Finally Sony Debuts sub $200 Blue-ray Drive For PC

Sony Electronics in its press release announced an internal BD-ROM drive that can upgrade an existing desktop computer into a high-definition Blu-ray Disc™ player, as well as a DVD and a CD player.

The new BDU-X10S BD-ROM drive comes with CyberLink’s PowerDVD BD Edition software for playback of commercial movie titles, recorded Blu-ray Disc home videos, DVD-ROMs and CD-ROMs.

“The BD-ROM drive’s sub-$200 price tag offers consumers a very viable option to discover and enjoy the nearly 500 high-definition Blu-ray Disc movies released to date,” said Bob DeMoulin, marketing manager for branded storage products in Sony Electronics’ IT Products Division.

“PC-based DVD-ROM drives helped accelerate mass DVD adoption, primarily because they were the least costly way to experience the technology,” said Wolfgang Schlichting, research director, removable storage at IDC. “Similarly, we expect sub-$200 PC-based BD-ROM drives to be a driver for cost-conscious consumers to experience Blu-ray Disc high-definition video technology.”

The BDU-X10S drive features a Serial ATA (SATA) interface and standard 5.25-inch form-factor for easy installation inside contemporary desktop PCs running the Microsoft® Windows Vista™ or Windows XP operating system.

The included CyberLink PowerDVD BD Edition software also supports playback of recorded Blu-ray Discs in MPEG-2 or H.264 format, standard DVD-Video discs or recorded DVDs encoded with MPEG-2 or AVCHD formats.

For high-definition viewing, an HD computer display connected to the PC with an HDMI™ cable is required.

The new BD-ROM drive will start shipping this month.

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Download Windows XP Service Pack 3

Windows® XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system. This white paper summarizes what is new in Windows XP SP3.

Download Link

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Windows XP SP3 Have Performance Edge Over Vista

After a disappointing showing by Windows Vista SP1 (see previous post), we were pleasantly surprised to discover that Windows XP Service Pack 3 (v.3244) delivers a measurable performance boost to this aging desktop OS. Testing with OfficeBench showed an ~10% performance boost vs. the same configuration running under Windows XP w/Service Pack 2.

OfficeBench Completion Times
(In Seconds - Lower is Better)

Note: As with our Vista SP1 testing, we used the identical Dell XPS M1710 test bed with 2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 1GB of RAM and discrete nVidia GeForce Go 7900GS video.

Since SP3 was supposed to be mostly a bug-fix/patch consolidation release - unlike w/Vista SP1, Microsoft made no promises of improved performance for XP - the unexpected speed boost comes as a nice bonus. In fact, XP SP3 is shaping-up to be a "must have" update for the majority of users who are still running Redmond's not-so-latest and greatest desktop OS.

Of course, none of this bodes well for Vista, which is now more than 2x slower than the most current builds of its older sibling. Suffice to say that performance-minded users will likely choose to stick with the now even speedier Windows XP - at least until more "Windows 7" information becomes publicly available.

Windows Vista = Windows ME "Reloaded?" You be the judge!

Source

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NFS Pro Street Now Playable On Intel G965 Integrated Graphics

Sad !! Need for Speed Pro Street didn't work out on your Intel G965 Integrated Graphics Chipset.

Here's a good news for all those Intel users.Intel released an updated driver version for XP and Vista (32 and 64 bit) yesterday for Intel G965 chipset which makes NFS Pro Street playable at 1027x768 resolution.

So, go and get the thrill and excitement of the new street racing genre.
Downloads links are available below.

Download:

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator for Windows XP 14.32.0.4885 (32-bit)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator for Windows XP 14.32.64.4885 (64-bit)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator for Windows Vista 15.7.0.1364 (32-bit)
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator for Windows Vista 15.7.64.1364 (64-bit)

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Windows XP Update Nearly Out

More than 15,000 beta testers are playing with Microsoft's SP3 update.

Microsoft says that the update to the six-year-old operating system is due out in final form in the first half of next year. It plans to release a public test version of the service pack, but it has not come up with a date yet.

The release was expected in 2006, but was pushed out in favour of Vista work. The update is focused largely on things such as bug fixes and performance improvements rather than new features.

Source

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Microsoft Releases New Build of IE7, Pirates Welcome

In n surprise move, Microsoft has issued a new build of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) to customers that can be installed on any machine running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 -- IE7 is already included in Windows Vista operating systems.

IE7 was previously reserved for customers using genuine copies of Windows-based operating systems and was protected by Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation software.

"Because Microsoft takes its commitment to help protect the entire Windows ecosystem seriously, we’re updating the IE7 installation experience to make it available as broadly as possible to all Windows users," remarked IE7 program manager Steve Reynolds on the IE Blog. "With today’s 'Installation and Availability Update,' Internet Explorer 7 installation will no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation and will be available to all Windows XP users."

Microsoft is likely using this move to makes IE7 available to the broadest range of customers worldwide. Mozilla's Firefox browser has gained a lot of traction recently, and this move would give Microsoft some additional ammunition.

In addition to the removal of WGA, the latest version of IE7 brings updates to the menu bar, online tour and a new MSI installer for IT administrators.

Source

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Windows XP lives on until June 30, 2008

Microsoft announced today that it will continue shipping Windows XP until June 30, 2008 - that's five more months than the software giant initially announced. Microsoft also said that the cheap Windows XP Starter Edition will be available until June 30, 2010.

Microsoft Windows Product Management Corporate Vice President Mike Nash: While we’ve been pleased with the positive response we’ve seen and heard from customers using Windows Vista, there are some customers who need a little more time to make the switch to Windows Vista. As it turns out, our official policy as of 2002 is that versions of Windows are available through our retail and direct OEM partners for four years after they ship. Obviously this policy didn’t work with Windows XP given Windows Vista’s delivery date. As a practical matter, most of our previous operating system releases were available for about two years after the new version shipped, so maybe we were a little ambitious to think that we would need to make Windows XP available for only a year after the release of Windows Vista.

So we’re responding to feedback we have gotten from our OEM partners that some customers will benefit by extending availability of Windows XP to June 30, 2008 instead of the planned date of Jan. 30, 2008. Also, since some of the systems that ship in emerging markets don’t meet the requirements for Windows Vista, we will be extending availability of Windows XP Starter Edition to June 30, 2010. This will allow our OEM partners who sell PCs in emerging markets more opportunity to offer genuine Windows licenses. Windows XP Starter Edition is tailored to local markets, in local languages, and is compatible with a wide range of Windows-based applications and devices.

Source

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Lock Folder Without Any Software

A very useful trick to lock a folder without the need of any software.This trick has only been tested in Windows XP.

Suppose you want to lock the folder "Photo" in d: which has the path D:\Photo. In the same drive create a text file and type

ren Photo Photo.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}

Now save this text file as lock.bat.

create another text file and type in it

ren Photo.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} Photo

Now save this text file as key.bat.

Now you have two batch files lock.bat and key.bat.When lock.bat is pressed the folder named lucky will change to Control Panel and contents will be unaccesible.Again when the key.bat is pressed it revert back to its original contents and the contents are accesible.

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Restarting Windows Without Restarting Your PC

Today PCs with Windows Vista Home Edition takes about one and a half minutes to boot.An older machine with XP is about the same. That’s 30 seconds for the PC itself (the BIOS) to boot up, plus a minute for the Windows operating system to boot. Sometimes, you need to reboot Windows when you really don't want to lose a minute or two for e.g. when installing new software or game, but there is no need to restart BIOS, too. However, the default is to reboot both. (That’s called doing a “cold boot,” rather than a “warm boot.”) There’s a trick that works on both XP and Vista to get it to do a warm boot instead, thus saving you 30 seconds per cycle.

The trick is to hold down the SHIFT key when invoking the restart.

Windows Vista: Select Start, then hover over the right arrow that is to the right of the padlock icon until the pop-up menu appears that contains “restart” as one of it’s choices. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “restart” choice.

Windows XP: Select Start. Select “Shut Down…”. Change the drop-down menu to “Restart”. Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the “OK” button.

[Source]

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Make Your Windows XP look like Windows Vista

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VistaVG Ultimate by Mr. Vishal Gupta

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Hi guys

This is a tutorial which will give your Windows XP a touch and feeling of Windows Vista.




Download VistaVG Ultimate by Vishal Gupta

Download VistaVG Ultimate with Searchbar by Vishal Gupta


It has many new features and new styles which will give you the essence of Windows Vista.

NEW:

1. A new style "Black" has been added to the theme after a lot of demand for black titlebar.
2. A separate theme for Startmenu Searchbar lovers. It shows the Vista searchbar in Start menu but its fake. You need "LSPatch" to use it. I have included it in the pack.

And more...

UPDATE:

1. Titlebar Text is shown in Left now.
2. Common Tasks are also shown in Left but I have included a "shellstyle.dll" file for bottom common tasks.
3. Aero style for 32x icon size is default now.
4. Lots of new Vista images, like "All Programs" arrow, Explorer arrows, Startmenu images, Logoff/Shutdown images, etc.
5. A few colors changed.

And lots of other small updates...

HOW TO USE:

1. Extract the contents and u'll get a folder.
2. In this folder, you'll get 4 more folders:

=> Bottom Common Tasks (This folder contains "shellstyle.dll" file for showing common tasks in explorer at bottom.)
=> Fonts (This folder contains Segoe UI fonts required for the theme. Copy them to "%windir%\Fonts" folder.)
=> Styler Toolbar (This folder contains Style toolbar for explorer. You need "Styler" installed on your system.) You can download Styler from here:

http://www.crystalxp.net/galerie/en.id.551.htm

=> Theme (This folder contains the main theme.)

3. Copy all contents in "Theme" folder to "%windir%\Resources\Themes\" folder.
4. Now you can set the theme using Desktop Properties.

Before applying the theme make sure you have patched the "uxtheme.dll" file to allow 3rd party visual styles, if its not patched, then download and run the UXtheme Patcher from here:

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Uxtheme-Multipatcher-Download-2369.html

Source

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