My Electronic Life

I CAN HAS IDEA TIEMS NAOW?

2007-11-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

Long time, no post, so lets get down to business.

I had an idea the other day concerning the way we legally get music online. There are basically 2 methods (even eMusic works out to one of these) A La Cart (by song or album) or Subscription. There are pros and cons to both.

On the A La Cart side, the song is "Yours" (I feel that if it has DRM on it, it is never mine) forever. This side also open the industry up to DRM free (really mine) tracks. This is all fine and great until you realize how much money you could potentially waste from songs that you may grow out of, quickly or slowly, and never like again.

This brings us to Subscription services, such as Napster To Go, Yahoo! Music Unlimited and so on. The upside to this method of legal music acquisition is pretty much all the downsides to the A La Cart method, and all the downsides being the upsides of A La Cart. Basically summed up, I pay X amount a month, from this I get "unlimited" access to the store's catalogue of subscription content. So long as I keep paying, I can keep listening. I like to compare this to Satellite Radio services, as the only important way they differ is that with one, I choose the content, and the other, the content is chosen for me. if I stop paying, i stop listening. Upsides are that I find it easier to allocate $15 a month to satiate my ever changing musical tastes, and when I grow sick of a song, I don't feel like I've wasted money, as I am really only renting the music. But what if there is this classic song that even after I've listened to it 1 billion + times, I still like it, but I feel that I have forked over so much money for the subscription that purchasing it outright would seem to be a rip off?

Well, I think I have an idea. It is inspired by an industry that I hate (but the idea is valid, I swear!) The problem was this: How could I listen to whatever songs I wanted without having to outright pay for those songs, and if I decided that I liked some, I could have it without paying full price for it? What I came up with was a sort of contract with period type subscription, in a similar vein as the Wireless telecom industry. So lets say that we have subscription periods (as an option, the other two still being a possibility) from 6 months to 3 years. Depending on how long I make my contract for and which plan I get, I could get different amounts of "Paid for, mine to keep forever" tracks a month, with all the rest of the store's catalogue available through the same idea as subscription. At the end of the contract (for whatever reason it ends) all my subscription content stops playing. If I terminated early, I pay the difference in what the monthly payment would have been between my actual contract and the one closest in length and cost to when I terminated it. On top of this, if a person were to want to buy more songs than they have credit for, it would cost them less than if they were not in a contract, price being determined by the length of the contract.

So,for example, I could be on a one year contract for $17 a month, I get 8 Tracks to keep a month, and unlimited access to the others during the contract. One month I used up all my cumulated track credits, and couldn't wait for next month's credits to come, and had to buy this one song (to make a CD or something) so I bought the song, but because I'm a subscriber on a 1 year contract, I got the song at 10% off it's normal price.

Now this idea is only half baked currently, but I will think on it some more and come back with any other complications I would need to add.

Windows Veesta?

2006-10-06T15:28:00.000-06:00

RvB Calgary Event!

2006-09-13T21:30:00.000-06:00

This Friday in Calgary, Inspiring Freedom is renting out The Famous Players Paramout for a night of Red VS Blue on the big screen! yours truely will be there, and I'll snap a few pics with my Moto Q.

To bad I won't yet have the Canon Powershot SD700 IS :D

Live update and gimme Q!

2006-06-15T19:45:00.000-06:00

Windows live (live.com) has just been updated with a new look. There do not seem to be any functional differences, however. Live.com now matches Live Messenger.

Also, I have been informed by Telus reps that the Motorola Q Smartphone will be available in Canada within a two week time period

This does not seem like a good idea

2006-05-25T18:16:00.000-06:00

CNet has a video about a program called Smackbook Pro.

While the idea seems novel, I think that this will have many people a little disappointed when warranty services refuses to repair their laptops due to "obvious signs of abuse."

New concept laptop from MS and ASUS I would love to have

2006-05-25T17:58:00.000-06:00

The newest ASUS SideShow capable laptop, with a removable SideShow device. I love the design, but we will have to wait for Vista before we see this lappy on the market.

New toys I am likely to get soon

2006-05-25T17:52:00.001-06:00

New earbuds, I'll get those ASAP

AND:

I'm almost out of space on my Zen MicroPhoto, and by the end of the week, I likely will be.

Funny video

2006-05-24T22:06:00.000-06:00

I have my hands on Office 2007 B2, I'll review it later
And some random video: (Thanks Yoko)

Origami, all I thought it was to be

2006-03-10T00:51:00.000-07:00

I am rather surprised at the number of people that are disappointed with the Origami release, as if they were expecting something not quite tangible. The evidence was there all along on what it was and what it could do (see the video two posts down) and I even accurately predicted it last week and it will be powered by Vista when that comes out.

It's all I wanted it to be, and all I expected it to be (though I was hoping that the first gens would have better battery life, but 3 hours is still better than my laptop) Regardless, I will wait for next year when Intel says they'll be up to 8 hours on a charge.

Microsoft sticks it to the Brits

2006-03-04T02:15:00.000-07:00

Awhile back, it was reported that the British government wanted a backdoor into Vista because of all the new security enhancements. Well, that would undermine the whole purpose of said enhancements, wouldn't it? How long until some script kiddie finds the hole and breaks in? Apparantly, Microsoft is thinking the same way:
"Back doors are simply not acceptable," Ferguson wrote. "Besides, they wouldn't find anybody on this team willing to implement and test the back door."

Yay! Good call Microsoft!

Origami Video

2006-03-03T01:31:00.000-07:00

New origami viral ad!

2006-03-01T23:47:00.000-07:00

Another cryptic ad is up on Origami Project that talks about it's mobility. Not much of a surprise if you caught that ad over the weekend!

They should've titled this keynote the "Grab your ankles while we rape you" speech.

2006-02-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

So, Apple has done their little speech about their "fun and exciting" stuff.

Turns out it was an announcement to show that they have their Intel Mac Minis (never saw THAT coming), an overpriced leather iPod sleeve, and a iPod boombox called the iPod HiFi. Maybe I missed something when Jobs said he was an audiophile, because A) iPods don't have the best in class audio quality, and B) iTunes sells lossy music at 128 kbps (and yes I know that AAC is pretty good, but it's still not audiophile quality) And where are the tweeters, oh great and glorious audiophile Jobs?

Here's a picture of the leather case for the Nano, somehow still the same price as the sleeve for the regular iPod.

I wonder what the profit margin is on that?

I think VGcats has all this perfectly summed up in this comic.

Now to wait for Thursday and see what Microsoft is going to tell us about Origami.

Edit: I just want to add this wonderful little tidbit: Apparently Apple ditched the Radeon 9200 for Intel Extreme Graphics in the Mac Mini, with shared memory... Mr Jobs, I think you will find that your reality distortion field is about to blow up, you may want to run.

The many faces of Vista

2006-02-28T12:46:00.000-07:00

So, you may have heard about the six versions of windows Vista that Microsoft will unleash on us latter this year. It would seem that this has caused a bit of a sour taste in many a poweruser's mouth, as they see that 6 is just too much. Well, just remember that Windows XP also has six versions, all aimed a specific device uses (aside from home and pro, that is) where as Vista's versions are keyed to more of what you use your computer for. For example, Vista Home Basic is just that, basic, easy to use for the average home consumer who just wants e-mail, Internet and word processing. Then, a step up, we find Home Premium, which is what most of us will have. It is comparable to Media Center + Pro, and with Tablet functions for Tablet PC users (though Home Basic may also have these functions) And lastly for the consumer market is Vista Ultimate, which is the be all end all Vista, encompassing all the features of the Home and Business lines. Speaking of business lines, Vista will have two business variants, one for smaller businesses, and one for larger businesses. And lastly, Vista Starter edition is a version aimed at developing nations. The latter three are unlikely to appear on store shelves in North America, Europe and other first world countries, as they are either not meant for those markets, or are not for home use.

This is better than what we have right now which is: XP Home, Pro, Pro x64, Media Center, Tablet PC and Starter (I am uncertain if there is a version of XP for Itanium processors). Starter is the same idea, for developing nations, but what if I wanted a Tablet PC that also had Media Center functionality? Or any such functionality in true 64 bit? I truly think that the Vista versions are more straightforward than the XP versions

IE7 Beta 2 public released!

2006-01-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 7 beta 2 to the public, now with tabs, phishing protection, RSS and more. Try it out, even if you are going to stay with Opera or Firefox.

Here's the link.

More Mac

2006-01-13T08:28:00.000-07:00

No one really seems to know if Windows can install on the new Macs. Word has it that Vista can, and XP may be able to. I'll wait for the 64 bit versions though (the Yonah core is only 32 bit)

Well then

2006-01-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

I don't think that I will get a MacBook after what Slashdot says, but Slashdot often messes up, and it is hinted that it may be possible to do anyways, and who knows what Microsoft will do, as they are a software company, whereas Apple is hardware, and I seem to remember ads for a version of Win98 that ran on the original iMacs. On the other hand, Microsoft showed off a rather nice ASUS laptop at CES during their keynote, and it has SideShow, something that I really want.

--the_sidewinder

iPod now has radio, in an odd way

2006-01-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

Just announced at Macworld, Apple has a new accessory for the iPod that is a remote and FM radio (reminds me of the remotes for the Zen USB2.0!)

This is a good thing for the pod, but now I am going to have to track a bunch of people on cnet that bashed creative on the inclusion of FM radio in it's Zen line, but will no doubt praise this.

Again, I want to say, this is not a bad this, I just dislike hypocrites, even though I may be one for time to time. I would also like to add, in the modern world, Apple does not innovate as they one did, most often these days (though, like Microsoft, they still bring new things to the table, yes MS brings new things to the table you just have to sort through a mess of false statements and newsposts to find out what MS did first), they take tried and tested systems, add their twist to it, a little clear/white plastic and market it well.

I have a feeling, don't quote me on it, as I will probably fall flat on my face making it, but I think this year may show a slight decline in iPod sales, or at least a leveling of their sales. This could be for many reasons. Many people who already have an iPod could be happy with what they have, and do not want to buy a new one. Competing products and services are getting better, some offering things that Apple does not, services that appeal to certain people. Some people have also do not like that they can only buy their music for iTunes (in an online sense, I do not count eMusic, and AllOfMP3 is a really shady business) I do not think that the iPod will drop from dominance anytime soon, but I do think that 83% market share cannot hold forever.

The iMac and new MacBook (odd name...) are the first Apple computers with Intel cores Core Duo) But the damn laptop still only has one button! On the plus side, it has a nice magnetic breakaway power cable, and a few other features that are really nothing new. And, like all Steve Jobs keynotes, he never passes up a chance to condescend to the PC world. The final question is: Sure it's an Intel Mac, but can I install Vista on it? Time will tell.

I live!

2006-01-06T01:17:00.000-07:00

What a hectic bunch of weeks, I am glad that's all over.

CES is here, go watch the Keynote speech by Bill Gates, they show off some cool new things about Vista, Bill's view of where technology is headed and, to top it all off, Ballmer gets pissed when Bill beats him at a boxing game on the xBox 360.

I picked up a Zen MicroPhoto on boxing day, and I am enthrawled by it so far. Creative has launched a new webservice and application aimed at getting podcasts onto Zens. (I prefer Blogcast, podcast is such a misnomer) The program is called Zencast, it is essentially a podcast aggregator and sync agent for the Zens. It can remove old 'casts from the player at a preset interval. While still a beta (we love our betas these days, don't we?) the program is fairly spiffy, easy to use, fast and straight forward. I hope they add a few things to it such as the ability to rename a podcast (for some reason, PowerUser.tv has no title) and to set the genre to something, possibly other than what it was on the host's computers, so that you can find it easier by browsing Genres on the Zen itself. Perhaps Creative could add a Zencast menu item on all it's resent Zens to help (like what Apple did on the iPod)

Last item, as you may have heard, Microsoft released a patch for the WMF hole, head over to Microsoft Update to get the patch. Alternatively, you can get the redistributable downloads here.

Song of the week: Ladybird by Ladytron on their album 604

Rest in Peace, Murph

2005-11-28T16:36:00.000-07:00

Last week we learned of some bad news. A person among our ranks left us, and not in the occasional way of posting a long rants about how we suck, but in a much worse way. Murph (Steven Jagaczewski, 21) has died. Frst was the first one who found out, and brought it to our attention. At first, none of us believed it; we thought it was some sort of sick joke. However, after UberJumper, and a few others sorted through all the log files, we came to a very sad conclusion, he's gone forever.

Personally, I could not believe it, I was expecting him to sign on all of a sudden, and ridicule us for thinking he died. That moment never came. And here I am, as alive as he should be. Murph was never mean to me, we had a few direct conversations, and he always made me laugh. When I was feeling down, I would head to the forums, and it was often a post of his, that would help cheer me up. When I first went on IRC, he was the same, often making me smile. So Murph, here's to you, you were a great man, and a good friend and will be greatly missed.

Here is a video by WildCard done as a tribute to Murph.

Windows beef

2005-11-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

Many of you have heard about Windows OS's security weaknesses, mainly from the internet. Microsoft has been getting better on that front, however one thing I resently came across somehow didn't suprise me, as other OS's can do it as well, but not with the ease in which I did it in windows.

I forgot my desktop's password. The desktop uses XP Home edition, at no time during the setup process does it ask for an administrator password. As such, to erase my user password all I had to do was login to the unprotected Administrator account, go to the user accounts control panel, select my account, and hit Reset Account Passwords. That was it. MS was a bit smarter with my MCE installer, it did ask for a password for the admin account.

Even though It normally won't ask for a password, you should still set a password for the Admin account.

The Browsers strike back

2005-11-15T15:31:00.000-07:00

Many of you use an different brower than IE, From firefox to Opera to Safari (No uber, Maxthon isn't really a different browser) For different reasons, security, dislike of MS, features, standards compliance etc.

Recently, Opera became free, which started a wave of people moving to that browser. A new browser came out, based on Firefox, but with some added APIs for doing things such as blogging, Flock adds to the fray.

But the leader of the revolution is Firefox, now with an estimated 11% world market share (greater in some areas, lower in others, duh), it takes the largest chunck of market away from IE.

Today may be an important day for Firefox users, according to Neowin, Firefox version 1.5 will be comming out sometime today.

Version 1.5 adds new features and improvements such as: Faster page rendering, instant Back/Forward (Opera has had this for a while), a Clear Private Data feature (again, already seen in Opera) and a new binary update system that will not have you download a complete installer just to upgrade your version of the browser. There are a few rendering engine enhancements as well (Support for SVG, Canvas, CSS3 Columns, Javascript 1.6)

I recomend you take a look, or upgrade if you already use Firefox, but if you still use IE, you should consider getting a different browser.

(for the times you NEED IE, Firefox has this nice new plugin called IE Tab, It lets you use the IE renderer in a firefox tab at will.)

Donation Tracker Online

2005-10-30T21:50:00.000-07:00

Use my Child's Play button on the sidebar to head on over to the new RelicNews Child's Play Donation tracker, every penny counts!

Props to Molo!

Firefox Beta Adblock fix

2005-10-25T22:46:00.000-06:00

A while ago, I told you to dissable Adblock so that you could see Flash animations again in the Firefox Beta.

Well no longer, mosy on over to the AdBlock Plus website, and get Adblock Plus extention, this works for me, good luck!

Have fun!

The Jack rant

2005-10-20T03:57:00.000-06:00

There is a Person, an individual that is a self proclaimed expert on something he has, time and time again, shown that he knows nothing about. You probably know the lawyer from Miami, Jack Thompson, and you probably know about his latest crusade, but what you may not know is how long he has been making these bizarre, irrational and ignorant claims.

Before I start on that, I want to clarify my position on the violent game dispute. I think that a person should not play a “violent” video game if they are not mature enough. To understand what I mean, a quick look at the RelicNews forum in the forum issues section will explain a lot. You will see people who were banned because they were being idiots or inciting a lot of hate. Some do not even seem to take the time to spell out a simple word such as “you” or “why” and will replace them with “u” and “y” respectively. Some of these people are older than I am, yet show a lower level of maturity. For myself, my parents long ago decided that I could drink alcohol, as long as I finished the drink. The overall effect? I didn’t drink much because it was nothing special; it also showed my parents how mature I am in that area. This brings me to my second point, only your peers (mainly parents) really know how mature you are and what games you should be playing.

Jack Thompson does not come across as a mature person. To start off we should look at his latest endeavors, from his lobbying against the gaming industry to the emails that he replies to in a most childish manner to the uninformed comments he makes such as “GTA allows you to kill pregnant women.” It would seem that he does this to further his own career, how this helps his medical malpractice suits is beyond me. This man also has a history of such frivolous actions that seem to be meant to simply defame people. For example, back in 1988, Jack ran for the Office of Dade County State Attorney against Janet Reno. Janet won, but not without Jack having his say. He made a series of ridiculous accusations, at least one of which is non-consequential, in an attempt to defame her. His methods are similar to how he acts when it comes to video games, and peoples responses to his comments.

Jack Thompson has a less than unique way of talking to people who either: A) he considers socially inferior or B) against his position. To give a bit of weight to this statement, it can be shown that Jack Thompson can act as a civil and rational person… at least while everybody is on script and agreeing with him. The moment someone comes up with a contradicting viewpoint, statistic or source, Jack’s mouth becomes a festering cesspool of indignant and unbecoming phrases. (examples 1 and 2) The second example is quite interesting; a fourteen year old makes a rather long and well thought out email to Jack, to which Jack responds with a one liner, without even backing his argument up. After a few emails are sent back and forth, the fourteen year old attempts to understand what it is that Jack is fighting against, to which Jack tells him to go check into the nearest mental institution. Evidence in this series of email transactions would suggest otherwise, as would Jack’s history for giving this recommendation, and his assertion that “gamers’ ideas are the latest oxymoron.”

Not only are his comments on other’s cognitive abilities so insulting, but so are the so called facts that he spews about video games and their effects on our minds. While I have no proof of this, Jack does not come across as someone who has truly researched his subject, if had, he would never have come up with things such as "Sims 2, the latest version of the Sims video game franchise...contains, according to video game news sites, full frontal nudity, including nipples, penises, labia, and pubic hair." This is of course a blatant falsity that he would have realized had he played the game at all, that, even with the censor screen off (one needs a 3rd party patch to do this) the models are featureless. Same idea for the GTA: SA “controversy,” I feel. The Hot Coffee scene cannot be seen without a third party patch, downloaded from the internet, thus even if the content was there, it’s complete inaccessibility meant that it may as well have not been there. Luckily for us, his public image is starting to crumble.

Recently, the NIMF sent Mr. Thompson an email which would serve to distance themselves from him, while both NIMF and Thompson have similar goals, NIMF is a lot more calm, educated, and in better standing with the key companies in the industry. While Jack continues to fire off threats and obscenities, NIMF has truly made an impact on minors’ access to violent games. Mr. Thompson later replied to that email, condemning them for the same reason that has allowed them to help. In this same email, he comments that he finds it amusing that a copy of NIMF’s original email was sent to Bill Gates, who Jack sees as guilty as the cause of the D.C. Beltway sniper case, by proxy of Microsoft owning Bungie, who made the game Halo. Jack had also proposed a game himself, which he now claims was satire, where the protagonist would go on a murdering spree in vengeance for his son’s death caused by video games. He would have to kill the employees of the developer/publisher of said game and kill its CEO all while the company’s name, as well as its CEO, are modeled directly off of Take Two and Paul Eibeler (Take two’s CEO). Should someone make this game, he would donate ten thousand dollars to the charity of Paul Eibeler’s choice. Later, Jack withdrew this “modest proposal” saying that he meant it as a satire, which also meant that no charity would get the ten grand (an amount that he had rather touted when Penny-Arcade informed him how much they have raised from gamers through their charity). Upon this announcement, Penny-Arcade made the donation themselves, ten thousand dollars, under Jack’s name. This of course upset Jack, who then faxed the Seattle PD claiming that Penny Arcade had been harassing him, and that they should be arrested, all while attempting to force hate upon PA by making outrageous claims such as that GTA is a “cop-killing murder simulator” and claimed that two cops were killed (there were) by a person who was trained by video games (err no). His final paragraph gets a little too persecution happy for me, and if you read what is on penny-arcade’s website, you will agree that they have not been harassing him (though he claims they are idiots for putting up proof that they are harassing him).

The result of all this? Well, I am rather pleased to say that Jack Thompson is now under investigation by the Florida Bar Assoc. who had already given him a reprimand in 1998 for his antics back then. The FBA says that they have received an overwhelming number of complaints on Jack, and with any luck, they could revoke his license as a lawyer.

Sources: pretty much just wikipedia and many sites they also source.

-- the_sidewinder

Song of the day: Your Attention Please by The Blue Man Group off their album The Complex

New stuff, and: Actions speak louder than words

2005-10-17T22:46:00.000-06:00

I picket up a Wacom Graphire3 tablet a few days ago. Sadly I do not have Photoshop (well, not a new one at any rate *cough* PS5 *cough*) and probably won't until after the holidays. Thank MS for creating the want for FOSS, for without it, I wouldn't even have The GIMP (GIMP 2.2 isn't at all that bad)

DeepChrome lead me to a section of Greg Martin's website previously unexplored by myself. This section contains tutorials, and while what I have been making based on the Star Field tutorial pails in comparison with his beautiful works of art, they are a great starting point.

Also, Jack is a liar, he seems to never have meant to donate that money, and has withdrawn his offer, thankfully, the guys at Penny-Arcade made a $10,000 donation in Jack's name.

Rant coming up

2005-10-12T00:37:00.000-06:00

I have been working on a Jack Thompson essay/rant for a bit, in a rather on and off fashion. I think I will be completing it this week or the next, mainly because of this.

To keep yourselves amused in the meantime, go read Dominic Deegan, Oracle For Hire, all of it.

And for some more fun, my Windows XP desktop:

Widgets (CAST pattern): Silica Weather, Silica CPU and Drive meter, Omni Analogue, Wireless signal strength, Rainlendar with the Rewind Mode 2 skin.

Skin: Arrow, part of WindowBlinds 5

Dock: ObjectDock Plus (flyout menus) using the SkyAero Skin

Wallpaper: Winter Mist II by Greg Martin

Good news for peoples rights!

2005-10-06T16:25:00.000-06:00

The topmost court in Australia has ruled that modchips in PlayStations are not against copyright. These mod chips, among other things, allow one to circumvent Regional Coding on DVDs, which the court says restricted competition and consumer rights.

Way to go guys! I hope we get something similar here.

Origional article can be found on The Register.

Firefox 1.5 beta 1 issues with flash

2005-10-04T00:44:00.000-06:00

If you are having issues with flash showing in Firefox 1.5 Beta 1, try disabling adblock, it seems to have a few problems so far in 1.5.

Beta 2 will be out on the 5th according to Mozilazine.

Happy browsing!

Hell has frozen over, Canadians ask: Cold enough for you, eh?

2005-09-26T00:22:00.000-06:00

From Apple switching to an Intel platform, their multi button mouse, Microsoft saying that the office 12 file format may have LGPL compatibility (don't hold your breath, you'll need it) to Intel almost publicly saying that the P4 sucks, what could possibly constitute this frozen place of demonic residence? Tomorrow (monday) in a three way press conference, it has been reported that Palm will be using the Windows Mobile 5.0 platform on their Treo devices. Rumor has it that the specific device that will lead this trend is the Treo 700w.

Fan of PalmOS fear not, from what Palm has said, they will not replace PalmOS, simply use Windows Mobile to compliment it on their devices. Personally, I am happy. I prefer the UI, mainly the "Today screen" that MS employs over the PalmOS UI, again, mainly the main screen. However, I cannot deny the Palm design, much nicer than my current iPaq.

--the_sidewinder

Song of the day: The Current by the Blue Man Group on their album "The Complex"

Vista News

2005-09-12T12:38:00.000-06:00

From this article on Ars Technica, Microsoft has put the Vista Sidebar back in. This will be interesting. We will hear more when PDC opens.

Google Talk

2005-08-25T07:49:00.000-06:00

For anyone that cares, I will configure GAIM to my Google talk accout in the next day or so, If anyone knows of a good Talk/Jabber IM program for PocketPC, drop me a line
(user account is sidewinder2025)

--the_sidewinder

It's his fault, really

2005-08-15T16:07:00.000-06:00

Everyone should use this AIM icon. Hell, I think I'll ask Dyn if I can have on the fora.

More on my opinions of this douchebag (is that strong enough?) later

Update on longhorn

2005-07-22T08:07:00.000-06:00

Windows codenamed "Longhorn" now has an official name, Windows Vista, Microsoft is expected to announce this sometime today.

Gone are the days of two character, and year of release names. Vista.... Sounds a bit classy

--the_sidewinder

Your wireless, your internet?

2005-07-04T19:34:00.000-06:00

Prompted by a news article about someone being convicted of stealing internet from an open wireless network (unencrypted). Whether what he was doing was proper or not is a bit beside the point. I myself often look for a unencrypted network in order to fire off an email or two. I recommend that if you do not want passers by to easily connect to your network, you must encrypt it. for general use, a WPA encryption key (PSK) is all you need, if you run a small business and rent out time on the network, you will want to use some form of authentication and/or WPA/TKIP, however, I have little experience with authentication. This guide is meant for home only; the key should be changed about once a month, if not more, check your security logs to see who has been accessing your network, more on that below. (I sadly cannot help you if you are on a Mac, and if you are on Linux, I am assuming that you already know what to do, it’s pretty easy in anyways)

NOTE: I use a skinning application that changes the appearance of windows, chances are, your windows will look different, but all the buttons are in the same place. Also, Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) MUST be installed, you can get it through Windows/Microsoft Update using Internet Explorer (link will not work in Firefox or Opera). Make sure to get all the important updates.

Securing your wireless

First thing I reccomend that you do while setting up is to connect to the router using an ethernet cable (looks like a large phone line).

Second thing you need to do is determine the IP address of your router. If you know it, skip ahead, if not here is where you can find it: Go *start -> Run* Type in "cmd" and hit "Ok." A window with white text and a black background (looks like a DOS prompt, but isn't) in that window, type "ipconfig" and hit enter. some information will come up, One entery will read "Default Gateway" a number (generally 192.168.2.1 or 192.168.0.1) that is your router's IP address

Take that number (IP address) and copy/paste it into your browser's URL bar (the bar that you type webpage addresses in) you will be prompted to enter a password, if you have never been here before, you might not know your default password, "admin" is generally used (SMC routers use smcadmin by default) if you know your password type it in. you may also be prompted for a username, by default, these tend to be "administrator" or "admin," if these do not work, please read the guide that came with your router.

once logged on, locate the wireless network settings, example:

if given a menu after clicking on the link, click on the WPA settings (or encryption settings, if you cannot find any WPA settings anywhere, you need to buy a newer router, WPA is more secure than WEP and is easier to set up)

In this new screen, you will be asked to enter various data, the only one you should need to concern yourself with is the passphrase, enter one. If, however, you are also given the option to enter the encryption method (WEP, WPA, WPA/WEP, None) select WPA. If you are confused, use the following screenshot as a guide. Save your settings!

If the option for what kind of encryption to use was not there, it will be in another location, for myself, it is under "Security." Remember to only select WPA, and Save your settings!

Congrats! You finished the hard part!

Setting up the computer to connect
We will use Windows' built in manager here, if you have SP2, like I told you, this will be a breeze, if you didn't get it, what are you waiting for?
To get to the manager, find the wireless icon on the system tray (the system tray is on that bar at the bottom with all the little icons on it)

Here is the Wireless networks window, you will see your network here, it will have the same name as before, double click on it

You will be asked for a password, enter it twice, once in each box, and hit enter

That's it, your done! Easy, huh? you are now secure, no passers by can get in, and it is now 100% illegal for them to try without your consent!

(If you had problems with the WPA, such as it not showing up as a WPA on your computer, you can use a WEP instead, though the passcode is harder to remember, and it is less secure, In all honesty, I recommend an upgrade, see your local, non commissioned tech store for further help)

--the_sidewinder

(Song of the day: Don't Phunk With My Heart, by The Black Eyed Peas on their album "Monkey Business")

Symphony OS Alpha

2005-06-08T15:07:00.000-06:00

Neet Linux distro I just saw on /. It's GUI works on the idea that the Desktop is not a folder. It is a LiveCD, and here is the torrent. (provided by the distro)

Try it out!

--the_sidewinder

Jobs say Intel! Ballmer says meh

2005-06-06T15:25:00.000-06:00

As all the rumors that have past over the weekend have proven true (If you missed it, Apple is moving away from PowerPC processors to Intel chips, as told by cNet)
What this means for consumers is not certain, however, Steve Ballmer says that it will not affect the sale of windows in a significant way, again, as reported by cNet.

Hopefully, this has the potential for user to install OSX on a standard PC, as hinted by Jobs, "Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life the past five years." If this is true, we may finally see some real competition in the desktop OS market (I wouldn't mind OSX on my Toshiba laptop, nor would I mind Windows Longhorn on a iMac G5, and Linux on all!). But, again, that is pure speculation on my part.

--the_sidewinder

Song of the day: Contact by Big Audio Dynamite off their Super Hits collection

AMR arrives

2005-06-01T07:51:00.000-06:00

According to what I've read on Anandtech, Slashdot, ATi.com and others, that ATi has announced their commercial level AMR (ATi Multi Rendering) called Crossfire. It has many advantages over SLi, such as the ability to use existing X800 and X850 cards in the setup (you can combine an X800 or X850 with a crossfire X800 or X850 to get that dual card wonderness) as well, a new (for the commercial market) display separation scheme called SuperTiling, in Crossfire, this separates the screen into 32 evenly sized portions, in a checkerboard pattern, ensuring that each card has about the same amount of work to do.

The biggest and best part of Crossfire over SLi is that all games receive a graphical boost, not just those that have a "profile." SLi requires this profile to tell the drivers what to do with the extra card, however, ATi has eliminated this need, which gains it more performance, not only in the dual card enabled games, but in your ordinary games as well.

"Compared with two 6800 Ultra SLI, ATI's Crossfire should end up about 10 per cent faster in 3Dmark05 benchmark, about 30 percent in Splinter Cell C.T and more than 60 percent in Need For Speed Underground 2."

Quite some promising numbers there, I, for one, cannot wait to see full benchmarks, and to get my hands on these cards.

--the_sidewinder

(Song of the day: Technologic by Daft Punk on the album "Human After All")

Firefox quickie

2005-05-12T12:04:00.000-06:00

Saw this on Slashdot, funny stuff. There are three Firefox videos, but be patient, the site may take a few attempts before it works (/. effect) but it's worth it.

Share and enjoy!

DeepChrome

2005-05-11T23:52:00.000-06:00

A wonderful artist on the Relic Boards, she is witty, amusing, creative, very cool, and extreemly friendly. at any rate, I invite you to check out her art on DeviantArt

Been a while

2005-05-11T23:11:00.000-06:00

So, I've been away for a bit, life has been hectic, as I am now at a summer IT job. Anywho, I just wanted to say that I loved the Hitchhiker's movie. It was a welcome addition to the H2G2 universe.

The relic forums have been flooded with religion threads in the past few weeks. One person I have a particular bone to pick with one member, Laser, who cannot seem to follow logic, cannot often argue, nor can he back up his statements. His lack of realization, and complete disregard, of evolution being a theory, backed by all evidence available, and his fundamentalism in young creationism as a "theory" (or old, for that matter) when it really has no evidence behind it. I generally try to avoid him, or to coax a more elaborate argument, but to no avail, the only thing he seems to respond to is omnislashing (and occasionally being correct, but still not backing himself up), and I do not want to lower myself to that level. I do not want to write a drawn out description of my issues with him, but if you feel so inclined as to follow his posts, follow the link I supplied in the Gay rights post, or follow the relic forums link to the right.

Tomorrow is the last Star Trek Enterprise and, while I like Star Trek, I think that this has been a long time coming. They have milked the series to death, and far too many episodes have substandard plots.

I would like to elaborate, but I have a long day ahead of me.

--the_sidewinder
Quote of the day: "We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very strange star. But we can understand the universe. That makes us something very special" - Stephen Hawking

The bad side of /.

2005-04-28T14:35:00.000-06:00

I like the Slashdot site, but I am often aggravated by some articles, and by many of the posters. The other day, for example, they were given about five screenshots of Windows Longhorn Beta1, and they then promptly tore it apart, bit by bit (if you will excuse the pun) saying how badly it looked. Despite the fact that they KNOW that it is only a beta, and that the current UI is nowhere close to what it will be when it's done. The Aero UI is not expected to be shown until beta2, and even then, it will not be the full UI.

Another example is this one review (I cannot link to it because he is having bandwidth issues) of the H2G2 movie. The person in question saw a pre-final cut and promptly went to tear it apart. He is the self proclaimed "Greatest fan of H2G2," I couldn't disagree more. He is a fanatic (fanatic being a person so possessed by it that if the smallest thing was done wrong, they stop enjoying it) and a real kneebiter. But worse than that is the reaction of the populace of Slashdot. completely forgetting to take a kilogram of salt with such a fanatical review, combined with what sometimes passes as a headline on /., the denizens of the otherwise good site start to bitch and whine, agreeing with each other that it as been a bastardization of a wonderful series of novels, radio shows and TV shows, while they have not seen the movie themselves. All they had was a fanatical review, of an incomplete cut of the film.

I seem to not be the only one that feels this way. Here is what Greg Dean, author of Real Life has to say:

"As is so often my style, I write the comic with a particular frame of mind, and then when it's all done, I realize the next day I put my damned foot in my mouth, and feel like an idiot.

So let me clarify a little bit about my stance on slashdot in the comic today. I DON'T hate slashdot itself. I'll be honest, I don't usually read it - maybe once a month, when someone posts a link to a particular slashdot posting, I might check it out, but on the average it's not really of much interest to me. But the people who run and operate slashdot are cool in my book - they do their thing, and I respect that.

What has me so peeved about slashdot is the people who POST there. There's about a 10/90 signal/noise ratio going on in those damned posts. I've never much cared for the way people who post there behave, but the beginning of my complete hatred came when /. made the post about the Daily Grind, and people just started ripping into these cartoonists for absolutely no reason whatsoever. One person starts in with a negative response, and fifteen others join in to jump on the "me too!" bandwagon. In this case, they were pissed off because a group of cartoonists started a little bet with each other, and felt that ample reason to start calling everyone in it names, ripping apart their comics, and generally being complete asshats. Now, I can understand being upset with someone's CONDUCT, but to just start tearing people down who are doing nothing more than trying to encourage one another to do their comic on a daily basis is just plain wrong, and I wasn't happy about it.

In the case mentioned in the comic, yeah - I have a bit of a problem with a fairly large, established "geek news" site choosing to link to the single most scathing review of the movie on the internet, and essentially saying "Well, looks like it won't be any good." Have I seen it? Can I prove it wrong? Not yet - not till tomorrow. But hell, i know people who HAVE. People who are die-hard HHG fans, and expected it to be utter crap, and they came out loving it. It angered me, because it immediately polarized people against it, with a review that is tantamount to "Lord of the Rings was a horrible, horrible movie, because it doesn't have Tom Bombadil in it." But again, in this case, the slashdot posters jumped into action, completely tearing apart a movie they've never seen. Classic. (Yes, I realize it's fairly stupid of me to DEFEND a movie I've both never seen, and have no involvement with. But I desperately want it to be good, and to succeed. There are talks of completing the trilogy if it does well, so dammit - I want it to do well. :) )

So, just to clarify - slashdot itslef, the website, the people who run it - they's cool. I know I said I wanted slashdot's server to go down in flames, but it wasn't anything personal to the people behind it. But the slashdot posters - 90% asshats. And that's all I have to say about that."

I say bring on the movie, and make our own decisions about it. However, if you are so inclined, I will be writing what I think about the movie after I see it tomorrow.

--the_sidewinder

(Song of the day: Broken Glass by The Crystal Method, on the album Legion of Boom)

H2G2 is almost here!

2005-04-27T20:28:00.000-06:00

Nonsensical post of the day, The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy is just over a day away! The anticipation is almost as killer as Vogon poetry!

(Image courtecy of Coryct on fark.com)

Don't forget your towel!

Why I love blogs

2005-04-27T18:08:00.000-06:00

So, there is a discussion or the relicnews forums on who blogs. Sadly, it got derailed into something more along the line of why blog? Why read blogs? What do these "diaries" have that would make you want to write or read them?

Well, I have no idea about you, but I like blogs because they often can inform me of new events, and technology, and even sometimes something a bit funny. An example of a funny blog is here. Funny story about a hacker who has to ask for an IP to hack someone, and that doesn't know that 127.0.0.1 is a computer's internal IP address.

Why do I write a blog? Well I was bored, and I thought this would be a good way to express myself. As well as a good way for me to practice my writing skills, and shape my thought process, there is not much else for me to say, but what I have said is enough for me.

--the_sidewinder
(Song of the day: Fallen by Sarah McLachlan, on the album Afterglow)

The Digital Music Era, Part one

2005-04-27T03:54:00.000-06:00

So, here we are, at the beginning of the digital of the digital music era. I say beginning because we have, quite obviously, passed the dawn, which saw the birth of file sharing and Digital Audio Players. However we still have many hardships to pass. Namely the concept of Digital Rights. Who owns the music, who controls the music, how much should a user pay for it, and what rights do they have over that purchased music.

Let's start with that last point. What do we, as the consumer, have as rights in terms of what we can do with the music that we purchased? For example, when we would be to buy a CD or vinyl record, we can resell it should we loose interest in that music. With online music, however, we cannot resell that music, at least not with the current state of DRM technologies. However, the music purchased online does in fact hold an advantage. The problems with store bought music is that you may not like all the song presented on the album, and that if you accidentally wreck that CD, you are not entitled to a free, or reduced cost replacement, whilst with online music, there are no adverse legal implications to backing up one's music. This is why I use a combination of Napster To Go and Puretracks to fill my Zen Micro.

On the other hand, there are no adverse effects of backing up your music to your hard drive in Canada. At least not yet. Certain corporate identities are lobbying the government, and there is a new law being read by our parliament that would restrict our use of media that we have bought and want to either make a backup copy, or have another copy so that you could have one for your car, home stereo and such. A petition to stop this from happening is also being put forward. a link is available in my previous post. When you buy music, you should be able to do with it what you want as long as it remains in your possession, and that no copies should be made for other people outside your family. If you resell the music, all copies should go to the buyer, or the extras should be destroyed.

Who owns the music? We, the consumer, do not. Like PC software, we have a sort of license that allows us to enjoy the music. Sadly though, many artists and bands do not own the music either. Often, it is the recording label that the band or artist has a contract with. What this means is that the label dictates the cost of the album, what kind of air time it gets, and how much the artist gets per CD sale. It also hampers the artist's ability to leave that label, and join another one, or to sell and distribute their music themselves. Truly this is a problem, as I feel that the only owners of the copyright, and therefore the original material, should be the person or people that created it, and it should be they who choose the price of their music, alongside an entity to make sure that prices do not get to high.

Well this is all or this post. I need to get to sleep, more parts of this to come later.

--the_sidewinder
(Song of the day: Flower by Moby, on the album Play, The B Sides)

So, this is a blog

2005-04-26T03:33:00.000-06:00

Whoo, my first blog entry. Being as tech savvy as I am, I thought it may be time to get a blog. What is a blog for me? Well I guess it will be useful for me to discuss new technology, my thoughts and expectations, as well as how I feel on the existing tech. I may post helpful information on how to get your computer to work, or haw to get it to do that little trick your friend showed you, but will not explain how they did it.

I will most likely also talk about current issues that affect us in ways many people will not comprehend at first, such as this petition for user rights. An important issue, I feel, that not enough people are getting behind, as it affects almost all of us, not just those with a Zen or iPod.

Movies, fluff and novels will also show up here once and awhile. First two are a bit obvious is The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy movie this coming Friday, and the BBC Radio 4 Quandary Phase that begins the following week (I will be needing my towel a little more than usual). I have my hopes for the movie, mainly that it will not be a disaster. The radio show, on the other hand, I feel is in good hands of the remaining original cast, and Dirk Maggs who have proven themselves, in my eyes, with the tertiary phase. I will discuss novels I read, tell you, the hapless people who fell into my blog, what I think. Maybe you could also tell me about a book you may want me to read.

Finally, I will also post anything I find of particular interest in real life, or online, and you can pretend to care. This blog is dedicated to my life in general, and my life online in particular.
Have fun!

--the_sidewinder

P.S. If any of you have ventured from the relic entertainment forums, yes I am the_sidewinder.