Avatech - Computers, Technology, Games, Movies, Airsoft Guns and More!

GeForce 8600GT vs 9600GT

2008-05-27T20:11:00.007+10:00

It's been a very long time since my last post in this blog. Now I returned with one-to-one benchmark review of two nVidia GeForce video cards. The first one is the last year's champion for mid-range video card 8600GT and the second is current year's most favourite video card 9600GT. There is no major improvement since last year's DirectX 10 and Shader Model 4.0 are newly equipped in 8600GT. The

3Planesoft Screensavers - Have You Seen Nice Screensavers Lately?

2008-05-13T21:43:00.006+10:00

Screensavers have good effects on your computer. Not only it can suit your moods or adds more colour to your monitor or just simply makes your computer less boring, it can also helps calibrating your monitor by making your monitor project less repetitive colour scheme. That's why it is better to have screensaver for your PC. Talking about screensavers, there are many screensavers available for

Powerwave 360 Shape Controller for PC Review

2008-05-08T21:32:00.006+10:00

If no one ever heard about Powerwave, it's because Powerwave is just a small Australia based company that produces medium quality gaming accessories like gamepads and headsets. 360 Shape gamepad is one of their product. Like its name, its form is basically derived from XBOX 360 controller. Complete with dual vibration it is virtually an alternative XBOX 360 controller for PC. Judging from its

Taskbar Shuffle - Drag n Drop Taskbar Like Firefox

2008-05-06T13:04:00.013+10:00

Have you ever thinking how convenient it is to reshuffle your Windows taskbar items using drag n drop? Or closing an item in taskbar by just clicking middle mouse button? Now with Taskbar Shuffle, you can do that! You can now easily arrange your taskbar items (including system tray icons on the right) by just drag n drop. Additionally, you close a running programs in taskbar by just

eDimensional AudioFX Force Feedback Gaming Headset Review

2008-05-03T19:53:00.007+10:00

eDimensional is a US based company which manufacture unique gaming accessories such as headsets, 3D glasses, gamepads, and voice software. Although not a popular brand like the old established company like Logitech, Creative, or Altec Lansing, eDimensional products are surprisingly good in quality. AudioFX Force Feedback Gaming Headset is one of their successful product in the market. Boasting a

Windows XP Service Pack 3

2008-04-30T22:15:00.006+10:00

On the 29th April 2008, Microsoft fully released Windows XP SP 3, the latest and the final service pack for Windows XP. Although there will be no more service pack for XP, Microsoft lengthen their support for XP until 2009 and also delay the prohibition for computer manufacturers to embed Windows XP as the operating system. Basically in this SP3, Microsoft added some new functionalities mainly

Total Uninstall - Totally Clean and Tidy

2008-04-26T23:12:00.004+10:00

There are many uninstaller program in the market which can help you clean out all the traces that applications left when you uninstall them. Basically, when you use standard Add Remove Programs provided by windows, an application may left traces such as registry settings, data files, and log files. But even with a third party uninstaller, sometimes there are still hidden registry entries or files

XPS Documents Association Bug

2008-04-22T21:56:00.003+10:00

XPS is a Microsoft answer for PDF, it stands for XML Paper Specifications. Although it is not very popular right now, it might overthrow PDF some time in the future. However, Microsoft has been carelessly implementing the XPS Viewer which comes with Windows Vista installation. Basically, if you don't use Vista, you will need additional .NET Framework 3.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE)

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - Back to Sin City With Some New Stuffs

2008-04-19T20:08:00.009+10:00

For anyone who ever played Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas last year, they will already know how intense and fun the game. Now Rainbow Six Vegas is back with a sequel, still in the same city but with some new fun additions. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is one of tactical team shooter based on Tom Clancy's franchise. You are a Bravo team leader named Bishop, the mentor of the first game's main character,

NetLimiter - Control and Monitor Your Internet Traffic

2008-04-17T15:02:00.004+10:00

Today many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) set bandwidth quota for their internet plan. Your download and upload is limited to that quota, and if you exceeds that limit, your internet speed may be shaped down or even worse, you may be charged for each excessive megabytes that you use. This is very troublesome as you would never know how much download or upload your computer (or any computer in

Assassin's Creed for PC is out!

2008-04-14T20:59:00.012+10:00

Assassin's Creed is a third person action game set during the Third Crusade, precisely year 1191. The player is an assassin (the word is derived from Hashshashin faction which really exist at that period) named Altair. His objective is to maintain peace in middle east by killing nine people who are promoting the war. Actually the story is rather sci-fi as the real story happens in present day,

Glass Effect Button with Photoshop

2008-04-12T21:11:00.006+10:00

If you have ever seen Windows Vista (especially when Aero effects turned on) or Mac OS X, you might already seen many glasslike buttons in the taskbar or menu. Now, in this tutorial we will learn how to create those cool buttons in a snap with Photoshop. After creating a new image (I used 300px x 100px resolution), fill the background using Paint Bucket Tool (G) with grey colour. Select Rounded

PPC Tablet Suite - Remotely Control Your PC Using PDA

2008-04-10T21:38:00.005+10:00

PPC Tablet Remote Control Suite is a software developed by A & A Computer Services. It is a very unique software which allow you to control your PC using your PDA. Basically, it is a software installed in a Windows Mobile PDA then connected to a Windows PC which can emulate mouse and keyboard commands. Things you can do with PPC Tablet Suite To connect your PDA with your PC, you can use Wi-Fi,

Visual Studio 2008 - The Easiest IDE Strikes Again

2008-04-08T21:27:00.006+10:00

Microsoft Visual Studio has been popular as a user friendly and easy to use IDE (Integrated Development Environment). It features simplified interface and offers many help as well as comprehensive documentation for programmers to learn. Now in the current release (previously codenamed "Orcas" or Visual Studio 9.0), it's designed to built applications rapidly and even easier than the previous

Asus Eee - Affordable, Compact, and Stylish Laptop

2008-04-06T20:22:00.007+10:00

When the first time I saw Asus Eee series ultra mobile personal computer (UMPC), I would say that it is very stylish and compact, but actually I'm thinking the most is its price. I thought this kind of stylish UMPC would cost more than US$1500 like the pocket sized UMPC OQO Model 02. But then when I saw the price tag, I was completely wrong. It is really "affordable", meaning it only costs you

Project64 - The Best Nintendo 64 Emulator So Far..

2008-04-05T14:54:00.006+11:00

Back in 1996, Nintendo released a console with advanced 3D graphics to compete with Sony Playstation. Although not as popular as Sony PSX, Nintendo 64 proves to be a superior console in terms of graphics and hardware than Sony PSX. It supports add-ons cartridge like Expansion Pak and Rumble Pak to enhance the current system hardware. Some of Nintendo 64 games are really huge success like Super

Serif WebPlus X2 - Drag n Drop Web Editor for Everyone

2008-04-04T20:30:00.006+11:00

Since the spread of the Internet to all over the world, more and more websites are created everyday. But formerly, only professional website designer can create such complex and elegant websites, but now, Serif, a UK-based company which known with their "Plus" software has created a very easy web editor named Serif WebPlus. With WebPlus, everyone can create professional looking websites within

Remove Nero 8 Annoying Activation

2008-04-02T21:26:00.004+11:00

Since Nero 8, the developer has created a patent activation system to prevent it being cracked. It constantly connects to Nero server and check if the serial number is authentic or not. If your serial number is not registered (a.k.a. made by keygen), then any program in Nero 8 suite will refuse to run. Until today, there are three ways to cope with this problem. First is by using ordinary Nero 8

Affordable Virtual Machines Benchmark

2008-03-31T21:35:00.014+11:00

I've written an article about virtual machine (VM) for Windows before. I reviewed VMWare Workstation 6.0 and Virtual PC 2007 at that time. Now I returned with some benchmark of affordable VMs software popular in the market.The virtual machines included in the test are: Innotek VirtualBox 1.5.6 (Free)Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 (Free)Parallels Workstation 2.2 (US$49)Here are the screenshots of each

Best Free Antivirus

2008-03-30T09:53:00.007+11:00

Everyone needs a good antivirus to protect their PC from virus, trojan, worm, and many other security threats. I've seen many good antivirus like BitDefender, Kaspersky, E-Set, Panda, etc. but all of them are not free. You have to pay monthly / yearly subscription and some of them are quite expensive. The problem is that antivirus software is so essential for every computer even if it is not

Sweeney Todd - Sweet Revenge Turns Bitter

2008-03-28T21:48:00.005+11:00

Tim Burton has been making unique movies, most of them are artistic if not odd, gothic-themed, and colourful. Some of his greatest works are The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman Returns, Sleepy hollow, Planet of the Apes, Edward Scissorhands and many more. Now he returns with his newest movie, again with Johnny Depp as the main actor, in a surreal atmosphere combined with melancholy musical

Interesting Facts About Computers and Tech

2008-03-27T22:25:00.008+11:00

The URL: http://akebono.stanford.edu/ used to be the original home of Yahoo!IBM holds over 25000 patents to this date, followed by Microsoft at 5000 patents.Pope Benedict XVI email is benedictxvi@vatican.va.In 2007, Facebook.com was given an estimated value of $15 billion dollars!The electricity consumed by MP3 players worldwide eclipsed the electricity consumption of mobile telephones worldwide

Playing With Fire in Photoshop

2008-03-25T22:38:00.008+11:00

In this tutorial, we will create a nice fire effect (not a font fire effect like many fire tutorials in the net) applicable for any object. Let's start new: Assume that we have two layers, one is a white background and the other is object layer (in this case I use Avatech logo). The objective is to make the logo burnt with fire. Create a new layer above the logo layer. Then draw random lines up

Audiosurf - An Addictive Puzzle Game You Never Seen Before

2008-03-24T16:54:00.005+11:00

When the first time I read Audiosurf review from IGN.com, I was really not interested about this game theme. At first sight, I thought that this game is a musical game like Rock Band (which is lame in my opinion), but when I saw its screenshot, it looks like Tetris. Soon when I read the review, I got confused, what kind of game is this? It really makes me anxious to find out. Then at its official

Create Bookmarks in Acrobat Reader

2008-03-23T19:01:00.010+11:00

If you use Adobe Reader often, you will soon notice that some of PDF files have bookmarks (bookmark icon is shown in the left pane below Pages icon) and some (I say most of them) are not. The main problem is that the bookmarks option is actually came from the PDF file itself, you cannot create them by yourself unless you read it using Adobe Acrobat (it's the software to create PDF files from