Monday, October 30, 2006

Amarok 1.4.4 released with music store

"The new Amarok 1.4.4 release is the first open source media player to have built-in support for a DRM-free music store: Magnatune guarantees that for every song sold half the revenue actually goes to the artist. The new release also includes a slew of other features, as well as under-the-hood improvements and bugfixes."

Sounds interesting, though I have mostly used Itunes for my music collection, I have had fiddled around with Amarok. Overall from when I used a cvs version of Amarok, that it probibly is the most featured filled Itunes replacement for linux. Still the only problem with Amarok, is that it is a KDE based app, and I use GNOME as my desktop environment

read more | digg story

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Sam and Max: Culture Shock is comming....

Finally after many years, another Sam and Max game has finally been realeased: Sam and Max: Culture Shock (though only through GameTap at the moment). It will available worldwide Nov 1st. I could go on and on describing a basic summary, but thanks the the developers at Telltale Games, they have put together a collection of reviews...

Also here is one of the generated Sam and Max cartoons from the games' homepage, that caught my eye, enjoy!

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Move over Firefox: IceWeasel is HERE!

From the recent Debian vs Firefox issue, it seems like "Firefox" will eventually and slowly be faced-out on GNU/Linux platforms that adheres to "free software" philosophy. There is currently a first binary release for GNU/Linux / x86 32 bit available, as well as its corresponding source code.

Curiously, even though IceWeasel's creation was originally for Debian, it will be interesting to see if other Non-Debian based distributions pick up on this....

read more | digg story

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Is Outsourcing I.T. Overseas Past It's Prime?

"Is outsourcing IT overseas past its prime? According to a new survey, it is. Consider this: Two years ago, 84 percent of the respondents to a Global IT Outsourcing Study sponsored by Chicago-based consulting firm DiamondCluster International said they planned to increase their level of offshore outsourcing. In 2006, that figure fell to 64 percent."


This, at least in my mind, is a good sign that this fad of offshoreing is starting to fade. Possibly, this is connected to the fact that there are certain IT jobs that do have to be on site, and cannot be outsourced....

read more | digg story

Inside of a Hard Drive

"A video of what a Hard Drive looks like inside while doing various tasks."




It is interesting, from the point that the drive actually works when it is open, It must be something to do with the construction of the older drive, vs the newer drives. Anyway, quite interesting, to see a open drive in motion....

read more | digg story

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Not Just Third World Nations Banning Skype; Universities Get On Board Too

It looks like it's not just third world countries with government-backed telephone monopolies to protect that are banning VoIP. Some universities are getting in on the game as well. San Jose State University, just down the road from Skype's parent company eBay, has apparently decided to block all Skype use on campus.


Well thats a misnomer, partially because in the article cited, the campus has not blocked it, for now from the outcry of students and even professors; This shows that the telecoms are starting to feel that Skype is a threat to standard landlines, though the irony is that landlines have some advantages that you cant really get with cell phones, or Skype, one of those points is that the quality of the call on a landline is usually better than either cellular or via IP, though there are more ways to improve the quality of internet calling over cell phones.

read more | digg story

Alan Cox's Thinkpad explodes!


Even Linux gurus are susceptible to the perils of exploding batteries - last night famed kernel hacker Alan Cox's IBM Thinkpad battery burst into flames and exploded. Follow the link for an in-depth story in Telsa's inimitable style and photos of the laptop's remains.



Well, that sorts out one lession, don't use third party batterys, unless they can be trusted not to have impurities in them. Oh well, theres one more char-broiled laptop, to go......One more point though, who is Alan Cox? (Nevermind, apparently he is a famed linux kernel programmer).

read more | digg story

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Python Programming for Beginners

"Despite what assembly code and C coders might tell us, high-level languages do have their place in every programmer's toolbox, and some of them are much more than a computer-science curiosity. Out of the many high-level languages we can choose from today, Python seems to be the most interesting for those who want to learn something new.."


Python may not be seen as the most prominent laungage, and as well has some simplicities over C++. This looks interesting and I'm definatley going to read up on this, becauase having one more programming language in anyone's arsenal, helps...

read more | digg story

New Apple Earbuds Available From Store

Now for the first time ever, you can purchase the same earbuds that ship with the iPods. Perfect for replacements or spares - for the *cheap* price of $29.00.

Apparently the design of the iPod earphones has changed slighty, to be more streamedlined, which in my opinion looks nicer. This seems to be the trend with Apple now, after they released there new Nano, which is sleeker, and takes on the better design of the mini, in a smaller package. Apple's new trend seems to be sleeker, brighter, and thinner. Though time will tell if these traits will make the next generation iPod even more thinner than it is now....

read more | digg story

Funny Prank to play on a friend, ex, co-worker or anyone.

This is way fun, enter anyone's phone number (us & canada) and type a message and choose what you want to display on the callerID, this site will call them and spoof the callerID so that it appears to be coming from whoever you specify. They then read the message back in the computer generated voice that you specify.


Sounds hilarious, being able to send fake calls to anyone, at least in the United States/Canada. I wonder what pranks could be done with such useable tool like this.

read more | digg story

Thursday, September 14, 2006

New iPod Nano Disassembled

"Just got our new 'remastered' Nano today, and we immediately took it apart and posted photos online."


Huh, not much of a new design, more like a really small iPod mini. Hopefully with them going back to the mini design, it should not be as vulnerable to scratces. I must be out of the loop or something, because I didn't really hear much about this until I ran into this artice. Personally I think the new nano, looks better, with the curved edges...

Edit: After reading more about it, the body is now aluminum, and they added a 8 gig size nano...took them long enough to do that. If this was out when I got my iPod color, I probibly would of gotten that.....instead.

read more | digg story

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Walkthrough: iTunes 7's big new features

Organizing, shopping, syncing - everything got a lot of attention from Apple's software engineers and, as you'll see throughout this walkthrough, a lot of polish has been applied to make this one of the most significant updates in recent iTunes history.


They have added quite abit to this version of Itunes, probibly in my opinon, the best feature is the Cover Browser, its neat just gliding through that view, and seeing all the album art (or the lack of it).

read more | digg story

Aqua is dead, long live Aqua! (iTunes 7 is a preview of new OS X style)

"Apple seems to use iTunes as a test-bed for new user interface design styles, and iTunes 7 brings with it an almost complete overhaul the Aqua look we have all grown to love/hate/tolerate."


From what the Windows version of Itunes shows, they've updated the Aqua theme considerably, but in a sense it is still aqua. You could call it really the "updated" Aqua, from the fact that it looks more modern than the previous Aqua.

read more | digg story

Hack to Change Windows XP Home to Windows XP Professional

Enable the features found in Windows XP Professional on your Windows XP Home Edition installation with this hack.

In the past, I've heard of other ways of getting Home Edtiton to act like XP pro via a program called TweakUI (or something like that), which is hard to find now. This process, from what I read seems a whole lot easier to do, and since its all done on the cd, it can be reused. Though after reading the digg comments, it seems to not give any of the pro features, but makes it look like its pro...which I guess is still nice...in a way...

read more | digg story

Kitty Nano

A spoof on the Ipod Nano Ad. cute and yet funny at the same time!

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Top Ten Video Game Weapons

A very interesting video that GameTrailers made that counts down there picks for the top 10 video game weapons of all time...definatly worth a look

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The Emmy Opening Number

This has nothing to do with technology, but I thought the opening number (which was the only thing I saw with the emmys), which was hilarious. And now here it is both parts of it:

Part One:


Part Two, with a musical number: "NBC is Screwed"


Enjoy!

Browsers: How they show off your personality

What does your browser reveal about you?: You would be surprised to discover that the browser you use might give us a look into your personality. The author takes the time to talk about IE, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, AOL, Konqueror, and more. Check out this amusing article to discover who you are based on what type of


Yes it seems that one person has now tried to map what traits lead you to use certain browsers, especailly with the people that still use IE 6 or 5...this is a hilarious read, for anyone. Personally, it is a kind of a "Browser Horoscope"

Originally found on AMCP Tech Blog's Friday Linker

Swift: Safari For Windows...

Swift: Do you enjoy using Apple Computer's Safari browser, but want to stay the Hellz away from Mac OS X? Now you can with a Windows application that looks and acts like Safari. Now that shows how much free time you have!

I personally have used Safari, though it has similar features to Firefox, minus extensions.....it just doesn't have the same great features that make Flock and Firefox good browsers, abet the memory issues....

Originally found on AMCP Tech Blog's Friday Linker

Answer Quiz - Recieve Vista Beta 2

Microsoft added a little Windows Vista quiz to their websites which asks seven questions about the upcoming new operating system. If you answer the questions right (some users report that this even does not have to be the case) Microsoft will send you Beta 2 of Windows Vista. We all remember the free USB stick that Microsoft offered at there website.....

I remeber that...and that was swamped, and I don't know if anyone actually got that in the first place....I did the quiz, and got one question wrong, with the date of the release for buisnesses, the answer for it, November 2006, sounds ludicrise anyway, they arn't going to have it in any reasonable packaging to show it to buisnesses, heck its networking stack is brand new, so there are a heck of alot of security issues in there that should worry anyone into waiting a few months until they can at least grind out some release issues.....

read more | digg story

Monday, August 28, 2006

Review: Point of Existance 2




Recently, I decided to try out one of the latest mods for BF2, which is POE2. This group of modders have had previous experence, with the Battlefield Vietnam, with the original POE. I was throurgly impressed with that mod, that raised the quality and experience of BF:V into a new level. I was expecting the same thing with POE2...

POE2 is set in a different conflict, after the previous one that pitted the Soviets vs the Americans in Africa. This time, the fighting is between the Ukrane, and Germany. The weapons selection, as well as the models were very good, though balance with the weapons may need to be tweaked slightly, the Ukranian Spec Ops gun was a tad too powerful....though it had less ammo than its German counterpart. The variety of vehcials are a decent selection. There are a few issues with the vehicals damaging themselves when going over small bumps, though that should be corrected in future versions.

Overall, I was impressed with the mod, though not as impressed as with the original one. This could be attributed to the fact that many of the features that first appeared with POE (Multiple Tank Shells, etc), but then again, simalar ideas have been implemented in other mods, making the neat things that orignally made POE neat, the same. POE2 is still a good mod, and is worth the extreme download (One Gig), which could be a pain for some. This could go on for a much longer than it is now, but I just wanted to sink into the basic details of the game, and get some interest into learning more, beause there are more details about it, as well as other features that are included, that I have not really mentioned, but would add on to this basic review. POE2 has the makings of excellent Mod, though the gameplay is similar to BF2, it brings some new life to the game play, with new weapons, as well as a change in environment.....the desert does get kind of boring after awhile. There are a few cosmetic details that need to be addressed, as well as balanced, but overall a good first rease for the mod. Additional details can be found at http://www.pointofexistence.com/

Saturday, August 19, 2006

I'm going to be out of town, next week...

For the next week, I'm going to be on vacation...so its going to get a tad quiet here...but I'll be back the week after next. If you need your daily dose of tech news, I suggest checking any of the other sites I have linked on my site, to get your dose of news, as well as Digg.

Make your own: You're On Notice! Board

I originally ran into this on the AMCP Tech Blog's Friday linker, and its pretty neat, Alex describes it in the original post:

I'm not sure if any of you watch Steve Colbert's, The Colbert Report, but someone has taken the time to allow anyone to create a fun way to put anything up there and display it as, "You're On Notice!". You can see the one I made here (Try to see who belongs to which company!).


I decied to put one together, full of some random stuff:



Even though I never heard of the show, it is neat, and you can generate your own "Your On Notice!" board here.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Flash 9 for Linux - Possible release coming soon?

Mike Melanson, Adobe dev working on Flash 9 for Linux, has updated his blog with information that his team have produced a stable build, and they are now looking into creating cross-distro binaries. Let's hope that they decide to release a beta version to the public. (No release dates have been announced, so any release could still be far off.)

Yay, according to the post, Flash 9 is working with Ubuntu...that means we'll be able to enjoy Youtube, and Google Video, without syncing issues. Now the kicker is how long until it is released....because it definalty need to be released soon, because flash 7 is crud on linux :(.

read more | digg story

Thursday, August 17, 2006

My Latest Compositon: Crusin' Along and You Control Tunes...

After getting to know GarageBand, I started working on a tune that involved all loops, with a funky, and rock like feeling. It turned into Crusin' Along...which I think is a good compostion, taking into account that its my first time with GarageBand...it can be found here on iCompositions.net.

On another note I like to mention about this neat OSX plugin I got that allows control of iTunes, even if you have iTunes on another desktop..also on each song switch, it makes displays track info in this neat overlay:




The program is called You Control Tunes, and it can be found here. Its a free program , but you have to register for a serial...This plugin also works well if you have the Desktop Manager addon for OSX, allowing you to control iTunes from any desktop, without having to go to that desktop to control iTunes.

F.E.A.R Combat Free Today, Thursday August 17h.

Sierra Entertainment has made the multiplayer component from the award winning PC title F.E.A.R (First Encounter Assault Recon), has been renamed F.E.A.R Combat, and is available for download Today, Thursday August 17th.


Though from the reviews, F.E.A.R's multiplayer was nothing amazing, the fact that it is free, is definaltly going to intice people to download it. I've allready gotten my key for it as well. There is a torrent for this file, but from what I've read in digg comments, there is the possibility that the torrent/tracker is not working correctly, but I could be wrong...

read more | digg story

What not to do with a car.....


Now I know for a fact that musicians can be a little odd, because I am one myself. But this....is beyond weird. What is hilarious about this is that the car is on and it is moving....with a few external passengers on the car. This is one thing that you definatly do not want to do.....one false move, and then there are alot of people injured at once, an explosive combination....On the flip side, its a nice photo, though with someone actually in the driver seat, that makes me uneasy. I'm hoping that the car isn't actually on, because that would be a nutty combination..On a completely random note, did I mention I like the fact that theres plenty red in the photo....

read more | digg story

Edgy Eft (Ubuntu 6.10) & GNOME 2.16 Features

Overview of the current progress in Ubuntu 6.10 and Gnome 2.16.

GNOME 2.16 Beta has been in Edgy Eft (Ubuntu 6.10) for the past few days [or even a week or so]. It is functioning extremely well. There are lots of new things in GNOME 2.16:


Ubuntu 6.10 is looking good, though I still think that a stable firefox version should be included in the release, because people are probibly not wanting to do standard browsing on a beta product, at the moment....

read more | digg story

Google is providing free Internet access to the residents of Mt. View, CA.

Please digg this because not only is it a cool thing that Google is doing, but if I get enough votes, I will get an A in my class. So please help me out!


Odd thing to have to do for a class...anyway Google's move to open up there wifi network will probibly overall benefit the people of Mt. View California, because whereever they go in Mt. View, they will hopefully have wireless internet. The only problem with the login page comming up is that things like skype phones may not actually work with this connection....

read more | digg story

Web 2.0 Logo Creator

Want a free Web 2.0 logo for your website? Use this free, simple builder to get yourself a flash logo. Beta tag optional...


Generated Image

Originally made to poke fun with the logos of Web 2.0 services like Flickr, it is also actually a decent logo generator for a real logo. I'm going to look into trying to stick one of these logos on my site and see if it looks appropriate on it....

read more | digg story

Death to Caps Lock

Hintjens, the CEO of iMatix, has launched the Capsoff organization in a campaign urging hardware manufacturers to ditch the oft-abused and misused key. Hintjens' plan is to build the entire infrastructure for the movement using only freely available tools from Google. He's already set up a Blogger Capsoff blog and a forum at Google Groups.


Right.....like that is ever going to happen. Even though I don't really use caps lock, I don't think hardware manufactures are just going to drop a key for a bunch of idiots who use caps too much, there are other ways to get around that, also involving warning them, banning them from the fourm, etc that are less dramatic than ditching the caps lock.

read more | digg story

Hoosier Daddy? In Indiana Schools, It's Linux

Indiana schools' department is ready to ramp up its rollout of Linux desktops in classrooms.


A interesting move by a school department by allowing local distric schools choose there platform, though there may be some conflict in some areas, including graphics, and journalism, with the fact that many of these programs are on the Mac or Windows, though more standard writing, web surfing, and research, can be done just as well on windows. There is the GIMP on linux, but it doesn't quite reach the level of photoshop...anyway yet another success for open source in the education sector. What is odd is that in the article they don't menion any of them using Edubuntu, but there is the possiblity they just generalized it...

read more | digg story

Microsoft Issuing Patches For OS Not Officially Released Yet...

"Microsoft confirmed Tuesday that two of the 12 security bulletins issued last week affect Windows Vista Beta 2, the widely-used preview, and posted download instructions for the first security updates to its next-generation operating system."


There is just something wrong with this picture, an operating system that is still in beta, ahving security patches, eventhough it isn't even considered "stable" yet....this may be a bad sign for Vista, besides its Networking Stack being brand new, full of bugs that have been fixed in other operating system network stacks....

read more | digg story

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

AOL Goes Digging for Gold: Massachusetts' Next Big Dig

In an effort to collect on a $12.8 million dollar judgement against email spammer Davis Wolfgang Hawke, AOL intends to dig up the yard of the spammer's parents where they believe they'll find buried bars of gold and platinum. While Hawke's mother says they won't find anything, she and her husband intend to challenge AOL's plans in court.


Yea....good luck with that AOL, just what a failing ISP needs to be doing, while they should be working on there web services to actually make a profit from ads, rather than working on this....its a waste of energy and money. This is hilarious...

read more | digg story

Pen Testing in the Palm of Your Hand

"A portable hacking device equipped with hundreds of exploits and an automated exploitation system will go on sale in the United States in October."


Sounds neat, but the price ($3,000) is a little much for the normal person to use to test the security of there networks, it seems to be more put towards commercial market, who can afford something of this price.

read more | digg story

Battle of the Photo Hosts: Webshots-Flickr


Well, I recently was browsing through some photos that were from some people in my orchestra, and I seem to be constantly getting these bloody proxy errors...This is why I'm making this comparison. Overall webshots, is a normal photo sharing environment, with a hard limit on photos, standard albums, and is also owned by Cnet. The things I can pick at is that the servers that Webshots is hosted on have been recently been flaky, and the fact that there isn't other was of labeling photos like tags or other things that, Flickr has, to search photos in many different ways. Overall, I have not seen why Webshots is so popular with people of my age, other than possibly simplicity of uploading photos and adding descriptions. This is not to say that uploading photos to flickr isn't just as easy, but Flickr has not been around as long as Webshots has. Word of mouth from what I've seen is how it has become more popular with people of my age. Another thing is that the search engine for finding photos is really poor, because of not having tags, only able to search descriptions and titles, and that does not turn out as much accurate answers as say Flickr's search is.

Flickr on the other hand, may be a tad harder to upload photos, with having to add tags, description, and title, and if you want it in a photoset, but it's more flexible. Photos can be put into multiple "sets", which are just collections of photos that have a similar reason. Tags can be browsed individually, allowing people to see photos from multiple sets, and ones that are not in sets. Flickr also has the additional community features, that allow people to make groups for similar interests that include photos, groups, and other things. Flickr is more than photo sharing, it includes the searching of photos, the commenting of them, as well as its flexible organizing. The disadvantage of a free Flickr account is that, the upload is capped at 20 megs. Though the advantage of this is that they only limit you on bandwidth, not on the total size of the photostream. Another disadvantage of a free account, is when you hit 200 photos, older photos are not shown in the photostream; they are not deleted though, they are just archived. Though compared to a paid Webshots account ($2 a month) to a Flickr pro account ($25 dollars a year), the Flickr pro account seems the better bargain, because you only have to pay once a year, though the 2 dollars a month equals about the same as the pro Flickr account. The additional benefits of Flickr outweigh Webshots. Flickr Pro has a 3 gig photo upload limit per month, and unlimited photos, as well as allowing images to be replaced with a different version after upload.

If your looking for a place to upload photos, and have a large amount of them, and upload a lot, then a Flickr pro account is the best way to go. If you just occasionally upload photos, or just dump a few occasionally for friends and family to see, then something like Webshots, or another free imagehost like image dump, may be the way to go, for the better free accounts. In my opinion, I would go always with Flickr for its organization, as well as its open API that allows you to use your photos in a variety of ways outside of flickr in other programs, and online services.

Now I'm a believer: A persons tale of switching to Mac

Interesting article on someone switching from a PC to a Mac - and finding out just how easy it is.


In a nutshell, this is just a story that points towards the ease of use and stability of using a Mac over Windows, and I can agree, that it is more stable, though at the moment many games, and some programs that people use, may not be there on OSX. The one thing that will prevent most people from switching, is the fact that many people are just used to using windows and the software that is on the windows platform.

read more | digg story

Glucose - a new OpenGL acceleration architecture for X

We already have a server. One that works rather well. With AIGLX all this server is lacking is a nice way of accelerating common rendering primitives Glucose is that bridge. Between AIGLX and Glucose we have the complete solution. It uses XGL code and there is no duplicate code/work.

Sounds interesting, in a way it is a kind of thing, that is closest in idealism to say DirectX. In my opinion it seems similar in concept as SDL is, basically connecting accelleration, using only a few calls, without haveing to code large ammounts to use OpenGl accelleartion, especially in Xorg. This could be the package that finally makes OpenGL accellearation more compatible in Linux, though from the description, this is still early in development.

read more | digg story

What's taking up my hard disk space? Awesome FOSS app will show you!

Disk Inventory X is a great little FOSS app that will display all the data on your hard disk visually so you can see what is taking up space. Each file is represented by a block, its size determined by the file size and its color determined by its file type. Great for finding large, unnecessary files you don't know about to save disk space!


I've actually tried this out on my external My Book Drive, and it does a good job, showing what is xactly on my drive. It turns out that most of my drive is taken up with Jpeg images, probibly from the fact that that the camera I use most of the time takes 6 megapixel photos, and they usually round around in the one to two meg size per photo. Lucky for me my external drive has in total storage around 160 gigs, that should settle me for awhile. Because this is only for OSX there are other programs for other operating systems, JDiskReport (All platforms: http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/index.html), WinDirStat (Windows, OSS: http://windirstat.sourceforge.net/), SequioaView (Windows: http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/),. There are more programs that do this sort of thing, but I wanted to just list a few alternatives, for people who do not have macs. If anyone has any other recommendations for software that does the same things as Disk Inventory X, you can comment here your preferred programs...

read more | digg story

Secrets of the Pirate Bay

Story about the birth of Pirate Bay, people behind it etc.


In a nutshell its the story of how the Pirate Bay came from the ashes up, and became one of the largest torrent trackers in the world. It goes from there humble starts, into present day showing how they grow, as well as some more interesting details about how they actually make an income, and future predictions. Definatly a good read

read more | digg story

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Finally, a Good Surge Protector that Manages Cables




Belkin has unveiled three new surge protectors that will be able to make any cable management whore jump with joy.


Now, from the pictures, these are very good surge protectors, for the ablilty to organize all of the cords. One can clamp onto a table, on has an organizing cover that reduces cord clutter. It is better to actually see these photos which are linked, because I cannot really give descriptions of pictues, and you can come up with your own opinion for these new surge protectors from Berklin.

read more | digg story

Macworld: Yes, the Mac Pro really is cheaper

Despite an earlier (and possibly biased) report proving the Mac Pro's price advantage, both Macworld and The Inquirer have also agreed that the Mac Pro is unquestionably cheaper than a similarly-configured Dell. Jeez, when was the last time this happened?


At least this debate, from the comment from the WWDC keynote, can be set to rest, becuase the mac is cheaper than the Dell, though each have there disadvantages, and advantages.

read more | digg story

Novell's giant killer: Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10

I'm rather impressed. Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 is designed to do just that - impress the user from the start, with a smooth and (mostly) simple experience that will satisfy the secretary through to the MD. It does still have some areas to work on, however.


It may still have some areas that are rough, but from reading the article, Novell has done a good job of making it easy for users that are used to Windows to transition into SLED. Personally, it also looks good as a personal operating system, if it is priced resonably. I still enjoy using ubuntu, but with the propriatary parts allready built in, it makes it slightly easier to do certain things, including getting XGL/Compiz running.

read more | digg story

RARhost - Free Advanced File Hosting For .RAR Files

RARhost is a unique file hosting storage site, only for .rar archive files. There are many features such as the ability to see the contents of the .rar archive before downloading, ensuring the archive contains the files you want. The size limit per archive is 200mb, and you can upload as many archives as you want!


From the description, it sounds like a good place to put files on that are around that size. Though it only allows RAR's, the file size limit makes it a better place to put files that are around 200mb. Worth a look if there is a need to put files of that size, as well as putting up rar files for free.

read more | digg story

Google Unveils New Blogger Beta

Google's Blogger.com, one of the trailblazers of the whole medium, is about to undergo a substantial upgrade that will improve its usability and help it catch up to the state of the art.

Ironic that I am also using blogger, which is decent, but compared to Wordpress, is behind in the times. Hopefully there updates to it, should improve it. At the moment, I've not gotten an invite yet :(...

read more | digg story

Huge Firefox crop circle - aliens do prefer Firefox!

This past weekend, the OSU Linux Users Group descended on a field in Oregon to create a 45,000+ square foot crop circle of Firefox. The photos of this, taken from planes and helicopters, are incredible


Wow, now that is a large crop circle, I wonder if it is viewable from space. The photos taken of it, look terriffic, and it must of taken a great effort, to get the ammount of people, and spend that much time to perfectly make the firefox logo in oats. It can be finally told that aliens do prefer firefox, over any other browser :).

read more | digg story

Brightnets, a brilliant alternative to hiding on Darknets

Darknets are SO last century. Why not go Brightnet!
Why break the law when you don't have to. Hackers have found a way to share stuff without violating copyright.

Though it does break it down into parts that are not disernable from the orignial files, but couldn't the developers, or who post links into this network, be violating the copwrite laws, because once the file is constructed on there machine, it is copywrite infringement. It basically protects the actual network, but people who download copywrited files, will still be targets of copywrite infringement.


read more | digg story

Monday, August 14, 2006

Ebony & Ivory Become Infra & Red With Virtual Piano

"When connected to a PC, this device will be able to project a laser piano keyboard, and you'll be able to jam out your favorite tunes." Something tells me this will look cool, but actually suck in real-life.

It looks neat, but it isn't really practical to be used all the time, because it isn't either a full sized keyboard. What it does have is appeal in the fact that it displays the keyboard on a table, taking up less space.

read more | digg story

Firefox runs for prom queen (but who will be its date?)

A group of high school kids campaign to have Firefox (yes, the web browser) run for prom queen at their school. The advertising is incredible, and they're almost successful--until the school bans browser candidates.


....A very interesting advertising campaign, no wonder the election officals banned it, though the advertisments are sorta funny. I understand why he tried to have it voted, to show how good firefox is over cruddy Internet Explorer 6 (which it is). This is hilarious, as well as funny. There are photos of this "Ad campaign" that is linked in this post.

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Windows Live Writer Review with Many Screenshots

Microsoft recently released a powerful blog authoring tool, Windows Live Writer. It features a live web preview mode, the ability to post drafts to your server, embed Windows Live maps and a ton more...


Looks like a decent blogging software, which beacuse it is free, would be great to use if on Windows. Though there are probibly better programs on other platforms, especially on Linux and Mac. Though for Windows, it is definatly worth it to try this out....though Flock has some advantages over this.

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Pirate Party Launches High-Capacity Darknet

The Swedish Pirate Party has launched a commercial, high-capacity darknet, on an unprecedented scale and bandwidth. This service lets anybody send and receive files anonymously without being tracked or traced, and can pump data well over 10 megabits per second.


Now that is a fast virtual network, which will probibly in the end be used mainly for the undetectable sending and recieving of pirated material. This will definatly be a big blow to the RIAA and MPAA. There is always the possiblity, though of this being used for the transfer of non pirated files, from the fact that the pipe for this service is over 10 megabytes a second...but that was not the intention of why it was created.

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Friday, August 11, 2006

Apple steps up open source commitment releasing open OS X Intel kernel

As of today, we are posting buildable kernel sources for Intel-based Macs alongside the usual PowerPC (and other Intel) sources, starting with Mac OS X 10.4.7. We regret the delay in readying the new kernel for release, and thank you for your patience," the message read in part


Odd that this was posted on Cnet days after WWDC, when it was announced, I guess there was a delay after they announced it for the actuall code to appear. Hopefully this should help the OS86x hackers make it work better on Intel computers....but note that I say hopefully, it may not improve the situation, but we will just have to see about that.

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Asus WL-700gE WiFi Router: Built-In 160GB Drive, iTunes, and Bittorrent


"It has a built in network iTunes client, so it'll show up as an iTunes client to your PCs. And it has a BitTorrent client that can rip down 7 streams automatically (and 10 FTP or web streams at the same time.) That's with your PC off, all downloads handled by the router. And there's a lot more. Too much more to share before the jump."


Wow now that is a multi-functional router. The ability to be shared via iTunes, Bittorrent, ftp streams, downloads, this isn't your ordinary router, its more of a router and a NAS/Downloader all in one. What the article doesn't mention is how much it is, though it sounds terrific, how much is this all in one super router going to set back the avid downloader?

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Thursday, August 10, 2006

Superb high resolution wallpapers (up to 2560x1600)

An excellent source for free backgrounds, sorted by user rating. The images are available in all common resolutions, from 2560x1600 down to 1024x768, and are very diversely themed.


Wow...those are some nice backdrops, the quality and the way the are shot, just make them look perfect for any desktop. I took a look at the first page of them, and all of them would look great as a backdrop, though I think I'll stick to my old one, for now. This is definatly a good thing to bookmark, especially if your tring to find the "perfect" backdrop.

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The Decline and Fall of the CPU

"Specialized cores are inevitable for one simple reason. If you design a chip for a specific task, the same number of transistors can perform that task 10-100x faster or more. These kind of performance gains can't be ignored. Why not include some cores designed specifically to run certain applications?"

Eh....thats not going to happen...not in a longshot, in standard desktops, mabe in Workstations and computers involving Rendering. Programmers are going to eventually adapt to multiple cores, but because multi-core processors, have only been out for a short time (in a sense), programmers have not learned/adapted to writing there code to be optomized for multi-threaded applications. This is not just affecting windows, many programs in Linux are not multi-threaded too, though there are apps that are, including the kernel (via the SMP version). This idea could be also a "flash in a pan" for all we know......because if we had specialized chips, we would have a large ammount of them in computers in the future, and that isnt resnoable.

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Soldier uses Linux in war and peace

In 2003/2004, Jeff Schroeder served in Iraq, flying a tiny remote control spy plane and servicing Unix/Linux systems on the battlefield. Schroeder learned a lot of technology in the desert, and now he's busy working as a Web administrator for Comair Airlines, writing utility scripts for Ubuntu. He says Linux is going to "take over the world."

Wow, now that is an interesting story, from being introduced to linux in high school, to using it to control UAV's. What is interesting is that I did not know that the Army's Land Warrior program, was going to use tiny interegated Linux computers....score one for Linux. Personally I wasn't introduced by anyone really to linux, I just ran into it on the net in middle school. Basically I was a self taught Linux user, though still many of my comptuers run windows, for gaming mainly. Anyway, in the article, his story of being introduced to linux, to using his experiences in both the army and before that in his current job shows the increase in more corporations, and other areas, but has not penetrated the desktop market as well, though support in the desktop area is getting better. Back in 2001, Linux was more rough edged, and not as many things worked as well, though up to this day, this has improved in the kernel updates, as well as other components. Overall, Linux is on the track to becomming an economical operating system in the destop area, though it will still take some more time, to iron out more issues with it, until it becomes more adopted....

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A cat's best friend: Laptop + Cat = Nap.....

Nothing improves a laptop's performance more than cat hair! Heck, I doubt this laptop is going to last long enough for the hair to be a problem. This laptop is sitting so far over the edge, a sudden move by our sleepy feline could send the machine onto the floor

Now we defiantly have a catastrophe here, the cat made a really dumb move with sleeping on a laptop, as well as the laptop being on the edge of where the laptop is, that it could fall. Though even if it doesn't break, this user is going to have a heck of a time cleaning every fiber of cat hair out of that computer....

Photo Galleries > Convicted for endangering their computers?


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Dirty computers: Revenge of the dust bunnies



I ran into a link to this,while reading an article on ZDnet....and found this gallery of computers full of dust. This isn't just the minor dust that builds up over a few months, these are EXTREMELY dirty machines, with dust literally covering the computer cases. These photos should shock and as well suprise you how neglected some people are of cleaning there machines of dust...

Photo Galleries > Dirty computers: Revenge of the dust bunnies

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Wi-Fi for the masses

- It looks like a large Styrofoam takeout container. The 14-pound box would fit into a backpack were it not for the two antennas, set well apart. It can withstand subfreezing temperatures and 165-mph winds; it's even lightningproof. With the lid bolted down tightly, the box offers no clue as to what's inside.


According to the article, the technology seems to be very much promising, and hopefully more of this technology will be implemented in more cities. The only threat to the use of these wireless relays, is big broadband monopolys, that will try to stop the creation of these networks, to make sure that they are the dominant provider of broadband, so they don't have to lower prices, or compete with other networks.

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Intel aims for open-source graphics advantage

Intel on Wednesday released open-source software intended to give Linux full-fledged 3D graphics support and to give the chipmaker an advantage over rivals ATI Technologies and Nvidia.


A good move by intel, this may bring more people to be useing Intel chipsets on linux boxes, more often, second to the NVIDIA drivers, from the fact that they are open source. The thing that is key of these drivers, is that if the drivers are even decent, and if they are not, it will probibly take awhile for people to contribute code to optomize them..

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Wednesday, August 09, 2006

NVIDIA Quad SLI Now for DIY Market

HardOCP covers the release of NVIDIA's WHQL Quad SLI driver and just what it takes to get a Quad SLI system of your own up and running. They also have 25MB of lossless compression screen shots that they took at 2560x1600 resolution why playing games that really shows you what Quad SLI can do.


Wow, now that is alot of GPU horsepower, and I haven't even migrated from AGP yet to PCIE....its a pity that there are a bunch of shortfalls. One of which is that some DirectX 9 games will not see as much of a performance boost as others, becuase of the fact that DirectX cannot really support in a sense, all of the GPU power, and take advantage of the 4 cores. It still looks neat though.

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Beautiful Vista Wallpapers

Ripped from the 5381 Vista build. The bamboo one is great.


I havent taken a look at the wallpapers yet, but the ones that they have used in past builds seems pretty nice, so I'll definatly take a look at them to see if any of them are decent.

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Gmail coming out of Beta?

Australian and New Zealand residents are the first in the world to be able sign up for Gmail without having to scrounge for invites from existing users.
As of today, users can sign-up to Google's Web-based e-mail program by simply registering on the site www.gmail.com



Well that is a good sign that development of Gmail is reaching another step, with that, there will not have to be the hassle of using SmS to get an invite, as well as having to search for invite, though this can be a bad thing, because it opens the doors for spammers to get gmail accounts to be used for spam mail, we'll have to see what happens with that...

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First Mac Pro Unpacking Pictures

One lucky guy has received Apple's new Mac Pro already, and shared the unboxing with MacRumors.


Looks nice....the price of which is a quite a bit out of my reach, but its still neat. The case setup seems very easy to add memory, video, as well as hard drives, making this, from what it seems to be the most user friendly upgradable computer, I've personally seen.

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Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Why I hate the mobile-phone business

BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- I began writing this weeks column with a hope of discussing a cell-phone bubble. After a week of research I discovered that was impossible, since the business is too miserable to even form a bubble.


Dvorak's opinion does hold several truths that people just spend alot of time yaking to people they don't really know, who could, if they live near by, actually talk person to person. Also, the thing with digital being the next best thing, isn't true either, becuause now, all they are doing is pushing to upgrade to newer phones, that may or may not have better reception or call quality.

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Dual-head with Compiz/XGL - Video

The cutting edge of GNU/Linux

The video that shows the demostration of this setup, looks neat, though the person with the dual head setup, probibly has a decent video card to be able to run a video and move the window around at the same time....



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JitterBugs could turn your keyboard against you

Researchers warn against an entirely new threat to computer security: peripheral devices - such as keyboards - which could be physically bugged in an attempt to steal data. A class of devices that could covertly transmit data across an existing network connection without the user's knowledge has been identified. They are called JitterBugs.


Well this can be added to the list of ways people can now log from computers, first it was the ability to diferentiate the individual sounds of each key being pressed to figure out what the person was typing, by just recording the keyclicks, and now this comes along. This is just one more thing to be parinoid about when getting a keyboard, and with it being undetectable on the software side, actually searching the keyboards for these things may have to become a reality, espeically in sensitive areas such as the government. Though it seems still that crooks are just going for the good old way of just breaking in and physically taking the data, as shown with yet another laptop being stolen, with sensitive information of personal retired military. So this stuff may be a possiblity, but if even the physical security of the comptuers, as well as the security of the files cannot be trusted, crooks are just going to resort to doing things like, breaking in and stealing the laptops, becuase it is more simple than trying to get a keylogger, or a JitterBug, or any other logger.

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Sony MyLo: Media Player With WiFi, Skype, Browser, and Messaging

Compared to most Sony gear we've seen over the past few years, the Mylo is a breath of fresh air. The media player does MPEG-4, digital audio, and pictures. But it also has a WiFi connection and a QWERTY keyboard, for chatting on Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger (No AIM support, sorry.) Wait, wait, wait! It also works as a wireless Skype phone!


Even though it isn't a cell phone, it still, fro mthe standpoint of being able to use Yahoo, Google, and Skype, as well as being able to play movies and music, it is very much a round product. It is a tad skimpy on storage with only one gig, but this product shines with its messenging conpatiblity. One thing that is bad with it is the price, which is $350 dollars. It looks interesting, but I would wait until it starts getting reviews, before and when it comes out in September.

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Monday, August 07, 2006

WWDC Update

People are taking there seats! This is being updated live at http://www.macrumorslive.com/web/

Check it out for live updates.

Edit: 7 minutes until the keynote, as menitoned by MacRumorsLive!, get ready...


Edit: MAC PRO IS OFFICAL (From macrumors):
Mac Pro
-old case - two optical drives
-woodcrest processors
-based on core 2 duo
-all dual core
-up to 3 Ghz
-large 4 MB shared L2 cache
-128 bit vector engine
-64 bit
-deliver tremendous performance per watt
-up to 3x a Xeon
-amazing processor
-every Mac Pro gets 2 of them
-compare to G5
-big jump in performance
-1.6 to 2.1x faster than the G5 quad
-everyday apps performance
-taken a bunch of apps and tested the speeds
-around 2x speed increase in real-world use
-around 2x faster in xcode
-"it's a great chip"
-each on it\'s own - 25GB/sec bandwidth
-4channel
-256 bit wide memory access
-twice the bus of the G5
-less cooling in box
-room for 4 hard drives
-up to 2 TB of internal storage
-second optical drive
-increased front I/O as well as back I/O
-back - 4 PCI express slots
-graphics slot at bottom - double wide for larger graphics cards
-design of case stays the same
-inside, entirely new
-drive carriers - insert drives without tools - just snap into place
-processors fit in compact space - leaves lots of room in case for full size ram, drives, everything
-1 standard incredible configuration
-2.6 Ghz dual
-256 MB ram
-Superdrive
-$2499
-previous fastest was $800 more than that
-"usually more expensive" - great product to bust that myth
-$1000 more to get close from Dell
-BTO options (Built to Order- Like most Macs)

If you want to see more about the keynote, go to MacRumorsLive...

Live from WWDC 2006: Steve Jobs keynote

Engadget has posted some photos of WWDC, 16 minutes before the keynote. They can be found at this permalink.

Apple on Vista, Leopard, Retail windows

Apple's Leopard operating system is taking aim at rival offerings from Microsoft. Meanwhile, Mac OS X developers get their hands on Leopard beginning Monday. And the announcements coming out of WWDC will reportedly spur display changes inside Apple retail store windows.

Sounds interesting, especially with Apple poking fun at vista by labeling it as "Vista 2.0" :).

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MacRumorsLive: No WWDC Live QT Stream? No Problem!

MacRumors will be covering Apple's WWDC Keynote live. Up-to-the-minute details will be given without having to refresh your browser via AJAX technology. At MWSF, MacRumors was able to serve over 100,000 simultaneous people. Now it should be able to handle the increased audience expected as Steve expands his reality distortion field...


It WOULD be still nice to have a live qt stream, to actually hear Steve Jobs talk, but this will still do nicely. I will post any relevent info that comes up during today.

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MXL.006 USB/Cardioid Condenser Mic Looks Like it Means Business


The MXL.006 USB is a pretty fancy-looking microphone, but it keeps things simple by plugging into the USB port of a Mac or PC. Usually if you want to use a cardioid condenser microphone, you'll need to hook it up to all sorts of sophisticated electronics, preamps and such, but nothing doing with this baby. Cardiod? That's right, it has that heart-shaped pickup pattern so coveted by pro audio recording studios.


This microphone looks like the perfect tool for budding podcasters, as well as for budding musicians that want to start recording, without having to have a mixer and have to fuddle with all that, though I do have a mixer and microphone, so I can have a more custom setup for using skype and other conferenceing software.

Happy Birthday World Wide Web!

15 years ago today, Tim Berners-Lee publicly released his WWW project onto the Internet.


Wow, has it been that long, well happy birthay WWW! I actually can remember in the early years of the internet, that I wasn't using the internet, instead I had compuserve, and went through its newsgroup like system. Probibly the first time that I actually used it more often was in 1995, when compuserve started offering it. It was sort of neat, for being a new technology, but most of that glamor over the years, does go away. It may not be glamorous, but the WWW does fit the job well. So one more time, Happy Birthday World Wide Web! :)

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Apple makes immediate move to Merom-based systems

Apple Computer has plans to immediately begin work to adopt Intel Corp.'s latest mobile processors. Recently, Intel rolled out their new Merom Core 2 Duo processors, and Apple is keen to incorporate these into their product lines as soon as possible.


This sign that they are getting a mass ammount of Merom Core 2 Duo processors, is one more hint towards that Intel is going to update the MacBook Pro/non pro, with these new processsors. What is completely absent recently is the next PowerMac, and everything is pointing towards this, though it could be released later this year. We'll have to see about this.

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Friday, August 04, 2006

Automation and offshoring COULD spell endgame for many sysadmins.

IT positions previously thought safe are now under threat due to advances that will allow servers to be based in the U.S. and the admin overseas.


Outsourcing Sysadmins isn't going to work, mainly that there are many situations where you do need someone at the physical computer, as well as to add or replace hardware. In certain areas, including government contracting, they wouldn't trust someone to outsource a secure network, so as long there are government contractors, there will be the need for physical sysadmins to admin contractors secure and unsecured networks. Even for other companies it is still necessary to have a sysadmin actually physically working with the machines. It most likely will cost more to outsource them in the end than to just hire one to work on the machines. This article is just describing "a flash in the pan"...

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World's Worst Internet Law Sneaking Through the Senate

President Bush is attempting to get Republicans to end their objections and put into effect the Convention on Cybercrime. It would require the FBI to aid oppressive foreign regimes in enforcing their internet laws, including ones where free expression of political opposition is a crime. In effect, it would end freedom of speech on the internet.


The description of this law is ridiculous. If this is passed by congress, then we would have to enforce cybercrime laws of other countries. Unfortunately this, at least at first glance should be deemed unconstitutional for the one reason that, many oppressive countries cybercrime laws, like China, stop free speech and freedom of expression. This law, in reality is basically destroying the basic rights and freedoms that we have. Though in another spin about this law, if the wording was changed to incorporate that certain cybercrime laws could not be followed if they violated the bill of rights, and other laws of the united state, or were oppressive against certain rights that the US has, then maybe....It would be a more plausible law. In its current form, it wouldn't help the situation, it would make it worse. People really need to contact there Senators as well as representatives and tell them not to vote this law, at all costs, or at least pidgeonhole it to stop its advance. What is lucky is that at least the political parties have objections to this law. This Convention, that Bush is trying to support, is just going to but one more nail in the coffin of his presidency, from the fact that it the people of the US don't support it, as well as Republicans having Objections of passing it. In a sense, there is a large majority of people and representatives, that do not support this law, for a variety of reason. This fact may also help stop this bill as well.

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A Subwoofer You Have NEVER Seen Before! NO CONE! It Looks Like A Table Fan!

Want to hear what 5Hz sounds like? A new woofer technology unlike any other and a new product category for home audio. This is the first home audio woofer delivering true response to DC. The Thigpen rotary woofer is the worlds first true infrasonic home audio or home theater woofer. Conventional subwoofers roll off rapidly below 20Hz.


This is really neat. The subwoofer looks practically like a fan. Actually it really is a fan, the fan is the way the sound is projected. The only problem is with the design, is that if cant really be apart of your normal computer speaker setup, becuase it has to be professionally installed. From what I've read, one such model has to be installed in the attic or the basement. What I don't understand is why it has to be put in such a place....

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Laws of Game Programming

#1 Real game programmers aren't afraid of mathematics.
#2 Real game programmers use C++.
#3 Real game programmers aren't afraid of learning new things.
etc. etc.


This list is partially funny, as well as really describing the things you definatly have to do in game programming. Personally I'm interested in taking this avenue, and it was a good read. Anyone else that is a Game Programmer/wannabe, should take a look at it, if they have not allready.

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Linux expert switches to... Windows?!

Quote, "My friends, I have some news for you. Yesterday I did an evil thing. I did something that, even now, feels degrading. But I had no choice."


Now, In my opinion, I can agree with the writer, because there is a lot of software that is on linux, that is on the Windows platform as well. I have actually alot of experence of using it also. I still have computers with Windows for gaming, and for doing programming, from the fact that Windows is the dominant platform at the moment. This does not mean I will not stop using Linux, I am just embraceing Linux for being open source and stable, and Windows, for mass conpatiblity. I really use both most of the time so I have experence in both. This choice isn't wrong, and I do not want people complaining to me that Windows sucks and what not. There are alot of gremblins in Windows that I despise, and If I could get my Alphasmart to sync in Linux as well, and be able to sync my iPod, with DRM media through some means, and as well as better WIFI support (especially improved WPA support) I would probibly use Linux more often. Even with those issues, Linux is still very much usuable, as well as rock hard stable, compared with windows. Though in this world, with Windows as the dominant platform, and with most video games only on the Windows platform, using both platforms in a mix, at least in my mind, is a more resonable choice than being forced to switch from one to another.

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Steve Jobs saves WWDC for me

With all the horror stories of bad customer service, here's a story with a happy ending. Steve Jobs answers the call of a student developer who's having issues with a Macbook repair, and is in danger of not having his machine back for WWDC.


Wow, that story, from what I've read, is very ironic and fatefull. Somehow that email was sent through the right channels and got into eye of Jobs' personal assistant. This story can be shown as another example that even though Apple does make mistakes in there designs, there customer service is responsive enough to get equipment repaired or send customers a replacement. Kudos to Apple and Steve Jobs for this. Also there was somthing else I wanted to point out:

"Today I got a call from a man from Apple who identified himself as Steve Job’s personal assistant. Jobs had gotten my email and instructed his assistant to make the necessary calls to get my laptop fixed and returned back to me in time for WWDC. His assistant also mentioned that Steve found my line about “going to WWDC without a laptop is like going to war with a bannana” funny. Ha. I made Steve Jobs laugh today. How about that."


Apparently Jobs liked the line that the blogger posted that “going to WWDC without a laptop is like going to war with a bannana”, I think it is a funny line as well also.

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Thursday, August 03, 2006

Apple readying "dizzying amount" of new products

Former Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble says big things are in store for Apple's August 7th press event. "I wish I could say more, but that'd get me sued by Steve Jobs and I don't need that kind of heck right now."

Sounds interesting....I guess we will be suprised of what they are going to release. At least they will be releasing the next PowerMac, hopefully.....

read more | digg story

WWDC 2006 Banner Revieled... With possible hints at new products?

"We'll have to wait until Monday, for the conference to start, before we find out about all the new goodies, but I think this banner may provide some clues..."

Is that 64 bits I spot?


Yep that is a image of a 64 bit processor, and I think from that, it can be sumrised that WWDC mabe when Jobs announces the successor to the PowerMac G5. This could possibly hint towards it being the first 64 bit intel mac, though, something else could happen. The absence of an regular full version iPod could hint towards the future successor to the next iPod. What would be better than guessing what they could bring out, is to actually wait until WWDC starts...then we'll truly know whats going to happen.

There is a fourm post that also has a few other photos of the banner, as well as a filtered photo that is enlarged.

read more | digg story

mp3.com Liquidation Photos

"This is an archive of photos of some of the assets of what has been called "the last great dot.com liquidation auction:" the mp3.com liquidation. This is being preserved here as it is, a piece of American history. There are two reactions that you will get from viewing these photos. One is to laugh and possibly be horrified as well..."


As shown by these photos, these dot-com companies really did spend there venture captial a little to gratuitously, as shown by all the server equipment, computers, and other stuff. The photos open up a time when dot-coms were prospering, and were able to spend lots of money for new equipment and such. The pictures also show the closing of an era in a sence, by the looks of shrinked wrapped equipment, and empty offices.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Transform Your Ubuntu's Look

This article will detail how to mold the Ubuntu Gnome desktop into anything you want it to be.


A good guide to customizing the UI of Gnome in Ubuntu. In my opinon, the default UI, with a different background is good enough for me. I've also tried XGL + Compiz, which are nice, but without a very good video card, the effects can really slow down the UI. It is overall neat, but I would rather have the snappy and simple 2d interfaces of KDE and GNOME to do day to day work.

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MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, banned from schools?

MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Bebo and other social networking sites would be banned from schools and libraries in the U.S., if a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives becomes law.


Most schools ban these sites by using filtering software, so this move is very much unnecessary and wasting the money of taxpayers. The national government does not need to interfeare with this minor thing, the individual state and county governments can take care of themselves. Also the law is so broad, any site that has a message board with registration and profiles could be banned, as well as other sites that are not even social networking sites.

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Bloggers to Microsoft: Take your time with Vista

Given that the next version of Windows is more than two years late, you'd expect that people would be calling for Microsoft to get its act together and release it soon as possible. Not so.


I may just be impatient from the fact that it has been around 5 years since Windows XP was released, but it seems that every time that they delay the release, more featrues are removed from Vista. If they extended development and tried to maintain the current feature set that they have now for it, then I would think that Vista would be at least a decent upgrade from XP for certain users...

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Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Windows Vista demo goes awry


When Voice Recognition goes bad...just a simple demo of trying to type "Dear mom," results in something completely the opposite...

Using the Geek Squad Harmful to Your Computer

"But my own experience and that of many others who have shared their pain on many Internet sites is that the youthful Geek Squad agents have nice personalities but lack technical competence. The result is that when customers expose their prized computers to their agents, because they need technical help, they put themselves at risk."


I personally think the reason why this happened mainly is at fault by the person. This cannot be attriubted to everyone that works at the Geek Squad, without a more consistent reports of this happening with other geek squad agents, then this can be said that there agents are not compentent.

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Finally a device to cure Hiccups

The Hic-Cup, a patented Class I medical device, allows hiccup sufferers to enjoy 100% drug-free relief from this plaguing condition.


Odd device....I wonder what the price for it is though....

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Borrowing a PC? Put Linux on it, via a USB drive

If you're a Linux desktop user and are forced to use someone's Windows machine, the experience may be more on par with borrowing a toothbrush.

To guard against this potential unpleasantness, it's time you looked into putting a bootable Linux desktop image on a portable USB key chain drive.


The only problem is that with this is, that many machines do not have the capiblity to boot from USB. Though this issue is mainly with older computers. I wonder if there is actually a way to get around this though...

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Monday, July 31, 2006

Free Google Writely Invitations

As of a few days Google Writely has lifted its limit on the number of users that can be invited by existing members. I was looking for an invitation yesterday and came upon this website in google groups. I tried it out and got my invitation within an hour. Try it out for yourself!


Sounds interesting, I may have to get an invite and see what this thing really is...

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Lotus and Linux - the powerful duo arrives early

A full year ahead of schedule IBM has brought Lotus Notes to the Linux desktop. A Linux client for Notes wasn't expected until the arrival of Hannover, the next major release of the Notes platform, in 2007. But Big Blue had a surprise up its sleeve and, earlier this month, it announced the availability of a Linux version of the Notes 7 client.


Well this is definatley a good thing for Linux, having another commerical program on the Linux platform, it should hopefully make Linux more of a better choice for corporations...

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Three hillarious new Mac spoofs

With special guest stars Linux and BSD. See top 3 vids.


I've seen one of the video's and its hilarious when linux comes in. They way that they spin it in the spoof is also sort of funny...

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FREE Modeling Program Developped by MIT (Screenshots + Download)

"StarLogo TNG is The Next Generation of StarLogo modeling and simulation software. It has large features for 3D modelling"


This is a neat program, that allows modeling/programming through "Graphical Programming", which removes barriers for people who cannot program in C++ or any other language like that. This seems interesting, and may help people learn the basics of game programming and graphics. I'm personally going to take a look at it, even though I program, because the whole concept sounds interesting.

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How iPod Hacks Work

Intrepid technophiles have found ways to hack iPods, giving them the ability to do much more than play music. In this article, we'll explore why iPods can be hacked, which hacks are our favorites and where to go to learn more.


This has a good list of addons for IpodLinux, as well as some other info on Rockbox as well, a good read if your interested in getting into hacking your iPod..

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Ultra High Security Password Generator

This page generates a high security password for wireless networks or anything. Just reload the page for ultra high security passwords.


Ah the GRC password generator, which has been mentioned on Steve Gibson's Security Now podcast. In my opinion, it is a very good pasword generator, as well as a good WEP/WPA key generator. The only problem with having such a long password/key, is that you need to keep a copy of it somewhere to remember it...

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Thursday, July 27, 2006

Armed Assault: Track IR Demo

A video of an E3 alpha build of Armed Assault, showing off the support for Track IR, which is mostly used in flight sims. With its use in a shooter, it may give an edge to people who have the ability to move the head independly of the rest of the player. Note the details of swaying grass and birds flying in the distance, this engine is really going to push everything from today's and next generations comptuers...

Digg Sponsored Contest: Sysadmin of the year!

Do you know a great Sysadmin? Nominate them as Sysadmin of the year 2006. They can win great prizes including an Apple MacBook, Trip to LISA (conference) in Washington DC, Splunk Professional server and cases of Bawls. The first 2500 nominees receive a free ThinkGeek Tshirt. (Don't forget...Sysadmin appreciation day is July 28th).


I didn't know tomorrow is Sysadmin day... well I guess it should be celebrated, which Is what I'm celebrating tomorrow at work...even though my internship involves working and maintaing computers.....

Also the Sysadmin day site, dedicated to Sysadmin appricaition day can be found at http://www.sysadminday.com/

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Turning Network Free-Riders' Lives Upside Down

"You discover that your neighbours are using your unsecured wireless network without your permission. Do you secure it? Or do you do something more fun? A few minutes with squid and iptables could greatly improve your neighbours' Web experience ..."


Ooh..now this is very interesting.....a way to get back at your neighbors from stealing your wi-fi, though the only problem is that the instructions to do this are assuming (I think...) that you are using linux to route your internet through....or using a hacked linksys router running linux...

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Helio Video Display

San Francisco Technology Reporter Gabriel Slate looks at this new way to display video on air.
Very cool display in mid air. Like star wars.


A very neat display, they even are working on a prototype that can be used as a touch screen also. Only problem is that it costs $20,000.....

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LAMP on Ubuntu 6.06 for Noobs

"I am writing this as a partial documentation of my trials and tribulations with hopes of aiding all Linux noobs on the steps necessary to create a basic Linux, Apache2, MySQl5 and PhP5 system with FTP. Again, this document is tailored to complete Linux beginners and is in no way a complete guide to attacking such a setup"


A guide to help people who want to setup a LAMP server on a computer. I haven't really read them yet, but I'm interested in doing this, because at work I have an explosion of unwanted machines, and I should make one a sever for the heck of it...

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Windows Genuine Annoyance?

Privacy experts and PC users alike blast Microsoft's antipiracy tool


I personally have had no problems with WGA, but at my job, when I was trying to install a key on the side of an old IBM NetVista, it woudn't work, and WGA kept complaining. In my opinion, this was a bad move for Microsoft to use it, because one its annoying, and this will lead to people trying to get around it. In the long run, people have and will get around WGA....

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"Cold War" for Linux is Ready

Cold War is complete on one DVD-Rom [on linux]; due to be released on July 31st 2006.


The game has that sort of cold war U.S. superiority corny like feeling, but it sort of sets the atmosphere of hte game, making it slighty campy, as well as stealthy, and deadly. It was a decent game, though the cut scenes were also reminicent of FMV's from CnC, which is ok, from the fact that it fits in with the game. My only curiosity was that the orignal game had starforce copy protection, *shudders*, and if you didn't update starforce, the game would cause a BSOD. Because this is in linux, I'm guessing there isn't going to be starforce in it...which is good.

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Risks and rewards of AMDs deal for ATI-Dvorak's View

BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- When the Advanced Micro Devices Inc. deal for ATI Technologies Inc. was announced on Monday I was a bit shocked. It was well known in the valley that this deal was brewing but it was also well known in the rumor mill that Intel was going to do everything it could to queer the deal.

An interesting article of what John Dvorak really thinks why AMD and ATI will benefit from this merger, and it is bigger than the personal computer market: think Blue-Ray/HD-DVD...

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Wednesday, July 26, 2006

How To - LCD mouse mod

The LCD is from a Nokia 6610, pretty cool!

Now this is neat, putting a cell phone display in a mouse, I don't really know what the benefit of it is, but it still is neat, though...

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Bug or Conspiracy? Digg users go CRAZY modding down comments!

Almost every one of the 100+ comments on this story have been dugg down and have an average score of -10. Is there a rogue group trying to silence diggers who like Firefox extensions or has the Digg v3 software taken a dump? Take a look for yourself and see what I mean.

It was odd that there was so many modding down in that article, though the article was good, it wasn't anything amazing, it was just a list of their favorite extensions, which practically anyone can do...

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Debian to run on AMD64

The next release of the Debian Project's Linux distribution will run on AMD's AMD64 processors for the first time, according to the organisation's Web site.


The description of the article is misleading, Debian has had AMD64 support for awhile, around version 3.1, but it has not until now become an official stable verison. This announcement is the offical addition of the AMD64 version to Debian.

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Toms Hardwares Beginner's Guide to Motherboard Selection

It's easy to forget that many newcomers lack the requisite knowledge to take advantage of the advice we give.


A very indeph guide for newbies in choosing a motherboard, and it also refreshed me on motherboard selection, because it has been a long time since I bought my MSI k7n2 Delta-L back in 2003. Even though it's socket A, and only has a Xp 2500+, and AGP, it does decently well as my computer...

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