Monthly Archives: August 2006

How Green is Your Apple

Now while I’m not a tree huger, any chance to bring Apple down a peg is just cool.

The above little chart is a graphic display of just how green some electronics companies are. Apple a company of basically hippies and people who you would think are environmentally aware don’t do very well now do they.

So to all you self righteous Apple users out there I give you the one finger solute.

Folding@Home on the PS3

Folding@Home has been around for a while now, since 2000 to be more precise. But what is Folding@Home for the unaware?

Folding@home is a project that aims to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases. Proteins are biology’s working machines, but before they can perform their duties they must assemble themselves (fold). The big problem occurs when they fold incorrectly, this leads to disease such as Alzheimers, Mad Cow (BSE), Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

So how can a Sony Playstation 3 help?

Well since 2000 PC users have been donating their spare CPU cycles to this project buy installing a peace of software on their systems. This Software essentially allows all these computers form a super-computer. The machines are then assigned peaces of work to process, once processing is complete the results are then returned. (This is known as distributed computing) Sony has just announced that they will be producing software for the Playstation 3 that will allow owners to contribute to the Folding@Home project.

For further information of Folding@Home please visit the website: http://folding.stanford.edu/

Dodgy Awardspace Hosting

Well I moved my website because of a number of factors that Awardspace simply refuse to accept and deal with problems with there service. The first problem I found was that I couldn’t access my site from some internet providers, interestingly enough I contacted the providers even went into second level support and basically we worked out that some were along the line between the provider and Awardspace the packets were being dropped. More precisely it appeared to be at the uplink provider to Awardspace. But even with this evidence the arrogant bastards who are there forum administrators would not accept that it was their problem.

And now I found that one of my friend websites basically doesn’t work now because for some reason there servers will not accept the valid links to pages in her site, and every time her pages loads it redirects to Awardspace’s home page. For some reason in there wisdom they have decided that error messages are a good way to advertise for their hosting when clearly proper error messages are needed. Buy all means they are free to make their own error messages, but people need real error messages as well to diagnose problems.

Very simple everyone steer clear of the freehosting

Microsoft & Mozilla Getting Along?

Microsoft’s open source division extended an offer for Mozilla developers to visit Redmond, Washington and work on software interoperability with Windows Vista. The open invitation was posted on a newsgroup frequented by Mozilla developers. Mozilla‘s Mike Beltzner was quick to point out that his company has already been testing both its Firefox and Thunderbird applications on the Vista platform to take advantage of new features, but also added that “We’d definitely be interested in getting some one-to-one support.”

Full Artical – Microsoft and Mozilla Play Nice

Stargate SG-1 Cancelled

Some sad news, but things may be up as MGM is pushing to keep the series running on another network.

The future of Stargate is in question today, as SCI FI Channel has cancelled the long-running Stargate SG-1, Multichannel News reported today and a GateWorld source has confirmed. The news regrettably follows the airing of the show’s milestone two-hundredth episode on Friday in the US.

Read the Full Story at Gateworld – [Click Here]

Which serial killer are you most like?

Well everyone, I did this test, an interesting result.

Which serial killer are you most like?

Albert Fish

What’s worse than a creepy old dude with problems? Well, you maybe. There’s a reason Hannibal Lector was modeled after this guy. I suggest you seek professional help… ASAP!

Personality Test Results

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Battlefield 2 1.4 Patch Delayed

We all had our hopes and dreams of being able to play Battlefield 2 properly again dashed this morning.

Greetings Everyone, As many of you are now aware we have made the choice to take some extra time with the 1.4 patch before release.

During our standard final processing of the 1.4 client update we came across an issue that, although it does not compromise stability, we felt needed to be addressed in order to meet our goal of improving the overall player experience with Battlefield 2

Here are the details about the patch and the changes

We just got an update from DICE and the 1.4 patch that was scheduled for today has been delayed as the team makes final reviews on the patch. The release date for this patch currently is TBD, but we will update this announcement when we get new information on the patch. Apologies for the lateness of this update. Below is a list of the new content and fixes that will be included in the 1.4 patch.

With the release of the 1.4 patch we have made significant improvements to player and server stability as well as introduced more ranked content for players to enjoy. Along with the many bug fixes we have included the new map ? Road to Jalalabad? which is sponsored by Comcast making this patch is an excellent step forward for the Battlefield Franchise. We would like to thank everyone who helped support the Beta effort. Please take a moment to review the fix list for this patch:

1.4 Patch ? New content

? New level: Road to Jalalabaad (Conquest 16-32-64, Singleplayer, Co-op)
? New Server Option: No Vehicles mode

1.4 Patch ? Fix List

Front End:

? Front end – Fixed server browser issues with updating info
? Front End – Multiplayer & Co-op – Players on server list can include Bots instead of human players
? Multiplayer Server filter ?maps size? will now work
? Fixed an issue in the front end where pressing tab twice in the IP window would cause the cursor to skip to wrong box

Game Server

? Increased server stability
? All levels – Co-op ? Fixed a crash after reviving player without a kit- 1st attempt
? Server – Linux 32 Dedicated ? Fixed the server crash when trying to rotate maps in Special Forces Co- op Mode (fixed on SUSE only. Still present in Red Hat and Fedora)
? Adjusted the minimum number of players to start the round. The new values for 16, 32 and 64 players are 6, 6 and 8 respectively.
? Unlocks are once available on unranked servers.
? Ranked server have to have unlocks activated.
? Fixed Issue with the local coop server – If Server Host is kicked and banned although they do not actually get kicked, no other players may join the server after that point.
? Fixed a dedicated server crash which was occurring when the user held “CTRL” and “SHIFT” while selecting a map.
? Fixed a crash which would occur when c4 was placed on a flag pole and the server rotated maps.
? Fixed a Vehicle drop crash related bug (missing icon).
? Co-Op bot console commands do not function on local servers.

Client / Gameplay:

? Increased client stability
? Red/Blue nametag bug ? Fix to the issue where players would show up with the wrong color name tag
? Introduced a delay from proning to standing to help reduce exploiting
? Adjusted C4 to make throwing more difficult
? Fixed the issue where a red distance marker appears on the ground
? Fixed the issue that caused players arms to become invisible after switching weapons when using throwable items
? Made adjustments to reduce the damage taken by vehicles when driving
? Commander options will no longer available whilst dead.
? Fixed the issue with a spawn point showing up as selected when a player has spawned in during preview round
? Fixed the issue that would cause infantry players to be revived with no kit.
? Fixed several rare graphics crashes.
? Fixed issue with players crashing while clicking “Join Game” in the front end
? Car-Drop: Made adjustments to the car drop feature to help prevent players from exploiting into buildings.
? Fixed an issue tied to projectiles which would sometimes allow tanks to fire two shells, support to fire multiple rounds, and other issues (all maps).
? Fixed bug where after 2 rounds on the same map, the top player stars are awarded to the wrong people in the menu
? Transport Helicopters ? Increased the armor of all transport helicopters

– The DICE Battlefield Team

Helen Coonan Proves Her Ignorance

I was listening to the ABC?s AM program this morning and low and behold they started talking to Helen Coonan, Australian Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. The story was about the majority government owned telecommunications provider Telstra & how they have pulled out of developing their so called fibre to the node service. (This is code for RIM?s with ADSL 2+ Mini-muxes)

The following is a response to a question she was asked:

GILLIAN BRADFORD: So when can you tell consumers that they are going to get faster Internet speeds?

HELEN COONAN: Well, already they get in the areas that Telstra were proposing to roll out fibre, multi-megabit speeds on technology called ADSL 2plus, that’s up to 12 megabits. There are not very many consumers who need speeds over 12 megabits.

How interesting, for a starters ADSL 2 Plus is capable of 24 megabits (stupid cow), and secondly how do you know that we have no need for these speeds? If we had the speeds we would then be able to access new services that require the higher speeds, but because we don’t have these higher speeds Australia is lagging (all nerds laugh here) behind the rest of the world.

You don't really need to have *any* antivirus software or firewall

Id just like to point all to this post that was on Whirlpool

<sarcasm>
1. The Internet is totally 100% safe, everyone is nice, there’s no such thing as identity fraud or hacking, that’s just Hollywood nonsense. Anyway your ISP is protecting your system because they have regulated firewalls and antivirus behind the scenes. Why would your ISP leave you totally exposed to the Internet anyway?

2. Viruses only come in the form of EXE files. You never get viruses from Word, Excel or Powerpoint files. So all those documents you receive from friends and workmates are TOTALLY safe because they didn’t report any problems – so why should there be viruses?

3. Virus and trojan writers are really stupid. All viruses and trojans have really obvious names like SPYIT.EXE or BACKDOOR.EXE so you can spot it a mile away. They’re never gonna call it SPOOLER.EXE or SVCHOST.EXE – that’s simply impossible because Windows XP’s top notch security prevents that. Forget about all that antivirus heuristic scanning crap – you know exactly what is a virus and what is not, you don’t need some annoying software telling you the obvious.

4. WindowsUpdate patching keeps your PC 100% safe. Hackers are stupid and can’t keep their mouths shut. They always tell the whole world of loopholes in operating systems because of their ego. They can’t take advantage of the loopholes before Microsoft finds out about it. Microsoft is ALWAYS one step ahead of the hackers you see and so you are in safe hands.

5. Your $80 broadband modem is the best thing since slice bread. The built-in NAT and firewall is better than the expensive $8,000 firewalls from Cisco. Your broadband modem can fend off IP SPOOFING attacks because hackers are too dumb to attack the default IP addresses of the modems like 192.168.1.1, 192.168.0.1, etc

6. Attacks only happens via the front door. Hackers are really stupid you know. They can only attack a firewall in one direction (inbound). There’s no way in the world they can trick your system to send data outbound or rely on buffer overflows in software programs. All your software programs are perfectly written and tested before it was released onto the market.

7. You’re so poor, who’s going to steal your money or identity?. As if there are thieves out there interested in emptying out your savings account, steal your eBay password and impersonate you, take out loans, open bank and store accounts etc. Thieves only go after the big fish.

8. Firefox browser is 100% safe. Everyone knows Firefox is the best and totally foolproof browser. Don’t believe www.secunia.com propaganda about the Firefox vulnerabilities. Didn’t you know Firefox has hidden firewall, antivirus, and antispyware capabilities? It’s the jack-of-all-trades.

9. You can rely on backed up data. Even if you are infected with viruses, you can always retrieve your data because you’ve backed up your entire 300Gb of data full of MP3s, movies, documents etc. And the backups are totally virus free because you just know it – call it intuition. You can always install antivirus software after the attacks because they are so advanced they can totally disinfect the files 100%, restore deleted and corrupted files, and amazingly decrypt ransomware files.

10. It doesn’t take long to recover from attacks. You have all the time in the world to reinstall a clean system. Reconfiguring software settings to your liking, Windows XP reactivation, etc should only take about 30 minutes tops right? You can always use Ghost or Acronis to image your drives just as long as your hardware hasn’t changed right?

So you see, all these are very good reasons why you DON”T need antivirus or proper software firewalls.
</sarcasm>

[ http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=566659#r17 ]