feature that a plug-n-play device should have is legacy support in the form of Windows 98 drivers. Support for

10% Warranty & Support

25% Features

20% Build Quality

have smooth edges and preferably scratch resistant. Some hard disk based devices sported a rubber exterior, giving the user additional grip. Attention paid to such details was converted into points, adding to the overall total. Ergonomics has been assigned 25 percent share of the pie chart.

Performance: Finally, it boils down to 20% Ergonomics

25% Performance

Weightage distribution for evaluation parameters this operating system was also checked and accordingly given merit. Devices were also assessed on the basis of their package contents. Items like quick setup guides, cables and additional backup/security-based utilities were also given points as they are always good to own along with the device.

Build Quality: An external storage device should have a solid exterior that will offer enough protection against sudden falls or disturbances. Materials used to protect flash drive or hard disk-based storage devices were also considered in the comparison – metal scoring over plastic. An external storage drive must come with good quality connectors and stands (if present). Any device that made a half-hearted impression on this front lost out on vital points. Attention paid to the flash drive design was also rewarded accordingly. Build quality occupies 20 percent of the “weightage” pie chart.

Ergonomics: In addition to making a rugged storage device that can withstand physical shock, it must also be pleasing to the eye and comfortable to carry. The devices must

performance. All the devices were tested on the same test bed to avoid any kind of disparity in scores. Performance was evaluated with ‘synthetic tests’ and ‘real world’ tests. The synthetic test results were computed with the help of Everest Ultimate 2006. Real world results were obtained by creating a RAM drive on the system and making the external device read-write to it. System memory (RAM) was used to create the RAM drive and data was read and written to it. The test bed’s hard drive was not used here so as to prevent it from becoming a bottleneck. The real world tests were given more weightage as they are a better representative of a product’s performance. The read/write tests were carried out with a single large file as well as a collection of files. Their times were noted and helped in deciding the best performer. Performance was allotted 25 percent of the pie chart.

Warranty and Value for Money: Warranty is an essential part of any hardware test process. It has been given a weightage of 10 percent in the test process. Brands that offered more warranty (in years) scored over other products. Based on the scores, a best performer in the 2.5-inch and microdrive category was chosen. The “Best Value” winners were derived from the flash and 3.5-inch categories. Storage capacity and price were the most important features that were considered for the Best Value award. | Test Rig Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe RAM: 1GB Kingston DDR 400@2-2-2-5 HDD: WD Raptor 740GD Operating system: Windows XP SP2

Easy backup with a touch of a button earned more points

Practical design in flash drives was part of the evaluation process

with DirectX 9.0c

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

EXTERNAL STORAGE COMPARISON

Flash drive Zion UltraDiskPro

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Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo

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Buffalo RUF2-S512-BS

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Flash drive

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Specifications: Dimensions (WxHxD) mm:18.2x75.4x9,

Specifications: Dimensions (WxHxD) mm: 22.8x70x2.5,

Specifications: Dimensions (WxHxD) mm

Capacity: 512 MB, Interface: USB 2.0 Hi-speed

Capacity: 1 GB, Interface: USB 2.0 Hi-speed

279x152x216, Weight: 3.72 kg, 7200 rpm, 16 MB

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buffer, FireWire 800, Interface: USB 2.0 Hi-speed

Price Contact Phone E-mail Warranty

Rs 1,500 Buffalo Inc 011-41528532 [email protected] 2 years

Price Contact Phone E-mail Warranty

Rs 1,650 Abacus Peripherals Pvt Ltd 022-56923941 [email protected] 2 years

Price Contact Phone E-mail Warranty

RATINGS

RATINGS Features

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Perfomance

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Ergonomics

Ergonomics

Ergonomics

Build Quality

Build Quality

Build Quality

Overall Rating

Overall Rating

Overall Rating

Value for money

Value for money

Value for money

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

Measuring as small as your thumb, the Zion UltraDisc Pro is a funky-looking pen drive with a metallic grey body and an orange border. The drive follows a unique and a clever design. The side portion of the body and the cover of the drive feature a ridge so that you can slide in a clip or a loop being part of the bundle. The package also includes a carry strap and a driver CD for Windows 98. To ease users not having a front USB port, Zion has also taken the effort of including a USB extension cable as a part of the package. To write-protect the drive in order to prevent adding or modifying data, it also sports a write-protect lock. The read and write speeds of the drive is quite decent for a value flash drive. For an average user, a capacity one and a half times as that of a CD-ROM and read and write speeds of 10 MB/s will be more than sufficient. If you want good value for money without sacrificing much performance, there’s nothing better than this flash drive! For: Write-protect lock; excellent pricing; two-year warranty. Against: None

011-51609661 [email protected] 1 year

RATINGS

Features

The Buffalo RUF2-S512-BS is a half a gig dynamite stick packed with raw power! Currently, it is the fastest USB flash drive in the market. The flash memory chip is packed in a cleverly-designed silver and black shell. When you remove the cap covering the USB connector, it clips at the tip of the body so that you don’t lose or misplace it. Alternatively, the tip also serves as a loop to attach a carry strap. However, you will need to buy a carry strap as the package includes only the flash drive. It doesn’t even include a driver CD for Windows 98 or a USB extension cable. This means it’ll be a pain for people not having a front USB port on your PC case. Looks wise, the drive isn’t all that great but it’s a power performer with tremendous read and write speeds. It just takes less than 30 seconds to fill up the entire drive! If you plan to buy a flash drive, grab this one. It’s a great bang for the buck too! For: The fastest flash drive available in the market; good price; two-year warranty. Against: Average build quality; no bundled USB cable; drivers for Windows 98 not included.

Rs 46,798 Maxtor Corporation

The winner in the 3.5-inch drive stands 15 cms tall and weighs 3.72 kg—the heaviest of them all. It houses two parallel ATA drives that can be configured as RAID-0 or 1 drives. It supports the USB interface as well as FireWire—perfect for media professionals working on Mac or Windows. The exterior shell looks solid with the thick rubber moulding at the sides. A single button on the front panel is provided for quick backups. Software provided with the drive allows you to create secure partitions for important data. The Turbo scored over the Western Digital Media Center by a narrow margin to win the Best Performance award. The 320 GB drive took 10 seconds to format but the 1000 GB Turbo took just 2 more! Though the Media Center had a faster access time (understandably), it couldn’t compete with the Turbo’s read/write throughput. It was able to transfer multiple files at almost 20 MB/s compared to the MC’s 16.5 MB/s. For: 1000 GB of storage. Against: The side panels can be easily pulled quite a way back because they are made of plastic instead of metal.

| EXTERNAL STORAGE COMPARISON

2.5-inch drive

2.5-inch drive Western Digital Passport

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1-inch drive T

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Specifications: Capacity - 80 GB, Dimensions (WxHxD)

Specifications: Capacity - 120 GB, Dimensions

Specifications: Capacity - 8 GB, Dimensions (WxHxD)

mm: 154.3x44.20x218.75, Weight - 258 gms,

(WxHxD) mm: 89.1x21.1x144.3, Weight- 258 gms,

mm: 55x85x6, Weight-60 gms, Hi-speed USB 2.0,

Hi-Speed USB 2.0, 5400 rpm, Buffer Size- 2 MB

Hi-speed USB 2.0, 5400 rpm, Buffer Size- 2 MB

3600 rpm, Buffer Size- 2 MB

Price Contact Phone E-mail Warranty

Price Contact Phone E-mail Warranty

Price Contact Phone E-mail Warranty

Rs 4,500 Amarjit Singh 9321029204 [email protected] 1 year

Rs 9,950 Amarjit Singh 9321029204 [email protected] 1 year

Rs 9,600 Neoteric Infomatique Pvt Ltd 022-39828600 [email protected] 1 year

RATINGS

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Value for money

Value for money

In sync with its name, the 80 GB Western Digital Essential gives you all the essentials. The drive looks elegant—the special design of the drive allows good air flow to keep it cool while preventing dust from directly entering the drive. A single back-lit button on the front is provided to power up the device and the blinking backlit indicates activity. The back panel is uncluttered with just a single hi-speed USB 2.0 connector along with the power input. The 7200 rpm drive with 2 MB buffer gives commendable performance for an entry-level product. Overall, the average linear read/write speeds of the drive are very close to 30 MB/s. It also boasts of the best average read access times of all eight drives. If you are looking for an affordable and reliable 80 GB 3.5-inch external storage solution, this one is for you. In terms of the overall package, the Western Digital Essential gives you the bare minimum—all you get is a driver CD, USB cable, power adapter and quick setup guide. Don’t expect any backup utility or security software with this one. For: Good performance; excellent read access times; sturdy construction. Against: No software package.

While being the coolest looking 2.5-inch external storage device, the Passport also gives maximum storage combined with superb performance. While most 2.5-inch drives provide 40 GB of storage, the Passport provides three times more while keeping the weight, dimensions and form factor intact. The rubberized body lends a sporty feel to it indicating portability and ruggedness. The 5400 rpm drive gave exceptional read/write speeds in both synthetic and real-world tests. The overall performance level of the drive is almost at par with that of the 3.5-inch drives. The passport is the only portable solution that provides a storage space above 100 GB. But before you buy it, make sure you have hispeed USB 2.0 connectivity to take advantage of the performance. In case you have an older desktop or a notebook with USB 1.1 port, the drive will not power itself through the USB, you require an external adapter which is not a part of the package. There’s no software application bundled along with the drive. For: 120 GB of storage space; excellent speeds; cool looks. Against: No software package.

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With digital data extensively used and carried around, portable hard drives have transformed from bland geeky boxes to trendy fashion accessories. The LaCie is a fraction smaller than a credit card and is just 6 mms thick, which is remarkable for an 8 GB drive. It weighs 60 gms—extremely light for a portable hard drive. The main hard drive is housed in a metal enclosure which is further enclosed in a plastic body. An extender USB cable is bundled along with the package, very useful when you have USB ports only at the back of your PC. It’s a true plug-and-play device and is compatible across multiple platforms (Mac OS 9.x/10. x and from Windows SE to XP). Just plug the device into a USB port and it’s instantly recognized as a removable storage device. You can immediately start moving data to and from the drive. The LaCie is not just a good looker but a very good performer too. It’s the fastest drive in its category. For Rs 9600, it’s expensive but then uniqueness comes at a price, doesn’t it? For: Best performance in category; small form factor and lightweight. Against: Expensive. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

EXTERNAL STORAGE COMPARISON

| HARDWARE

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| Buying guide External storage is a common need for almost all of us, be it students, professionals, travelers or geeks. The nature of requirements changes from person to person since the areas of application differ accordingly. Thus, you have an option of buying a tiny flash drive that stores 128 MB of data or go for a 4 KG brick that can store a staggering 1,000 GB of data. This buying guide will make the process of choosing the right external storage solution a no-brainer.

Flash memory based external storage: Arguably the most sought after and commonly used medium of external storage, the thumb drives or the pen drives are extremely popular for a quick and inexpensive solution. Apart from the price, the choice of pen drive primarily depends on three factors-size, speed and security. If size is the only consideration, a 512 MB or 1 GB flash drive offers best bang for the buck, the 2GB and 4GB

variants are rather expensive. If you need speed as well, make sure you buy a “high-speed USB 2.0” flash drive, it’s significantly faster than the regular USB 2.0 drives, ensuring zippy transfers of data. With critical data and documents at stake, security of data along with automatic back-up feature makes the flash drive a lot smarter. Build quality, looks and ergonomics are equally important for flash drives. With frequent use of flash drives, the build quality is critical. Looks and ergonomics also matter, students prefer the jazzy pen drives with funky colors and shapes while the professionals stick to grey tones and look for sleeker drives. Minute details in the form of rubberized grip for holding the thumb drive while inserting in the MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

USB slot and a physical write protection switch also add to the overall value.

Hard drive based external storage: These drives offer more storage space as compared to the flash drives but the size and weight goes up as well. The hard drive based external storage devices can be broadly classified into three categories-3.5-inch, 2.5-inch and 1-inch based solutions. 3.5-inch external hard drives: These are the heaviest of the lot; they offer maximum storage and are suited for back-up and secondary storage. For basic storage requirements, look for at least

port, these drives do not require any additional power, which makes them very convenient to carry and use. The 40 GB version sells for about five thousand rupees, giving an impressive price per MB ratio for a portable external storage solution. Being portable, the build quality,

ergonomics and finish are critical. Drives offering some degree of shock protection along with good overall build quality clearly enjoy an advantage over the rest of the pack. Hence, do not hesitate to cough-up that additional 20 percent, it will go a long way in keeping the data intact! 80 GB capacity solution with 7200 RPM and 2 MB buffer speeds. In case you need more storage, you have the option of products offering 200 GB and above of storage space and coming with 8 MB buffer memory. The Monstrous 400 GB and 1000 GB storage solutions are tailor made for power users looking for maximum storage and performance. They are ideal for audio/video editing purposes and small-office back-up solutions. Many of these products come with security software and back-up utilities which make the back-up process easy. Though looks aren’t as important, the build quality does matter. Hence once the basics of storage capacity and speed are in place, check for the software bundle and build quality. 2.5-inch external hard drives: Attempting to give the best of both worlds, 2.5-inch based solutions are portable, trendy and offer fairly good storage space and speed. Ranging from 40 to 120 GB, these drives run at 5400 RPM and generally offer 2 MB of buffer. Drawing power straight from the USB

1-inch external hard drives: Being the youngest of the category, these drives have recently emerged as an intermediate option between the 2.5-inch external hard drives and the Flash drives. Being as portable as the flash drives, the 1-inch external hard drives offer a maximum of 10 GB of storage space. If the 4 GB flash drives cannot suffice your storage needs, the 1-inch external drive is your best bet. Being mechanical in nature, these drives are not as rugged as the flash drives and hence, don’t expect them to bear the same treatment as the flash drives and still provide oodles of space. In terms of performance, these drives aren’t the chart toppers; they at best match the flash drives for read/write speeds but are miles behind the 2.5-inch and 2.5-inch hard drive based solutions.

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HARDWARE

| EXTERNAL STORAGE COMPARISON

| Personal Take

SpecScan Category Soham Raninga [email protected]

The Western Digital Passport is my passport to external storage. With 120 GB of storage, I don’t have to worry about my movies, music, games and all the stash I need to carry with me everywhere I go. It also lets me carry my complete music and movie collection, letting me share them with friends and enjoying them on any desktop or notebook by simply plugging it to the USB port. Backup software and data encryption doesn’t matter to me but the performance does and that’s where the passport does the trick! The speedy drive looks great and the rubberized body ensures the drive does not skid or slip easily. And even if it does, the excellent construction and design promises to take the bumps and drops in its stride. When compared to the rest of the devices across all categories, none of them can manage to give 100 GB of truly portable storage. The 3.5-inch drives might offer higher storage and performance but I do have some reservations in calling them portable. Carrying a 1.5 kg brick along with a power adapter is certainly not my idea of portability. Comparing the Passport with the flash drives isn’t fair and the microdrives do offer fairly good storage but are slow and expensive when compared to the 2.5-inch drives. So with the Passport, you get space, speed, portability and style. Did someone say expensive? The passport gives 12 GB of storage per thousand rupees, the best ratio amongst all the portable storage devices in the comparison. Go figure!

Contact Phone E-mail Price* Overall Features (Out of 25) Performance (Out of 25) Ergonomics (Out of 20) Build Quality (Out of 20) Warranty & Support (Out of 10) Overall (Out of 100) Value for money Features Capacity (MB) Dimensions (WxHxD) mm Interface Form factor Write protection lock Activity indicator LED Software features Back-up software Data encryption Secure partitions (private zone) Easy-sync backup Performance Synthetic (Everest Ultimate 2.6) Sequential speed Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Random speed Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Average read access time (ms) Real world Single file test Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Multiple files test Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Ergonomics Smoothened edges Anti-slip grip Wearable Cool factor Build quality Quality of shell Metal used in construction Scratch resistance Choice of colors Attached USB cap Warranty & Support Period of warranty (years)

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Flash Drives

Kingston DataTraveler II Plus Migo

PQI Cool Drive U339 Pro

A A Infoways Pvt Ltd 011-26442261 [email protected] Rs 2,000

Varun Khandelwal 022-28743457 [email protected] Rs 1,850

9.79 16.63 18.67 10.00 10.00

16.85 12.12 18.67 7.67 6.67

Total: 65.08

Total: 61.97

512 20.8 x 67.7 x 9 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Flash ✕ ✓

256 25 x 75 x 10 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Flash ✓ ✓

✓ ✕ ✓ ✓

✓ ✓ ✕ ✓

25.70 14.90

15.10 24.00

40.10 5.60 1.22

20.70 8.33 0.44

21.80 16.06

11.30 13.25

34.00 5.40

13.60 2.63

Good ✓ ✓ Trendy

Good ✕ ✓ Trendy

Excellent ✕ ✓ ✕ ✕

Good ✓ ✕ ✓ ✕

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Buffalo RUF2-S512-BS

Corsair Flash Voyager

PQI Cool Drive U339

Apacer HandySteno HT-203

Zion UltraDiskPro

Transcend JetFlash 120

Buffalo Inc 011-41528532 [email protected] Rs 1,500

Tirupati Enterprises 025-3950947 [email protected] Rs 4,000

Varun Khandelwal 022-28743457 [email protected] Rs 1,200

Computer Kitchen Pvt Ltd 080-41127502 [email protected] Rs 3,328

Abacus Peripherals Pvt Ltd 022-56923941 [email protected] Rs 1,650

Mediaman Infotech Pvt Ltd 022-23828100 [email protected] Rs 6,750

8.16 17.68 16.67 8.67 6.67

9.27 8.75 20.00 6.67 10.00

13.59 6.73 18.67 7.67 6.67

7.61 12.69 20.00 9.33 3.33

11.42 10.89 15.33 7.67 6.67

9.27 6.84 18.67 7.67 6.67

Total: 57.84

Total: 54.69

Total: 53.32

Total: 52.97

Total: 51.98

Total: 49.12

512 18.2 x 75.4 x 9 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Flash ✕ ✓

2000 75 x 24 x 12 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Flash ✕ ✓

512 65 x 25 x 12 USB 2.0 Flash ✓ ✓

512 65 x 25 x 12 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Flash ✕ ✓

1000 22.8 x 70 x 2.5 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Flash ✓ ✓

4000 25 x 75 x 11 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Flash ✕ ✓

✕ ✓ ✕ ✕

✕ ✕ ✓ ✕

✓ ✕ ✕ ✓

✕ ✕ ✕ ✕

✕ ✕ ✓ ✕

✕ ✕ ✕ ✕

28.00 23.50

18.60 9.75

10.80 6.86

21.80 16.00

14.00 13.40

9.49 5.71

40.40 6.01 0.54

11.30 4.72 29.43

9.42 3.93 29.65

20.00 5.22 0.38

20.10 10.80 0.62

10.10 5.55 0.88

24.20 17.67

14.80 8.48

6.90 6.05

17.60 13.25

10.20 10.81

5.50 4.81

34.00 3.02

5.50 2.78

3.50 2.12

14.20 3.45

14.10 1.83

4.30 1.00

Good ✕ ✓ Average

Good ✓ ✓ Awesome

Good ✕ ✓ Trendy

Good ✕ ✓ Awesome

Average ✕ ✓ Trendy

Good ✕ ✓ Trendy

Good ✕ ✕ ✕ ✓

Average ✕ ✓ ✕ ✕

Good ✓ ✕ ✓ ✕

Excellent ✕ ✕ ✕ ✓

Average ✕ ✓ ✕ ✕

Good ✕ ✓ ✓ ✕

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EXTERNAL STORAGE COMPARISON

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Category Name Contact Phone E-mail Price* Overall Features (Out of 25) Performance (Out of 25) Ergonomics (Out of 20) Build Quality (Out of 20) Warranty & Support (Out of 10) Overall (Out of 100) Value for money Features Capacity (GB) Dimensions (WxHxD) mm Weight (kgs) Interface (USB/Firewire) Form factor RPM Buffer size (MB) Software features Back-up software Data encryption Secure partitions (private zone) Easy-sync / One-touch backup Performance Synthetic (Everest Ultimate 2.6) Sequential speed Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Random speed Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Average read access time (ms) Real world Single file test Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Multiple files test Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Ergonomics Smoothened edges Ease of setup Anti-slip grip Cool factor Build quality Quality of shell Metal used in construction Scratch resistance Shock absorption Warranty & Support Period of warranty (years)

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1 3.5 inch Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo Maxtor Corporation 011-51609661 [email protected] Rs 46,798 18.48 22.57 16.50 9.14 3.33

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2 Maxtor OneTouch III FireWire 400/USB 2.0 Maxtor Corporation 011-51609661 [email protected] Rs 24,960 15.79 20.94 17.50 12.00 3.33

Total: 70.02

Total: 69.56

1000 279 x 152 x 216 3.72 2.0 Hi-Speed / 800 3.5-inch 7200 16

500 65 x 136 x 217 1.45 2.0 Hi-Speed / 400 3.5-inch 7200 16

✓ ✕ ✓ ✓

✕ ✕ ✓ ✓

33.30 32.50

33.30 32.70

33.10 32.50 16.38

33.10 32.70 16.94

33.18 33.18

33.93 30.89

23.23 19.47

18.93 13.54

Good Good ✓ Passable

Good Good ✓ Average

Good ✕ ✕ Good

Good ✕ ✓ Good

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3 Western Digital Media Center Amarjit Singh 9321029204 [email protected] Rs 13,000 16.13 21.19 17.50 8.29 3.33

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Seagate Pushbutton Backup 400GB Seagate Technology 011-41811694 [email protected] Rs 15,000

Seagate Pushbutton Backup 200GB Seagate Technology 011-41811694 [email protected] Rs 9,120

ExBoot EXB-0131 Computer Kitchen Pvt Ltd 080-41127502 [email protected] Rs 9,199

Western Digital Essential Amarjit Singh 9321029204 [email protected] Rs 4,500

Buffalo Drive Station HD-HB160U2-EU Buffalo Inc 011-41528532 [email protected] Rs 6,900

15.37 20.40 14.00 9.14 3.33

14.86 20.12 14.00 9.14 3.33

11.66 20.18 12.50 12.57 3.33

8.02 20.74 17.50 8.29 3.33

9.70 18.58 10.00 11.71 6.67

Total: 66.44

Total: 62.24

Total: 61.46

Total: 60.25

Total: 57.88

Total: 56.66

320 150.1 x 57.4 x 241.3 1.4 2.0 Hi-Speed / 400 3.5-inch 7200 8

400 165.1 x 57.1 x 180.97 1.3 2.0 Hi-Speed / 400 3.5-inch 7200 8

200 165.1 x 57.15 x 180.97 1.2 2.0 Hi-Speed / 400 3.5-inch 7200 8

80 35 x 225 x 125 1.2 2.0 Hi-Speed / NA 3.5-inch 7200 2

80 154.43 x 44.20 x 218.75 1.2 2.0 Hi-Speed / NA 3.5-inch 7200 2

250 53 x 173 x 164 1.6 2.0 Hi-Speed / NA 3.5-inch 7200 2

✓ ✕ ✕ ✓

✓ ✕ ✕ ✓

✓ ✕ ✕ ✓

✓ ✕ ✓ ✓

✕ ✕ ✕ ✕

✓ ✕ ✕ ✕

29.30 31.20

27.70 33.30

27.70 31.60

31.20 30.00

28.40 29.20

30.10 25.00

29.20 30.90 14.00

27.60 33.00 15.75

27.60 31.80 15.27

29.30 30.40 13.71

27.60 28.50 13.62

29.90 25.00 19.96

28.71 33.43

28.00 34.46

26.50 35.27

29.47 30.27

29.28 30.27

29.86 25.02

18.35 16.58

18.28 14.89

18.21 11.28

13.66 13.74

17.49 13.74

13.36 13.74

Good Good ✓ Average

Good Good ✕ Trendy

Good Good ✕ Trendy

Good Good ✕ Average

Good Good ✓ Average

Average Good ✕ Average

Good ✕ ✕ Average

Good ✕ ✕ Good

Good ✕ ✕ Good

Excellent ✓ ✕ Good

Good ✕ ✕ Average

Excellent ✓ ✕ Good

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SpecScan Category Contact Phone E-mail Price* Overall Features (Out of 25) Performance (Out of 25) Ergonomics (Out of 20) Build Quality (Out of 20) Warranty & Support (Out of 10) Overall (Out of 100) Value for money Features Capacity (GB) Dimensions (WxHxD) mm Weight (gms) Interface Form factor RPM Buffer size (MB) Software features Back-up software Data encryption Secure partitions (private zone) Easy-sync / One-touch backup Performance Synthetic (Everest Ultimate 2.6) Sequential speed Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Random speed Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Average read access time (ms) Real world Single file test Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Multiple files test Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Ergonomics Smoothened edges Ease of setup Anti-slip grip Cool factor Build quality Quality of shell Metal used in construction Scratch resistance Shock absorption Warranty & Support Period of warranty (years)

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2.5 inch

Western Digital Passport

Buffalo MiniStation USB 2.0 Transcend StoreJet 2.5

Seagate Portable Hard Drive ExBoot EXB-0121

LaCie Mobile Hard Drive

Amarjit Singh 9321029204 [email protected] Rs 9,950

Buffalo Inc 011-41528532 [email protected] Rs 5,800

Mediaman Infotech Pvt Ltd 022-23828100

Seagate Technology 011-41811694

[email protected]

[email protected] [email protected]

Rs 6,000

Rs 6,060

Neoteric Infomatique Pvt Ltd 022-39828600 [email protected] Rs 5,250

7.19 21.27 19.00 13.14 3.33

8.43 20.10 14.00 8.86 6.67

8.30 17.80 12.50 12.29 6.67

6.85 17.92 14.00 13.71 3.33

Computer Kitchen Pvt Ltd 080-41127502 Rs 8,700 11.90 18.11 10.00 10.86 3.33

8.99 19.99 10.00 9.14 3.33

Total: 63.94

Total: 58.06

Total: 57.55

Total: 55.82

Total: 54.20

Total: 51.46

120 89.1 x 21.1 x 144.3 258 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed 2.5-inch 5400 2

40 127 x 21 x 83 208 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed 2.5-inch 5400 2

40 129 x 13 x 79.9 130 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed 2.5-inch 5400 2

40 93.8 x 25 x 127 292 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed 2.5-inch 5400 2

40 80 x 16 x 136 180 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed 2.5-inch 4200 2

40 76 x 17 x 129 180 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed 2.5-inch 5400 2

✕ ✕ ✕ ✕

✓ ✓ ✕ ✕

✕ ✕ ✓ ✕

✕ ✕ ✕ ✕

✓ ✕ ✓ ✓

✓ ✕ ✕ ✕

30.1 32.1

27.9 32.1

23.7 23.8

27.6 32.8

23.7 27.1

26.4 31.1

27.8 28.7 18.32

23.9 25.4 19.76

23.4 20.8 20.11

24.4 25.8 17.07

23.1 22.1 19.56

25.4 24.6 20

29.86 32

30 30.27

26.5 22.74

27.48 29.28

26.35 25.74

30 30.27

18.93 14.35

19.71 16.25

16.99 10.16

11.1 9.25

19.01 10.16

19.71 16.25

Good Good ✓ Trendy

Good Good ✕ Trendy

Good Good ✕ Average

Good Good ✕ Trendy

Good Average ✕ Average

Average Good ✕ Average

Excellent ✕ ✓ Good

Good ✕ ✕ Excellent

Good ✓ ✕ Average

Excellent ✓ ✕ Excellent

Excellent ✓ ✕ Average

Good ✕ ✕ Good

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SpecScan Category Contact Phone E-mail Price Overall Features (Out of 25) Performance (Out of 25) Ergonomics (Out of 20) Build Quality (Out of 20) Warranty & Support (Out of 10) Overall (Out of 100) Value for money Features Capacity (GB) Dimensions (WxHxD) mm Weight (gms) Interface Form factor RPM Buffer size (MB) Activity indicator LED Software features Back-up software Data encryption Secure partitions (private zone) Performance Synthetic (Everest Ultimate 2.6) Sequential speed Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Random speed Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Average access time (ms) Real world Single file test Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Multiple files test Read (MB/s) Write (MB/s) Ergonomics Smoothened edges Anti-slip grip Wearable Cool factor Build quality Quality of shell Scratch resistance Shock absorption Retractable USB connector Warranty & Support Period of warranty (years)

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Seagate Pocket Hard Drive

LaCie Carte Orange

S-Media Hi-Tech Microdrive

UMAX Pollux 300

Seagate Technology 011-41811694 [email protected] Rs 4,800

Neoteric Infomatique Pvt Ltd 022-39828600 [email protected] Rs 9,600

Computer Kitchen Pvt Ltd 080-41127502 [email protected] Rs 9,500

Neoteric Infomatique Pvt Ltd 022-39828600 [email protected] Rs 3,200

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8.16 7.65 19.00 8.29 3.33

7.71 8.23 10.00 11.14 3.33

6.92 4.34 12.50 8.00 3.33

5.32 4.82 10.00 9.43 3.33

Total: 46.43

Total: 40.42

Total: 35.10

Total: 32.90

5 76.9 x 76.9 x 18 62 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed 1-inch 3600 2 ✓

8 55 x 85 x 6 60 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed 1-inch 3600 2 ✓

4 50 x 70 x 10 54 USB 2.0 1-inch 4200 0.25 ✓

2.2 49 x 57 x 9 40 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed 1-inch 4200 2 ✕

✓ ✕ ✓

✓ ✕ ✕

✕ ✕ ✕

✕ ✕ ✕

6.44 8.19

7.3 8.64

5.04 4.32

4.72 2.41

5.81 5.43 24.47

6.35 5.29 33.02

4.15 2.63 107.85

2.62 2.26 107.74

4.19 7.57

5.2 7.91

3.9 1.88

3.99 2.3

4.22 1.27

4.8 5

2.3 0.87

2.33 1.07

Good ✓ ✓ Trendy

Average ✕ ✓ Average

Good ✕ ✓ Average

Average ✕ ✓ Average

Good ✕ Good ✓

Good ✕ Average ✓

Average ✕ Average ✓

Average ✕ Average ✕

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MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

Eco Imaging Saving desktop space and precious rupees, multifunctional devices pack plenty of features and capability into a compact little device. We bring them together here...

H

ow about setting up a printer, a scanner, a copier and a fax machine on your desktop? It’s quick and as easy as the snap of a finger. All you’ve got to do is invest in an all-in-one or a multifunctional device (MFD) which integrates all the functions in one compact device, and set it up on your desk. Imagine setting up individual devices—not only will there be a mess on your desktop but also a jungle of cables hanging behind the table. In addition to saving space, MFDs are a good bang for the buck. If you were to buy a printer, scanner, copier and fax machine individually, you’d end up paying much more than the price of an MFD. On the other hand, you can buy an MFD for a price as low as Rs 4,500—a price you would have paid for an inkjet printer around two years ago! Today MFDs not only compete with

high-end standalone devices in terms of specifications but also output quality and speed. Most of the models we received featured a 1200 dpi printer and a 600 dpi scanner. Some had integrated memory card readers and support for direct printing (PictBridge) from digital cameras. A few high-end models also sported color LCD display for previewing pictures on memory cards before printing them. The integrated scanner in a printer extends the functionality of an MFD to that of a copier. You just need to press a button to use the copier – no need to switch on the PC. We tested a dozen MFDs in this roundup. Whether you’re looking for an MFD for photo-quality prints or an all-inone solution for a SOHO environment, or total value for money, you’ll find all here.

Pramod Jadhav

MFD COMPARISON

Test Process We evaluated the MFDs on the ground of features, performance, build quality, ergonomics and warranty and support. Let us take a closer look at what went into each of the sections.

Features: Under this section we took note of the functions supported by the MFD—presence of a memory card reader, the capacity of the sheet feeder and the package contents. Extra points were awarded for support for fax, color LCD display and presence of stationery and third party applications. We also evaluated the individual subsystems of the MFDs such as the specifications of the printer and the scanner. The printer and scanner were evaluated primarily on the basis of their native resolution. In addition to this, we also logged other features such as the scanning bit depth, support for PictBridge direct printing, the number of cartridges and the modem speed of the facsimile, and awarded points accordingly. Performance: To assess the overall performance of the MFD, we evaluated the output quality of the printer, scanner and the copier. Printer test: To evaluate the printer’s performance, we printed the target image on a 4x6 glossy photo paper at the best quality settings supported by the printer

Target image used to evaluate the photoprinting performance

10% Warranty & Support

30% Features

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Build quality: We looked for things such as the quality of the body, print head assembly, sturdiness of the scanner lid, quality of the buttons and the sturdiness of the sheet feeder. Higher scores were awarded for better build quality.

10% Build Quality

10% Ergonomics

| HARDWARE

40% Performance

Weightage distribution for evaluation parameters driver and noted the time taken to print the image. We then rated the output based on the readability of fine text, reproduction of image details, skin tones, color reproduction and overall image contrast. In addition to this, we also printed a combi document consisting of text and image on an A4-sized glossy photo paper at the highest settings and awarded points on the basis of reproduction of color and grayscale gradients, absence of color bleeding in checkerboard, quality of text on plain and color backgrounds and quality of the thumbnail image. Scanner test: To evaluate the scanner we scanned an 8x10 photo and took note of the time taken to scan at 300 dpi. We compared the scanned image to the target image and assessed the reproduction of colors, sharpness and contrast. The closer the scanned image to the real-world target, the higher the points awarded in this test. Copier test: To evaluate the copier, we placed the copy target on the scanner bed and rolled out a color copy on a sheet of glossy photo paper at normal settings. We then awarded points to the output based on the quality of grayscale tones, color reproduction, quality of text and overall image contrast and sharpness.

Presence of a color LCD display and shortcut buttons were awarded extra points

SMS us!

Ergonomics: Devices with intuitive control panel design and useful shortcuts such as scan, copy, fax, paper size and type, number of copies and reduce/enlarge scored well. The readability of display and the size of buttons were also an important consideration. Foldable sheet feeder and output tray were also given weightage as it protects dust from creeping into the MFD’s mechanism in addition to saving desktop space when the device is not in use. More points were given to machines that didn’t have any sharp edges anywhere. Warranty and support: Here marks were awarded to the products on the basis of the warranty provided in number of years. The number of service centers and the number of cities in which the service centers are present were also taken into consideration. We concluded the test with the calculation of the “Value for Money” index which was derived by stacking the features and the performance against the price. The product with the best VFM index was awarded the “Best value” award.

The combi document featuring complex gradients and text on color background

Story code: HCM (See Readers’ Letters for details)

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Specifications: Printer, Scanner & Copier. Print Resolution (Native, Enhanced): 1200 /9600, Scan Resolution (Main, Enhanced): 1200/19200.

Price

Rs 16,995

Contact Phone E-mail Warranty

Canon India Pvt Ltd

0124-5160000 [email protected] 2 years

RATINGS Build quality Ergonomics Performance Features Overall Rating

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Specifications: Printer, Scanner & Copier. Print Resolution (Native, Enhanced): 1200 /6000, Scan Resolution (Main, Enhanced): 600/19200.

Price

Rs 4,490

Contact Phone E-mail Warranty

Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co Ltd

022-55961609 [email protected] 1 year

RATINGS Build quality Ergonomics Performance Features Overall Rating Value for money

he Canon Pixma MP500 is big on everything—size, speed, features performance—you name it and it excels in each of the above. It is easily the smartest looking MFD. However, the glossy scanner lid spoils the show, it’s easily susceptible to scratches. Brilliant looks are complimented by excellent utility. The paper feed trays are foldable preventing exposure from dust when not in use. Even the card reader has a protective flap cover. Another striking feature is the color LCD screen. You can preview images from the card reader before printing them. If you have a phone with an IrDA port which supports IrMC version 1.1, you can print small JPEG files wirelessly from the phone. It has a PictBridge port for directly printing images from your digicam with a memory card bypassing the need for a computer. The MP500 is blazing fast in performance. It can print seven A4 sized text pages in a minute at normal quality, only second to

the Brother MFC-3240C which is capable of printing eight. It’s the fastest in the economy mode, spitting out 12 pages per minute. At approximately 8 minutes, it’s reasonably fast at printing a A4-sized combi document. Its younger sibling, the MP450, was the fastest at 4 minutes. But the MP500 performs much better compared to the MP450, it is also better than MFDs from Brother and Epson which took between 11 to 18 minutes to do the same. The print quality is exceptional with excellent image details and color reproduction. The level of noise was negligible giving very sharp results. The quality of the scanned image was at best above average. The performance of the copier was also good. For: Blazing fast printing; excellent print quality; silent operation and color LCD display screen. Against: USB cable not provided; glossy lid susceptible to scratches; no fax capability; average scan quality.

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Value for money

Solid performance

he Brother DCP-115C is a good, affordable and simple-to-use multifunctional device. But it misses out on fax capabilities. It has a feature-rich control panel with buttons for almost all the functions including the ability to reduce and enlarge the images while photo copying. It allows you to scan to OCR using ScanSoft’s Paperport 9, bundled along with the printer. The scan-to-file function allows you to save the file directly to PDF format, a very nifty feature indeed. It has four individual print cartridges, one each for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. The print cartridges are not fitted directly to the print head as in other printers, instead they are fitted directly to the body of the printer. This is done to reduce the weight on the print head reducing the vibration and the noise produced while printing. In spite of using this design for noise reduction, the DCP-115C is clearly audible though not unbearable. Although low on price, it’s definitely not low on features. It also sports a memory card reader capable of reading all

the popular formats including CF, Memory Stick, XD and MMC. The DCP-115 is reasonably fast in printing text documents at draft quality but has ordinary speeds while doing it at normal quality. It can only print three pages in a minute as compared to eight of the Brother MFC-3240C known to be the fastest. The DCP-115 might not be at par with the MFC-3240C but it is much faster than other high-end models of Brother while printing the Combi and 4x6 photo at the highest settings. The DCP-115C is an above average performer in delivering quality prints. Our tests revealed the image quality to be good but accurate skin tones were not represented. The 115’s scanning ability is above average and at par with the other scanners (the only scanner that delivered excellent results is the Canon Pixma MP450). The performance of the copier was good. However, the reproduction of the greyscale was a little offset. For: Excellent value for money. Against: No USB cable provided. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

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| TERMINATOR 1) PictBridge: It is a standardized technology that lets you print images from the memory card in a digital camera directly to a printer regardless of brand. This method completely bypasses the need for a computer. To find out if a camera or printer is PictBridge compatible, look for the PictBridge logo on the packaging. 2) CMYK: Short for Cyan-Magenta-YellowBlack and pronounced as separate letters. CMYK is a color model in which all colors are described as a mixture of these four process colors. CMYK is the standard color model used in printing for full-color documents. Because such printing uses inks of these four basic colors, it is often called four-color printing. In contrast, display devices generally use a different

color model called RGB, which stands for Red-Green-Blue. One of the most difficult aspects of desktop publishing in color is color matching—properly converting the RGB colors into CMYK colors so that what gets printed looks the same as what appears on the monitor.

re-feed the paper into the tray. Printing on both sides of a sheet of paper is known as double-sided or duplex printing. Printers capable of double-sided printing usually have an internal tray that catches the paper after the first side is printed, flips it and runs it through the print cycle again.

3) ADF (Automatic Document Feeder): It is the ability to automatically feed multiple documents, which have been placed in the input tray, one at a time. This is particularly useful for OCR (Optical Character Recognition) scanning or for creating an image database.

5) Scan bit depth: Bit depth is also referred to as color depth. It is the number of colors that the scanner is capable of reproducing. Each pixel requires 24 bits to create standard true color and virtually all scanners on the market support this. Many of them offer 30 or 36 input bit depths. They still only output in 24-bit color but perform internal processing to select the best possible choice out of the colors available in the increased palette.

4) Duplex Printing: Most home printers can print only on one side of the paper. To print on the other side, one has to manually

| Buying guide With several models of MFDs available from different manufacturers, it is a tough choice to decide which MFD will be right for you. In order to make your buying decision easy, we have devised a buying guide which tells you which MFD would be suited to your needs depending on the application area. Home user: If you’re a home user, your requirements would be basic scanning, printing and copying. Rather than investing in a fancy machine, it is recommended to invest in an entry-level MFD costing not more than Rs 4,500. A 1200 dpi printer, a 600 dpi scanner and a copier in one simple device that can fit in a small shelf will suffice your needs. If you own a digital camera, support for PictBridge direct printing would be an added bonus. Recommended Models: Brother DCP-115C, Epson Stylus CX1500 Students: Creating projects, printing notes and reports, scanning and copying contents from books is usually what school and college students essentially require. Rather than investing in a budget MFD, it is recommended that you stretch your budget a little further and invest in a MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

mid-range MFD which is quicker and can deliver better output quality. Here the output quality is more important as quite often creation of projects and reports require printing and scanning pictures. Recommended Models: Epson Stylus CX3700, Canon Pixma MP150 SOHO user: If you have a small office or run a small business from home, then you should think about an all-in-one device which integrates a facsimile in order to help you communicate with your clients and other people. Also, since the volume of printing will be considerably high, a quick printer is what you should look out for. Presence of an automatic document feeder (ADF) is highly recommended as it will save you a lot of time since you won’t have to manually feed pages while scanning or faxing documents.

Thanks to the ADF, you won’t have to feed sheets manually to scan and fax

Recommended Models: Brother MFC5840CN, Brother MFC-620CN Professionals: Imaging professionals and photographers shouldn’t settle for anything below a high-end photoquality MFD. But be prepared for a heavy one-time investment. A 1200 dpi printer and scanner should be the minimum consideration. In order to print photographs from digital cameras and memory cards, make sure your MFD is equipped with a card reader and a color LCD screen so that you can preview the photographs before printing. Since such devices guarantee photo-quality printing and high scanning quality, they rightly justify the high price. Recommended Models: Canon Pixma MP450, Canon Pixma MP500

Using the built-in card reader you can directly print images off memory cards

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| Personal Take

SpecScan Name Anand Tuliani [email protected]

After testing a dozen MFDs, I vouch for my favorite of the lot—the Canon Pixma MP450. Right from its sleek look to its performance—it simply rocks! Owning this MFD is like having a photo-lab at home. Reproducing accurate color contrast and fine details flawlessly was a breeze. And that too without wasting much time. It also topped in the scanner performance test. Using the PictBridge capability and card reader, you can also print pictures directly from digital cameras and memory cards after previewing them on its crisp 5 cm color LCD display. If you’re looking for a highend MFD with an excellent price tag, don’t miss this one!

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1 Canon Pixma MP500 Canon India Pvt Ltd 0124-5160000 [email protected] Rs 16,995

Overall Features (out of 30) Performance (out of 40) Build quality (out of 10) Ergonomics (out of 10) Warranty & Support (out of 10) Overall (out of 100) Value for money

22.06 36.52 10.00 8.96 8.47

Total: 86.02

Features Dimensions (WxHxD) cms Weight (Kg) Functions (Print, scan, copy, fax) Interface Memory reader (SD/MMC, Memory Stick, XD, CF) Sheet Feeder Capacity Print resolution (Black, native color, enhanced) Duplex printing Direct printing Scan resolution (Main, enhanced) Scan bit depth (Input) ADF capability Fax speed

44.9 x 20.6 x 42.7 9.6 ✓ | ✓ | ✓| ✕ USB 2.0 Hi-speed ✓| ✓| ✓| ✓ 150 1200 / 1200 / 9600 ✕ ✓ 1200 / 19200 48 ✕ NA

Performance

Gaurav Seth [email protected]

I am a value for money kind of a person. But I don’t compromise on quality even if I have to spend a little extra. The Canon Pixma MP150 fits my bill perfectly. Since I am a home user, the speed of printing doesn’t really matter to me (unless it is pathetically slow); image quality is what I dig for. The MP150 strikes a double bonanza. The quality of printing is very good and at the same time it is blazing fast, nearly matching our best performer, the Canon Pixma MP-500. All this at a price of Rs 6,500 is simply unbeatable. Also, Canon’s 2-year warranty is an added bonus.

Printer tests Print speed: Text (Draft, Normal) (ppm) Print speed: (Combi, Photo) (min:sec) Print quality A4 photo (out of 10) Combi document (out of 10) Scanner tests Scan speed (Photo, magazine) (sec) Scan quality (8x10 Photograph) (out of 10) Copier quality Silent operation

12 / 7 7:57 / 3:48 10.00 10.00 15 / 10 7.80 10.00 Excellent

Build quality Printhead assembly Sturdiness of scanner lid Button quality Sturdiness of sheet feeder

Excellent Excellent Excellent Excellent

Ergonomics Arrangement of control panel buttons Size of buttons Readability of display Number of functions in the control panel Absence of sharp edges

Excellent Excellent Good 9 ✓

Warranty & Support Number of authorised service centres Number of cities with service centres Period of warranty (years)

130 100 2

* Prices are indicative and are subject to change, taxes extra INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

MFD COMPARISON

2

3

4

| HARDWARE

5

Canon Pixma MP450

Canon Pixma MP150

Brother MFC-5840CN

Epson Stylus CX4700

Canon India Pvt Ltd 0124-5160000 [email protected] Rs 10,995

Canon India Pvt Ltd 0124-5160000 [email protected] Rs 6,495

Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co Ltd 022-55961609 [email protected] Rs 14,590

Epson India Pvt Ltd 080-30515000 [email protected] Rs 8,999

22.06 36.29 9.60 9.09 8.47

18.28 35.32 8.80 8.38 8.47

28.29 25.55 7.40 6.30 4.87

19.47 24.95 8.80 9.48 8.00

Total: 85.51

Total: 79.25

Total: 72.41

Total: 70.70

44.4 x 18.5 x 41.7 6.23 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✕ USB 2.0 Hi-speed ✓| ✓| ✓| ✓ 150 1200 / 1200 / 4800 ✕ ✓ 1200 / 19200 48 ✕ NA

44.3 x 18.1 x 38.1 5.4 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✕ USB 2.0 Hi-speed ✕| ✕| ✕| ✕ 150 1200 / 1200 / 4800 ✕ ✓ 1200 / 19200 48 ✕ NA

46 x 34 x 48.5 9.88 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✓ USB 2.0 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✓ 350 1200 / 1200 / 6000 ✓ ✓ 1200 / 19200 48 ✓ 33.6

43 x 18.1 x 35.4 6.8 ✓| ✓|✓| ✕ USB 2.0 Hi-speed ✓| ✓| ✓| ✓ 100 1200 / 1200 / 5760 ✕ ✓ 1200 / 9600 48 ✕ NA

8/6 4:04 / 2:21

10 / 7 4:22 / 1:52

8/3 18:05 / 8:11

12 / 3 7:00 / 3:28

8.80 9.43

8.40 8.29

7.40 7.86

6.20 8.29

17 / 9 9.60 9.60 Average

16 / 10 8.20 9.60 Good

35 / 29 6.20 8.40 Good

30 / 19 5.60 6.80 Average

Excellent Excellent Excellent Good

Good Good Excellent Good

Average Good Good Good

Good Good Excellent Good

Excellent Excellent Good 9 ✓

Excellent Excellent Good 7 ✓

Good Good Good 9 ✓

Excellent Good Good 7 ✓

130 100 2

130 100 2

75 70 1

180 130 1

10

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SpecScan 6 Name Contact Phone E-mail Price*

7

8

Brother MFC-620CN

Epson Stylus CX3700

Brother DCP-115C

Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co Ltd 022-55961609 [email protected] Rs 13,900

Epson India Pvt Ltd 080-30515000 [email protected] Rs 5,999

Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co Ltd 022-55961609 [email protected] Rs 4,490

Overall Features (out of 30) Performance (out of 40) Build quality (out of 10) Ergonomics (out of 10) Warranty & Support (out of 10) Overall (out of 100) Value for money

22.38 23.87 7.40 6.49 4.87

14.43 25.38 8.80 7.92 8.00

19.62 22.79 7.40 6.30 4.87

Total: 65.00

Total: 64.52

Total: 60.97

43.9 x 16.5 x 45.4 7.2 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✓ USB 2.0 ✓| ✓|✓| ✓ 100 1200 / 1200 / 6000 ✕ ✓ 600 / 19200 36 ✓ 14.4

43 x 17 x 34.5 5.8 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✕ USB 2.0 ✕| ✕| ✕| ✕ 100 1200 / 1200 / 5760 ✕ ✕ 600 / 9600 48 ✕ NA

37.3 x 13.5 x 34.5 6 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✕ USB 2.0 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✓ 100 1200 / 1200 / 6000 ✕ ✓ 600 / 19200 36 ✕ NA

8/3 17:39 / 8:29

11 / 3 11:07 / 6:14

9/3 9:33 / 3:12

8.40 6.57

6.20 8.29

6.20 6.29

38 / 26 6.80 6.20 Good

30 / 17 6.20 6.80 Good

44 / 57 6.80 6.80 Average

Good Average Good Good

Excellent Good Excellent Good

Good Average Good Good

Good Good Good 9 ✓

Excellent Good Poor 5 ✓

Good Good Good 9 ✓

75 70 1

180 130 1

75 70 1

Features Dimensions (WxHxD) cms Weight (Kg) Functions (Print, scan, copy, fax) Interface Memory reader (SD/MMC, Memory Stick, XD, CF) Sheet Feeder Capacity Print resolution (Black, native color, enhanced) Duplex printing Direct printing Scan resolution (Main, enhanced) Scan bit depth (Input) ADF capability Fax speed

Performance Printer tests Print speed: Text (Draft, Normal) (ppm) Print speed: (Combi, Photo) (min:sec) Print quality A4 photo (out of 10) Combi document (out of 10) Scanner tests Scan speed (Photo, magazine) (sec) Scan quality (8x10 Photograph) (out of 10) Copier quality Silent operation

Build quality Printhead assembly Sturdiness of scanner lid Button quality Sturdiness of sheet feeder

Ergonomics Arrangement of control panel buttons Size of buttons Readability of display Number of functions in the control panel Absence of sharp edges

Warranty & Support Number of authorised service centres Number of cities with service centres Period of warranty (years) * Prices are indicative and are subject to change, taxes extra INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

MFD COMPARISON

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12

Brother MFC-3240C

Brother MFC-410CN

Lexmark X4270

Lexmark X3350

Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co Ltd 022-55961609 [email protected] Rs 6,990

Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co Ltd 022-55961609 [email protected] Rs 10,490

Lexmark International (India) Pvt Ltd 022-26057755 [email protected] Rs 6,499

Lexmark International (India) Pvt Ltd 022-26057755 [email protected] Rs 3,999

20.32 23.64 6.80 5.06 4.87

19.98 22.33 6.20 5.91 4.87

19.47 22.81 5.20 4.74 2.87

17.12 19.37 5.20 5.78 2.87

Total: 60.69

Total: 59.28

Total: 55.09

Total: 50.34

30.7 x 27.94 x 52.6 6.5 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✓ USB 2.0 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✓ 100 1200 / 1200 / 6000 ✕ ✓ 600 / 2400 36 ✕ 33.6

37.3 x 13.5 x 45.3 5.5 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✓ USB 2.0 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✓ 100 1200 / 1200 / 6000 ✕ ✓ 600 / 19200 36 ✕ 14.4

46.6 x 18.6 x 29.8 3.87 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✓ USB 2.0 ✕|✕| ✕| ✕ 100 1200 / 1200 / 4800 ✕ ✕ 600 / 9600 48 ✓ 33.6

44.1 x 17.2 x 31.9 4.5 ✓| ✓| ✓| ✕ USB 2.0 ✕| ✕| ✕| ✕ 100 1200 / 1200 / 4800 ✕ ✓ 600 / 19200 48 ✕ NA

9/8 15:33 / 4:50

8/3 14:00 / 8:28

8/5 5:04 / 3:02

10 / 7 4:28 / 2:32

6.20 4.57

5.60 9.14

3.00 4.29

3.00 4.86

33 / 18 6.80 6.80 Average

44 / 27 6.80 5.20 Average

25 / 10 7.00 3.80 Excellent

36 / 22 3.80 4.20 Good

Good Good Good Average

Average Average Good Good

Average Average Good Average

Average Average Good Average

Good Good Poor 9 ✓

Good Good Average 9 ✓

Good Good Average 8 ✕

Excellent Excellent Average 7 ✕

75 70 1

75 70 1

22 22 1

22 22 1

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

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| FEATURE

Pramod Jadhav

Nvidia fights back!

With the G71 and G73 in its arsenal, Nvidia plunges into the GPU arena with a bang!

N

vidia recently launched their new range of GPUs that will compete with ATI’s products which swept our graphics comparison tests conducted in the Feb 2006 issue. Now with Nvidia back in the game with the latest launch, it’s time for the knock-out round. With the Radeon X1900XT GPU, ATI changed the design and implementation of the processor by improving the efficiency of the R580 core. As a result, the R580 boasts of 48 pixelshader processors (the highest ever). The 90nm fabrication process allowed ATI to squeeze in the extra performance and keep the die size as well as the heat in control. The latest from Nvidia- the G71 and G73 also using the 90nm fabrication process but they take a different approach to take advantage of the same. This article is aimed to execute the all important job of finding out whether the latest GPUs from Nvidia can match their counter parts or even overtake them in the quest of gaining supremacy. For starters, let’s look at the new GPUs and their technical specifications, comparing them to the older series as well as the competition.

terms of the Pixel and Vertex shader units when compared to the 7800GTX. The transistor count has also gone down from 304 million transistors in the 7800GTX to 278 million in the 7900GTX. By shrinking the die size and reducing the transistor count, Nvidia claims to have drastically reduced the power consumption of the card, thus cutting down on the heat as well. As a result, Nvidia was able to bump the clock speeds much higher while consuming less power. The 7900GTX comes with 512 MB of GDDR3 256-bit memory, similar to its rival the Radeon X1900XT. By default, the G71 is clocked at 650 MHz and the 512 MB memory has a reference clock speed of 1600 MHz.

Investigating the GeForce 7900GTX

How different is the 7900GT?

Based on the G71 core, the GeForce 7900GTX is the most powerful offering from Nvidia aimed at the Radeon X1900XT from ATI. Yes, the 7900GTX is not different in

The 7900GT is based on the same G71 core and has the exact specifications when it comes to the shader units. Being the exact chip, the only changes are in the clock speeds for the core as well as

GeForce 7900GTX

GeForce 7900GT the memory. The 7900GT also is a 256 MB card as opposed to the 7900GTX which boasts of 512 MB of GDDR3 256-bit memory. The core is clocked at 450 MHz and the memory chips operate at a modest 1320 MHz.

GeForce 7600GT, the mid-range contender While the GeForce 6600GT is still a worthy contender for the mid-range segment, the 7600GT based on the G73 core is a smarter solution from Nvidia. Based on 90 nm fabrication, the G73 boasts of 12 pixelshader units and 5 vertex shader units. By default, the card comes with 256 MB GDDR3 128-bit memory. The 7600GT takes maximum advantage of the 90 nm process by reducing the size of the chip and in the process boosting the core clocks to 560 MHz. The reference clock speed for memory is also bumped up to 1400 MHz. The 7600GT is not a sucker for power as well; it does not require additional power to juice it up. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

HARDWARE

GeForce 7600GT

3DMark 2003

Index 20871 17782 17329 16727 15515 15502 13419 12731 12007 9495 0

10000

GeForce 7600GS coming soon! The GeForce 7600GS is aimed at the value conscious buyer looking for an inexpensive solution for gaming. Based on the same core as the 7600GT, the 7600GS has the same 12-pipe architecture with 5 vertex shader units. The clocks are toned down to 400 MHz for the core and a measly 800 MHz for the 256 MB RAM. The card is yet to be seen in the market but one can expect the stocks soon!

We got our hands on the 7900GTX and the 7600GT from Leadtek while the 7900GT being almost sold out made a late entry in our test labs, thanks to ASUS for sending the N7900GT which is a slightly overclocked version. The 7900GTX and the 7600GT from leadtek are based on the exact reference design with default clock speeds. The 7900GTX will set you back by about 26K while the street price for the highly sought after 7900GT is close to 22K. With a price tag of 13K, the GeForce 7600GT is the most affordable of the trio. The cards are currently offered only on PCIE platform except for the 7600GS, which might also offer AGP variants.

Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX ATI Radeon X1900XT

4395

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT

3205

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT

2853

Leadtek GeForce 7800GS

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

ATI Radeon X1900XT Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX OC ATI Radeon X1800XT Nvidia GeForce 7900GT Nvidia GeForce 7800GT Nvidia GeForce 7600GT Nvidia GeForce 6800GS Leadtek GeForce 7800GS ATI Radeon X1600XT 4000

6000

8000

30

40

Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX OC

36

Nvidia GeForce 7800GT

34

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT

25

Leadtek GeForce 7800GS

23

Nvidia GeForce 6800GS

20

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT

17

ATI Radeon X1600XT

FPS 124 111 107 97 94 81 71 67 64 43

10

20

30

40

50

60

Doom 3 High-1024x768@4xAA Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX ATI Radeon X1900XT Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX OC ATI Radeon X1800XT Nvidia GeForce 7900GT Nvidia GeForce 7800GT Nvidia GeForce 7600GT Leadtek GeForce 7800GS Nvidia GeForce 6800GS ATI Radeon X1600XT 30

60

90

120

150

Doom 3 High-1280x1024@4xAA

10000 12000

FPS 96 Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX

ATI Radeon X1900XT Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX ATI Radeon X1800XT Nvidia GeForce 7900GT Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX OC Nvidia GeForce 7800GT Nvidia GeForce 7600GT ATI Radeon X1600XT Leadtek GeForce 7800GS Nvidia GeForce 6800GS 20

ATI Radeon X1800XT

39

0

F.E.A.R

10

Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX

48

0

3DMark 2005

2000

FPS 65 61 57 45 37 32 29 25 24 18

53

25000

4746

0

FPS 60 ATI Radeon X1900XT

3DMark 2006

Index 10856 10161 8384 7937 7524 7277 5926 5657 5561 5235

0

20000

Index 5837

0

Pricing and availability

15000

73

HalfLife-2 Lost Coast 1600x1200@4xAA 8x AF

Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX ATI Radeon X1900XT Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX OC ATI Radeon X1800XT Nvidia GeForce 7800GT Nvidia GeForce 7900GT Nvidia GeForce 7600GT Nvidia GeForce 6800GS Leadtek GeForce 7800GS ATI Radeon X1600XT

5000

| FEATURE

50

60

70

80

87

ATI Radeon X1900XT

74

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT

73

ATI Radeon X1800XT

70

Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX OC

55

Nvidia GeForce 7800GT

50

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT

48

Leadtek GeForce 7800GS

43

Nvidia GeForce 6800GS

30

ATI Radeon X1600XT

0

20

40

60

80

100

Let the scores do the talking… We put the trio from Nvidia to the test by taking them through a string of latest synthetic as well as real world benchmarks by comparing them to rest of the GPUs in the market.

FPS 86 82 81 73 70 59 40 40 37 33

Test Rig Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe RAM: 1GB Kingston DDR 400@2-2-2-5 HDD: WD Raptor 740GD Operating system: Windows XP SP2 with -DirectX 9.0c

0

HalfLife-2 Lost Coast 1024x768@4xAA 8xAF

Doom 3 High-1600x1200@4xAA

FPS 76 Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX

ATI Radeon X1900XT Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX ATI Radeon X1800XT Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX OC Nvidia GeForce 7800GT Nvidia GeForce 7900GT Nvidia GeForce 7600GT Nvidia GeForce 6800GS Leadtek GeForce 7800GS ATI Radeon X1600XT 20

40

60

80

70

Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX OC

56

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT

52

ATI Radeon X1800XT

39

Nvidia GeForce 7800GT

36

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT

33

Leadtek GeForce 7800GS

31

Nvidia GeForce 6800GS

20 100

ATI Radeon X1900XT

57

0

ATI Radeon X1600XT 10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX, Nvidia GeForce 7900GT, Nvidia GeForce 7600GT MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

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74

| FEATURE

HARDWARE

The Contenders Leadtek GeForce 7900GTX 512 MB@ stock speeds Asus GeForce 7900GT 256 MB-overclocked version Leadtek GeForce 7600GT 256 MB@ stock speeds The 7900GT is a sell-out, we barely got our hands on the Asus 7900GT. Being an overclocked version, we first compared the performance Asus 7900GT by setting the clocks to default specs of GeForce 7900GT and later, overclocked it beyond the factory clock speeds.

Stellar performers Starting from the top, there is very little to choose between the GeForce 7900GTX and the Radeon X1900XT. Both the cards sit right at the top and thus, Nvidia with the 7900GTX is at level with ATI. We will bring you the clash of the overclocked 1900XTX and 7900GTX in the coming

The small size of the 90nm G73 core keeps the temperature under control, allowing higher clock speeds issues to decide on the winner. Till then, the scores are leveled. The GeForce 7900GT and the 7600GT are clearly the superstars of the show. At default clocks, the 7900GT stays above the 7800GT but once overclocked, the 7900GT rockets to the number two spot coming second only to the 7900GTX. The overclocked version of the 7900GT certainly helped with the added cooling and better memory chips used. If you are looking to buy a high-end card, the 7900GT is highly recommended. Next is my favorite, the GeForce 7600GT. With stock cooling and reference design, we were able to push the Leadtek 7600GT

to 595/1600 MHz (core/memory). The core can still be pushed a bit higher but we decided to stop at 595 MHz. The 7600GT at stock rules over the GeForce 6800GS, GeForce 7800GS (AGP) and the ATI Radeon 1600XT. Once overclocked, the GeForce 7600GT screams at the top sitting very close to the GeForce 7900GT and almost matching the GeForce 7800GT. The 90 nm fabrication has done a lot of good to the G71 and G73 cores from Nvidia and as a result, the GeForce 7600GT and the GeForce 7900GT offers fantastic performance and value for their respective segments. The icing on the cake comes in the form of reduced power consumption. A 7600GT SLI setup will not require any additional power and will come close to matching the performance of a 7900GT/ X1900XT. All eyes on the ATI camp, we await the release of X1800GT which should thicken the plot! ■ | Soham Raninga

Overclocking the G71 and G73 3DMark 2003 Index 18666 Nvidia GeForce 7900GT (569/1650)

FPS 57

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT (569/1650)

15515

45

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT

32

Nvidia GeForce 7800GT

Nvidia GeForce 7800GT

15502

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT

14075

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (595/1600)

32

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (595/1600)

13419

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT

29

12731

Nvidia GeForce 6800GS

12007 Leadtek GeForce 7800GS 0

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT (569/1650)

4395

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT

3505

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (595/1600)

3205

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT

2853

Leadtek GeForce 7800GS

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT (569/1650)

7524

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT

6439

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (595/1600)

5926

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT

5657

Nvidia GeForce 6800GS

5561

Leadtek GeForce 7800GS 2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

Nvidia GeForce 7800GT Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (595/1600)

24

Leadtek GeForce 7800GS

67

Leadtek GeForce 7800GS

18

Nvidia GeForce 6800GS

64

10

20

30

40

50

60

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

0

HalfLife-2 Lost Coast 1600x1200@4xAA 8x AF

10

15

20

25

30

35

0

60

80

100

120

Doom 3 High-1280x1024@4xAA Nvidia GeForce 7900GT (569/1650) Nvidia GeForce 7900GT Nvidia GeForce 7800GT Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (595/1600) Nvidia GeForce 7600GT Leadtek GeForce 7800GS Nvidia GeForce 6800GS 40

60

80

100

Doom 3 High-1600x1200@4xAA Nvidia GeForce 7900GT (569/1650)

56

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT

40

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (595/1600)

39

Nvidia GeForce 7800GT

36

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT

33

Leadtek GeForce 7800GS

31 40

40

20

FPS 70

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT (569/1650) Nvidia GeForce 7800GT Nvidia GeForce 7900GT Leadtek GeForce 7800GS Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (595/1600) Nvidia GeForce 6800GS Nvidia GeForce 7600GT 5

20

FPS 92 74 55 55 50 48 43

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT (569/1650) Nvidia GeForce 7800GT Nvidia GeForce 7900GT Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (595/1600) Nvidia GeForce 7600GT Nvidia GeForce 6800GS Leadtek GeForce 7800GS

10

Nvidia GeForce 6800GS

0

HalfLife-2 Lost Coast 1024x768@4xAA 8xAF

FPS 40 36 34 25 24 23 20 0

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT

81

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT

FPS 73 70 59 44 40 40 37

Nvidia GeForce 7800GT

Nvidia GeForce 7900GT (569/1650)

94

71

3DMark 2005

Index 9346

FPS 116

Nvidia GeForce 7600GT

0

0

Doom 3 High-1024x768@4xAA

79

3DMark 2006

Index 5303

7277

0

F.E.A.R

Nvidia GeForce 6800GS 10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

MOBILE DOWNLOADS WALLPAPERS

sms Wall code to 7007

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To download a THEME, sms THEME CODE to 7007 eg.To download Theme with code i2037 SMS THEME i2037 to 7007

Theme i2037

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How To Download Write Message

Wall i14232

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Select For Monotone For Theme on Nokia/Samsung For Polytone

Theme i037

RT i4302

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go to Message Section

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76

HARDWARE

| FEATURE

When Apple met Intel We bring you a first look at Apple’s new Intel-based notebook. Sporting the familiar Mac-esque look and feel, there are a host of enhancements under its skin

Processing x 2 With the new Intel Core Duo processor under its hood, Apple has injected a big dose of power into its line of new notebooks and desktop computer. The first Intel processor to be built using the new 65-nanometer technology and featuring two cores running at up to 2.16 GHz, this is serious power for the serious multi-tasker. Within each processor is 2 MB of L2 cache that is shared between the two cores. Add to it, there’s a brand new 667 MHz Front Side Bus (FSB) that drives the rest of the system, raising the performance bar even higher. Bring on those video, audio and imaging applications!

See all The Mac’s now got an eye. Characteristic of Mac design, an almost-invisible webcam is built right into the bezel of the screen frame, letting you use applications like iChat for four-way videoconferencing or iMovie HD for creating videos, or Photo Booth for quick and easy digital photographs. Particularly with iChat AV, there’s this really cool 3dimensional view created from your friend’s video feeds—a super way of implementing multi-user videoconferences.

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

FEATURE

| HARDWARE

77

component within the Mac OS X operating system called Rosetta, Apple promises that there will be no issues in using the familiar Mac applications on their new Intel-based systems. At present, only some of their current applications like iLife ’06, Safari and Mail work out-of-the box on these new machines. Their other Intel-compatible applications are available for purchase in stores or you can “crossgrade” to them from your existing versions.

From gaming to imaging

And all the rest

Especially strong on the graphics front, this notebook features an ATi Radeon Mobility X1600 PCI Express-based 3D subsystem. Yep, all that translates into some pretty impressive gaming and graphics performance—a nice complement to the already powerful processor.

This notebook is still an inch thick, there’s the same attention to detail—the power cord is retractable and the keyboard is backlit. There’s also a sudden motion sensor that protects your data by parking the hard disk heads in the event of a sudden change in notebook orientation (aka falling out of your hands).

It works There’s a brand new logo that tells the world which Mac software will work on both the older PowerPCbased computers and the new Intel based systems. Using a

Front Row seats With so much of compute power and screen space at your disposal, how better to enjoy it than to sit back and relax? The Macbook Pro now comes with a nifty little 6-button remote control that lets you take wireless charge of a range of applications from your slideshows to iTunes music playlist to your DVD movies.

For all the details on how well it performs, check out our full-blown test review next month. MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

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78

HARDWARE

| FEATURE

Battery replacement: Slim micro fuel cells for mobile devices produce their energy from hydrogen and oxygen

Fuel Cells on the Move This long-awaited energy storage technology is on the verge of becoming a reality. We take a look at what’s going on in the world of mobile power

N

otebooks and mobile phones only offer a limited amount of mobile freedom—after several hours of operation. Even the most efficient battery needs to be recharged. Fuel cells, however, promise greater flexibility while also facilitating a more environment-friendly form of energy storage. It has been a while since developers have successfully produced energy from hydrogen and oxygen for supplying mobile appliances. In fact, the principles behind creating this energy have been known as long ago as the 19th century. But now, a breakthrough has occurred—fuel cells are now on the verge of being commercially viable. Several Japanese manufacturers have simultaneously announced that they will be bringing fuel cell-powered mobile phones, MP3 players and notebooks to the market within the next two years. According to analysts, fuel cell technology will experience a boom starting in 2010. Apart from being used for portable

accessories, which is happening now, fuel cells will also bring life to all sorts of new applications such as wireless networked sensors and electronic sensors embedded in the human body.

High-powered batteries Research on several variants of fuel cells is going on in Japan and Germany. The Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (IZM) in Berlin has clearly demonstrated one of the biggest advantages of fuel cells—their higher energy density. “Fuel cells have at least five to 10 times higher capacity than that of traditional batteries and accumulators”, says Dr Robert Hahn, coordinator of micro fuel cell development at IZM. As a result, devices can function for a far longer period without the need for recharging. This could perhaps be the first step toward facilitating day-long laptop computing (powering the device for 8 hours

continuously without a recharge). Fuel cells generate energy from a supply of hydrogen produced from other substances. The engineers at IZM use two different methods to do this. In the first method, inorganic substances such as zinc or potassium hydroxide—like those found inside regular alkaline batteries—react with hydrogen in an enclosed cell. The entire system measures 4 cubic cm and produces as much as 2.1 watt-hours, which is more than twice a comparable AAA alkaline battery. This efficiency is possible because of the ease of producing hydrogen without complicated chemical processes as found in standard batteries. “A mobile phone has variable energy consumption rates, depending on whether it’s being used for phone calls or photography. In the system we’ve developed, hydrogen production varies to meet the demand of the moment”, explained Dr Hahn. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

FEATURE

Hours of talk time

Hours of music

Toshiba proves that fuel cells are not against attractive design. Tiny holes in the casing allow the fuel cell to breathe oxygen from the air while its byproduct, water vapour, leaves the cell the same way. This fuel cell relies on a reservoir filled with methanol

As much as 3.5 ml of methanol is required to play 35 hours of music—10 ml for 60 hours. Toshiba has introduced two prototype MP3 players—one with a hard disk and the other using flash memory. Smaller versions of these products will become available in 2007

| HARDWARE

79

Day-long notebook Most notebooks powered by Li-ion batteries are drained within four hours of operation. With a methanol fuel cell that has a tank shaped like a docking station, Fujitsu’s product promises continuous operation for up to 10 hours

In the second method, methanol and ethanol replaces the hydrogen. These cells are capable of a higher operational life by achieving a higher energy density. Fuel cells can measure as little as a quarter of a centimeter across. In non-stop operation with stable hydrogen, they can provide energy density as high as 80 to 160 MW. Therefore if three single cells are hooked up in series, they can produce a voltage of 1.5 v. This is enough to replace the button battery type. With foil technology, these cells can easily be integrated into the surface of electronic devices. While IZM uses silicon wafers only as a substrate material in manufacturing, researchers at the University of

Hours of video The new 3G-capable cell phones (like the UMTS-based one shown here) tend to be power-hungry. With this fuel cell power source shaped like a shell, this mobile phone is capable of doubling video playback duration to 4 hours. Fujitsu developed this mobile phone for NTT DoCoMo. As seen, it works great, but needs enhancements on its aesthetics

Freiburg have developed a cell that can be integrated into microchips. A hydrogen “tank” is placed in a thin layer on the surface of the chip. Hydrogen enters the cell through a process of diffusion. This development, which can produce hundreds of milli-watts can also be used on selfrecharging sensors.

Portability issue Mobile accessory prototypes based on this technology indicate that developers are focused on producing a fuel cell where size and portability are the prime factors. The Japanese had yet to demonstrate a mock-up or a prototype or deploy such cells in any mobile device. The first adopter for fuel cells is NTT DoCoMo—the biggest mobile operator in Japan. They have introduced a UMTS mobile phone from Fujitsu, which allows for a much longer operational duration than before. In mobile applications, while playing video games on phones running on the traditional Lithium Ion batteries, the device can only last for up to 2 hours. The aforementioned Fujitsu device is capable of at least twice that operational time—a huge step indeed. However, this comes at an aesthetic cost as the fuel cell

looks like a charger, with measurements of 150x56x19 mm and a weight of 190 gms. The fuel cell is equipped with small methanol-filled reservoirs measuring 1.8 mm and 1.2 mm. The second largest mobile operator in Japan, KDDI, has been working with Hitachi and Toshiba to bring its own advances to mobile phones. The first prototype has been introduced though the mass-market version will be available in the year 2007. The Toshiba fuel cell measures a mere 22x56x4.5 mm and weighs 8.5 gms—small enough to be integrated into an MP3 player. In Japan, Toshiba has introduced two MP3 players with fuel cells—one based on hard disk technology and the other implemented using flash memory. Toshiba’s flash-based MP3 player

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80

HARDWARE

| FEATURE

| FUEL CELLS USING FORMIC ACID Electrons

O2

HCOOH H+ O2 H2 H 2O H+ CO 2

H 2O

Anode

Polymer Membrane

Cathode

This fuel cell uses formic acid (HCOOH) as its power source. On the side of the anode, the formic acid is broken up into carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2) through chemical reactions. The rest of the process is identical to how all fuel cells work. Positive hydrogen ions penetrate the polymer membrane to reach the cathode. The negatively charged electrons create an electrical current by flowing through an electrical circuit. At the cathode, the H+ ions react with O2 from the air to form water vapour which is environment friendly.

measures 35x110x 20 mm with a weight of 78.5 gms when fully fueled. With 3.5 ml methanol, it is capable of playing music continuously for 35 hours. The hard disk-equipped player measures 65x125x27 mm and uses a larger fuel cell than the flash player (60x75x10 mm, offering 300 MW) with a larger tank of 10 ml. With a full tank, the device weighs 270 gms and is capable of playing music continuously for a commendable 60 hours. Toshiba promises smaller versions of these products for the mass market by next year. As a technology demonstration, Toshiba equipped a Portege M300 sub-notebook with a methanol fuel cell. Its power source resembled a thick docking station with an energy density five times greater than that of

Useful web links 1. www.pb.izm.fhg.de/hdi/040_groups/ group4/index.html: Information from IZM regarding fuel cells. 2. www.ise.fraunhofer.de/english/fields/ field5/index.html: Fuel cells at ISE. 3. jp.fujitsu.com/group/labs/en/: Fujitsu’s research website. 4. www.initiative-brennstoffzelle.de/en/ live/start/1.html: Portal Information portal regarding fuel cells. 5. www.tekion.com: Cells using alternative fuels.

Li-ion batteries. Therefore, present-day technology has aptly demonstrated the capability of fuel cells but portability still remains an issue that needs to be worked out.

Innovative developments

Fuel cell and Li-ion technology in a single casing. The fuel cell recharges the battery

While awaiting further developments, Nokia has frozen its fuel cell research and experiments. Prior to this, the Finlandbased company had been experimenting with a headset that might extend operation time to more than 10 hours. As

with Toshiba, Nokia’s fuel cells would use methanol as the hydrogen source. Motorola has chosen a different substance to generate hydrogen from, namely formic acid (HCOOH). To gain access to this technology, Motorola invested in Tekion, a Canadian company. While most developers were focusing on Methanol as a fuel source, Tekion chose to use a substance called Formira, which consists of purified and modified formic acid. The hydrogen that is necessary for generating energy is produced thorugh a chemical reaction (see illustration). “Strong electric currents and simple chemical processes from Formira fuel cells enable the construction of a product that is more simple compared to methanol systems. This makes it truly appropriate for mobile devices”, says Neil Huff, president of Tekion, speaking about the advantages of his system over existing fuel cell technologies. The proof is evident in the smaller size of the product. Tekion’s innovative developments continue. Right now, researchers have developed a hybrid system called the “Formira Power Pack.” In it, both the fuel cell and the Li-ion battery are united within a single casing. The battery supplies energy to the device whereas the fuel cell produces the energy to recharge the battery—a cyclic system of sorts. According to Huff, this technology combines the benefit of both power sources. With it, he promises that users wouldn’t need to carry their own external chargers. This hybrid technology will reach the market next year. The first product will be a satellite phone that is currently in development. It appears that 2007 is the target year for the industry when fuel cell based products will hit store shelves. But there are several questions that need to be addressed: Will all the technological hurdles be overcome by then? Are they going to be small enough to integrate into today’s trendy ultra-tiny mobile products? How much will it cost? While all this remains to be seen, it is indeed exciting to visualize a time when cell phones, PDAs and laptops have the juice to last us all through our working days. ■ | Manfred Flohr INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY

| HARDWARE

81

Dual-headed demons T

he world of personal computing is intrigued by two recent developments—Apple’s Boot Camp software and dual-core processors. It’s only a matter of time before applications leverage both technology breakthroughs. And this could also be the start of something big—heard of server partitioning and virtualization? Imagine that happening on the desktop platform. In June 2005, Apple took the radical decision to power all forthcoming Apple PCs with Intel processors. When I first heard about it, I fantasized about running Windows and all my favorite applications on the brilliantly designed Macintosh computers. Then there was a contest with $14,000 prize money. Someone with the handle “narf” took up the challenge, tweaked his Intel Mac and got it to boot both in Windows XP and Mac OS X. In technical terms, Narf’s solution is referred to as XOM.efi or just XOM. If you’d like to learn more about this bootloader or read the FAQ, head to http://onmac.net. Though Apple neither endorsed nor supported the contest, it got Steve Jobs and other top honchos at Apple thinking how Apple could benefit from having Windows XP running on a Mac. Our professional dependence on Windows applications and compatibility concerns keep us from experiencing the splendor of “Macdom”. But what if a Mac could run Windows and all our favorite software as efficiently as on an Intel PC? Apple’s Boot Camp software solution (similar to XOM) is a means to achieve this. We know that PC hard disks can be partitioned for different OSes that enables you to boot up natively in Windows 2000 or Windows XP, or Linux. But nobody achieved this feat successfully on a Macintosh before (though there were attempts). This is because of vast differences in the hardware architecture and Windows and Macintosh operating systems have different ways of booting. To date there are two native solutions: XOM and Boot Camp. With a native solution, the system boots up in one operating system; the OS has all the system resources at its disposal. But what if I’m working on a multimedia application on the Mac and suddenly need to reference some contacts in my Windows contact management software? The switch can be time consuming MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

since I will need to shut down all my Mac applications and reboot into Windows. This is one of the many glitches of using Boot camp. The solution is to run both the Mac OS X and Windows XP simultaneously. This is achieved through a technique called Virtualization. The software Parallels Workstation for Mac OS X from the company Parallels makes this happen. You can download the free beta from www.parallels.com. Parallels Workstation is a desktop virtualization solution that lets you divide a single PC into multiple “virtual machines”. Each VM | Brian Pereira can then run its own OS and applications. The [email protected] wonderful thing about this software is that it will allow you to run other OSes alongside the Mac OS. This includes older versions of Windows, Linux, OS/2, MS-DOS, Solaris or FreeBSD. The company says the final version will let you run several OSes at once. Of course, this would work only with processors that support Virtualization technology. And Intel’s Core Duo processors (used in the Intel Macs) do support virtualization. This technique isn’t new. It borrows from old server virtualization technology pioneered by VMware. With virtualization, you have two or more operating systems running simultaneously on a server. The requirement is that the server must have multiple processors and support SMP (symmetric multi-processing). Plenty of memory and hard disk space is required. These resources are partitioned and a single box is divided into multiple virtual machines. Each OS and its applications run on its own virtual machine environment or “window”. What use would this be on a desktop? Well, if your computer is on a peer-to-peer network with heterogeneous computer platforms, several things could be going on at the same time. While your Mac is rendering a movie, you could catch up on a LAN game in Windows even as a peer-to-peer application is running on Linux—and all this takes place on the same system! Multi-tasking in Windows was once a challenge but is now taken for granted. Someday, multitasking across operating systems will be common which is why I look forward to dual- or tri-boot systems and dual core PCs. The writer has been covering personal technology issues for the past 12 years

While your Mac PC is rendering a movie, you could catch up on a LAN game in Windows even as a peer-topeer application is running on Linux

82

HARDWARE

| FEATURE

Musical Bliss Entry-level

Mid-range

High-end

Models: COWON iAUDIO U2 256 MB, Creative Muvo TX 256 MB, Transcend T-Sonic 610 512 MB

Models: Cowon iAUDIO U2 1 GB, iRiver iFP795 512 MB, iPod Nano 1 GB, Creative Muvo TX 512 MB

Models: Creative Vision: M 30 GB, iPod Video 30 GB, iRiver H10, Creative Zen MicroPhoto

Budget: Below Rs 5,000

Budget: Between Rs 5,000 - 10,000

Budget: Above Rs 10,000

W

hen your budget is Rs 5,000 or less, the line between entry-level and mid-range players thins. The players in this category are basically the same kind. The only difference between the two is that the mid-level players have more storage capacity. For example, the 1 GB iAUDIO U2 costs around Rs 6,500 while the 256 MB, which falls in the entry-level category costs about Rs 4,500. We strongly recommend putting in a little more money and going for the 1 GB model. At this price point, you only have the option of buying flash memory based players. Since the entry- and mid-level players have the same feature set, we will walk you through them in the mid-level category. You might be curious about how different these players are as compared to the unbranded MP3 players available for as little as Rs 2000 bucks with a capacity of 512 MB. One of the most distinguishable factor is the audio quality and the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio where the latter category of players falls short. Anything above 85 dB S/N is good. Our choice in the entry-level category is definitely the 256 MB iAUDIO U2. It offers the best audio quality and has a plethora of features including FM, line-in and voice recording.

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T

his is the most interesting category offering a very good value for money with a fair balance of good performance and added features. The most important feature is of course the sound quality. Next comes the user interface. It should be intuitive. Third and a very important feature is the ability to make on-the-fly playlists i.e. you should be able to choose songs from different locations and make a playlist without being connected to the computer. The fourth feature could be a pro as well as a con depending on your requirements. It is very convenient if directly recognized as a removable storage device as soon as you plug it into the computer’s USB port. No device drivers are required, just drag and drop the songs! The drawback is that the player won’t automatically sort out the songs according to the artist, genre and album. With the players that are able to sort, specific device drivers should be installed in the computer before transferring any song to the player. The concluding aspect is the battery type and more importantly, the battery life. A 20-hour per charge battery life is a must. Our choice again is the 1 GB iAUDIO U2 MP3 player. Top notch performance and 1 GB capacity at a price tag of just Rs 6,500 is just unbeatable!

Story code: HTL (See Readers’ Letters for details)

A

t Rs 10,000 and above, you should definitely be looking at hard drive-based players with a storage capacity of 20 GB and above. The current breed of MP3 players is also capable of playing videos. Players like the Creative Vision: M need device drivers to be installed on the computer and are not instantly recognized as a removable storage device when connected to the USB port. Also, you need their propriety software to transfer music since it categorizes the music according to the artist, album and genre. For a device with 30 GB of storage, this kind of sorting definitely helps in sifting through your music collection. But then, you would also like to use the device as a portable hard drive to carry data from one PC to another. It is not necessary for you to carry the device drivers with you always. The Creative Vision: M has come with a unique solution—it lets you partition a portion of the 30 GB hard drive to be specifically used for data storage. Our choice here is the Creative Vision: M—it has very good sound quality and a brilliant color screen. It can play video files from a variety of formats including divx, xvid, etc. It can also play and record FM and best of all, it has A/V out i.e. you can directly play video from the player onto your television. | Gaurav Seth

Jagdish Limbachiya

A guide to buying the right kind of MP3 player

84

Pramod Jadhav

Software Center Applications

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his month, we bring you a selection of tools for the home and office desktop spanning media file management, system optimization, audio authoring etc. Also, we review the latest QuarkXPress 7 Public Beta 2. We came away impressed by the enhancements in its capabilities and workflow functionality. The competition in the page layout arena just got tighter. Sony ACID Pro is a professionalquality multi-track audio editing tool with audio hardware integration capabilities. When it comes to sluggish hard disks, our software of choice for system optimization is Diskeeper 10 Professional Edition. Based upon efficient and intelligent algorithms for file re-ordering, this application delivers tangible results when it’s through

optimizing your hard disk. We also review one of the most powerful and comprehensive image management applications we’ve seen—with cataloging, editing, printing and publishing options. It offers all image-related tasks jobs in one package. Searching for a home theater quality media player? Zoom Player Professional plays back all of your audio and video files while offering much configurability for squeezing out the last ounce of clarity in your computer-based home theater system. For virus scanning, we’ve reviewed Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic—a free file scanner application. You’ll find all of these applications on our cover disks—so go ahead and dig in.

| The Ratings Explained The parameters used for evaluating software are assigned a graphical rating out of a scale of 5. These parameters include performance, features and ease of use. The overall rating shown in the reviews is based on all these factors. In addition, there is a value for money rating for each application. This rating is obtained

by stacking the features and the utility of the application against its price. In the case of freeware and shareware tools that are available for download from the Internet, we replace the price with the download size (and therefore the time taken to download the application) for arriving at the value for money rating.

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TESTED

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Audio Production

Sony ACID Pro 5.0c System requirements: 800 MHz processor, 256 MB RAM, 200 MB free hard disk space, Windowscompatible sound card, CD-Writer (for burning tracks), Windows 2000/XP

Price Contact website

$ 225 (Approx. Rs 10,125) Sony

www.sonymediasoftware.com

RATINGS Ease of use Features Performance Overall Rating Value for money

Find it on CHIP

CD

Spinnin’ up tunes

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reating music was once the prerogative of the select few who were specifically trained in music. However, today’s music authoring applications provide a rich variety of music creation capabilities where, with a little training, it is relatively simple for even a casual music enthusiast to jump right in and compose. Sony ACID Pro 5.0 is one such application that specializes in creating music by looping sampled sounds and modifying their characteristics using a large number of parameters. The good news is that it’s not as difficult as it sounds—this software enables you to create music using intuitive tools that help you find your groove along the way. It can be used to develop music for web sites, disks, music videos or Flash animations. And you don’t even need to be a musician as there are over 1,000 sound loops to choose from. Installing it was a snap (though it does require Microsoft .NET to be installed on the computer). It is clearly a taxing application indicated by the relatively long startup time (over 10 seconds on our Pentium 4 with 256 MB of RAM) as it initializes internal music databases for its various components. As with any audio editing software, the application’s interface has the propensity to appear daunting at

first as there are toolbars, buttons and sliders present everywhere. However, after stepping through the online help file, we find that its layout and various areas are adequately explained. The main interface areas include the toolbar, the track list, the timeline and the window docking area. The toolbar includes all the functions pertaining to the track at hand. This includes the file loading buttons, the selection tools, the Groove tool and a link to the web from where additional media can be downloaded. The track list on the left indicates the various tracks being used within the project along with specifications such as volume, name, status, etc. Double-clicking on a track will open a visual representation of the wave file where you can further define the track type (looped, one-shot etc), adjust its pitch or stretch it to fill specific segments within your composition. You can audition any changes to your audio samples from within this window itself. This allows minute control to every sound in your project. Immediately beneath this window is an indication of the tempo of your song (beats per minute) and the key it is playing in. There is a file browser window at the base from where you can load work files or sounds into the program. Finally, on the

right, there are the volume sliders that let you control the master volume for your track’s left and right channels. Perhaps the most impressive feature of this program is its ability to “stretch” audio clips and have them match the tempo of your song. This sole functionality enables you to drag and drop any type of audio file into your song and not bother having to reformat it to the rhythm and tempo of your song. Another cool feature is the “Groove Mapping” tool that lets you apply “rhythm ambience” to your track. With this, you can enable your composition to sound like one of over 50 groove styles including Funk, Rock, Jazz swing, Hip Hip, Conga, Reggae, etc. This lends instant creativity to your projects thereby giving in plenty of scope to play around with different music options. For the more advanced users, there is support for VST plugins, Media management, ReWire device support, Diskat-once CD burning, etc. Offering a simple interface with access to several tools, Sony ACID Pro 5.0 is a fun yet functional music creation application. For: Intuitive interface; automatically matches sound clips to the tempo of your track; groove mapping creates interesting variations of songs Against: Expensive.

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

SMS us!

Story code: SWS (See Readers’ Letters for details)

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APPLICATIONS

| TESTED

Page Layout

QuarkXpress 7 Beta 2 System requirements: At least 128 MB RAM, at least 250 MB available hard disk space Mac OS X v10.4 (Tiger) or later, Windows XP

Price Contact website

To be announced Quark

www.quark.com

RATINGS Ease of use Features Performance Overall Rating

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CD

Page layout, refreshed

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ith QuarkXPress 7, Quark has started out with a clean slate and created it ground up. In doing so, they have incorporated a host of open standards into the core—chief among them being XML support. Also, new Document Object Model in QuarkXPress 7.0 is the QXML system that will impart read-write capability to virtually every aspect of the Quark file including formatting, hyphenation, style sheets and justification. The main interface of this version of QuarkXPress 7 features some interesting enhancements—the most obvious being the new Measurements Palette. The equivalent of InDesign’s Color Palette, this toolbar is replete with features. Instead of crowding the workspace with palettes, it displays context-sensitive information depending upon the function used during page design. This would, for example, change depending upon whether you are working on text where there are tabs that allow access to character attributes, runaround, space/alignment, frame settings, etc. These tabs vary depending on the function used. This certainly frees up screen space leaving more room for the layout work at hand. For managing palettes, QuarkXPress 7 now groups them together, making it very similar to what is seen in InDesign. Another

significant feature—transparency can be controlled in every area that has color control including the Edit Menu, the Color Palette, Measurement Palette, etc. Today, when the print workflow is so largely digital, the ability to collaborate between various support teams is critical. Adobe already realized this in creating CS2 and it looks like Quark has too. There is a new Composition Zone feature that lets designers define a specific segment within a page layout for other designers to access and work on simultaneously—a boon for projects where different artists work on different aspects within the same page—for example, layout, illustrations, images, etc. These sections can then be easily re-used across different projects. Next, there is the Job Jacket feature that allows designers to define limits so that they never stray away from the original objective of the project, from the typography, color and style sheet point of view. This can be of considerable use while rolling out to press, wherein tight control can be maintained over the production process in accordance with the norms laid down by designers. There are several other enhancements such as the ability to numerically define curves while working with images (as opposed to dragging curves with the

mouse), the ability to apply filter effects to alpha channels, etc. There is the new Open Type feature that enables the use of creative font structures such as ligatures, character alternates and Glyphs. You can preview layouts on a variety of output devices; the program can also be configured to use the color settings of previous QuarkXPress versions ensuring backward compatibility. During file creation, designers can see their projects using multiple views across several panes in a single window or across separate windows—ideal for multi-monitor setups. While QuarkXPress 6 allowed users to create multiple layouts of a single project, this version allows you to export individual layouts and even append them to existing projects. While this is still a beta release, it is a good indication of things to come when the final version of QuarkXPress 7 is announced later this month. Does it outshine InDesign? It would only be fair to say so when the final versions are compared. But for InDesign, the competition has certainly grown strong. For: Better user interface with new Measurements Palette, improved workflow, better support for open standards, several new features to whet the creative designer. Against: This beta release is occasionally unstable. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TESTED

Streamlined access

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iskeeper 10 Professional is a program that consolidates and compacts the data on your hard disk, streamlining the reading and writing process. The main interface of the program is well laid out using three sections. The upper pane contains a listing of the volumes in your system. The lower pane displays a visual status of the defragmentation job, the logs, history, etc. The pane on the left is a Quick Launch bar that groups common tasks together, making it easier to learn, navigate, use and configure the software. For example, this section has steps that guide the user to configure and launch a defragmentation job on one or more hard disks using a wizard-like approach. This makes it simple for the first-time users. The more advanced users can access all of these tasks by right clicking on the volume in the upper pane of the interface. Besides basic file and folder defragmentation, this program offers the ability to defragment the Windows

O

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System Utility paging file as well. It does so using the Boot-time defragmentation feature which allows the file to be accessed and modified during system startup. This single feature results in a significant increase in hard disk response. Besides the paging file, Diskeeper can even optimize other Windows core component files like the Master File Table (MFT), that significantly enhances the speed with which files are located on the hard disk. The program contains a host of other features like performance and volume health analysis, Smart Scheduling, Event logging and a nifty “Set It and Forget It” operation mode. Through it all, the user can configure the amount of system load taken by the program so that Windows can be used normally, even during a defragmentation run. For: A holistic set of features for hard disk file system optimization; ability to defragment core Windows files. Against: Relatively expensive.

Snappy and feature-packed pera has long-since been accepted as a formidable player in its field. A long-standing advocate of open standards, Opera’s underlying architecture is based on standards-based web technologies. This ensures compatibility with all web sites that are created using open standards. Since Opera went free in September 2005, the software has become much more enticing. Most appealing with this browser is its minimalist approach—everything from the install size (just 3.7 MB) to install time (under 7 seconds) spells efficiency. There are a plethora of options for configuring the browser in accordance with individual tastes. Its support for tabbed web pages, mouse gestures, integrated compatibility with search engines, integrated e-mail client (called M2) with spam filtering, RSS reader, popup blocker, password manager and form filler make for quick and convenient surfing. Perhaps one of Opera’s most interesting features is its Small Screen Rendering capability, allowing the browser to correctly display web sites on a screen of virtually any size.

| APPLICATIONS

With the interface being completely configurable, you can modify every element of the web display or the interface. There are other thoughtful touches such as “Quick preferences”, which provides one-key access to commonly accessed options like toggling web features (Flash, Java, etc), enabling proxy servers, pop-up blocking, etc. There are, however, some instances where sites render incorrectly in the browser. But this is, more often than not, non-standard programming practices in creating web sites, other than being a fault of the browser. To maximize compatibility with web sites, the program also has an option to identify itself as IE or Firefox—a neat trick for countering sites that are specifically programmed to run optimally on select browsers. For: Quick page rendering; efficient size; standards-based engine; integrated mail client; RSS reader; pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing; free. Against: Some web sites do not render correctly.

Diskeeper 10 Professional Edition

System requirements: Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows Me, Microsoft Windows XP Home, Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center, Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64, Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Workstation (SP6), Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional

Price

US $49.95

Contact

Diskeeper Corporation

website

www.diskeeper.com

RATINGS Ease of use Features Performance Overall Rating Value for money

Find it on CHIP

CD

Web Browser

Opera 8.53

System requirements: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Mac OS X, Linux

Price Contact website

Free Opera Software www.opera.com

RATINGS Ease of use Features Performance Overall Rating

Find it on CHIP

CD

88

APPLICATIONS

| TESTED

Photo Manager

StudioLine PhotoClassic 3

System requirements: Windows XP/XP SP2/2000/ ME/98, Pentium-compatible processor, (800 MHz or higher), 256 MB RAM, 150 MB free hard disk space, 24-bit color graphics card at 1204x768 resolution

Price Contact Phone E-mail website

€59 (Approx Rs 3,245) H&M System Software

49 6074 9130 [email protected] www.studioline.net

RATINGS Ease of use Features Performance Overall Rating Value for money

Zoom Player Professional

System requirements: Windows 98, Me, 2000, XP, 2003 Server $27.95 (Approx Rs 1,260) Inmatrix

www.inmatrix.com

RATINGS Ease of use Features Performance Overall Rating Value for money

Find it on CHIP

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ithin its 46 MB download, StudioLine PhotoClassic offers a toolshed of capabilities for performing functions like printing, e-mailing, editing or archiving images and more. The main interface consists of a large workspace area where the images are displayed. Surrounding it are panes that display a variety of information and tasks pertaining to the job at hand. For importing and managing images, the application can load the image into its file store or simply catalog images in a target folder. Once images are imported, they can be categorized and tagged at a very granular level, using descriptions (image tags), star ratings, classifications, etc. This enables them to be easily recalled and located with the Picture Search functionality, where you can locate files using these attributes. On the image editing front, the program features a comprehensive array of functions including color correction, cropping,

rotating, red-eye reduction, format and conversion, white balancing, along with the more advanced features like histograms and color curves. Using an interface that displays all relevant functions on one screen along with simultaneous “before and after” displays, the program makes it easy to extract the best out of your digital camera, scanner or web images. When the images begin to pile up, PhotoClassic 3 can either backup your images to a writeable CD/DVD, offload them (where the source images are deleted from the hard disk after copying) or simply burn selected images to a disk for distribution to friends. Additional functions include the ability to generate a web gallery where the application creates a web ready for upload. For: A one-stop shop to photo management; editing and distributing; FTP uploading of web galleries. Against: Interface tends to be cluttered.

Free show!

Media Player

Price Contact website

Swiss-Army imaging

CD

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oom player is a media playback application that handles virtually every type of DVD, audio and video file out there. Best of all, it sports a surprisingly small install size with spiffy response. During installation, Zoom Player informs you of possible problems that could be encountered while playing back certain file types. More importantly, it tells you where to download the codecs required to enable you to play these files. The interface itself is simple with the most often-used controls being easily accessible. It can be started up in file mode or DVD mode, depending upon the video being played. In its audio avatar, it offers MP3, OGG, AC3 along with a host of other common audio formats. It has playlist capabilities with powerful tools that enable search for media within the playlist. There is also an internal 10-band graphics equalizer offering present and custom settings. Each of these windows can be toggled on and off, enabling a slim-profile and unobtrusive interface. However, this program’s real power resides in its video play back capabilities.

It boasts powerful DVD front-end control offering a host of playback and video control functionality seen in much bigger applications. Besides the usual video controls, its most impressive feature is its ability to use external video decoders and filters—even combinations—to provide the most finely-tuned video experience available on a computer. Besides being a straightforward media playback application, it can be extended by advanced users and tweaked to perfection. It supports hardware color, brightness and gamma management, reducing the load on the CPU during playback. This is especially useful if you plan to run other applications in the background while running movies. It can play back ripped DVD files from the hard disk, create and recall bookmarks within DVD movies, restrict viewing using parental controls, etc. For: Effortless DVD and movie file playback; provides minute control to advanced video and audio parameters; can use external video decoders. Against: Most of the advanced features are available in the registered version. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TESTED

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on your computer. The Guard tab indicates instances of infections found, along with the files in which they have been detected. For automating your virus scanning, it supports scheduling where pre-defined scan runs can be programmed to run automatically. The last tab displays a listing of application-generated reports related to scan runs, updates, quarantines, etc. Also, as any anti-virus application should, this program also features online updates to its virus definition files from its servers. The red umbrella motif in the software’s interface screen is indicative of the features in the version—red implies that this is a free trial version, while a silver umbrella indicated an enhanced feature set, which is available only in the paid version of the software. For: Quick and effective file-based virus scanning; simple interface without loading the systems significantly; free. Against: No support for Adware/Spyware or POP3 mail scanning in the free version.

Video in a flash

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f you’re looking for an easy way to create Flash-based movies from regular video clips, this is a nifty little application to serve that need. Sporting a lucid step-bystep interface, you are guided through the entire process of converting your video clips to Flash movies. The main interface contains tabs that signify each step in creating a Flash movie. You start out by selecting the target video file ranging from WMV, ASF, MPEG, MOV, QT or AVI files that are compatible with the application. You can also view information about the video and audio attributes of the currently loaded file here. Clicking on the next tab takes you to the Effects section, where you can incorporate one of 19 different video effects such as grayscale, sepia, motion blur, posterize, etc. This screen displays your original video stream alongside a screen that displays the results of the effect, making it easy to review. Here, you can also adjust image brightness and contrast. On the following screen, you can incorporate a graphical or text-based watermark (like a company logo or name) MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

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System Security

Virus-free for free here’s clearly no escaping the fact that today’s desktop computers need protection from threats. If you’re looking for a free, usable alternative to commercially available anti-virus programs, you might want to give this program a go. In its Classic version, it is a pure file-based virus scanner without the functionality of POP3 scanning, Adware or Spyware detection. This added functionality is only available in the Premium version of the software, which costs €20 per year, per license. The main interface is tabbed-based, which provides access to the anti-virus configuration while displaying its running status. The scanner section displays the storage devices attached to your computer including the hard disk, local drives, removable drives, the Windows system directory, etc. Scans can be launched on these devices by simply right clicking and selecting the appropriate option. It is even possible to manually scan individual files

| APPLICATIONS

Avira Anti-Virus

System requirements: At least 196 MB RAM, IE 5.0 or higher, Windows XP, 2000, NT 4 (SP 6), Me, 98 SE, 98

Price Contact website

Free (for personal use) Avira GmbH

www.free-av.com

RATINGS Ease of use Features Performance Overall Rating

Find it on CHIP

CD

Flash Authoring within your Flash video. This screen allows you to select positioning and attributes of the watermark. This is followed by the Settings screen allowing you to configure the video quality and resolution, the audio quality, sampling rate, number of channels and finally the frame rates and aspect ratio. The last screen lets you publish your Flash video. Here, the software creates the SWF file, which can also be compressed. For easier incorporation to a web site, it can generate an HTML file that links to the Flash movie. Both of these can be uploaded to an FTP server directly within the software itself. For easier navigation while playing back the Flash file, it embeds playback and volume controls within the video clip itself. The Bandwidth Profiler simulates the load of your Flash video file on different types of Internet connections during playback. For: Simple; easy-to-use interface; video effects capability. Against: Overly intrusive overly in the free version.

Flash Video Studio 1.5

System requirements: 400 MHz processor or better, 128 MB RAM, 10 MB free hard disk space, Windows 98, Me, 2000, XP

Price website

$49.95 (Approx Rs 2,250) www.flashvideostudio.com

RATINGS Ease of use Features Performance Overall Rating Value for money

Find it on CHIP

CD

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APPLICATIONS

| FEATURE

Narrowed viewing Want more than the regular dope on happenings around the world? Here’s a new kind of broadcasting—narrowcasting, catering to your unique individual preferences

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ired of flickering through channel after channel and not finding a program suiting your taste? If this is what you often experience, here’s something that will arouse your interest. “Narrowcasting” or niche programming makes broadcasting of specialized content over broadband Internet to your cell phone and television. It is a new concept in the video landscape with shows catering to a race of esoteric viewers to please either their tastes or whims. Narrowcasting can be more specifically defined as need-based programming. For instance, watching your mother display her culinary skills for you while you are in the US is no longer a distant dream. Ditto for your parents interested in knowing how you are managing in the country, you have just relocated to all alone recently. Narrowcasting is similar to video-on-demand and video blogging. While video-on-demand gives us the freedom to download and play any video on television, video blogging allows the blog community to share video clips on the Internet. Narrowcasting enables a user to download video footages applying to his specified needs or interests and watch them on his TV or cell phone.

Global players

Dinesh Desai

A number of companies have already deployed the technology and are providing broadcast services to viewers. Atlanta based DaveTV has already committed 100 channels of 100,000 hours of

licensed programming. DaveTV’s programs can be downloaded and played on TV with the help of a settop box that is available for $200. Akimbo, a company based in San Mateo, California offers 1,600 programs for a service charge of $10 per month. But more than 60 percent of these programs have an additional cost ranging from 50 cents to a few dollars. Verismo Networks that focuses on media network applications is driving the convergence of broadband and media to whet the consumer’s growing appetite for personal entertainment. The solutions developed by Verismo promise to open the floodgate of video footages created and uploaded by film makers who want to address a particular audience. For example, tiger lovers can share all information on tigers by uploading related videos so that those interested in tigers can search for the respective video clips and view them. The additional benefit of narrowcasting is the ability to transfer these clips to the mobile, thus enabling you to watch while on the move. With broadband Internet becoming a trusted conduit for broadcast-quality video, narrowcasting content is simply a cakewalk. Also, narrowcasting content over broadband does not incur heavy infrastructure costs; hence it is an economical way of delivering specialized audio/visual data in a quick span of time to a community of viewers. MD of Verismo Networks Satish Mugulavalli states that, “Narrowcasting will reduce the cost of distribution to a great extent. It will also help in establishing a community of sorts. Narrowcasting will enable

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

FEATURE

people to come together and share the content of their choice. This will create a revenue generation opportunity for small businessmen or individuals willing to share and distribute specific content.”

What you need Watching videos via narrowcasting will be as simple as watching TV programs with a set-top box installed. With a set-top box attached to your television, as you receive all the channel information and only need the TV remote to surf the channels; likewise for narrowcasting, you need a similar box called the Client Box. This is attached to your TV set, which then receives and stores the content information. The Client Box comes with an in-built Linux-based OS for playing content of any type ranging from WMV, MPEG2, MPEG4 and DivX. All you need to do is search and play the program of your choice. Now if you wish to telecast content, then along with the Client Box you need another piece of hardware called the Server Box. This box is like a miniature server as found with an ISP. The main function of this box is to take the video feed from a recording device, for instance, a camcorder, store the feed and upload it on the server. All these functions are performed with the help of a Media Server-based application that comes along with the Server Box. In a corporate setup, the organization collaborates with Internet service providers reposed with the responsibility of the Server Box. The Internet service providers set up the Server Box and the content management application on their server and then telecast the content. It is up to the organization to

You need to use the on screen keyboard to type the title of your search item.

decide on the number of location points it wants its content to be telecast upon. These location points may range from one to 10 per license. Once this decision is taken, the organization simply needs to buy the number of Client Boxes required and set up the same at those location points where it will be viewed. So for internal communication within an organization such as watching the CEO speak across the branch offices of a particular company, the Client Boxes will have to be set up at those offices.

How it works Both the Server Box and the Client Box are provided with an IP address. All a broadcaster needs to do is attach a video camera with the Server Box and upload the content on the website of the company offering this service. So what you need to do is run a search with the help of the navigation button of your TV remote, select the video content that you intend to watch and download it on the Client Box, and then view it on your TV. To search and play content on your TV, you just require your TV remote. If you need to search any title you simply need to use the onscreen keyboard of the application. Select the letters of your search tags with the help of the onscreen keyboard and the five buttons of the TV remote and you have your list of searched items. To simplify the operation, two different types of search functions are offered. First, the incremental search narrows down the search result with every letter typed. This procedure is similar to narrowing down to the number in your mobile phonebook. The second search type is based on personal information, which you provide while you sign up for the service. Downloading on the mobile is still easier as you can actually type the search tag using the mobile keyboard. To access video on your mobile, you just need to ensure that your mobile’s GPRS service is activated. This will help you browse the site, search content title and download it. The handset must support software to playback the downloaded video. However, if your phone is not GSM enabled, you need not worry. You can still use your phone to send an SMS to Verismo Networks and schedule a download of the video at the Client Box

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installed in your home. As your mobile phone number is already registered with the service provider, in this case Verismo, an SMS from your number will be treated as an authenticate request and will be served accordingly. Verismo is all set with their products and are now only looking for partners who will take the responsibility of manufacturing the hardware. Versimo also plans to keep a flexible cost structure for the content that may range from 50 cents to $10. They will allow the content owner or creator to decide on the cost depending on the type of content. Pricing is variable—it could be either a flat rate applicable to all types of content or it could depend on the nature of the content. For example, content videos on fashion and cooking could be either uniformly or separately priced.

Indian scenario Taking cognizance of the potential for Internet video in India, companies like Verismo have deployed the technology here. While conventional broadcasting serves to an audience interested in regular feeds of news bytes, sport, movies, the special interest program zone has remained untapped. As a result, people have been left pining for world cinema, advertisement, medical content and home video content. Narrowcasting has the propensity to meet the needs of a wide spectrum and might even result in overriding traditional programming. As Mugulavalli concludes, “With broadband Internet spreading in India by leaps and bounds, this is indeed the right time to introduce narrowcasting.” ■ | Pradosh Mitra

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

SMS us!

Story code: AFN (See Readers’ Letters for details)

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APPLICATIONS

| FEATURE

Waking up to WiMAX True anytime, anywhere connectivity is possible with WiMAX. It’s your cost-effective convenient Internet access of the future

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How Wimax works

he Internet scene in India has seen some changes in the past few years. Wi-Fi exposed us to the freedom of being connected wirelessly. The concept of always-on Internet was born with the advent of Wi-Fi. It radically changed the way Internet is accessed at home, in the office, in public locations and on the move. But where WiFi is stuck with its limits (speed and range), WiMAX is likely to pull it off. WiMax (802.16X) promises much more in terms of outdoor broadband wireless service delivery. In fact, WiMAX is all set to revolutionize the entire broadband wireless access industry. WiMAX that stands for World Interoperability for Microwave Access is a cost-effective broadband wireless technology that enjoys substantial support from the computer and telecom industry. WiMAX systems can cover a geographical area of up to 50 kms and can deliver bandwidth of up to 72 Mbps. The advantage of WiMAX is its ability to deliver VoIP and video services. For the fixed wireless broadband industry, WiMAX industry standards are being developed as an alternative to DSL and cable. According to Ranajoy Punja, vice president, marketing, Cisco Systems, “Businesses in the urban areas can use WiMAX to backup the Internet

access system in case of failure of their wired infrastructure. With the help of WiMAX, cellular operators will be able to backhaul their wireless Internet services from a cell tower to a central office; it can also be used as a backhaul to hook up to the Internet at Wi-Fi hotspots.” Existing wired or wireless technologies experience inherent limitations. As Punja echoes, “Unlike wired solutions, WiMAX requires no blocking traffic to dig miles of trenches for telecommunication cables, no ruining blocks of roads to provide Internet services, no waiting on massive infrastructure build-out projects and no overhanging cables that can snap anytime. It offers a fast, affordable and convenient solution to India’s widespread Internet access needs.” WiMAX is relatively easy to install. Deployment costs will be lower, especially in rural areas that lack proper infrastructure and where the population is more scattered. Using WiMAX technology, the service provider will be able to plan a 95 percent predictability coverage increasing the installation success rates and decreasing deployment costs. The OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) technology integrated in WiMAX makes it possible to provide a Non-Line-of-Site

Pramod Jadhav INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

FEATURE

(NLOS) coverage of up to 15 kms around the base station and coverage of up to 50 kms in Line-of-Site (LOS) conditions. The WiMAX (802.16X) standard has been developed and supported by over 300 members of the WiMAX Forum. This wide acceptance of the technology will guarantee interoperability, reliability and further developments of the technology. Not only that, it will also reduce the cost of equipment. “Internationally, the CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) such as modem costs vary from $300 to $1,000. Wider adoption of the technology and interoperability of the base units with various CPEs will also drive down costs.”, says Manish Gupta, vice president, marketing & alliances, Aperto Networks. The forum intends to restrict the cost of CPEs to below $100. Furthermore, WiMAX will use a single radio covering all licensed and unlicensed frequency bands allocated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Not only will this enhance the flexibility of the technology but also reduce costs of the base stations and CPEs. But what about ISP tariffs for WiMAXbased connectivity? “The broadband tariff structures are a prerogative of service providers like VSNL but world over, WiMAX based broadband access works out to be cheaper than DSL and E1 based broadband network services.”, affirms Gupta. VSNL has recently completed deployment of Aperto Networks’ PacketWAVE multi-service broadband wireless systems in over 65 cities across India. This is part of an initial deployment phase with the goal of expanding the network to cover over 200 cities within a period of 12 months. Though currently VSNL is servicing corporate houses such as Tata Motors, Hyundai Auto and Amadeus using the 3.3 GHz frequency band, it eventually intends to provide services to home users as well. “We expect to start providing WiMAXbased broadband Internet services in cities like Kanpur and Jaipur within the next three to six months.”, says Gupta. Aperto’s PacketWAVE family of base stations and subscriber units are a part of a wide network enabling high-speed wireless voice and data services for a wide variety of users throughout the country. “WiMAX technology and Aperto’s carrier grade

WiMAX has the potential to provide cost-effective wireless broadband coverage across India WiMAX Forum Certified solutions are a perfect fit for the communication needs of the Indian subcontinent.”, points out Gupta. Aperto Networks is the founding board member of the WiMAX Forum as well as the founder of and lead contributor to IEEE 802.16 and the ETSI-BRAN standards. Aperto’s PacketMAX is incidentally the first WiMAX certified product to be launched globally. Currently, over 200 Internet service providers in 65 countries across the world are using it. In India, three out of five service providers have already installed Aperto solutions and more than 10 service providers have commercially deployed this solution. The company has recently established a WiMAX development center in Bangalore to accelerate the development and deployment of Aperto’s WiMAX Forum Certified and WiMAX-class products. “Aperto is tapping the Indian market which has the potential to be one of the largest WiMAX markets in the world.”, says Reza Ahy, chairman and CEO, Aperto Networks. India is a hot market for WiMAXbased broadband connectivity. It has 40 million Internet users out of which only an estimated 0.8 million have broadband Internet access. If one considers the teledensity, then in rural India it is still hovering at a mere 2 out of 100 and 35 out of 100 people in urban India. Only 10 million of 49 million copper lines in India are capable of transmitting data at high speeds. The cost of building a vast fiber optic cable network across the country will be mindboggling. In such a scenario, WiMAX fits the scheme of things as it has the potential to provide cost-effective and reliable coverage across India. WiMAX will be able to meet the connectivity needs of rural India and can provide reliable and cost-effective connectivity to government offices, police stations, schools, hospitals, banking institutions and even ATM networks.

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Given India’s geographic spread, WiMAX is poised to make a tangible difference in connecting India. Considered as a promising next-generation wireless technology that can support high data rates along with a long transmission reach, WiMAX can bridge the digital divide in India and empower citizens in far flung areas as well. WiMAX networks will be able to support fixed, nomadic, portable and mobile wireless broadband connectivity on the same network. The first PCMCIA cards that will provide Internet access on the move are expected to hit the markets by the end of 2006. Two versions of WiMAX will eventually become operational. First, the products based on the 802.16-2004 standard have already been deployed globally. The 802.16-2004 standard is equivalent to the Wi-Fi Alliance for IEEE 802.11 and is optimized for fixed and nomadic access in Line-of-Sight (LOS) and Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) environments. Subsequently, products based on the 802.16e standard, designed to support portability and mobility will be launched commercially. This version is based on the 802.16e amendment and provides support for handoffs and roaming. The 802.16e WiMAX standard is expected to be operational in the 2.3 GHz and 2.5 GHz frequency bands. These versions of WiMAX are expected to co-exist and address the requirements of a variety of target market segments, bearing in mind factors such as availability of the spectrum, regulatory constraints and the timeline for deployment. ■ | Amish Mody

MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

SMS us!

Story code: AFW (See Readers’ Letters for details)

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Pramod Jadhav

Search power Search engines are sine qua non today—they have made the web much more accessible and user-friendly “I know I’m searching for something Something so undefined That it can only be seen By the eyes of the blind In the middle of the night.” – Billy Joel (American Pianist, Singer and Song Writer)

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his Billy Joel song effectively captures the quintessence of the Internet and search engines, though the phenomenon called the Internet was unheard of at that time. The Internet, from being a prerogative of a selected few, has seeped into everyone’s lives around the globe. It would not be an exaggeration to say that every piece of information one would ever need is placed somewhere in the form of bits and bytes on a complex maze of web pages that comprises the Internet. There is no exact figure on the total number of web pages out there but a rough estimate would run into tens and hundreds of billion. Retrieving the required information from so many pages would be a Herculean task but thanks to search engines, the process has been simplified. Let us take a look at where the search engines originated from.

History of search engines The grandfather of all search engines called Archie can be traced way back to 1990 created by Alan Emtage, a student at McGill University in Montreal. That was a time when the primary modus operandi of sharing files across the network was File Transfer Protocol (FTP). In this method, anyone who has to share a file would run a service called FTP server. A user requiring this file would connect to the PC using another program called FTP client. The availability of files for sharing would be divulged by posting on discussion forums or mailing lists in what could be termed as the Internet, equivalent to word of mouth. Later, anonymous FTP sites came into being allowing users to post or retrieve the files. Archie changed all this by combining a script-based gatherer, which would scour the FTP sites creating indexes of the files on its run. The regular expression matcher of it allowed the users to access its database. If Archie is called the grandfather of search engines then Veronica can rightly be called the grandmother. This search engine

was developed in 1993 at the university of Nevada System Computing Services Group. It was a lot similar to Archie but worked on Gopher files. Gopher is a service akin to FTP but comprises plain text documents. Matthew Gray’s World Wide Web Wanderer, the mother of search engines, was the first to employ the “robot” concept. A robot is essentially a software program designed to access all web pages using the links found in the web pages already accessed. Though it was first designed to count the number of web servers, later it started capturing URLs as it went along creating the first web database called Wandex. Mathew Gray’s wanderer fueled the development of many more robot-based search engines, many of which power today’s search engines.

Types of search engines All the search engines prevalent today can be categorized into two types: Crawler-based search engines: A crawlerbased search engine employs software known as “spiders”. These spiders crawl INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

FEATURE

Get new URL from the crawl queue

Issue nonblocking “connect” to remote site

This is the component that relentlessly crawls through the web, accessing and downloading pages. Spiders work on the principle that all pages are linked through hyperlinks. They usually start off with a list of URLs (Universal Resource Locators, commonly known as web addresses) and then proliferate by accessing hyperlinks found within the progressive web pages. Since it is not feasible to access every single web page out there, spiders are programmed to be capable of filtering and deciding where to stop and what routes to take while traversing the web. This speeds up the search. The frequency with which a spider visits a web page also depends on how often that page is updated. This behavior is decided by a set of policies programmed into the spider called crawling policies. This includes 1) A selection policy (i.e. which pages to download) 2) A re-visit policy (i.e. when to check for changes to the

Ready for

Yes

writing?

Issue the http GET request No Not Ready Poll the socket Ready for

Have we waited too long?

reading?

Read available data

No

Spider

Have we waited too long?

Poll the socket

Directory-based search engines: Unlike crawler-based search engines, directory-based ones are completely human driven. Here, a directory containing the links of the pages is maintained by the creator of a web site, where links to web pages can either be provided by the webmasters or by the people reviewing that particular site. Owing to their speed and autonomous nature, crawler-based search engines are the more popular of the two. So let us take a closer look at what makes them tick. A crawler based search engine is essentially composed of three components—a) The Spider or Crawler, b) Indexer, and c) Ranking Software.

No

Done? Yes Process and store the object

pages) 3) A politeness policy (i.e. how to avoid overloading the web sites) and 4) A parallelization policy (i.e. how to coordinate distributed web crawlers). Selection policy: The mercurial growth of the web has necessitated the need to identify a good selection policy for the URLs to be navigated. A study done by Lawrence and Giles found that of all the pages available on the web, only 16 percent are actually downloaded and indexed. With such a meager percentage of the coverage by search engines, it becomes necessary to display only the most relevant pages to users by prioritizing them. The significance of a page can be determined by its intrinsic quality, number of inbound links, number of visits to a particular page and most importantly, the ones with the most relevant information. Re-visit policy: Given the depth and expanse of the web, the time required to navigate even a scant number of web pages could run into months. The web is dynamic with lots of additions, deletions

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and modifications happening frequently. This throws additional pressure on the search engines from the freshness and relevance standpoint. If freshness is an indication of accuracy, age indicates the superannuation of the local page downloaded from the site. A good search engine always strives to achieve high freshness and low age in its search results. There are two re-visiting policies used: a Uniform Policy, which requires all pages to be visited uniformly irrespective of the rate of change of a page and a Proportional Policy, where the frequency of the updates to the page determines the rate at which the pages need to be visited. Politeness policy: When spiders rove the web, they do affect the overall performance of the web albeit imperceptibly. For example, network resources come under pressure as spiders hog a considerable amount of bandwidth due to the very nature of their functioning. Also, they often work in parallel, further increasing the load on a server. They could even load servers if they access them too frequently. Finally, botched spiders that cannot process a web page correctly could even crash a servers or a router. A partial solution to overcome this problem is the Robots Exclusion Protocol, allowing web site administrators to specify which pages need to be visited and what information is to be accessed. On the top Yes

| Functioning of a Crawler

Error?

through the web collecting links found in web pages as the source for continuing further searches. All the pages referenced by the links are stored in a database of indices that relate to the textual contents of the pages. This index is then used for displaying the pages that match the queries entered by a user.

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MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

SMS us!

Story code: AFS (See Readers’ Letters for details)

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of a URL, a file called robots.txt is specified which invokes this Robots Exclusion Protocol. Another method is by incorporating this authorization information in the META tags of a web page. This tag informs the spider that the current page should neither be indexed nor be followed. Currently, very few spiders/robots support this and it is completely up to the spiders to decide whether or not to obey them. Parallelization policy: A parallel crawler is one that spawns multiple processes, so as to cover more ground while searching the web. Though the goal is to increase the download rate, it has to take care of minimizing the overhead caused by this parallelization and also to prevent multiple processes from downloading the same page. To contain this redundant downloading, there are policies for assigning new URLs during the crawling process as discovered by multiple methods. Dynamic assignment: Here, a central server takes the responsibility of assigning the URLs to each crawling process dynamically. This allows for the load to be balanced uniformly on the available crawlers. Static assignment: In this policy, there is a fixed rule stated from the beginning of the crawl, which defines how to assign new URLs to the crawlers. For the assignment function to be effective, it has to satisfy three properties: i) Each crawling process should receive approximately the same number of hosts ii) if the number of crawling processes increases, the load per process should reduce iii) the assignment must be able to add or remove crawling processes dynamically with minimal impact on the overall functioning of the system.

Indexer This component is responsible for the indexing function of the search process. Every page that has been encountered and thought by the spider to be worthy of downloading has to be indexed in a manner where the user receives relevant results quickly. The indexer performs a number of functions: it reads the repository containing the web pages downloaded by the spider, decompresses the documents and parses them. Each document is converted into a set of word

occurrences called “hits”. The hits record the word, position in document, an approximation of font size, capitalization, etc. It also parses out all the links in every web page and stores important information about them in an anchor file. This file contains enough information to determine where each link points from and to, and the text referred to by the link.

Page ranking The success of a search engine is measured by the relevance of its search results. This final job of displaying the search results in your web browser is handled by the page-ranking component of a search engine. People who dabble in search engine optimization make it their task to figure out ways to program web pages so as to enable them to show up within the first 10 results of a search query. Hence, unraveling the secrets of the algorithms employed by the search engines can help enthusiasts create pages with the high rankings. Although the inner details of the algorithms employed by the search engines are not publicly available, the manner in which the results are displayed gives some insight into the criteria used for ranking pages. These tell-tale signs could be the title of the web page, headings, links of titles within a page, frequency and prominence of a word on a page, popularity of a link, freshness of information on that page, etc. Some users employ devious means to wrongfully create pages to appear at the higher ranks in a search query even though the page might not contain relevant information. This is known as “spamdexing”. People who practise spamdexing are called search engine spammers. There is a subtle difference between search engine optimization and spamdexing. Spamdexing is more of a crooked art aimed at misleading search engines while SEO is the art of adding quality-rich results to a search query, in such a way that the page gets listed by way of its own merit. There is a downside though to spamdexing which makes the spammers wary—if the search engine concludes that a particular page has resorted to deceitful means to enhance

its ranking, the particular site can be blacklisted and not considered in the future. The golden rule is that a page gets listed only if it has original quality content.

Future of search engines Though the current breed of search engines are adequately efficient at retrieving results, they are still incompetent at interpreting the actual intent of the user. For example, if the user has typed “windows” and is hoping to get a listing of prices and styles for windows to be fitted at his house, the results would probably be a listing of results related to “Microsoft Windows” while the actual information on home window styles would be buried somewhere within. This means the user would have to painfully sieve through a plethora of results to find the relevant answer to their query. Life would be much easier if the search engines could decipher the actual intent of the query rather than taking everything at its face value. This is exactly the area where all the search engine powerhouses are directing their efforts—personalization. To have the ability to interpret what the query means, search engines need to track the surfing habits of the user. This culminates in the user parting with some of his privacy to obtain the correct results. Therefore, as stated in our previous example, if a search engine were smart enough to notice that the user sieved through the many incorrect search results and select the one on architectural windows—which is what the user was looking for—it would save this information linked to that particular user. Therefore, the next time the user types a similar query, it could throw up more relevant results compared to what it did before. On a deeper level, a search engine could “profile” a user with questions relating to preferred living habits, etc and use this to add further relevance and accuracy to its search results. The possibilities of enhancement of search engines are limitless and over a period of time, future search engines could make today’s generation of web search systems look archaic and clunky. ■ | Rajesh Kokkonda Software Engineer, CA INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

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Gaming Legalities A look at the common legal issues in the gaming industry The gaming industry has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years and so have legal concerns. Some of them, rather mundane, constitute the usual suspects as listed below:

Choosing a legal entity The “developers” or “owners” should know what legal entities they need to take into account. Should it be a partnership firm or a private limited company? Private limited companies have many advantages but they need to comply with the regulations in the Indian Companies Act, 1956. Stakes and shares: There’s the question of allocation of stakes and shares to each of the group members if the team as a whole succeeds on a venture. In any partnership, one has to be clearly in agreement on one’s “share”. Intellectual property: Developers should know who is responsible for ownership of the assets in the game. Intellectual property considerations form the core element in a legal proceeding. First, it is essential to ensure that the team or a young company has an intellectual property policy in place. One must ensure appropriate standards regarding the use of proprietary software. While using third party software, one needs to ensure that it is licensed. Let us here look at a case study that illustrates an important point. The case involved a dispute between Team Play Inc et al and Boyer [2005 US Dist. LEXIS 21753]. The Plaintiffs comprised the publishers and distributors while the defendant was the developer of a video game. The defendant claimed that in 1995, one of the plaintiffs engaged him to develop a game called Sharpshooter. The plaintiffs later created another shooting game called the Police Trainer 2. The defendant argued that the new game infringed on his copyright in Sharpshooter. The Plaintiffs sued in order to obtain a declaratory judgment that MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

| Rodney D Ryder [email protected] they were not violating the defendant’s copyright. The plaintiff argued that there was no infringement because there were no similarities in source code between the games, no substantial graphical similarities existed and the games were even dissimilar in their feel and content. Therefore, any similarity is the result of the application of non-copyrightable ideas. The judge agreed to the reasons substantiated. The defendant had argued that the judge should not compare Police Trainer 2 to Sharpshooter alone. Rather, the judge should compare Police Trainer 2 to what the defendant called a series of games represented by Police Trainer and Sharpshooter together. The judge rejected this argument on finding that two games alone did not compose a long enough running series. Upon review of the allegedly similar portions of the game consisting of a “Balloon’s Challenge”, a “Memory Challenge”, a “Whack the Criminal” segment and a “Select Rank Exam”, the judge found that there was no evidence of copying.

Intellectual property and consultants A formal consultancy agreement is essential to the smooth running of the relationship between the game owner and the consultant. The agreement should be tailormade to the particular consultant—recycling an agreement prepared earlier for someone else is not to be recommended. There are several aspects to be

considered, some of which have been mentioned below. Not all will be relevant to every situation but they may serve as a useful guide. Is this genuinely going to be a consultancy or an employment relationship? Have the work-specifications been defined? How much time must the consultant devote to the services offered? Should there be a specified amount of minimal work level to be provided by the consultant? How must the consultant render his services? Should he do it personally or through sub-contracting/providing of a substitute or should he do it with the help of a nominated subscriber/ substitute?

Mechanism for performance review Some questions need to be answered such as: Should there be an indemnity from the consultant in relation to tax and national insurance? Will the expenses be reimbursed? What level of control is to be exercised over the consultant’s work? What sort of protection measures are required for safeguarding of confidential information? Will restrictive covenants be necessary? Which law should govern the contract?

Steer clear of controversial subjects In the United States, for example, the debate rages on censorship issues. Although there is no formal agency to regulate computer or video game content, in India, it would be advisable to steer clear of material or content that could be classified as obscene or promoting communal tension. ■ Rodney D Ryder heads Technology Law Practice at full service law firm, Khaitan & Co [email protected]

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Media Identification Almost everyone has a music collection of his or her own. They might be stored on hard disks as MP3, WMA, WAV files or they could be shelves filled with audio CDs of all your favorite albums. If you store your music in one or both formats it must be quite a pain cataloging each one. Software is available that allows you to neatly categorize all your songs according to genre, album, artist and title. Typing out each title in an album

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can get really painful unless you love your keyboard to bits. If you do not like the idea of sweating over a piece of software that requires you to type out each album and title then try using “CD Trustee” instead. In addition to the software, you need to have an Internet connection. Pop an audio CD in—CD Trustee will recognize it and categorize it for you. You can then save this “catalog” as a database file with the “.mdb” extension.

send their audio CD information. The same goes for Gracenote too but their database is larger. Gracenote also uses a new version of CDDB—version 2. This is where the similarity ends between freedb and Gracenote. The new version adds to the older feature set in terms of intelligent management as well as increased number of fields of description. MusicID is what CDDB initially started out as in the late Nineties. Now it has evolved to do much more than just recognize your audio CD. With over a million users knowing and unknowingly using this service, MusicID can also assess current audio file tags and offer to edit them if needed.

1. Smart Identifier Freedb and Gracenote use more or less the same technique to recognize audio CDs. Both use the CDDB-based protocol to query servers that hold data on audio CDs. Each audio CD has a unique identification code, which is read by the software that offers CDDB support. Winamp (uses Gracenote services) and dBpowerAMP (uses freedb services) are two such examples. The code is read and sent to Gracenote or freedb servers and tallied with existing records. If the CD’s identification code is found then its information is pulled from the database and displayed in the media player. Details like artist, album, title, track length, etc are displayed. The freedb database is made entirely with the help of registered users who

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2. Smart Playlists Gracenote’s Playlist and Gracenote Playlist Plus, as the ir names suggest, provide users with a smarter way of listening to digital music. Playlists are generated on the fly as you listen to music on your computer or portable player. On the computer the service might be integrated into your media player while the on the portable player it is embedded (part of the firmware). It can create playlists depending on the sort of music you are currently listening to. Playlist templates based on genres are also created by the people who provide the software or portable player. Playlist Plus also pays attention to your listening habits and file ratings to generate playlists accordingly. The playlist updates its database as and when more audio is added to your collection. Playlist

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A media player today is more than just hardware or software. They are smart apps or devices that use special techniques to identify, organize or manage your music files—online or offline This means you can even open it with Microsoft Access. One audio CD has been cataloged without a single key stroke. This automation is the courtesy of the existence of a music recognition technology called CDDB owned by Gracenote. As of now Gracenote owns this technique of recognizing an audio CD and listing information related to that particular album. Freedb is another outfit—one that runs on the GPL license that caters

and Playlist Plus are usually used in conjunction with MusicID.

to online music recognition. Gracenote has more clout and also developed its media cataloging technology to a great extent to add to the user’s convenience. For example, Winamp and iTunes uses Gracenote’s CDDB service to recognize audio CDs played on your computer. Understanding how this service works is very simple but knowing about what more it can do for us as consumers is extremely interesting.

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file tags or “ID”. Mobile MusicID is offered on mobile phones by mobile application developers to certain service providers. If you like the song being played in a restaurant all you need to do is start the application and record the tune. A portion of the clip is matched with over 8 million records stored on Gracenote’s media servers in a matter of seconds!

3. Smart Seller This service is called Gracenote Link and it goes about displaying content generated by the guys who provide the software you use on the desktop. Link piggy backs on MusicID to know what you are currently listening to and provides information on content that might be of interest to you – say for example, information on where you can download the ringtone for the song you are listening to. It can be intrusive at times but who isn’t trying to make a buck out of everything?

4. Smart Recommendations I am not someone who watches MTV all of the time to know when my favorite artist releases a track from their new album. But if I use applications that

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6. Smart Voice Control make use of Gracenote’s Discover then it will inform me of the release. It can even suggest new artists based on the genre you usually listen to. This technique involves a complex procedure of categorizing music across over a thousand genres, analyzing digital music on the basis of waveforms as well as community sales. This almost sounds like the smart seller above. That is because it also makes use of Link to do some its dirty work. This service is offered in computer software, streaming music services as well as mobile phones.

Gracenote’s award winning innovation, MediaVOCS takes things a little further by allowing users to literally command their systems to play the music they want to hear. Just say, “Soft Rock” or “The King” and a playlist will be generated to play soft rock or Elvis Presley tunes. ■ | Ashutosh Desai

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5. Smart Matcher Gracenote uses Philips audio recognition technology to analyze a song’s wave form if their identification cannot be done with the help of

Dinesh Desai

Pramod Jadhav

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Story code: AIM (See Readers’ Letters for details)

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Dr. CHIP You might have unknowingly accepted the installation of software (search bars, smiley bars, etc.) on your computer. These toolbars add themselves to the web browser (especially Internet Explorer) and Outlook Express. Right click on the toolbar, in the ‘New Message’ window and uncheck the additional toolbars that are cluttering the interface. Regarding the additional space that appears near the buttons in the ‘New Message’ window, select ‘Customize’

Remove additional lines from the toolbar in OE by selecting each ‘Separator’ one at a time Dinesh Desai

Hands on

Remove Toolbars In OE Q> I am experiencing a strange problem in Outlook Express. Every time I open a ‘New Message’ window, I see extra toolbars that have smileys. They are also separated by too much space also. I do not need these additional toolbars. How do I get the ‘New Message’ window to look normal again? -Gauri

| How to Read the Code All code lines and commands are written in the following manner: netsh•int•ip•reset•tcpreset.txt where the • symbol denotes a space. Hence, the above code line should be typed as netsh<space>int<space>ip<space >reset<space>tcpreset<dot>txt

after right clicking on the toolbar. In the list of the buttons under “Current toolbar buttons”, select “Separator” (one at a time) and click on ‘Remove’. This will remove all those additional lines that appear near or between the buttons. Rearrange the buttons according to your preferences with the “Move Up”/“Move Down” buttons. Click on Close and check your new interface now. Uninstall the toolbar/search bar software from Add/ Remove programs in Control Panel so they never appear again in the ‘New Message’ window.

Remove PowerPoint Templates Q> My brother recently downloaded some PowerPoint design templates from the Microsoft website. The problem is I do not know the name of the file that was downloaded. How do I know if they have INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

DR. CHIP

been installed? I would like to know if they can be removed. How do I go about doing this? -Jeev Usually, PowerPoint templates are stored in, “C:\Documents and Settings\ <username>\Application Data\Microsoft\ Templates” or “c:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\Presentation Designs”. If the “Application Data” folder is not visible, then click on Tools | Folder Options (in Windows Explorer). Click on the ‘View’ tab and select “Show hidden files and folders”. Then click on Apply and Ok. Try arranging the files in the templates folder according to the date modified to identify the new ones. If you have the link from where the templates were downloaded then you can find out the file name from there and run a search for the same on your hard drive. PowerPoint template files use the “.POT” extension. If the template has been installed on your system, then you should also find it in Add/ Remove Programs in the Control Panel. It should show up in the list as “Microsoft Office PowerPoint Template Pack”.

“Print Spooler” from the list of services and double click on it. If it has already stopped, then click on ‘Start’. If it is already running, then stop and start it once again. Also, make sure the service is configured to startup “Automatically”. Click on Apply and Ok. If your firewall is active, it might alert you of the spooler service trying to gain access to the network (it uses “svchost. exe”). Allow it to access the network since it is required to send a print to the network printer. Now if you try to send a print, it will definitely work.

Unable to Register Photoshop CS2 Q> I just bought a copy of Adobe’s Photoshop CS2. I tried activating the product but there is no text in the registration window – nothing in the menus or buttons! How do I register this product? I have spent money on this! -Keshav

Unable to print over network Q> In my office, I work on a Windows XP Professional machine. Software like Office 2000 and McAfee’s anti-virus solution are installed on it. Drivers for the network printer (an HP laser printer) are also installed. I have been able to print to the HP laser printer but for the past few days, I’m receiving an error stating that the, “Printer properties cannot be displayed.” What do I do? Will I have to reinstall the printer drivers? - Jacob You did not mention if you have a firewall also working along with the antivirus. It could be the print spool service that needs to be running might be off or the firewall might have blocked it from accessing the network. This could have occurred accidentally or unknowingly – if the firewall has been configured to display alerts when any file or service attempts network access. You should try starting the print spooler service manually first. Click on Start | Settings | Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services. Locate

Add Photoshop CS2 specifically to make the system allow the registration process

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exe” and click Open. Now click on Apply and then Ok. Restart the computer and try the registration process again.

Address Book Error Q> I use Outlook Express as my default e-mail client on my Windows 98 computer. I have started experiencing some trouble sending e-mails. Every time I try accessing my Address Book from Outlook Express, I get an error message that says, “The Address Book failed to load. Outlook Express is incorrectly configured, please re-install.” I have tons of addresses in my Address Book. It has taken me a year to build my contacts. Is there any way I can salvage them? -Niravi This error might be due to a damaged “Wab32.dll” file. You will need to extract the file and replace it with its damaged counterpart. You will need the Windows 98 CD for the file extraction. To begin the process, click on Start | Run, type “sfc” and then click OK. Click on “Extract one file from installation disk”. Type the file name you want to restore. Here it is, “wab32.dll”. This will go in the “Specify the system file you would like to restore box” field. In the “Restore from” box, type “X:\win98”. Replace “X” with your optical drive’s letter. In the “Save file in box”, make sure the destination is “C:\ program files\common files\system”. Insert the Windows 98 CD-ROM and begin the file extraction. Restart the computer after this is completed.

Check to see if your anti-virus is active during the registration. If it is McAfee’s VirusScan 8.0i, then you will need to disable the “Buffer Overflow” function in the application. In addition to this, right click on My Computer and select Properties. Then click on the ‘Advanced’ tab and under ‘Performance’ click on the ‘Settings’ button. Click on the ‘Data Execution Prevention’ tab. Select the ‘Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select.’ radio button and click on ‘Add’. Navigate to “C:\Program Files\ Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Photoshop.

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| DR. CHIP CHIP-INDIA KNOW HOW | (www.chip-india.com/knowhow) Game Resolution Problem

Use the System Configuration Utility in Windows XP to replace damaged or missing files

I am facing a problem with my computer. When I double click any game the screen becomes blank for one or two seconds and it again returns to the Desktop. Please help me out as I am unable to play games on my computer. - chinna90 I had the same problem with Red Alert 2. This was what I did to rectify it and it should work for you too. First, reinstall the game and then go to the Display Options (of the

game). Change the resolution to 800x600. This should work. The problem is that you might have accidentally changed the resolution to a value that is not supported by your video card – 1280x720. It can cause the game to hang. You can change the resolution to a slightly higher value – depending on the graphics card you own. (It might not even have been you who changed the resolution. In my case, my brother had changed the resolution!) - schizophrenia3.14

No Spell Check in OE Q> The Outlook Express on my computer refuses to run a spell check on the mails I try to send to my friends. Even though the spell check option is enabled it does nothing. What can I do to make this e-mail client of mine to work properly again? -Ravish This might be happening because of the corruption of certain files related to the spell check feature in Outlook Express. This could also occur if you do not have Microsoft Word installed on your computer. You can get your spell check option back by carrying out the following steps. Open the Registry Editor – click on Start | Run, type “regedit” and click on Ok. Navigate to the following key in the Registry Editor, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ Microsoft\Shared Tools After selecting “Shared Tools”, double click on “SharedFilesDir” in the right hand side panel of the Registry Editor. Enter the

following path as “Value Data”, C:\Program Files\Common Files\ Microsoft Shared\ Click on Ok and close the Registry Editor. Restart the computer and check to see if this solves the problem. If the problem persists, try copying the file “csapi3t1.dll” from the Windows XP CD or replace it from another PC. To replace the file from the Windows CD, use the System Configuration Utility. Click on Start | Run, type “msconfig” and click on Ok. In the General tab, click on the ‘Expand File’ and enter the file name you want to restore. Select the “i386” folder in your XP CD and enter the path where you want the file to saved. This file resides in the following folder by default, C:\Program Files\Common Files\ Microsoft Shared\Proof

MDM Service Error Q> I just got a new office suite for my Windows XP Professional machine. While installing Office 2003 I got an error informing me that an “MDM service could not be stopped”. It also mentioned a number – 1921. I restarted and tried it again but it did not work. What can I do to get this installation to work? -Vikram MDM stands for Machine Debug Manager. You can set the service to start or stop from the Windows Services window. Click on Start | Run, type “services.msc” and click on Ok. Alternatively, click on Start | Settings | Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services.

Locate the “Machine Debug Manager” service from the list and double click on it. Under the ‘General’ tab, make sure the “Startup type” is set to “Automatic”. Click on the ‘Apply’ button and then click on ‘Start’ to begin the MDM service. Click on Ok to close the MDM service dialog box. Close the Services window and restart the Office installation.

IE Problem Q> Whenever I open a web page in the Internet Explorer, the pictures do not load. Instead, I get a script error. I do not understand what it means. Why is this happening? -Gopal You will need to edit the Registry Error to workaround this problem. Click on Start | Run, type “regedit” and click on Ok. When the Registry Editor window opens, navigate to the following key, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_ LOCALMACHINE_LOCKDOWN

Change the default security settings in the Internet Explorer from the Registry Editor

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Select the subkey “FEATURE_ LOCALMACHINE_LOCKDOWN” and on the right hand side panel locate “iexplore. exe” and double click it. Change the default value of “1” to “0”. Close the Registry Editor and restart the computer. Your web pages should load without any problem within the Internet Explorer.

system memory as video memory). Also, check to see if the ‘DirectDraw Acceleration’ is enabled in Windows’ DirectX settings. Click on Start | Run, type “dxdiag” and click on Ok. Click on the ‘Display’ tab in the DirectX Diagnostics dialog box and enable “DirectDraw Acceleration”. Click on “Save All Information” and then on Exit. Restart the computer and try playing the movie now.

Screen Resolution Error Q> I got a new computer loaded with Windows XP Home Edition. It also has WinDVD installed, which I use to watch movies on my computer. But the problem is that I keep getting an error saying, “Please lower your screen resolution or color depth and try again.” What do I do? -Karan If there are no other applications running at the same time either in the form of open windows or in the system tray (bottom right of the screen) that might be eating into the system resources then you will need to hike up the ‘hardware acceleration’. Right click on the Desktop and select Properties. Click on the ‘Settings’ tab and click on the ‘Advanced’ button. Click on the ‘Troubleshoot’ tab and move the slider under ‘Hardware Acceleration’ towards ‘Full’. Restart your computer and try playing the movie once again. If you still get the same error, then reduce the screen resolution and also set the ‘Color Quality’ (in Settings tab of the Graphics Properties dialog box) to “Medium (16-bit)” and click on Ok. This should reduce the strain on the video card (especially if it’s integrated – it will use

Increase system or DirectX acceleration in Windows if you experience problems playing DVDs on your PC MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

Unable to Login Q> I am a Windows 2000 Professional user. I am unable to login to my system ever since I installed a security update for my operating system. The security update was related to some buffer overrun vulnerability. When Windows tries to bring up the login screen I get an error saying it unable to load the logon user interface. It mentions a file named Msgina.dll as the file that was unable to load. The message asks me to restore the DLL. How do I do that? -Ketan The ‘msgina.dll’ file is required during the login process because it is required for user authentication in the GUI mode. You have not mentioned the name of the security update you installed. That might have not been installed correctly. Right now you can try to restart the computer and press the [F8] key after the initial boot screen (memory test). When the Advanced Startup Options appear, choose the “Last Known Good Configuration”. You should reach the desktop since it will load a snapshot of the system when it had booted without any problem. For Windows XP users if “Last Known…” does not work then try booting into the Safe Mode. Run System Restore from Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools and select a date when the system is booted without any complication. XP will restart with the

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Need a hand with your PC travails? Log on to www.chip-india.com/ knowhow and post your query. Voila! You’re on your way to a glitch-free future.

Info | For Accurate Diagnosis… 1. Mention system specifications. 2. Mention new hardware or software installed recently. 3. Note the error message, including the action or event that triggers the error. For instance, the error message comes up only during startup or shutdown, or when starting a particular application and so on. 4. Mention any changes you’ve made just before you started getting the error. For instance, have you deleted some files recently or uninstalled some application? system snapshot created for the day you choose. Download the security update again and save it to your hard drive. It is assumed over here that you tried to install a security update named “MS_Update. exe”. Replace this name with the name of the security update. Enter the following command to install the update manually into a folder called “MyTemp” in the “C:” drive. Press [Enter] after giving the command, X:\MS_Update.exe /T:C:\MyTemp (“X” is the drive in which you save the security update prior to installing it manually.) ■

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Recreating music A detailed workshop that tells you how to convert your audio cassettes to audio CDs and MP3s

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here was a time when I had more than 200 audio cassettes gathering dust in one corner of my room. Needless to say, I was rebuked for this by my parents and anyone who visited my room. At times, I felt like getting rid of the old tapes and dumping them in my garage. But sifting through the collection made me realize I couldn’t part with the classic albums of the 60s and the 70s. After pondering for weeks, I finally arrived at a solution—converting my entire audio cassette collection to audio CDs. Now, I can enjoy the golden numbers of the yesteryears by just sliding my favorite disc into the CD player. I can even carry them on my MP3 player on my way to work. If you too are looking out for a way to convert your audio cassettes to audio CDs or MP3s, this workshop explains the entire process in detail. In addition to dumping a cassette to an audio CD, the workshop also shows you how to get rid of tape hiss and add brilliance to tapes that sound dull. We used the Magix Audio Cleaning Lab 10 in this workshop. The demo version of this software is present on the CHIP Tools CD.

Begin the workshop with your favorite audio cassette. This is what you need to do: STEP 1. To capture the playback of the audio cassette, the player needs to be connected to the PC. Depending on the type of player, you’ll require a suitable stereo cable. If you are using a portable player like a Walkman which has a 3.5 mm earphone jack for output, you’ll need a cable having 3.5 mm stereo pins at both ends. And if you plan to use your home audio system having RCA output,

you’ll need a cable having a 3.5 mm stereo pin at one end and 2 RCA connectors at the other. To connect the player to the computer, connect one end of the cable to the output of the player and the other end to the line input jack of the sound card. The line input jack is usually marked blue or labelled as “Line-in”. However, bear in mind that in case the panel of your motherboard doesn’t feature six audio jacks, remember to change the output mode to stereo if it is set to the multi-channel mode.

Stereo cable with 3.5 mm connectors at both ends

Stereo cable with a 3.5 mm pin at one end and 2 RCA connectors at the other end INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

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STEP 2. Set the recording source on your PC to “Line-in” or else, you may end up recording from the microphone or some other source. Double-click on the volume icon in the system tray to bring up the “Volume Control” dialog box. Click the options menu and select “Properties”.

STEP 3. Launch Magix Audio Cleaning Lab 10 and click on the “Record Audio” button on the main screen, which brings up the “Record” dialog box. Before you

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Check the “Recording” check box and select the option “Line-in” from the list of volume controls. On clicking the “OK” button, you will be presented with the “Recording Control” dialog box. Check the “Select” checkbox below the line in volume slider and close the dialog box. Set the recording source to line-in

proceed to recording, it’s important to set the recording level to an optimum level so that the recorded content doesn’t distort or sound too soft.

This is how the “Record” dialog box should look like after setting various parameters, before you move on to recording

STEP 4. Now get set for a marathon recording session. Completely rewind the audio cassette and push the play button. After around 10 seconds, just when the cassette is about to play, click on the “Record” button. Audio Cleaning Lab will now start recording the playback in real-time—you’ll notice the waveform being created in the background as the recording takes place. Now go out and get some fresh air! It’ll take around 30 to 45 minutes for an entire side to finish. Head back to your seat when the side is about to end. Hit the “Stop” button when

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Play the audio cassette. You’ll notice the left and right level meters respond to the playback. Click on the “Level control” button in the “Recording Control” dialog box and move the “line-in” volume slider up or down to adjust the recording level. Set it at such a position that the audio level never reaches the peak of the level meter. If set correctly, the recording level indicator will display the message “Level is optimal”. Next, move on to the “File path” in the same dialog box and specify a folder to save your work. As sound files hog drive space, make sure the destination folder is on a drive with ample free space. Finally, set the “Automatic CD Track recognition” to “Tape” from the drop down list. This feature automatically places markers wherever long pauses are encountered in a wave file in order to split tracks while saving or creating an audio CD. Hold on! Don’t close the dialog box.

After setting the recoding parameters, hit the record button to start recording the last song is over and close the dialog box. Before you proceed any further, click on the “Save” button on the toolbar to save your work.

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| WORKSHOP Now close the Denoiser window and let us move on to Mastering.

Enhancing audio quality

Use the Denoiser control panel to eliminate background noise and tape hiss STEP 5. Since audio cleaning and mastering requires very attentive hearing, it is strongly recommended to use a good headset. The purpose of cleaning and mastering is to eliminate background noise and hissing present in an audio cassette as it isn’t a digital medium. In addition to this, it even enhances the quality of sound bringing it close to CD quality.

Getting rid of background hiss Select the “Cleaning” tab from Audio Cleaning Lab’s title bar. Cleaning and mastering controls will show up below the waveform. Click on the “Edit” button corresponding to denoiser to bring up the denoiser rack. The rack looks like a complex machine, but it is very easy to use. Click and drag it a little down so that the playback controls in the main interface are visible. Power it up by clicking on the “power” button. To remove the background hiss, pick a sample of the hiss present in the recording. The best section to pick up from this sample is the silence between tracks. Drag the scroll bar below the waveform to the right until you notice a small break indicating silence. Click on the timeline so that the cursor is

positioned approximately at the centre of the gap. Click on the “Pick” button in the Denoiser window to pick the sample of the hiss. You can hear it by clicking on the “Play” button next to it. Also, set the processing quality to “High” from the drop down list. The software analyzes the recording and automatically de-hisses the entire file based on the sample of the hiss picked.

Audio cassettes, especially the very old ones sound dull due to the primitive recording technique used at that time. Sound is also affected due to the wear and tear resulting from constant use. Mastering can do wonders to sound—you can revitalize the dull audio quality just by tweaking some of the sound frequencies with the help of an equalizer. Click on the “Edit” button corresponding to “Equalizer” present in the Mastering section to bring up the FX rack. Using the equalizer, you can tweak the low, mid-range and high frequencies as per your requirement while playing the recording. The overall clarity can be tweaked using the “Brilliance Enhancer”. I suggest you don’t move the sliders of the equalizer or the brilliance enhancer to the extremes as it will lead to loss in audio quality. Acceptable results can be achieved using low to average values. After you’re done with tinkering equalizer settings, close the FX rack. The Equalizer button under Mastering will now get highlighted.

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The Denoiser and Equalizer buttons get highlighted indicating they are active

Using the Bypass FX button, you can preview the mastered recording

Incase of 60-minute tapes, you can burn the entire contents to a CD on the fly.

Preview the final outcome Remember to preview the final outcome. If you’re not satisfied, you can always go back and change the settings. Clicking on the play button will play back the recording with the settings you applied. Click on the BypassFX button to the left of the playback controls to hear how it sounded originally. The difference will be remarkable. Now, move on to splitting the track.

Burn baby burn! Ready to burn your audio cassette to an audio CD? Select the “Export” tab from Audio Cleaning Lab’s title bar and click on the “Audio CD” button at the base of the screen. MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

Click on the “Tracklist” button in the dialog box to make sure the tracks have been split. Insert a blank disc into the optical drive and click on the “Burn” CD/DVD button to burn the compilation. Alternatively, you can even convert your precious audio cassette to WAV, MP3, WMA or OGG format using the “Export Audio” feature. Note that as the capacity of a CD is limited to 80 minutes, it won’t be possible to burn a 90-minute audio cassette to a single CD. In such a case, first convert the cassette to MP3 and then compile the desired tracks into an audio CD using a CD burning application such as Nero Burning ROM.  | Anand Tuliani

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Vishwanath Vanjire

For Skin that Glows Learn how professionals use Photoshop to touch up photographs of portraits to create that million-dollar-skin look

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he possibilities offered by the digital realm are truly limitless. In the case of imaging, the advent of the digital camera has effected a sea change in the way we take, store and share our photographs. Coming from a time when we were wary of the number of film rolls being used, digital technology has proved to be a boon for trigger-happy shutterbugs everywhere. While digital photographs have certainly introduced huge amounts of convenience for the photographer, the advantage of image enhancement is often overlooked. Unlike film-based photography, images taken by a digital camera are infinitely modifiable. This singular advantage is used to the fullest extent by professional users, where they crop, enhance and edit their images to product stunning results. With a little basic knowledge of some of the features of today’s image editing applications, you’ll be surprised with what you can do with your digital photos. Take portrait photography. People—family and friends— are perhaps the most popular subjects for majority of digital camera users. And it is natural for people to see a well-shot photo of themselves. Alas, we’re not all Ashok Salians and don’t have the propensity or patience to invest in expensive equipment to consistently take that ideal portrait photograph. Look closely and you’re bound to uncover flaws in your subject

such as skin blemishes, dark circles or scars—obviously, most of these flaws are beyond your control. But take heart—we’re in the digital realm, remember? Join us as we show you how to use technology to wipe away those flaws and bring out a glow in your subjects that even the best of skin creams cannot!

The makeover Since our photos of people are typically shot in places where the lighting or background is not conducive to obtaining studioquality results, we often obtain results that expose flaws in our subjects—skin might appear darker or duller, blemishes may show up, teeth might be stained… the list goes on. What follows are tips on how to touch up these various areas of your portraits to unveil hidden beauty and obliterate minor flaws. First, we need to whiten our subject’s teeth. However, it shouldn’t be so white as to appear unnatural in the final result! The same can be done for the eyes—whitening them can erase traces of weariness. Next, blemishes on the skin need to be removed so impart a smooth texture in your subject’s complexion. Finally, using special tools, you can impart an ethereal “glow” to your subject’s skin—something you only find in advertisements! Sounds good? Then let the makeover begin.

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Waving the wand

is as high01 | Selec t a portrait that . Closely- cropped ble ssi po as n resolutio al ide facial shots are

STEP 2. Begin with whitening the subject’s teeth. To do this, you can use a tool called the Dodge tool in Photoshop. This tool enables you to gently brighten precise areas of your image by “painting” over them. From the Tool palette on the left of the Photoshop interface, click on the Dodge tool (or hit the “O” key to invoke it). Change the Range to “Midtones” and the Exposure to “30%” from the status bar (located beneath the Menu). Now use the box bracket (‘[‘ and ‘]’) keys to change the size of the brush (the circular screen cursor). Zoom into your subject’s teeth for more accurate control. With a comfortable brush size, left-click your mouse on the stained areas of the teeth—you’ll gradually see the effects as you do so. For best results, use even strokes moving vertically from the top of each tooth to the bottom. Stop when you are satisfied with your teeth whitening job. Take care not to whiten too much or they will appear to glow unnaturally! Repeat the same procedure if you need to whiten the whites of your subject’s eyes, in case they are reddish. You might need to zoom into the subject to focus on the white areas. Here too, exercise caution against whitening them too much.

STEP 1. Start with a high-resolution portrait that has enough of detail in it—preferably one of a full facial composition as shown in the image. The higher the size of the image, the evident will be the effects of your touchup. Open this image in Photoshop. Before we begin with the editing, we need to normalize the image for color and brightness to get rid of any cloudiness and low contrast. This is done by using the Auto Color function in Photoshop. Hit Ctrl+Shift+B to do this. You will immediately notice the difference. With your image balanced for color and contrast, you’re now ready to get into the core of the workshop.

b

a

d

c

a. Use the Dodge tool to selectively brighten sections of your image. With the ability to target the shadows, midtones or highlights, you can accurately focus on the teeth b. Modify the parameters of the Dodge tool as shown in the screenshot. Your values might change, depending on the effect you need c& d. The power of the Dodge tool lies in its ability to naturally brighten. The difference is clear!

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rtait and into your po Before: Zoom find skin blemishes d to you’re boun

STEP 3. Next up, we remove skin blemishes. Be it pimples, scars or random marks on your subject’s skin, we use an ingenious tool in Photoshop 7.0 called the “Healing brush”. As its name implies, it enables you to “heal” selective portions of your image and it does so by using the color and texture of surrounding areas as a reference. To use this tool, first select a comfortable brush size as described earlier. Then press Alt and left-click on a nearby area around the blemish. This defines the area that will be used as a starting point for the Healing tool. Now release the “Alt” key and click on the blemish and voilá—it’s gone! Repeat this procedure until your subject is free from blemishes! Practise using this tool until you get the hang of it. For best results, it is recommended to use small even brush strokes.

03 | Af ter: Using the Healing Brush tool, you can be a digital co smetic surgeon!

TIP: Automating with Action scr ipts

Once you get acquainted wit

h these tools and their set tings, you could exp eriment with creating an Action Script that runs all of these functions wit ha single click! Here’s how you do it: Firs t load an ima ge. Access the Actions toolbar (W indow | Actions) and click on the “Create new action” but ton. Now exe cute steps 4 and 5. Click on the “Stop” but ton when you ’re through. That’s it— you will have created an Act ion script that automatically runs through these steps. Henceforth, all you need to do is load a new por trai t, manually whiten teeth and remove blemishes, then run this action script— you ’ll save time in generating your mas terpieces of mak eovers!

STEP 4. Now comes the magic—it’s time to impart an ethereal smoothness and glow to your subject’s skin. We will be using two Photoshop filters for this—the Gaussian Blur and the Unsharp mask filters. Let’s see how they work. The Gaussian Blur imparts a controlled hazy effect to your image. This will form the basis of the glow effect. Access this tool by clicking on Filter | Blur | Gaussian Blur. Enter a value of 10 and click on “OK”. You’ll immediately see the effect on your photo. Next, we need to reduce this effect to prevent the subject’s details from dissolving away. Do this by clicking 04 | Use the Gaussian Blur function to image evenly blur your target INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

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on Edit | Fade Gaussian Blur. In the box that appears, move the opacity slider to a value of 50 percent and keep the mode as “Normal”. By now, you should already see the glow effect in your image. However, you’ll find that these steps have removed some of the image details. To restore these, we use the Unsharp Mask Filter. Click on Filter | Sharpen | Unsharp Mask. In the box, you’ll find three parameters—Amount, Radius and Threshold. Depending upon your particular image, these vales would vary. Experiment with the following values: set Amount between 80 and 120, Radius between 2 and 5, Threshold between 2 and 10. For this particular image, I used values of 95, 5.0 and 8 respectively.

04 | To counte r the blur effect, use the Unsharp Mask to sharpe n your image

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Before: Notice the girl’s skin and teeth

STEP 5. Now all that’s left is to restore the contrast in the image and enrich the colors a tad bit. To counter the blur effects, you’ll need to slightly increase the brightness and contrast in your photo. Do this by selecting Image | Adjustments | Brightness/Contrast. Here, slide the Brightness and Contrast values to not more than 10 each. Experiment with this value until you see a natural balance in your particular image. Finally, you might want to increase the saturation in your image to enrich its colors. Do this by clicking on

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After: Is the difference obvious?

Image | Adjustments | Hue/Saturation. You should see noticeably better results by increasing the “Saturation” slider to about 10. You’re done—you can now save your work. Using these methods, we have touched up our image in much the same way as most professional photographers do for their pictures. In each of these steps, experiment with different values and settings until you find the ones that work best. ■ | Marco D’Souza

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XP in your pocket Booting Windows XP from a USB flash drive is simple. We tell you how...

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indows XP cannot be booted from a USB flash drive—at least that’s what Microsoft says. We at CHIP beg to differ; here we generously share a few tips and tricks to establish that it can be done. The only condition is that motherboard and BIOS must allow booting by a USB flash drive. This feature is usually found in newer motherboards but for older models, a BIOS update should solve the problem. With these tips and tricks, you will be able to come up with a standard bootable version of Windows that includes hotfixes, service packs and important utilities such as recovery tools all loaded into your USB flash drive (aka USB pen drive, USB thumb drive and USB stick). According to Microsoft’s EULA (End User License Agreement), you are allowed to copy Windows XP to external media such as USB flash drive as long as it is used for your own PC.

Getting started For a “portable XP”, you can do with a USB flash drive with a minimum capacity of 256 MB. However, with the need to include extra utilities, hotfixes and service packs, we would recommend using at least a 512 MB flash drive.

For our test environment, we used the Memorex 1 GB Traveldrive. Booting XP on an Athlon 1.4 GHz machine via 1.1 USB port took no more then 1 minute and we assume booting from a 2.0 USB port should be even quicker.

“Tools| Folder Options| View” of Windows Explorer. Next, select “Show hidden files and folders” option as well. You should be able to see the files now. Copy them to the formatted USB flash drive.

STEP 1. Formatting the USB flash drive Firstly, try to format the USB flash drive using the FAT 16 file system as most BIOS generally accept this particular format as a bootable medium. Surprisingly, the onboard Windows formatting tool did not work for us. So, we opted to use the “USB Disk Storage Format Tool” from HP instead. After starting up the program, choose the USB flash drive to be formatted and select “FAT” located under “File System”. Enter a name of less than 11 characters for “Volume Label” and click on “Start” to begin formatting. After the process is completed, open Windows Explorer and navigate to the root directory on which Windows is located - usually, “C:\”. Copy the “boot.ini”, “ntdlr” and “NTDETECT.COM” files from the directory to the USB flash drive. If you can’t locate the above mentioned files, try deactivating the “Hide protected operating system files” option found under

Before installing Windows or any other program into the USB flash drive, you should run an initial boot-up test to verify if the flash drive works. For that, you need to restart your PC and select USB flash drive as the “First Boot Device” in the BIOS. The BIOS will either show the name of the plugged-in USB flash drive or something generic such as “USB-HDD” (AMI). For this test, deactivate “Quick Boot” and “Show Full Screen Logo” options in order to monitor any BIOS reported activities. Also, the “USB Legacy Support” and “USB 2.0 Controller” options should be activated if available. Save and exit from the BIOS to restart the PC. If the BIOS starts up without any problems, it should run till it reports a “HAL not found” error. Do not panic as this file is yet to be copied to the USB flash drive. If you encounter any problems, look for a particular option in the BIOS that extends the response time of the USB

STEP 2. Booting from the USB flash drive

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1 Formatting the flash drive: The USB Disk Storage Format Tool helps you create a bootable USB flash drive drive, for example, the “USB Mass Storage Reset Delay” option found in the AMI-BIOS. Choose the highest value and gradually decrease the value until the problem pops up again. This way, you will know the optimum time supported by your USB flash drive to respond to the BIOS boot command. If you still encounter problems, check your BIOS motherboard manual or visit the BIOS related web sites (such as www.rojakpot. com). Note that on slower USB flash drives, this latency can go up to about 30 seconds. After this, restart the PC and access Windows using normal boot-up by selecting your hard disk as “First Boot Device” from the BIOS.

Copying Windows to the USB flash drive The next process is divided into four stages. Firstly, you need to free Windows of any excess baggage. Secondly, prepare third-party utilities, then create a selfstarting copy of Windows and finaly, copy all of these to the USB flash drive. STEP 3.

Standardizing Windows

To produce an optimal copy of Windows XP complete with service packs, hotfixes and drivers, you can use a freeware called “NLite”. Note that NLite requires access to Microsoft .NET’s library, which needs to be installed on your system. This and Service Pack 2 are available on the Microsoft web site. The Service Pack and hotfixes need not be installed as NLite will only integrate the necessary setup files. Remember to install the .NET-Framework

3 Removing IE: As a safety measure, remove the browser but keep the “Internet Explorer Core” option checked before NLite. Before running NLite, create a folder named “XP” on your desktop. Insert your Windows setup CD into the DVD/CDROM drive and copy the whole CD into the new folder. Any changes made from now are done to the newly copied files in the XP folder. Do not meddle with the existing installed copy of Windows on your hard drive. Run NLite and select the “XP” folder as the root directory. Click on “Next” after the program completes reading the folder until you reach “Task Selection”. Activate options for integrating SP and hotfixes as well as “Erase components”, “Patches” and “Tweaks”. With the help of the NLite wizard, you should aim to create an optimal streamlined copy of Windows. To minimize total file size and shed excess baggage, remove any entries highlighted by NLite as safe for deletion. Visit www.msfn. org (MSFN Forums - Member Contributed Projects - nLite) to get more information on the latest configuration manuals and other useful tips on this program. Also, If you prefer to use an alternative browser such as Firefox, you may discard the Internet Explorer option but do include the “Internet Explorer Core” option so that useful features such as Windows Update can still function. STEP 4.

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4 Choices: Select plug-ins for desired recovery tools on the list by clicking on the “Enable” button customized for “Bart’s PE” (available from http://oss.netfarm.it/ winpe). Besides Firefox, you might want to include other software such as Ad-Aware, Nero Burning ROM and Avert Stinger anti-virus scanner. Any other software you deem necessary can be included but do take into account the space limitation of your flash drive. As NLite only creates a copy of Windows that contains setup files and not the installed version, we will not be able to copy the entire “XP” folder into the USB drive. To create a bootable Windows XP, we need to make use of the “Bart’s PE” tool found at www.nu2.nu. After installing “Bart’s PE”, run “PE Builder” and insert “XP” as “Source”. When referring to this article, just use the default directory name provided (C:\PEBuilder319\BartPE, depending on your version of PE Builder) located under the “Output” section for convenience. Next, click on “PlugIns”. If you follow our recommendations, choose to activate the

Preparing utility tools

The next step involves preparation of installation files for each utility tool to be included into the USB flash drive. If you want to include Firefox, do not use the full setup file from Mozilla’s web site. Instead, use the “Mozilla Firefox Plug-In”

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plug-ins for Nero, Ad-Aware and Avert Stinger. If any of your desired tools are not displayed, visit www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ #plugins to download the necessary plugins and extract the file into the plug-in folder of Bart’s PE. Every plugin contains a readme file that describes its installation. STEP 5.

Integrating safety tools

For each tool that was marked for inclusion, there would be a specific folder respectively found under Bart’s PE installation directory. All the necessary files should be copied here. This way, the selected tools will be installed with Windows. Let’s start with the Firefox browser. All we need to do is extract the downloaded plug-in into the “C:\PEBuilder319\plugin” folder. You don’t have to make any changes as the plug-in is already optimized for integration to Bart’s PE. Next, install the “Ad-Aware” freeware version included in your CHIP CD. Copy the “defs.ref” and “add-aware.exe” files from the installed Ad-aware folder into the “C:\PEBuilder319\ plugin\adawarese” folder. Next, proceed to install Nero Burning ROM. Copy all the files from the Nero directory to the “nero burning rom” plug-in folder. In that folder, you will notice a file called “penero.inf”. Open it with a Windows text editor (e.g. Notepad). For Nero Burning ROM version 6, discard the semicolon (;) in front of [Software.AddReg] and for the three lines below. Edit in your username, company name and Nero serial number before saving, and closing the file. Lastly, insert the Stinger anti-virus tool available free from http://vil.nai.com/

vil/stinger. Copy the “stinger.exe” file into its specific folder. STEP 6. Preparing Utility Tools Bart’s PE automatically configures English as the standard keyboard layout. In order for other languages to be set as the default keyboard layout, you need to edit an INF file in the “keyboard” plug-in folder. Open the “keyboard.inf” file in that folder and search (using notepad or any text editor) for the section “[Default. AddReg]”. Discard the semicolon (;) in front of your desired layout language, for example, 0x1, “Keyboard Layout\ Preload”, “1”, “00000407” for German language. To double check, see if the first line at the last section shows “German (Standard)”. If so, you have successfully changed the standard keyboard layout. Next, save the file into the original folder. STEP 7.

Making Windows bootable

Up to this point, all preparations are ready. Ensure that the USB flash drive is plugged in and delete any file copied for the first test. Next, run PE Builder and make sure that “XP” is selected as “Source”. Deactivate the “Create ISOimage” and “Burn to CD/DVD” option. Click on “Build” so that Windows is created as a self-starter. TIP: If you have not installed SP2, you might encounter an error report after clicking on “Build”. To overcome this problem, download the newest version of the “ntdll.dll” file from www.dll-files.com for free. Extract the ZIP file and install

5 Insert setup information: Open the “penero.inf” file to insert your name and NERO serial number as shown above

the dll file into the subfolder i386 located under the “XP” folder. This way, Bart’s PE would assume that you have installed SP2. STEP 8. Copying files to USB Flash Drive With the help of a batch file, you will now be able to copy Windows to a USB flash drive. Point Windows Explorer to the folder “C:\PEBuilder319\plugin\peinst” and run the file called “peinst”. In the opened DOS screen, select button [1] and change the source-path to “C:\ PEBuilder319\bartpe”. Next select button [2] and enter the letter in which the USB flash drive is located as your target path. Moving on, choose button [5] to install Bart’s PE and start through button [1]. Bart’s PE will now transfer all relevant data into your USB flash drive. When the “Installation completed” message shows, your USB version of Windows is ready for use. To test it, boot your PC with the USB flash drive. The USB version of Windows will look slightly different when compared to the standard Windows XP.

Working with USB Windows STEP 9. Getting rid of viruses with stinger Start the tool by clicking on “Go | Programs | McAfee Stinger” and click on “Scan Now” to start the cleaning process. You may choose which drive to scan and Stinger would scour each folder and file to discard high priority viruses such as bagle, Sober, and Mydoom. STEP 10.

Using hidden functions

Besides the integrated tools, USB-Windows also offers other useful features such as the favorable command line prompt. As long as you are not an adamant mouse user, you might find this a very welcome feature. If you have still not set the nonEnglish layout for your keyboard standards as explained earlier (and if you absolutely need to), you can still accomplish this by clicking on “Go | System | Keyboard-Layout” and take your pick. With Windows installed on a pocket drive, you can use it on any computer anywhere provided it supports USB booting. | Manfred Flohr INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

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Tricks Tips& MAY 2006

WINDOWS

Umesh Dahiwalkar

Tip of the month | Applications Analyze your hard disk space I have dumped lots of files in different folders and

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Windows XP

Changing drive letters

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Windows XP

Summary of a Word document

3

Windows XP

Restore the Show Desktop icon to Quick Launch bar

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Windows XP

Schedule tasks

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Windows XP

Clear the Prefetch folder

6

Windows XP

Removing old restore points

7

Windows XP

Remap keyboard keys

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Microsoft Excel

Using “Match” and “Lookup” functions

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Word

Listing shortcut keys

I am seriously short of space. Can you suggest any

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Word

Disable default setting while visiting hyperlinks

software that can help me identify the old unused

11

Word

More than default file names

files?

12

PowerPoint 2003

Getting rid of text at the end of slide shows

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PowerPoint

Embedding sound files in presentation

14

Adobe Photoshop

Opening images in a jiffy

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Adobe Photoshop CS2

Using the filter gallery

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Adobe Photoshop

Undo a series of last steps

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Illustrator 10

Creating graphs with own design

18

Illustrator 10

Creating perspective shadow

sub folders on my hard drive over a period of time. Now I don’t remember where I have stored what and

The software JdiskReport enables you to understand how much space the directories and files consume on your disk drives. It helps you find large, old and obsolete files and folders. It analyzes file trees and collects statistics that are presented as overview charts and tables. You need to have Java Run time Environment previously installed in order to install this application. Some of the features of this software are “Size Views”, which quickly show how much space the files and folders consume on your disk drives. The “Top 100 Lists” shows the list of 100 largest files, the least recently modified files and the most recently modified files. “Size Distribution Views” help you learn more about the different file sizes on your disk drives. If you are in the “Show file size” mode, you can see how much space is consumed by large, medium sized and small files.

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Internet Explorer 6.0

Force your own style

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Internet Explorer

Use Safe Search

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Outlook 2003

Blocking return receipt requests

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MP3 Player

Alternative to MP3s

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Digital Camera

Information of snaps shot by a digital camera

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Windows 1 | Windows XP Changing drive letters On adding an additional hard disk to my system, the drive letters of the new partition succeed the drive letter of the optical drive. How do I change the drive letter of the new partition so that it precedes the drive letter of the optical drive?

1a Drive letter 1: Remember to disable the optical drive

On adding a new drive to the system after Windows XP is installed, the drive letters of the new partition succeed that of the optical drive. If you’re used to having the optical drive’s letter last in the list under ‘My Computer’, you need to interchange the drive letters. Here’s how you do it: Disable the optical drive before you proceed to interchange the drive letters. If the optical drive is active, you won’t be able to interchange the drive letters of the new hard disk and the optical drive. Right click on ‘My Computer’ and select ‘Properties’. Under the ‘System properties’ dialog box, click on the ‘Hardware’ tab. Bring up the ‘Device Manager’. Expand the heading ‘DVD/CD-ROM’ drives. Right click on the listed optical drives and disable them. Exit the ‘Device manager’. Now, interchange the drive letters. Right click on “My Computer” and select “Manage” from the context menu to bring up “Computer Management”. Select “Disk management” under the heading “Storage”. All the existing partitions will get listed in the right pane.

1b Change the drive letter of the new drive

2 The summary shows complete statistics

Right click on the drive letter you wish to change and select the option “Change Drive Letter and Paths”. Click on the “Change” button in the next dialog box and choose the new drive letter from the drop down list. Since you disabled the optical drive, you will now get the option to assign the drive letter previously assigned to it. Click on “OK” and exit the “Computer Management” application. Now, enable the optical drives you had disabled. Head back to the “Device Manager” and enable optical drives. Job done! Go to “My Computer” and check the drive listing.

Just follow these steps: Right click on the Word document and select “Properties”. In the properties dialog box, select the “Summary” tab. Click on the “Advanced” button in the “Summary” tab and there you go! All the statistics are right there!

2 | Windows XP Summary of a Word document Which is a quick way to view the details of a Word document such as number of pages, word count and line count without having to open it? The most common way of viewing the details of a Word document is by opening the document and then going to “Tools | Word count”, which gives the detailed statistics like the number of pages, word count, number of paragraphs, lines and so on. But did you know that there’s a simpler way out? You can view the statistics without even opening the document and it just requires four clicks!

of the document

3 | Windows XP Restore the Show Desktop icon to Quick Launch bar Recently, I accidentally deleted the desktop icon just on the right of the “Start” button. Whenever I have many windows open, I click on the desktop icon to immediately reach the desktop instead of minimizing each and every window. Now I am no longer able to do that. How do I get back the “show desktop” icon? To get back the “show desktop” icon do the following: Make sure “Quick Launch” is enabled Right click on the taskbar and then click on “Properties”, and a box will pop up. Under the taskbar tab, check the option that says “Show Quick Launch” and then click on “Apply”. After you are done with this, click on “Start” and then click on “Run”. A small box will pop up on the right hand corner. If any text is present, delete it and type the command “regsvr32 /n /i: INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

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| TIPS & TRICKS Press “Ctrl-A” to highlight all the files. Delete them to empty the folder.

6 | Windows XP Removing old restore points How do I delete old restore points and create some free space?

3 Type this command in the run box U shell32” in the open box without the quotes. Wait for a couple of seconds and you will see a small window, which says “DllInstall in shell32 succeeded”. Now, you will be able to see the “Show desktop” icon again.

4 | Windows XP Schedule tasks How can I automate the launch of an application as and when I want? Task scheduler is a very powerful utility but it is not often used to its full potential. Many of the applications that you install make use of task scheduling to automate periodic tasks. But you can also schedule your own custom task, automating the launch of a particular application at a desired time and date! This is how you can assign custom tasks using the task scheduler. Go to “Start | Control Panel”. Open “Scheduled Tasks”. This will give you a list of tasks already scheduled. To add a new task schedule, click on “Add Scheduled Task”. After launching the “Scheduled Task Wizard”, click on “Next” to continue. The next screen will provide you with a list of all the applications that are installed

4 Simply select the task you want to schedule or use the browse option to locate a particular application on the system. You can select the application of your choice that you would like to schedule; in case the application is not listed, you can click on “Browse” and manually select the executable application that you would like to schedule. Once selected, the next step is to schedule it by instructing Windows about when exactly you want the task to be scheduled - whether daily, monthly, weekly or every time you log on. Once done, click on “Next”. The next screen asks for exact timing of the task to be executed and the exact day when you want to start with the scheduling process. Select the time and day of your choice and click on “Next”. The next step asks you to enter your name and a password as a checkpoint for the task to run. Enter the user name and password to confirm the task schedule and select “Next”. The last step will simply confirm the scheduled task, click on “Finish” to end the task scheduling procedure.

The “System Restore” feature in Windows XP works perfectly fine for most of us. But the over cautious nature of the feature does result in a lot of storage space being occupied by the system restore files. If you would only like to have the latest restore point and not all the restore points that have been created, you can delete all the previous restore points and free some space. Follow the instructions to learn how to clean up the old redundant restore points. Open “My Computer” and right click on the drive whose restore points you want to clear. Select “Properties” and under the “General” tab, click on “Disk Cleanup”. Click on “More Options” tab and select the last option “Cleanup” under the “System Restore” section. You will be asked if you want to delete all but the most recent restore points, click on “Yes” to delete all leaving the most recent of system restore points.

5 | Windows XP Clear the Prefetch folder Tell me a way to clear or clean the Prefetch folder Windows XP’s new feature called “Prefetch” keeps a shortcut to recently used programs. But it can get filled up with old and obsolete programs and in turn can actually slow down the proceedings. Here is a way in which you can clear/clean the “Prefetch” folder so that it’s updated with only the latest and most used programs. To clean the “Prefetch” folder, go to: Go to “Start | Run”. Type the word “Prefetch” in the space and click on “OK”.

6 Clean the old system restore points to free some space. Do not delete the recent ones!

7 | Windows XP Remap keyboard keys I have Track Mania Nations, a free car racing game. The game doesn’t have the option to change controls and uses the conventional up, down, left and right INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TIPS & TRICKS

arrow keys for controlling the car. I use a different set of keys for acceleration, brake, left and right. Of late, I have started playing the game on LAN with my friends. My performance is hampered since I cannot use the keys, I am normally used to when playing car-racing games. Can you suggest a way to deal with this problem? Well, since you don’t have the option of changing the controls inside the game, the only way left is to remap the keyboard. But remember it will edit your registry settings, so make sure you back up your registry before you make changes to it. Here we use a free keyboard mapping software included in the “Windows” resource kit. This software has been included in the Tools CD. First, install the application by double clicking on the set up file. After installation, go to “My Computer > C: drive (or the drive where your operating system is installed) > Program files > Windows Resource Kits> Tools. Double click on the yellow remap key icon. Once the application opens you see two sets of keys. The top is the base keyboard and the bottom is the remapped keyboard. Just drag the required keys from the base keyboard to the remapped keyboard. The changed key will reflect in red in the remapped keyboard. Then, click on the “Save and Exit” button on the top left hand corner. It will show a prompt asking you to confirm the changes. Click on “OK” and reboot the system.

APPLICATIONS 8 | Microsoft Excel Using “Match” and “Lookup” functions I own a hardware store and maintain an exhaustive inventory. The list runs into over a thousand parts in a single month itself! Microsoft’s Excel helps me to catalog the items in my store. But I need to keep referring to the file for information on batch orders. I run a search for a particular order with the help of the invoice number. I search either by scrolling or using the ‘Find’ function in the Edit menu. Is there a more ‘intelligent’ way of locating orders in my Excel file? MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

You can search by the invoice number in your inventory list. It involves the use of Excel’s “Match” and “Lookup” functions. The “Match” function is used to look for a particular value from a selected cell range. The result is the row in which this value is located. The “Lookup” function can be of two types—vector or array. The vector type of “Lookup” returns a value from a single row or column range. This is what will be used along with “Match” to give you the results you are looking for. Let’s consider a small inventory that consists of four columns—“S. No.”, “Invoice No”, “Batch Quantity” and “Send To”. The objective is to search the inventory by the invoice number to get to know, who placed the order and the quantity requested. Using the “Match” function will only point to the row in which you will find all the relevant information—here the value will correspond to the “S No” column. This column was deliberately created since it makes it easier to look for the desired information instead of counting the rows. If we are going to enter the “Match” function in cell “H13”, then the invoice number you are looking for should be entered in another cell—say, “H12”. The “Match” syntax is, =MATCH(lookup _value,lookup _ array,match_type) “Lookup_value” is the value you are trying to locate in the inventory list, which is “H12”. “Lookup_array” is the range of cells that “Match” needs to look through. Here, it is the “Invoice No” column. Only, select the column that contains the invoice numbers (in this example, it is “C24:C26”. “Match_type” can be any of three values—1, 0 or -1. Using “1” in the syntax

8a Excel’s Match functtion

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8b Excel’s Lookup function will return a result that is less or equal to the “Lookup_value”. In this case, “Lookup_array” (invoice column) must be sorted in an ascending order. It will have to be sorted out in an ascending order (select the column and click on Edit | Sort). If “0” is entered, then it looks for the exact value from the “Lookup_array”. In this instance, the “Lookup_array” can be unsorted. If “-1” is entered, then it will search for a value that is the smallest and greater than or equal to the “Lookup_value”. You will be looking for a specific invoice number, hence the “Match type” is going to be “0”. Here is what the formula will look like in cell H13, =MATCH(H12,C4:C26,0) Now, enter an invoice number in cell number “H12” and press Enter. Cell number “H13”, which is labeled “S No” will display the row that contains the invoice number. Half your worries are solved here. An incorrect value will just display “#NA”. Now that you have found out where your invoice number is, let us fetch the “Batch Quantity” and “Send To” values as well. This way you don’t need to scroll through the list. Using the “Lookup” function in this

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scenario will ease this problem too. Here is the “Lookup” vector syntax, LOOKUP(lookup _value,lookup _ vector,result_vector) The vector function is used because we need to pull values from single columns only and not from an array. “Lookup_value” is the value that the function searches for. “Lookup_vector” represents the range of cells (a single row or column) that contains the “result_vector”. It is the range of cells from where the result will be obtained. The size of this range has to be equal to the “Lookup vector”. To know who has placed the order (for the invoice number we just searched for), we will first create a “Lookup” function for the “Send To” column. The “Lookup” function will be, =LOOKUP(H13,B4:B26,E4:E26) “H13” is the cell where the result of the “Match” function resides and “B4: B26” is the “S No” column. Since we are trying to get information from the “Send To” column, the “result vector” is “E4:E26”. The formula will “lookup’ the row (the value is obtained from the result of the “Match” function) and pull information from the “Send To” column. The same function is created once again, this time to pull values from the “Batch Quantity” column in order to get the amount ordered. The “result_vector” column range will be “Batch Qtty”. Hence the formula will look like this, =LOOKUP(H13,B4:B26,D4:D26) Whenever you need to look for an order, just enter the invoice number.

The “Match” function you created will tell you where it is located (S No) while the “Lookup” functions will display the quantity ordered and to who, you need to send it to.

9 | Word Listing shortcut keys I use the shortcut keys available in Word 2003 quite often. But sometimes I forget them and as a result have to use the mouse for performing a certain task. Is there a way to make Word list these shortcut keys making it easier for me to use them, in case I forget these keys? You can have Word 2003 show you all the shortcut keys for any given toolbar button by following these simple steps: Click on “Tools” and then click on “Customize”. When the multi-tabbed window dialog appears, choose “Options”. Now, select “Show shortcut keys in Screentips”. Click on “Close”.

can remember more files names. Can this be done? Yes, this can be done. You can make Word remember a maximum of nine recently used files as supposed to the normal four files that Word remembers by default. The steps are as follows: Click on “Tools” and then “Options”. Click on the “General” tab from the multi-tabbed dialog box. Enter 9 next to “Recently used file list”. Click on “OK” to close the dialog box.

12 | PowerPoint 2003 Getting rid of text at the end of slide shows How can I prevent the“End of slide show - click to exit” text from appearing at the end of my PowerPoint slide shows? Whenever you view a slide show made in Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 by selecting “Slide Show”, “View Show” or by pressing F5, at the end of the show a black screen appears with the text, “End of slide show - click to exit”. From here, if you did

10 | Word Disable default setting while visiting hyperlinks Every time I need to visit hyperlinks present in a Word document, I cannot directly click on the link. I need to hold down the CTRL key while clicking the link. I find this process cumbersome. Is there a way to directly visit these links without holding the CTRL key? Whenever you want to visit a hyperlink in a Word document, you need to hold down CTRL key while clicking on the link. If you find this process tedious, then you can disable this setting as follows: Click on “Tools” and then on “Options”. In the multi-tabbed dialog box, click on the “Edit” tab. De-select “Use Ctrl+click to follow hyperlink”. Click on “OK” to close the dialog box.

11 | Word More than default file names By default, Word 2003 remembers the file names of the last four files used. I want to increase this list so that Word

12 Prevent the “End of slide show-click to exit” from appearing not mean to end the slide show, you can press the cursor top key to get back to the previous slide. And if you want to end the slide, just press the space bar. However, if you do not need this functionality and want this black screen to disappear at the end of slide shows, perform this tweak: Click on “Tools’ and then “Options”. Click on the “View” tab from the multitabbed dialog box. De-select the “End with black slide”. Then click on “OK” to close the dialog box.

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TIPS & TRICKS

13 | PowerPoint Embedding sound files in presentation Whenever I transfer PowerPoint presentations containing sound files from my home computer to that in my office, I find that the presentation lacks the sound effects. How can I fix this problem?

14 | Adobe Photoshop Opening images in a jiffy Give me a quick tip on how to open an image as quickly as possible! Going to “File | open” and dragging images to Photoshop’s workspace are the known methods of opening files. If you really want to save time, try this tip the next time you want to open a file. Simply double click anywhere on the workspace. Browse for the file you wish to load. It requires lesser mouse movement and hence saves quite a bit of time.

When sound files in a Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 presentation don’t get copied when you transfer the presentation from one computer to another, it is because PowerPoint normally only links large sound files to a presentation instead of embedding them. By default, if you add a sound file greater than 100 KB, PowerPoint only establishes a link between the presentation and the large sound file. If you wish to copy the presentation with sound, you must also copy the original sound files along with the PPT presentation file. However, if you find this process cumbersome, you can force Microsoft PowerPoint to embed larger sound files in your presentation. While this increases the presentation’s size and load time, it may make it easier to distribute presentations to others. The process is as follows: Click on “Tools” and then “Options”. On getting the dialog options, click on the “General” tab. Next, go to “Link sounds with file size greater than” and enter an arbitrarily high number such as 50000 KB. This way, a sound file would have to be greater than 50 MB for it not to be embedded. Click on “OK” to save your changes. Resave the presentation with now embedded sound.

If you use filters too frequently and wish to quickly preview and apply more than one filter at a time, try the “Filter Gallery”. It is magical! However, to take advantage of it, you need to upgrade to Adobe Photoshop CS2 as the previous versions don’t have this feature integrated. The “Filter Gallery” appears under the “Filter” menu. If you go to the “Filter Gallery” instead of applying filters, you will preview multiple filters before applying them. The filters are listed under various categories such as artistic, brush stroke, distort, sketch, stylize and texture as found under the “Filter” menu. To preview a filter, you just need to expand any category and click on the filter you wish to preview. The parameters of the filters can be adjusted using the sliders to the right. To preview multiple filters:

13 Embed sound files in your PowerPoint

15 Preview and apply multiple filters using

presentation MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

15 | Adobe Photoshop CS2

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First, add a new effect layer by clicking on the “New effect layer” button appearing below the list of effect layers next to the “Delete effect layer” button. Click on the effect layer added and make it visible by checking its checkbox. The icon of an eye appears when an effect layer is visible. On selecting a new filter, it will get applied over the previous filter allowing you to view the combined effect of two filters. To preview individual filters, hide all the effect layers apart from the one you wish to preview. Unchecking an effect layer will hide it. After you’re satisfied with the effects, click on the “OK” button to apply the selected filters.

Using the filter gallery Is there a tool in Photoshop through which I can quickly preview and apply more than one filter at a time?

16 | Adobe Photoshop Undo a series of last steps Using the undo feature in Photoshop, I can only undo the last step. How do I undo a series of tasks last performed? By default, you can only undo the last step in Photoshop. Pressing “ctrl+z” repeatedly won’t undo a series of tasks last performed. But pressing “ctrl+z” repeatedly with the “alt” key pressed will even undo the tasks previously performed. Just keeping a single key pressed makes quite a difference!

17 | Illustrator 10 Creating graphs with own design How can I apply design on the bars of a graph? To apply design on the bars of a graph, you need to create a design to make

filter gallery in Photoshop CS2

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17a The graph design window showing the preview of the design, ready to get applied on a graph

Click on “OK” on the “Graph Design” window. Now to apply the design on a graph, follow the steps: Create a graph with the data. Click on “Object” on the menu bar. Click on “Graph > Column”. You will be able to see all the designs that can be applied on the bars. Click on “My design”. Click on “OK”. And you’re done!

18 | Illustrator 10 Creating perspective shadow How will I create a shadow with perspective?

17b The Graph column window from where you need to select the design to apply it compatible for a graph and then apply it. It is up to you to decide what kind of design you want to apply. Once that is done, select the design and follow the steps to make it compatible for a graph. Click on “Object” on the menu bar. Click on “Graph > Design”. This will open the “Graph Design” window. Click on the “New Design” button. This will show the design in the preview space. Click on the “Rename” button. This will open the “Rename” window where you can type the name of the design, for example, My design. Click on “OK” on the “Rename” window.

Before going ahead with applying shadow, you need to create a design of an object. Once that is done, create a copy of that object and apply black color on it. After this step, select the black replica and the follow the steps to create the shadow. Click on “Free Transform Tool” or press “E”. The “Free Transform Tool” works only on control points (the six points you see on the rectangular structure when you select an object.) Press the mouse button once the cursor is on the top middle control point, press the “Ctrl” button and drag the mouse

18a The cursor changes to a black arrowhead when you drag the anchor point

to the right if you want the shadow to be on the right. This will shorten the height of the object and at the same time, distort the shape by adding a perspective to it. Press “Ctrl” + “[”. This will arrange the position of the objects. The black replica will be placed behind your object. Click on “View” and tick the option, “Snap to Point”. This will help in checking whether the anchor points (the points which help a vector graphic to take a shape) at the original and the replicated objects are converging or not. Deselect the black replica and click on the anchor point. Drag the black replica. While dragging, you will find the cursor has changed from an arrow to a black arrowhead. The moment the points converge, the black arrowhead changes to a white one.

INTERNET AND COMMUNICATION 19 | Internet Explorer 6.0 Force your own style Please tell me how I can use my own choice of styles etc on web sites Various web sites have their own styles, fonts, colors and other elements. While most of us are okay with the idea of viewing the web site as intended by the creator, some of us might not be always be happy with the fancy red and yellow fonts and jazzy colors. So here’s how you can have things your way to an extent: Go to “Tools” menu in the Internet Explorer. Click on “Internet Options” and under the “Generals” tab, click on “Accessibility” option at the bottom right corner of the window. This will give you options to override the font size, styles and colors with your own choice of colors and styles; you can also add or edit your own style sheet under the option “User Style Sheet”.

20 | Internet Explorer Use Safe Search How do I filter explicit language in Google?

18b The same black arrowhead changes to white when two points converge

While Google by default keeps the INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

TIPS & TRICKS

Click on “E-Mail Options”. When the “E-Mail Options” dialog box appears, click on the “Tracking Options” button. Click on the radio button, “Never send a response”. Click on “OK” on the three dialog boxes to close them.

19 You can view the webpages with your own choice of colors and fonts by using your own style explicit images out, the language is not filtered by default. You can set Google to filter the text for explicit language and ensure that your kids do not end up with explicit search results. Open the Google search homepage and click on the option “Preference” under the “Advanced search” option on the right side of the page. Go to the “SafeSearch Filtering” option. Change the filtering from “Moderate” to “Strict filtering” to block explicit language. In case you are looking to unlock all the filtering, select the last option “Do not filter my search results” Click on the option “Save Preferences” at the bottom right corner and your new preferences are applied.

21 | Outlook 2003 Blocking return receipt requests How can I prevent Outlook 2003 from asking me to respond to return receipt requests? Some Outlook 2003 users like to turn on Read Receipts for their e-mail. This way, any time their e-mail is read by another Outlook 2003 user on the same network, they will be notified that their e-mail reached its destination. While some find this feature useful, others may not like the idea of getting deluged with these requests. To increase privacy, you can choose to ignore these requests altogether. So people will not know at what time (or day) you read your e-mail. The procedure is as follows: Click on “Tools” and then click on “Options”. Select the “Preferences” tab from the multi-tabbed dialog box. MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

HARDWARE 22 | MP3 Player Alternative to MP3s I prefer audio CDs to MP3s because I don’t want to compromise one bit on audio quality. Every time I went out on a trip, I always carried my discman with me. Now, I am looking for a more compact solution. Are there any players and formats other than MP3 players and MP3s outputting better sound quality while being small and light as MP3 players? MP3 is an acronym for MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 audio layer 3. It is a coding scheme for the compression of an audio signal. It uses perceptual audio coding and psychoacoustic compression to remove all superfluous information, i.e. it filters out all the information from a song which can’t be discerned by the human ear. One alternative to MP3s is FLAC; it stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec. FLAC is similar to MP3 but lossless, meaning the audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in audio quality. It is supported by most of the operating systems including Windows XP. The compression software is free and available for download at http://flac. sourceforge.net/. We have also included the Windows XP version in the Tools CD of the May issue. To playback files encoded in FLAC, you need a player that is capable of doing that. Here is the list of devices capable of playing files encoded in FLAC. COWON’s iAUDIO A2, iAUDIO U3, iAUDIO M3, and iAUDIO X5. iPods via the Rockbox firmware replacement. iRiver’s iHP-120/iHP-140/H320/H340 via the Rockbox firmware replacement.

23 | Digital Camera Information of snaps shot by a digital camera

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I have recently purchased a digital camera. I have started exploring the various features of the camera using options like exposure, ISO, etc. Many a times I shoot the same object experimenting with different settings to figure out which is the best setting. The problem comes when I download the pictures on my computer. It becomes difficult to distinguish snaps with minor differences in settings. Can you suggest a convenient way by which I can identify which snaps were taken applying what settings? A digital camera records an image using the EXIF file format (Exchangeable Image File). Most digital cameras support this format. For example, if you have set the camera to record the image in the JPEG format, it actually records an EXIF file (which uses the JPEG compression to compress the photo data within the file). Image data such as ISO, shutter speed, etc is stored directly in the file. The data can be read by any application supporting “JPEG” like Windows picture and fax viewer, Irfan view, etc.

23 Information of snaps shot by a digital camera Just right click on the image file and go to “Properties”. In the new window that opens up, click on the “Summary” tab. Under that, you will find all the information and the settings pertinent to which snap was taken. ■

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PC vs Console

With the line between PC and console gaming thinning, let’s take a look at where they stand today and in the near future

F

Unwind

or a long time now, PC and console gaming have catered to a different set of audiences. Sure, there is also another category that likes playing on both the platforms. As a kid, I started off with the consoles. My first console was the Atari. Computers were very expensive then. My next console was the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), an 8-bit console that revolutionized the console gaming industry. I was hooked to Contra and still remember how I used to boast about finishing the game thrice. After that I had a computer, a P3 system, wherein I didn’t game much on and eventually bought the PS2 in 2001. Then about four years back, I entered the PC gaming world. I started off by playing Counter-Strike and Need for Speed Porche and never looked back, though I still prefer playing multiplayer sporting games like football, basketball and arcade games like Tekken and Mortal Kombat with my friends on the PS2. Till now, there was a clear distinction between gaming on the PC and on the console offering higher image quality while gaming. Fast forward to present—it’s that time of the decade when the next-generation consoles have just been launched or are about to be launched and the big players are caught in a frenzy to deliver a blockbuster hit. The highlight here is that this generation is equipped to walk the PC shoulder to shoulder. With HDTV already in use, the humble idiot box is dangerously close to providing resolutions, which were only possible on the PC monitor. With both the platforms almost merging or rather overlapping territories, it would be interesting to see where we go from here.

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Now, let’s have a one on one comparison taking various features under consideration PS2: 1

PC: 0

Hardware price

PS2 console Retail Pack: Rs 13,000 (Official Price) The package includes: 1) Console, 2) Controller Additional costs: Memory Card (8MB): Rs 550 Additional Dual Shock Controller: up to Rs 1,000 You also need a television for it . Though most of us would argue that we already have a television, we need to add the costs to make a fully functional gaming system. Total Cost: 14,550 + Rs 13,000 (21-inch CRT TV) = Rs 27,550. PS2 wins here. PS2: 0

We will build a gaming rig keeping the price as low as possible without compromising on gaming performance. It’s not for the casual gamer but more for someone with a good gaming appetite and not so heavy pockets. Mid-Level Gaming PC Configuration: AMD 3000+, Asus A8N-E, 1GB DDR 400 RAM, Big Byte 6600GTPCIex, Antec SLK 1650 with 350 watts PSU, DVD-ROM, Creative 2.1 Inspire speakers, Microsoft K/B and optical Mouse Total Cost : Rs 40,000 PC: 1

Game prices

Minimum: Rs 199, Maximum: Rs 1,499 PC is the clear winner PS2: 0

Minimum: Rs 999, Maximum: Rs 2,999 PC: 1

Eye candy

Almost 99 percent of the PS2 games are built to be displayed at a resolution of 480i, the resolution of a normal CRT TV. PS2: 1

With the above mentioned configuration, one can easily game at a resolution of 1024x768 with AA and AF turned on. The PC easily wins here. PC: 0

Reliability

The PS2 assures you a 100 percent reliable hassle free gaming experience. The moment you pop in a PS2 game in the console, it will perform flawlessly at an assured 60 fps. No lag, no system hang-ups, no nonsense! This is primarily due to the fact that a game developer for a PS2 game knows exactly, what hardware he’s designing the game for. The PS2 wins here. PS2: 1

PC game developers have to keep in mind various different computer configurations when developing games for the PC. A gaming PC needs to be well in sync to spit out smooth frames without lagging. In spite of having a good configuration, problems may creep up. Lag is the most dreaded word in computer gaming, a lower resolution is tolerable but LAG, no way! PC: 0

Shelf life

The PS2 was launched in the year 2000. The PS3 will be arriving at the end of 2006. So, the PS2 has effectively reigned for almost six years. The point here is that the PS2 has been capable of playing games hassle free over a period of six years without any further investment to the hardware.

No doubt, PCs are capable of housing rendering farms though its sheer strength to deliver has led to its downfall. New generation of graphic cards are launched every nine months and with that changes the game’s system requirements.

Ease of use

PS2: 1

Pop in the disc, turn on your television and grab that controller! It’s so simple that even a seven-year old kid can comfortably do it. The PS2 is the clear winner here. PS2: 0

PC: 0

Gaming on the PC is a little more complex. You need a little bit of expertise for tweaking the image settings, playing around with the AA and the AF to give you the best picture quality. PC: 1

Suited game genres

Both the PS2 and the PC are capable of playing games of the all the above mentioned genres. We are looking at the respective platforms more suited and preferred to each game genre. Arcade Games: It’s much more enjoyable and thrilling to play arcade type fighting games like Tekken and Mortal Kombat using the gamepad on a large screen. Sporting Games: Games like football and wrestling are much more enjoyable on a larger screen when two opponents are sharing the same screen. PS2: 0

RPG (Role playing game), FPS (First Person Shooter), RTS (Real Time Strategy): In all these games, the computer mouse is very essential for easy movement in the game. With the PS2 game pad, one has to use the combination of the analog stick and buttons to move around which can get annoying at times. It’s pretty close here but we will have to give it away to the PC since sporting and arcade games are still quite playable and enjoyable on the PC. PC: 1

LAN/online gaming Online gaming for consoles has come a long way. The PS2 has a huge online gaming network . It’s not possible to play with other PS2s on a LAN network, you need to have an Internet connection.

PS2: PS2:44

The PC is the most flexible online gaming platform. PC gaming on LAN can also be a very good experience; Counter-Strike is one of the flagship games to propel gaming on LAN. The PC is again the clear winner here. PC: PC:44

Verdict It has been an evenly fought battle. In the end, it all depends on what suits you best.

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The new generation of consoles has almost arrived with Xbox 360 already out and the PS3 and the Nintendo Revolution in the making. So what do we have in store with these power packed consoles? One of the most important aspects is that since these are more powerful machines, they can deliver better graphics at higher resolutions. So can you just plug them into your regular television and start gaming right away? Yes and No. Your regular CRT television can give a maximum resolution of up to 480 lines. These new-age consoles can churn graphics as high as 1080p. So before we dive into the numbers, let’s have a look at the various standards used. Resolution is the most important aspect that decides on how sharp the image you are viewing would be. The regular television which most of us have in our living room can provide us maximum 480 lines of details whereas an HDTV can give out as much as 1080 lines of detail. And especially on big screen televisions, HDTV

yes

Progressive Scan yes

WideScreen yes

1920x1080

yes

no

yes

720p (High Definition TV i.e. HDTV)

1280x720

yes

yes

yes

480p

852x480

no

yes

yes

480i (Regular TV)

480 lines

no

no

no

Name

Resolution

HDTV

1080p (High Definition TV i.e. HDTV)

1920x1080

1080i (High Definition TV i.e. HDTV)

looks much better in terms of sharpness and clarity than a regular television set.

Progressive scan So then what’s the difference between 1080p and 1080i? The suffix “i” stands for interlaced and the “p” stands for progressive scan. The older television sets use the interlace method to draw images on the screen. The electron gun at the back of the TV first fires the odd lines on the onscreen image and then during the second pass, it fires the even lines. All this happens within

1/30th of a sec giving it a complete look. Progressive scan works in the same manner as the computer monitor. Here, the entire image is drawn from left to right. One full frame of video is drawn every 1/60th of a sec. Hence, a progressively scanned image has lesser jagged lines and motion artefacts. So it’s clear that if you want to utilize the true potential of your next-gen console, you need to have a HDTV i.e. a highdefinition television. Consider that as an investment too when you plan to go for a next-gen console.

Next-generation consoles Microsoft Xbox 360 This is Microsoft’s battle tank for the nextgen console war and sure, it’s a tough rider. The Xbox 360 is capable of churning out mind-blowing graphics at a resolution of up to 1080i and all of this in small form factor. Though the current releases are touched up versions of the previous titles, expect another year for the game developers to unleash the true potential of the Xbox 360.

Eye candy support: The Xbox 360 is designed for the HDTV era. All games have been designed at least to a 720p resolution which is capable of scaling up to 1080i. Though it doesn’t extend support for 1080p yet. Resolution: 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i. Controller: The controller for the Xbox 360 is 2.4 GHz wireless—supporting up to four wireless controllers.

Networking: There’s Ethernet (RJ45) and its 802.11 A/B/G Wi-Fi ready but the adapter is not included.

Storage options: The Xbox 360 contains a Laptop style removable hard drive. It also has two Memory Slots. Optical drive: The Xbox 360 has DVD-ROM (it can also play almost all CD and DVD formats), the game discs come on dual layered DVDs (8.5 GB) and it’s backward compatible with Xbox games. Availability: The Xbox 360 is available internationally (since December 2005) but it’s not yet available in India. Price: The Xbox 360 is priced in two main categories: a) The basic package consists of one wired controller minus the hard drive for $299. b) The $399 package includes a wireless controller, a communication headset for Xbox live, component A/V cable, Ethernet wireless cable and a 20 GB hard drive. INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

FEATURE

Sony PS3 The PS3 will be the successor to the most popular console of the millennium i.e. the PS2. And with what Sony’s promises to offer, I wouldn’t be surprised if the PS3 continues to reign. Sony states that the graphic chip is more powerful than two GeForce 6800 ultra cards put together. We are eagerly awaiting the release of the the PS3, what Sony’s Ken Kutaragi calls a “supercomputer for computer entertainment.”

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controllers are supported.

Networking: Ethernet (RJ45) 802.11 B/G Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0. Storage options: The PS3 has a laptop style removable hard drive. It has an external memory slot for the following memory types: CF Slot (Type I, II), SD Slot (Regular, Compact), Memory Stick and Memory Stick Duo.

Optical drive: The optical Drive of the Eye Candy support: Sony pledges support for 1080p that the Xbox 360 doesn’t offer. Besides, the PS3 offers dual HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) ports giving out the highest quality digital output. Resolution: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p.

PS3 comprises Blu-Ray ROM (Can also play almost all CD and DVD formats). The games will come on single and dual layered Blu-ray discs with storage capacities of 25 GB and 50 GB respectively. The PS3 is backward compatible with the PS2 games.

Availability: The PS3 will be launched in November 2006.

Controller: The PS3 sports a Bluetooth

Nintendo Revolution So how does the Revolution stand up in the technologically loaded world of the PS3s and the Xbox 360s? Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says, “Today’s consoles already offer fairly realistic expressions, so simply beefing up the graphics will not let most of us see a difference. So a new machine needs to do much more. An unprecedented game play experience, something that no other machine has delivered before.” And this is exactly what the Revolution is set to offer to gamers around the world. Nintendo breaks more than 20 years of video game history by abandoning the traditional controller held with two hands and introducing an all-new freehand-style unit held with one hand. A sensor on the top tracks the orientation and position of the controller and you can manipulate things on the screen by moving the controller. Let’s take a look at the specifications.

Eye Candy support: Though not confirmed, it’s rumored that the revolution will not have any high definition output. This may be a serious drawback with both MAY 2006 | INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP

wireless controller and upto four

Price: Estimated price of the PS3 is $499.

the PS3 and the Xbox 360 embracing the high definition standard.

Storage options: 512 MB of internal flash memory storage. Memory can be expanded using removable standard SD cards, which can be inserted into the console through one of two SD memory card slots.

Controller: Motion sensed wireless controller, single hand use supporting up to four controllers.

Optical drive: The front-loading disc slot Networking: No Ethernet jack is provided. The Revolution connects to the Internet using 802.11b and 802.11g Wi-Fi wireless.

accepts three types of media: Revolution games - stored on proprietary 12 cm discs. Game Cube games - proprietary 8 cm MiniDVD discs. Standard DVD media - the functionality to playback standard DVD movies is unlocked with a separate attachment.

Availability: By the end of November 2006.

Price: Nintendo has not yet revealed the price but it claims it will be much lower than that of the PS3 and the Xbox 360. It is being rumored that the price point will revolve between $150 to $200. ■ | Gaurav Seth

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Welcome to the battlefield in space where you decide the fate of an entire galaxy

Pramod Jadhav

E

ach one of you who played the demo of this game must have been restless to get your hands on the retail version. I too experienced the same feeling. So when the game was sent to me for review, I was ecstatic and I hoped it would be as cool as the demo. In Star Wars: Empire at War would-be Jedi and Sith conquer some of the well known planets from the Star Wars universe including Hoth, Endor, Yavin, and Coruscant. The game installs fairly quickly without any trouble. Just follow the auto-run prompts and soon you will be planning your own galactic conquest. At this stage, I would like to inform you guys about the game manual as well as the sturdy fold-out chart that is included in the package. You might wonder what is so noteworthy about the game manual that it needs a special mention in the review. Well, the game manual consists of 65 pages and each page is filled with detailed text. Everything that you as a player would need has been included in this manual such as menu explanations, interface tips, etc. The chart lists out all the officers, vehicles, spacecrafts and facilities available for both the Empire as

well as the Rebellion. Don’t bother to read the entire thing as the tutorials provide you the same information. The two basic modes of this game are the story driven Campaign mode and Galactic Conquest mode. If you need to get a gist of how the game play is then you can select the Training mode. The Galactic Conquest mode is essentially a series of linked battles. The player can choose from several battle locations, each revolving around a particular event made famous from Episodes IV, V and VI. The basic starting conditions can be customized so that you can adjust the beginning tech level, maximum tech level and the starting credits. You also have a Skirmish mode, which is essentially a single battle fought either on land or in space. You can play as either the Rebellion or the Empire. These two sides are distinct from each other with respect to their abilities as well as the technologies used in space and ground combat. The Empire researches technology which is a costly and time consuming process but the Rebels, using R2-D2, steal it from the Empire. As you conquer more and more planets, you will be able to produce different units

and then shuffle these units out of the core systems in your territory to reinforce the front. Having land and space garrisons is vital to avoid getting hit badly. Keeping large forces handy and ready to move is also important in order to attack the enemy, and to mop up if you are attacked. Also during ground combat, you can call in air strikes so that you can destroy enemy structures quickly and easily. Taking down a space station is a visual treat as it starts to fall apart and then produces a series of huge explosions. If you are playing as the Empire, then you can even gain access to the infamous Death Star. But it can only be used to destroy planets and by the time you do gain access to it, most of the galaxy will be under Imperial command so the capability to destroy planets would be redundant. If playing as the Rebels then you will need to use different tactics as initially your resources will be limited. You will have a wide array of missions, which include freeing the enslaved Wookies and guiding Princess Leia to safety as she makes her escape with the stolen plans for Death Star. The graphics for this game are superb. Everything about the space battles looks

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

FEATURE REVIEW

very nice, especially when viewed with the nifty little cinematic camera option. The cinematic view is a sort of ultra zoomed overhead view which gives you a much larger as well as clearer view of the battlefield. You could have never imagined that wholesale destruction in vacuum could look so beautiful. All ship models, space terrain features (nebulas, asteroid and debris fields, planets, etc) and weapons’ effects are presented very crisply, and are pleasing to the eye. Space battles come to life with brilliant laser fire, torpedo detonations and the characteristic shapes of deadly Star Destroyers. The various planets model weather and terrain effects, which impact upon unit performance, for instance, wind, dust, sand, snow, smoke, and indigenous life

look very sharp and pleasant. AT-ATs, AT-STs and Storm Troopers have been replicated with utmost precision. The controls for this game are quite simple and you will be familiar with them after you are through with the Training mode. The sound effects are up to the mark that you would expect from a Star Wars game. The background score for this game has been copied from the movies and it complements the game well. Once you start playing the game, you will realize how aggressive the enemy AI actually is. However, the game lags behind in the manner in which the reinforcement position has been conceived by the developers. Your reinforcement units fly in via a drop ship and can be dropped only at specific reinforcement locations. If

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your enemy takes over the control of this location then you will have to wrest the initiative back so that you can call in more troops. This at times can get frustrating. But despite this shortcoming, Star Wars: Empire at War is fun to play. You will never be bored of engaging yourself in intergalactic warfare. If you are a strategy games fan then you must get this game as soon as possible. Trust me, this game will not disappoint you. ■ | Anup Pillai

RATINGS

8.5 / 10

For: Improved graphics; very aggressive enemy AI; fun to play. Against: The reinforcements can be dropped only at specific locations.

Price: Rs 1,499 Publisher : LucasArts Distributor: Gayatri Impex Pvt. Ltd. Phone: 022-23881443 E-mail: [email protected] XP/ 2000, Pentium IV 1.0 GHz or equivalent, 256 MB RAM, 2.5 GB of free hard disk space, video card with 32 MB or more memory

System: Windows

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Brace yourself for hair-raising action in this scary game

A

fter being in the development stages for almost five years, Publisher Bethesda Softworks along with Ubisoft has finally released its first person action-adventure game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. You might not have heard about this game as the publishers hardly made any noise. But despite the long delay in releasing this game as well as poor marketing, I must say your wait for the scariest game this year is over with its release. The game lets you step into the shoes of Jack Walters, a reputed investigator. Before you start playing the game, a cut scene shows your character scribbling something into his diary and then committing suicide at the Arkham Asylum in the year 1922. The next thing you know, the game rewinds to the year 1915. You as Jack Walters are called upon to investigate the mysterious incidents that take place inside a house. As soon as Jack begins the investigation, he realizes that the people living in the house have known him from a long time even though he doesn’t recognize them. As he investigates further and reaches the underground floor, he suddenly encounters some alien creatures and then loses his consciousness. Fast forward again to 1922. A second cut scene shows Jack writing his diary wherein he mentions that he has no memory of what had happened in the house that night. He makes another scary revelation that even though his friends and the doctor claim that he was in the asylum for about six years, to him those six years felt like only five months. His next case leads him to a small town called Innsmouth, where he needs to investigate the sudden disappearance of a young lad called Brian Burnham. As soon as he arrives at Innsmouth, he realizes that there is something wrong with the town as well as with the people living there. Apart from the intimidating look they throw, they refuse to divulge

Pramod Jadhav

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

FEATURE REVIEW

any details when you enquire about the mysterious disappearance of the Burnham lad. However, during the course of his investigation, Jack does come in contact with some friendly people in the town who provide him with clues as well as other details enabling him to trace the whereabouts of Brian. Thanks to Jack’s third eye, he can view scenes through the eyes of others when deemed fit by the game designers. But most of the time he is seen working on how to get into buildings without being caught. The first time a scary scene hits you in the game is when the Innsmouth town residents try to assassinate Jack while he is sleeping in the hotel room. While his enemies are heavily armed, Jack has no arms and has to rely solely on his intelligence as well his presence of mind to make his escape for good. One wrong move and the residents will chop off his head or blow it to pieces with their shotgun. The constant threats to his life and his lack of offensive ordnance means he is running scared almost all the time. It is only during the later half of the game that Jack gets fire arms to finish off his enemies. As the game progresses, Jack finds himself in more difficult and scarier situations. The game is filled with surprises, puzzles and traps. Careful reading of the clues that are picked up during the investigation stages is of utmost importance. If you fail to decipher even a small clue, then you will find yourself stuck at a particular stage for ages not knowing what to do next, or it might also lead to your cover being blown and being killed instantly by the residents of Innsmouth. Sometimes you will have to use items in your inventory to solve a puzzle. Also, pay attention to the in-game conversations that take place either between the enemies or between you and the friendly characters. One level that needs particular mention is “Devil’s Reef” which is full of traps of different nature and varying difficulties; one wrong step will lead you to instant death. The game auto saves only when a new level begins or ends. In order to save while the game is in progress, you will need to find the “Elder” sign. The initial build-up of tension sets the scene for the rest of the experience; a gripping fear interspersed with weird sounds, whistling winds play on your nerves and a sense of isolation—all these add up to make this game really scary. A significant omission in this game is HUD. You can

see how much damage has been done to you or how much ammo is left with you, directly on the screen. You have to open the inventory to see all the statistics. However, you will come to know of your deteriorating health condition as soon as the color of your vision changes. If you have incurred heavy damage, the color of your vision changes to grey which means that you will die soon. If you have suffered small or mediocre damage then blood will be splattered all over the screen. This indicates that you need to heal yourself by using the bandages and sutures available in your inventory. Another distinctive feature of this game is Jack’s loss of sanity, particularly when he is too tensed or scared. So to bring himself back to his senses, Jack needs to inject himself with doses of morphine but frequent usage of the same could do him more harm than good. The controls of this game are very easy to master and are almost similar to most of the FPS games that you have played. Sound effects are excellent— you can hear Jack breathing heavily if he has been running around for a while; you can also listen to him groaning in pain when he is injured badly. However, the game lacks in its graphics. Even though the entire game, right from the start to the end has the dark and eerie feel associated with night time, it looks outdated compared to other games today. This is because the game was confined to the development stage for too long. Another drawback is the lack of a quicksave option. This could really annoy you especially when you are very close to finishing a particular level and are killed by the enemy. As a result, you will have to either play the game from the starting point or from the “Elder” sign. The game is a blessing in disguise for all those guys who own an entry-level graphics card. Even if you play this game at the highest possible settings, it will run smoothly without any lag. It is a game that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It gives you about 20 hours of addictive game play and certainly merits a place in every gaming enthusiast’s collection. ■ | Anup Pillai

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The inventory which tells you the status of your health

You will have to be sharp to shoot down these creatures

9 / 10

For: Great story; good sound effects; some stages are very scary. Against: The graphics are outdated.

Publisher : Bethesda Softworks Distributor: e-xpress Interactive Software Pvt Ltd Phone: 022-28870017 System: Windows XP/ 2000, Pentium IV 1.0 GHz or equivalent, 512 MB RAM, 8x or faster DVD drive, 3.5 GB of free hard disk space, video card with 64 MB or more memory

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| FEATURE

Pramod Jadhav

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ost of you by now must be quite familiar with all the places as well as the battles fought in Middle Earth in order to gain control of the ring either by reading the book or watching the trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, or by playing the games. While LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth stuck very closely to the films, the plot for its sequel LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth II is borrowed from both the films as well as the rich literary mythos. This was possible since EA Games have obtained a unified license. Hence, the developers could use more characters, locations in this game and make it more appealing visually. As the developers rightly proclaim, this is the Middle Earth that you have not seen. The installation files for this game are distributed over six discs. Inserting one disc after the other into your optical drive could be a frustrating experience. But once you start playing the game, all your frustrations will soon vanish and you will be deeply immersed in the playing sequence. The earlier version mainly concentrated on the Fellowship

A compelling sequel that promises a Middle Earth not seen before and their journey through Middle Earth as they destroyed the evil forces of Isengard and Mordor and helped Frodo destroy the ring. In this game, the Elves and Dwarves forge an alliance in order to defeat the army that has been prepared by Sauron. The single player campaigns are divided into two parts, the good and the evil. Each part has eight missions in it. You will find yourself waging war against your enemies in locations like Rivendell, Celduin, Erebor and The Shire. If you have played the earlier game, then you will finish these missions in about sixteen hours (estimated roughly, an hour per mission). Next, you can try your hand at War of the Ring which is a remake of the original mission system. In this, you can select your own conflicts forming a Risk style map of the regions of the Middle Earth. Create your own heroes and armies and march them off to war. You can always build more troops on the battlefield but only the ones from your strategy map will retain experience or even survive the battle, win or lose. Likewise, any buildings or bases you have built during a battle will similarly

disappear. You can also take your battle across the Internet with the Multiplayer option. Apart from the skirmishes, you can also play out a whole game of War of the Ring online. The new features in this game are plenty. The biggest change is certainly the buildings. You can build wherever you wish to instead of being limited to very specific locations. There is also an elaborate system of wall building and defensive structures upgrades. A significant change has been made to the resource gathering system. You will need to spread your encampment far and wide for gathering resources. The effectiveness of a resource gatherer is dependant on the large area of unused land around it, so placing a farm too close to another farm does you no good. Battle for Middle Earth II features a huge variety of sides like the Men of the West, the Elves, the Dwarves, Isengard, Mordor and the Goblins. Each side brings new play styles to the game and offers you some advantages as well as disadvantages. You will find that the Dwarves are very slow while the Goblins

INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

FEATURE

can be easily crushed with the help of cavalry units. The role of the heroes has been expanded in this game. Each race now gets access to a number of heroes not seen in the trilogy. The Dwarves get access not only to Gimli but also his father Gloin and even King Dain himself. The Goblins can summon the giant spider Shelob, the Goblin Kong and Drogoth and the Dragon Lord. Both your heroes and your units gain experience from their respective battles and become more powerful which is great. Unfortunately, you won’t get to carry your units over to the next one and even when you do, it’s only a certain few. This makes the unit advancement much less satisfying than it could be. You can also take to the sea in the new naval vessels. But when compared to the sheer number of battles that you will be fighting on land, the naval battles seem far too less. A new addition is the “Create-a-Hero” option. This allows you to explore your

creative side, adding on the heroes that you created in the game. But the customization options are very limited. The sound is equally impressive as Orcs roar with rage and the Men of Gondor shout rallying calls. Many of the actors from the movie have reprised their roles for their gaming counterparts. The excellent film score has also made the migration and dramatically sets the backdrop. As I mentioned before, Battle for Middle Earth II is a visually impressive experience. The game has a cinematic feel to combat that makes it stand apart from any other RTS game. Bodies go flying as trolls swing massive stone clubs and goblins fall under the trampling hooves of cavalry charge. Before and after each mission, there is a short cut-scene describing the happenings in the war, the goal and the location of the mission and the strategic value associated with it. The most noticeable feature of these cut-scenes are that they are a very good

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blend of art and in-game graphics. During these cut-scenes, Elrond (Actor Hugo Weaving) provides the narration. A lot of work has gone into upgrading the graphics for this game as compared to the previous one and it has really paid off. However, in order to enjoy these superb graphics, you will need a high-end graphics card along with a minimum of 1 GB of RAM. Don’t be despondent if you have a low-end system for the game will run albeit at very low specs. To sum it up, Battle for Middle Earth II has all the right ingredients which are essential in a RTS game. Three new factions—a new building mode, new heroes, improvements to the game engine, a completely new “War of the Ring” campaign—you name it and the game has it. Note that the game is addictive and you won’t feel like getting up from your seat until you have completed all the missions. ■ | Anup Pillai

RATINGS

9 / 10

For: Excellent graphics; good story based campaigns; six new sides included. Against: Hogs 6 GB of your hard disk space! Price: Rs 1,299 Publisher : EA Games Distributor: Gayatri Impex Pvt. Ltd. Phone: 022-23881443 E-mail: [email protected] System: Windows XP/ 2000, Pentium IV 1.6 GHz or equivalent, 512 MB RAM, 8x or faster DVD drive, 6 GB of free hard disk space, video card with 128 MB or more memory

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Story code: LBM (See Readers’ Letters for details)

The latest entry in the Commandos series is an FPS game with a difference

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Pramod Jadhav

he previous games in the Commandos series have all been squad-based tactical games. However, the latest entry in the same series titled Commandos Strike Force makes a transition to the first-person shooter territory. The Green Beret, the Sniper and the Spy form the core members of the Strike Force. While the previous versions required a lot of time as well as patience to complete the missions, Strike Force lets you accomplish your missions easily and smoothly. Once the installation is over, the tutorial sessions make you familiar with the new aspects of game play. In most of the missions, you will have two commandos at your disposal. The new feature in this game is the ability to switch between two commandos while the game is in progress. You are the one who has to decide which commando needs to be used at that particular instant. So you will have to be aware of the strengths as well as the weaknesses of each of them. Even though it is an FPS game, the use of stealth through most of the game is of utmost importance. And it is this feature that sets it apart from the other FPS games. The Spy by far is the pivotal character in the game. He is a German national who has joined the Allied forces to fight the Nazis. He can kill them and steal their uniforms. With these stolen uniforms, he can disguise himself as a Nazi. In this game, the developers have added a new spin to it. The Nazis have ranks within them—soldiers, subofficers, officers, generals and Gestapo. When you don an enemy soldier’s uniform, you’re able to walk amongst your enemies without being immediately detected. However, if you stay too long near an enemy soldier, while in a soldier’s uniform, he’ll start to become suspicious of you. A little question mark meter will appear above his head and will start to count down. During this countdown, you have two options. You either kill him and hope that no one sees you take him out or run away and he’ll forget about you. Now for example, if you put on an officer’s uniform, soldiers and sub-officers will not become suspicious of you at all. Other officers of a higher rank like a Gestapo will recognize you after a period of time. The objective here obviously is to get a uniform belonging to officers of higher rank each time you can, in order to gain more freedom when moving around. You have a mini radar in the lower left hand corner of your screen. On this display are your objectives and arrows which are indicators for your enemies. The arrows will show which way a INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

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solider faces and also his level of alertness. Green signifies that he should be on patrolling duties and unaware of your presence, yellow means he has become suspicious and red implies he is on the hunt for you. When you walk up to a closed door, there are two options. One is simply to open the door and the other is to look through a keyhole view mode. With more missions, you unlock some cool stuff. A particular mission needs special mention here—it is the stage where you will be defending a snowy French town from a German counter attack from the other side of the river. You have Green Beret and Sniper at your disposal. Once the attack starts, all hell breaks loose— increasingly difficult challenges, dramatic music, an avalanche of enemies from multiple directions, mortar fire, tanks—so constant movement is required by the player to contain the multiple tasks that the game throws up. Unfortunately, this is the only level where the game gets really exciting and you feel like you are in the midst of a huge war. Once this level is over, you again have to rely on stealth to finish off the Nazis. Also, the AI in the game is weak. If two soldiers stand very close to each other and you quietly finish one of them, the other hardly notices that his companion is dead. Even if a commotion is caused while assassinating a Nazi, just run away and hide in some safe place. The persistence level of the Nazis is so low that they will give up the chase to trace the intruder in less than a minute. Earlier, the dead bodies had to be picked and hid in a safe place so as not to be spotted by enemies else they raise an alarm. But here, the dead bodies just disappear with time. So when killing an enemy soldier, pray that his dead body is not spotted or you could be in trouble. Also, the ability to switch between the commandos while the game is in progress could act like a double-edged sword. The problem is when you switch from one commando to the other, the previous one remains static. He does not move a muscle and is virtually a statue. The sound effects are noteworthy. The background music is good and fits in with the game’s theme. Voice acting is decent though graphics aren’t as great. Undoubtedly, graphics has improved when compared to the previous versions but when compared with the other WWII games like Call of Duty 2 or Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood, the game falls short way of expectations. The interposing cut scenes are also not very appealing, visually. But despite the above shortcomings, it is a decent attempt by the developers and is definitely worth a try. ■ | Anup Pillai

RATINGS

7.5 / 10

For: A completely new genre; ability to switch between commandos. Against: Weak AI; the missions are much easier to play. Price: Rs 1,299 Publisher: Eidos Developer: Pyro Studios Distributor: Milestone Interactive Phone: 022-28203319 System: Windows XP/ 2000, Pentium IV 1.8 GHz or equivalent, 512 MB RAM, 8x or faster DVD drive, 3.5 GB of free hard disk space, video card with 64 MB or more memory

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Story code: CSF (See Readers’ Letters for details)

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LAST WORD

The Last Word G

oing to government offices is something I habitually avoid, unless there’s some urgency. But as fate would have it, I had to visit the local ration card office, the regional passport office, and a post office—all within a span of two months. I share with you my experiences and suggest a few ways in which technology can be used to make life simpler for both the “applicant” and the officer at the window. My passport expired in February and I had to renew it. And while going about it, I discovered that a lot had changed since my last visit in 1996. They’ve taken computerization a step further by making online registration compulsory. First I had to visit the regional passport office web site at http://passport.bom.nic.in/ and register to get an appointment. Then I had to take a print out with my registration details and attach this to my application form (downloaded from the same site). Before the big day arrived, I had to get all my documents (and past life) in order. I needed to furnish my ration card as proof of residence. So I visited the ration shop to update my residential address. I arrived at what I thought was an early hour, but there were 50 people ahead of me in the queue. After a grueling long hour or so, I finally got to the window to pick up the application form. Then it was another long queue to submit the application form (after a little waltzing between window No. 3 and window No. 5). And by the time my application was actually accepted, it was late afternoon and I was famished and exhausted. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to just key in all these details in an online form and submit it? They could do the verification later, just as the police verification is done for the passport. And if my details were then embedded in a chip on a smart card, I would never have to stand for hours in serpentine queues. A few weeks later I visited the post office to collect a relative’s MIS (monthly income scheme) payment. There was a long queue again with 10 people ahead of me. I spent time taking in the surroundings. The lady clerk at the MIS window was obviously inexperienced. Dinesh Desai

In front of her was a computer monitor, covered and unused. On her table were a couple of registers and forms. And all around were bundles of jaundiced forms with dog-eared edges. I looked around. More piles of forms, some stacks carelessly thrown on top of steel cupboards. I wondered what was in those forms and ledgers. Why did they need to keep them at all now that they had computers? The day on which I had to visit the passport office finally came. I reached there at 8:45 am and was again greeted by a long queue. An hour-long wait in the queue and we were finally allowed into the compound at 9:45 am. A few minutes later, we moved into the building. The guards at the doorway scrutinized our applications and online registration forms. Once inside the hall, I quickly made an assessment of how many windows they had (29), and what functions these served. There was one window for submitting the applications, another for making the payment, another for special cases and so on. I looked around and found that there were lots of people but few seats. The procedures and rules were prominently displayed (as on the web site). The window finally opened and I calculated it took 15 - 20 minutes to accept one application. By the time my turn came, I had stood an hour-and-a-half in the queue already. After submitting my application at window No.1, I moved to window No. 2 to make the payment. That meant another hour in the queue. Despite all this computerization and online procedures, why does one have to endure such agony? I had to skip a whole day of work to visit the passport office. I was finally done only by 2:30 pm. It would have been simpler if I could have submitted my application online and then visited the office with my original documents for verification. If the verification could be done at the first stage, there would be no need to fill and submit forms in triplicate. Documents could be scanned and stored in a central database, made accessible to the crime branch, police and other concerned departments. That would reduce the amount of paper moving between departments and speed up the whole procedure. Exactly 30 days later, the postman arrived with my passport. I was grateful for the promptness.  | | Brian Pereira INTELLIGENT COMPUTING CHIP | MAY 2006

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RNI Registration No. MAHENG/2003/12687 .