• 17 inch wide-screen WUXGA 1920×1200 LCD screen
• nVidia Geforce 280M-GTX with 1GB DDR3 RAM
• Intel Core i7 975 Extreme 3,33GHz, 8MB Cache
• 12GB Tripple Channel 1066MHz DDR3 memory
• 3 x 500GB 7200rpm SATA Harddisks (RAID0, 1, or 5)
• 8-speed DVD±R/RW LightScribe writer
• Intel WiFi 802.11b+g+n Wireless LAN
• Bluetooth
• 10/100/1000Mbps Fast Ethernet
• 12 cel Smart Li-ION Battery
• 2M-pixel Webcam built into the screen
• 7-in-1 Card Reader
• 4 x USB, FW, DVI, HDMI, etc.
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

The original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of all these models is Clevo, a company with a long history in creating some of the most powerful and amazing laptops you’ll ever see. They come with a somewhat high pricetag (almost 4200 Euros / US$5900 for the above configuration) and considerable weight and bulk but you certainly get a laptop that can compete with many a desktop and workstation. Especially considering that these laptop use the Intel i7 desktop processors and will support up to 3 harddisks (or SSD’s) and up to 12GB of RAM!

Does it work as I expected it would? It certainly seems so! It has the full performance of the Intel Core i7 975 Extreme and the benefit of 12GB of RAM should be evident. In addition to several bootable VHD’s I use on this system it is a real pleasure to have a laptop that is actually able to run VM’s (using VMware Workstation) fluently. Granted it is not nearly as great in performance as my real workstations it certainly works better than any other laptop I’ve ever owned (which at the time I bought them were all high-end mobile workstations from either Sony or HP).

The only downside, apart from the size of the laptop is its weight. Yes, 11 lbs, about 5.5kg. But a Kensington Contour Roller laptop bag  should take care of transporting it without it becoming a real chore. You certainly get a very solid and sturdy laptop with a Clevo D900F or ones of its various models. A lot of the weight is probably also because of the heatpipe and cooling system used in these (which does indeed perform very well in keeping the i7 975 Extreme cooler than you’d think is possible in a case this small).

For some images of this ultimate mobile workstation, check out the large images over at notebookreview.com and xoticpcforums.com.

The battery? Oh, yeah, you should not think of it as a battery to run the laptop on for a while, instead you should consider the battery as a UPS (uninterrupted power supply) with an average running time of about an hour. You definitely need the power brick to keep this baby powered. It’s not called a power brick without a reason, though. It’s about the size of a brick and close to its weight as well. The power supply alone makes any netbook look like a slice of bread.

I travel with an extra replacement 7200rpm 500GB SATA harddrive (a Seagate Momentus)  just in case one of the 3 inside the system breaks down. They’re disks, they always break and when they do it’s usually the most inconvenient time imaginable. Since I am using the system in RAID0, for performance reasons, I always keep a current image backup of the system on two external 500GB Western Digital Passport drives (those small 2.5″ USB powered ones). Performing a repair and a restore should be a breeze. What I would really like to see and test, and use, is this system with 3 x 512GB SSD’s in RAID0 but with the current price of those it wasn’t worth it to me at this time to get four of those (one as a replacement in case of failure and 3 in the system). But I do suspect the performance would be amazing in this system.

Of course, if you really want to you could do what this guy has done; triple boot Mac OSX, Windows, and Ubunto from your D900F. Most of the reviews and tests of the Clevo D900F appear to be very favorable towards it, describing it as the world’s fastest laptop, and after having had some time to install and play with mine I can say that I defintely agree. However, instead of me copying all the great statements and nice words about the D900F I’m just going to link to several other reviews that I support and endorse. These full reviews can be found at:

• gophn.com
• notebookreview.com
• another one on notebookreview.com
• our-picks.com
• engadget.com
• cnet.com (video review)
• anandtech.com
• thei7.com
• maximumpc.com

Dynamite VSP and Dynamite SIM technology will help Autodesk automate the process of creating visualizations for projects made with AutoCAD Civil 3D software. Dynamite VSP offers simple and efficient ways to bring AutoCAD Civil 3D software data into Autodesk 3ds Max Design software.

“We believe that every design has a story to tell. This acquisition will greatly simplify the process of visualizing complex AutoCAD Civil 3D projects with 3ds Max Design,” explained Jay Bhatt, Autodesk senior vice president, Architecture, Engineering and Construction. “It will help civil engineers tell their story in the most compelling way possible – validating their designs in context and showcasing projects for public consultation and approval.”

“With Autodesk’s research and development investment capabilities, this acquisition is expected to benefit our existing users as our technology is taken to the next level,” said Bruce Harfield, director of 3AM Solutions. “We look forward to working with Autodesk to further integrate the technology into the company’s existing software and advance Autodesk’s visualization offerings for civil engineers.”

“This acquisition will help empower users to more rapidly produce high-quality visualizations of civil engineering projects – even those without detailed knowledge of 3ds Max Design,” added Bhatt.

Read the full press release at 3am-solutions.com and autodesk.com.

Unzip the DLL to a location of your choice and you can use netload and load the Civil.RBC.dll (or if you want the functions available, hook it up in the acad2010.lsp file like this…

(command "netload" "C:/Your/Path/Civil.RBC.dll")

The commands supported are:

• RebuildAllCorridors (to rebuild all corridors)
• RebuildOODCorridors (to rebuild all out of date corridors)

If you wish to hook these up as macros use the RebuildAllCorridorsMacro or RebuildOODCorridorsMacro.

Download Civil.RBC.zip (3571 bytes)

Two days ago a friend of mine alerted me to a video he saw on a web portal of an ISP that had started a video service for its customers that is similar to YouTube and Google Video. One of the videos there, uploaded by a user that goes by the name of “bmhelli” (according to this and his website, Bernard Marius Hellinga a.k.a. Bernard Helli. from a town called Ermelo in The Netherlands) contained two TV commercials that were appended together. One introducing some kind of big hamburger, the other commercial being of a topless woman acting out stereotypical male behavior.

While the commercials were funny, the creator that appended them decided to also append a few pictures at the end with a scrolling text (in Dutch, “Onze Werkplek”) which means “Our Workplace” or “Our Office”. Those images, as you can see here and probably would have guessed since I’m writing about it, were of course not of “their workspace” but rather, mine!

In a way it’s amusing that someone would take some seemingly popular (if I judge it by the numbers of visitors to my site and the e-mails I receive about it) images from the internet and label them as “our workplace”. But it’s also not a very clever thing to do. Photographers usually don’t like their pictures being used by others that would take credit for it and are certainly less amused when the person or company doing so claims or implies that it is theirs or claims to be the author or copyright holder. The latter is also the case with Bernard Hellinga aka “bmhelli” since the upload details he entered were “Autheursrecht: BMH” (that’s “Copyright: BMH”). It is unclear what Bernard M. tried to accomplish with this. Either to pretend that my home office was his workspace or whether he wanted to imply that those commercials preceeding the images were those of the producer of these commercials (which, I certainly am not even though I did produce several TV commercials back in the 80’s and 90’s).

The ISP that owns and runs that video website had recently come up with their own version of “the DMCA” (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) which is a system for receiving and handling Take Down and Cease and Desist notices. A system I would strongly encourage for all ISP’s in order to distance themselves from any claims or association with copyright infringement by their customers. Needless to say, that new system deserved a closer look and a bit of a test. Within two days I received notice from the ISP that the user had taken down the infringing content. A good example of how an ISP can deal with these things without having to defend themselves over the actions of a customer. Very nice, and my compliments go out to XS4ALL for being a progressive ISP.

The same goes for Microsoft. When I was notified that Mr. Hellinga had also used the same photographs on his livespaces site/blog a DMCA Take Down C&D (Cease and Desist) went out. It took two days but the photographs were removed. This shows that a proper DMCA complaint will be handled in a proper and timely fashion.

Now the really funny thing is that this was the SECOND time my friend found something that infringed on a copyright that I held. Back in 1996 (it might have been 1997) he came by after picking up a book called “The 3D Studio MAX Design Guide”, published by Coriolis, Inc. Since I used to work on 3ds max I flipped through the book and within seconds my eyes fell on a chapter entitled “Battlemech”. To my surprise the 3D model used for that chapter was a 3D model I had created back in 1993, which was copyrighted (and clearly mentioned in the enclosed text file), and where one of the authors of the chapter claimed they had designed and created the model. On top of that the model itself was provided on the CD-ROM included with the book.

That level of commercial use of course required a slightly different approach and after getting in touch with Coriolis and having my attorney stand by to file a temporary injunction to halt all sales of the book we got to discuss the issue. I’ll save you the long story but in the end Coriolis admitted their “mistake” and we settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Several months later I was contacted by Don Simpson, a cartoonist, who also had his material used in the very same book. In 1997, Ron Every wrote about this situation in the magazine he wrote for. You can find the article here (sorry about the quality, it’s an old PDF).

The bottom line, of course, is, that if you use material from any site on the internet that has copyright notices and details such as “without prior written permission” and “all rights reserved” you should never use the material without permission unless you wish to open yourself up to the less amusing side effects it can result in. If the material is not labeled and just found, stumbled upon, or provided in any random fashion and it is not clear who the author or copyright holder is and you are therefore unable to obtain permission, it is sensible to not use the material because you could end up being liable for using it. Regarding the “Fair Use” clause in copyright laws, claiming copyright without permission is never allowed under the “Fair Use” clause.

Besides the high definition video, make sure you check out some of the visual effects wizardry performed by Ruairi by checking out the before and after shots. And while you’re at it, check out the humorous FAQ that is featured on his website. A little word of warning… graphic detail not suitable for children and strong language will be found anywhere in the vicinity of anything remotely related to Ruairi. But that’s the way we know and like Ruairi and we hope he never changes that edge.

So, Ruairi, you f*&$#$*#!, I see you *&*^#&^@ still haven’t learned s&^#* at all and you still haven’t adjusted your *&@**#&# and *&@*(%#. Here I thought that you might have drank yourself to death in the past years. Keep up the fun work!