Coppers7one's Digital Diary

Extreme Heavy Metal

2008-08-09T18:35:00.003+05:30

OK! I am now writing about my favourite topic after the Internet! Extreme Heavy Metal (or Extreme Metal) is a somewhat recent genre, if you think about it. Ok, not that old, but it has it's roots in the late 70's and early 80's. This genre is not so famous among mainstream Music fans but has influenced many performers outside of Metal! This is basically non-commercial music not meant for radio play.

First off, people keep asking me pissing off questions about the differences between Hard Rock and Heavy Metal... there are a lot of differences! In Heavy Metal:
-> The tempo is much faster.
-> Complex song structures.
-> Immediate change in music, constant riffs.
-> Long instrumental sections.
-> Fast picking of Guitars, fast drumming (double-bass as in "double-kick")
Hard Rock is basically all the commercial stuff, stuff that you hear on the radio.

Heavy Metal was developed as a more faster and emphatic version of the "Blues-Rock" in the late 1960s. Bands like Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and of course Jimmi Hendrix who were influenced by "Blues-Rock" were the pioneers of starting this genre. By the 1970s bands like Judas Priest and Motorhead were making songs that would later be called as "Heavy Metal"! Even Iron Maiden and Saxon were fine-tuning the music of Heavy Metal.

The late 70s and early 80s saw the development of Thrash Metal and Speed Metal (sub-genres of Extreme Heavy Metal). Bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax proved that Extreme Metal could be made commercial! Slayer's "Hell Awaits" and "Reign In Blood" albums were considered as the birth of Extreme Metal, and more precisely Death Metal.

There are many, many sub-genres under Extreme Metal. More notable are the Thrash Metal, Black Metal, Death Metal and arguably Doom Metal.

Thrash Metal: Chacterised by high-speed riffing and agression, fast, percussive and low-register Guitar riffs. Th lyrics almost always deal with social issues. Eg: Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax (Big Four of Thrash)

Black Metal: It often employs fast tempos, high-pitched shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo-picking and unconventional song structure. Eg: Celtic Frost, Cradle Of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Mayhem etc. It has a few sub-genres:
-> Symphonic Black Metal
-> Viking Black Metal

Death Metal: The genre is typically characterized by the use of heavily distorted guitars, harsh vocals that are low-pitched and/or growled, morbid lyrics, exceptionally fast-paced rhythms and melodies, frequent blast-beats on drums, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes. Eg: Death, Morbid Angel, Possessed.
Its sub-genres include:
-> Melodic Death Metal: In Flames, At The Gates, Carcass, Dark Tranquillity, Amon Amarth etc.
-> Progressive/Technical Death Metal: Opeth, Cryptopsy, Edge Of Sanity
-> Deathcore, Brutal Death Metal and a few more of which I have no idea.

Doom Metal: It features very slow tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "denser" or "heavier" sound than other metal genres. Both the music and the lyrics intend to evoke a sense of despair, dread, and impending doom. I don't have much idea of this genre!

Extreme Metal is an exceptionally good genre if you are a hardcore instrumental type! This takes the instruments like the Guitar, Keyboards and Drums to their limits. If you are about to start listening to this genre, then my suggestion is to start from Thrash Metal, then go for either Black Metal or Death Metal depending on your choice of voclas, low-pitch growl or high-pitch shrieks, respectively. I hate the general mentality that Extreme Metal is bad and anti-Christ like and so on. It's not. It's the choice of the respective bands. Great bands like Megadeth and Metallica are not anti-Christ whatever people say! Generally Thrash is sort of the genres that deals with politics and social issues. I guess the one to worry about would be Black Metal!

\m/ But all in all a great genre! Enjoy listening! And be a Metalhead for life! \m/

Univer-shitty Of Mumbai

2008-07-24T16:45:00.010+05:30

Yep! It was just a matter of time for me to write crap about this crap Varsity! :)

Where in the rotting He** should I start? Rated 5 Stars by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), the MU is about 150 years old (Formed in 1857). Huh! The country is at the threshhold of revolt and this Varsity is formed! According to (reliable) resources, the MU is amongst the top 500 universities in the World. At the beginning the MU was concerned with screwing around with Undergrad students, but after getting enough money they started the PostGrad degrees for sadistic pleasure to screw more students. :X

They were a good University, but of late they have been fucking around too much! They still are in the papers though, but for slightly different reasons! From awesome results, great campus recruitmet, etc to crap results, fucked-up faculty, delayed announcement of results and a couple making out on the floor of the student council's office! Read more here:
MU Student MMS (not the degree... the scandal man!)
MU's Shortage of Faculty

Did You Know?

In November, 2002, the Mumbai University promoted all First Year Engineering students to the Second Year, because they had not yet declared the results of FE. Even those students who were failing were passed! At no time in the past 140 years of its existence has Mumbai University faced such a situation, nor has such a development taken place in any other university in the country, say educationists.

The once glorious University is now looked upon where chaos reigns supreme. The result of the First Year is just a mere 25% compared to the Universities in the North and South! The Examination results are always late and the papers set are not as per the syllabus. Yep! The students here are getting their ass whooped! Just imagine the students who want to go abroad for further studies.

Who in this bloody world is responsible for this? Why should we, the students suffer? What kind of image would we hold in the eyes of foreign institutions? Is the University ever going to be great once again? Or is it going to turn into a whore-house?

Bah! We are all doomed! Doomed I tell you, doomed!

Change or Add OEM Logo Information

2008-01-19T01:03:00.000+05:30

OEM or Original Equipment Manufacturer logos are the ones which are present on the System Properties dialog box. In Windows XP, it can be accessed by:

Right-click on My Computer -> Click on Properties

In Windows Vista, its the same thing:

The OEM Logo includes the manufacturer and model, a small picture, and a button leading to a separate page of support information. In Windows Vista the information is held in the Registry Editor; whereas in Windows XP it is not held in the registry, but in an old-style .ini file, which can be created in any plain-text editor including Windows Notepad.

For Windows XP Users:
1] Create your own logo image in a graphic .bmp file. Ideally the image should be maximum 180 pixels wide and 120 pixels high.
2] Copy your logo image file over to the system32 subdirectory under the Windows system directory (usually c:\windows\system32).
3] Rename your image file to oemlogo.bmp.
4] If you want to add your contact info in the system properties screen, create a file called oeminfo.ini using Windows Notepad in the same system32 directory and copy this in the file:

[General]
Manufacturer="type your desired data" Model="any shit"

[Support Information] line1="text you want" line2="your text" line3="you guessed it!" line4="right again!"

5]Save and close.

Voila! The next time you open your System Properties dialog box, you have a neat logo created by you!

For Windows Vista Users:
1] Create your own graphic .bmp logo of 120x120 pixels in size. Name the file as oemlogo.bmp and put it in any directory, but I guess it will be suitable if you just shut-up and put in the system32 folder. Note down the path, thats it.

2] The next phase is to edit the local Registry and add the support information.
--> In the Start Menu type “Regedit” and press Enter.
--> Navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OEMInformation
--> If the OEMInformation key does not exist you will need to create it. Right Click the CurrentVersion key and from the drop down menu click New > Key. In the Key dialogue box type OEMInformation and then press Enter.
--> Next, create the following keys and modify them to hold the following values:

Key name: Logo
Key type: String Value
Key value: The path to your logo file, for example: C:\Windows\System32

Key name: Manufacturer
Key type: String Value
Key value: Your name, or the manufacturer's name, for example: Copperstone

Key name: SupportPhone
Key type: String Value
Key value: Your support phone number, for example: 9833771989

Key name: SupportURL
Key type: String Value
Key value: Your support URL, for example: http://copperstoned.blogspot.com/

3] Close the Registry Editor and check out your Properties. Voila again!

I hope this article has proved fruitful to all you newbs out there... ;)

I Am Legend

2007-12-07T16:22:00.000+05:30

I am sure one must have heard of this movie. It stars Will Smith, the greatest actor according to me of all time. This charismatic actor will be playing the role of Robert Neville in the movie.

I Am Legend is actually based on a book by the same name written by Richard Matheson. This book has had three remakes till date.

- The first one The Last Man On Earth, originally an Italian film, but the screenplay was written by Richard Matheson. This movie was released in 1964.
- The second one The Omega Man, realesed in 1971 had a few changes to the storyline. It did not do too well as a movie.
- And of course the third one I Am Legend, releasing on December 14th, 2007, starring Will Smith will acording to me definitely do exceedingly well.

The project was initially started off in 1997 by Warner Bros. This movie has seen many changes in the directors. Ridley Scott, the first director wanted to star Arnold Schwarzenegger. The movie soon got disrupted due to continuos budgetary concerns.
The movie changed hands from Scott to Michael Bay to Francis Lawrence. Lawrence and Will Smith had an agreement and Will Smith agreed to act in the movie.

Will Smith who of course has many awards to his credit has disappointed me only in one movie out of the 18 films that I saw of his, and that was Men In Black II.

I Am Legend: Teaser Poster

The outline of the story is this: A new man-made virus attacks and wipes out the entire population of the New York City., leaving Robert Neville as the last man to survive in this city or even the world. The virus turns people into some sort of mutants which are nocturnal. Robert Neville who is running out of time is searching for survivors across the world.

Some parts of the movie were shot at Brooklyn Bridge in New York City for $5 million making it the most expensive scene in the New York City.

As far as the marketing is concerned, DC Comics and Vertigo Comics had an agreement and in a joint venture along with Richard Christian Matheson (author's son) are going to create a comic based on the movie.
Also, Warner Bros. launched an online multiplayer game called I Am Legend: Survivor in the virtual Second Life.

This movie will surely be a great movie. I am expectantly waiting to see Will Smith kick some virus butt...

Western Digital MyBook

2007-12-02T14:15:00.000+05:30

There was a time when I thought 9.52 GB was more than enough for me. That was what my HDD space was on my very first Desktop. Well, it seems the amount of space needed by an average person has increased drastically! A few of my friends are cribbing because they don't have enough space on their 250 GB Hard Disk Drives! :O

Yep.... we are on that phase where even 250 GB is easily shattered by the likes of high speed broadband Internet.... I mean just imagine.... I was searching for the movie, Jackass Number One.... I got a Blu-Ray result.... 44 GB !!!! Thats what am talking about....

I recently got a Western Digital MyBook 250 GB for my 18th birthday.... xD

For those who don't know Western Digital... go die... :P ...hehe its a rival company to Seagate...

OK... the MyBook is basically an External HDD. Note that it is NOT a portable hard disk...its an EXTERNAL HDD... it means its huge... :P

Now, I had an option of going for the MyBook Pro, Essential and Premium....but I chose the Essential... a pretty good choice if you want to just store your files and want a good bargain for the best per GB price.

The difference was that....
Premium: It has a FireWire (thats IEEE 1394 port) 400 port along with the usual USB 2.0. It has a back-up software and a really nifty disk-usage indicator.

Pro: The best in line... but too expensive. Its got a FireWire 400 and two FireWire 800 ports and a USB 2.0 port. It has a better back-up software.

Now, all the MyBooks look like...well... books! I sometimes keep them with my books. :P

Front View

Rear View

The specifications of the WD MyBook 250 GB are as follows:

1] Price: Rs. 7000/- as of 7th July, 2007... now for same price we get 500 GB!
2] Drive Capacity: 250 GB.....but after the cut-downs on the FAT32 file-system etc... 234 GB
3] Interface: USB 2.0
4] Other Stuff: Got some wires n plugs, some back-up software and other crap...
5] Write Speed: 25.5 Mb/s...... once I got a burst speed of 27 Mb/s
6] Read Speed: 29.8 Mb/s
7] Dimensions:
Height 6.710 Inches (Max)
Length 5.550 Inches (Max)
Width 2.25 Inches (+/- 0.010 inch)
Weight 2.90 Pounds
8] 7200 rpm

This External Storage device is definitely worth a buy at the moment, considerinthe fact that the cost of External HDDs have drastically crashed rock-bottom low. But unfortunately, it is EXTERNAL, pretty annoying if you want to carry it around, for which I would suggest a Western Digital Passport 250 GB.

AMD: The New Quad Cores

2007-11-25T21:31:00.000+05:30

AMD's Athlon 64 series was one of the biggest hits before Intel Core 2 Duo. Costing at a whooping Rs. 44000+, these babies performed well.
The AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 was really great, with the new 65nm technology, this baby has a processor frequency of about 2.8 GHz.
But if you think this is good, wait till you hear what AMD has in store for its high paying customers this mid-July.
To complete the brand new Quad FX platform AMD is introducing three new processors: the Athlon 64 FX-74, FX-72 and FX-70, running at 3.0GHz, 2.8GHz and 2.6GHz respectively. Each physical processor features two cores and a 1MB L2 cache per core, much like previous dual core FX processors, but what sets these CPUs apart from previous FX chips is that they are sold in bundles of two. So when you buy an Athlon 64 FX-74, you are actually buying two dual-core CPUs in a single box. It's not the most elegant way of getting four cores, but it gets the job done and AMD manages to do so at a competitive price. Note that these CPUs are effectively Opterons but with the memory controller configured to support un-buffered DDR2. The FX-74 is the first LGA desktop CPU made by AMD.

AMD Athlon 64 FX-74

These are the new competetive pricings for this year.
CPU Clock Speed L2 Cache Price
AMD Athlon 64 FX-74* 3.0GHz 1MB per $999

AMD Athlon 64 FX-72* 2.8GHz 1MB per core $799

AMD Athlon 64 FX-70* 2.6GHz 1MB per core $599

AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 2.8GHz 1MB per core $713

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2.6GHz 1MB per core $403

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 2.66GHz 4MB per 2 cores $999

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600** 2.40GHz 4MB per 2 cores $851

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 2.93GHz 4MB $999

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 2.66GHz 4MB $530

Intel Core 2 Duo vs AMD Athlon 64 FX-74. The left one is Core 2 Duo and the right one is AMD Athlon 64 FX-74