Category: tech ect

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Phone Fun MMXXIV – thank you sprint….(nexus S 4g)

After Much Dealings with replacing my phone more times than the amount of explosions in a Michael bay movie, Sprint has worked with me and I have gotten away from HTC..

After going back and forth with the executive customer care since my phones kept having issues. they offered to restart my contract and pick up a phone at new contract cost, which was alot better than returning phone after phone. I tried to get a brand new EVO in hope of getting a phone without issue.
It just seems sprints flagship phones from the refurbished end are TERRIBLE.

From the B spot to random reboots and bad sound…

I wondered if HTC’s release products are the same – there is no way quality control should of ever let these phones back on the market. A refurbished phone is like a repaired car, It should look and act like NEW..

Anyways I am fully done with HTC.. the only way I’d use one is if one was given to me…

well, This time i’ve gone with a Samsung… though, The second phone problem going back to Phone fun 3 was a samsung.  This time I’ve gone with a Samsung Nexus s 4g

Now in previous post I’ve had my “Requirements for my phone”.

  1. to make calls –
  2. The Phone is configurable
  3. good battery life
  4. add/make ringtones
  5. Applications that don’t cost a years pay for a small 3rd world country
  6. Durable

Basically The nexus S is as follows.

  1. This phone makes calls and does it well with one small stipulation.. in some areas the antenna for the phone is lacking.
  2. Configuration on most android phones is your mileage may vary.. but this phone you can configure it pretty much ANY way you please… rooting is fairly simple. reflashing is simple.
  3. This point Really needs a to be explained, since any smart phone will not hold a candle to a “dumb” phone , On average a smart phone lasts about 1 day on a decent charge. The EVO on average would require charging after about 18hours. The nexus easily passes the 1 day marker and most days it gets close to 2 days before requiring to be charged.
  4. on android phones this is a dead simple process.
  5. Android Market has all kinds of applications- but, Its now not cost … but moreover privacy with apps now.
  6. While this phone feels very light its fairly durable. the EVO in comparison weighs alot more.

So far  this phone has served me extremely well .. and hopefully (knock on wood a tree or something) I will not have any issues with this.

Im leaving this post fairly short.

Hopefully I will not have to go back to this post and make phonefun MMMXXXVI

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Of the PS3 Jailbreak and sonys reaction.

As you know I do talk about games… alot. Anyways, When i bought my PS3 i had intended to make use of the OtherOS feature. The only thing was when i bought my PS3 a week later They removed OtherOS.  If you have followed this little adventure, Sony originally dropped otherOS from the PS3slim and people got worried that  they would drop it from the ps3.

OtherOS on the PS3 was used to install Linux and use the system as a computer in some ways, From the Normal user perspective it would be a mostly useless thing, The only reason I say mostly useless is, that most people have a home PC and would rather use something they are more familiar with. People interaction with linux is pretty funny, even the word they cringe thinking its some sort of alien software.  The state of linux Is just a different iteration of “windows” really .. between win7/OSX/linux the interface is nearly the same now .

Before the removal of OtherOS hacking the internals for the playstation3 was minimal, when sony decided that removing otherOS was a good idea, they Officially opened Pandora’s box.  After that door was opened and removing the option hobbyist and players alike were pissed because of the loss of otherOS, but the segment of the market they did piss off was not the one they should of pissed off. Basically everyone that had this on there system looked for a way to return there system back to having the otherOS option. Geohot was the first person i payed attention to when it came to poking around in the PS3 hardware.  People originally blamed Geohot when it came to exploiting the hypervisor and the removal of OtherOS on the ps3.  The most recent development was the release of the private system key for the system pretty much fully opening Pandora’s box. With the final kick to the door with the key exploiting the system is actually a null point now. With the Key in hand people can now sign there code with the key and run software as if it was from Sony with little to no exploitation to the system. The question comes to mind.. would this key have been found without the removal of OtherOS , yes eventually , but Not as fast as it was found since the removal of it. If you follow the timeline of hacks for the PS3 virtually all hacks came AFTER the removal of OtherOS .  Now, sony is suing the two groups involved with finding the private system key, at this point Sony I think is making the wrong move.

Why, because look what happened with the bluray/HD-DVD AACS Encryption keys. the attempted DMCA take down started an explosion of attention towards the keys in question. Will this happen with the PS3? Maybe, the main problem is this Key will be harder to fix. there are a ton of problems with fixing the key or revoking said key.  If the key is revoked millions of PS3’s will have issues playing games, basically making your entire game library a minefield of if you can play it or not. Reading from Sony’s “motion for Temporary restraining order”

Knowing that the “Metldr Keys” can defeat TPMs in the PS3 System, Hotz began
using these proprietary Keys as a component of a Circumvention Device that applies SCEA
signatures to any file, effectively “tricking” the PS3 System into running unauthorized
programs.

by Using the key your not “tricking” the system, as far as the system cares its a signed file and will run it as so. Since the key is there you can run whatever you want, with that key exposed basically the keys to the castle are open and its open season on whatever someone wants to run.

Again if sony revokes said key there will be a nightmare of problems with games, there is no good way to revoke a key at this point since you would have to adapt EVERY piece of software out there to the newer key and changes to the system may create a hardware failure rate that would cost billions to the company. With Failoverflow and geohot were there intentions piracy… No, it was not , most software hardware and other devices tend to have homebrew scenes to which to run there own code on systems and find out interesting things with the hardware or make your own games. Unfortunately homebrew is often associated with piracy and homebrew is not piracy .

From here since Sony’s suing people the next step will be very interesting, Questionably – if the slashdot effect happens sony will have truly released Pandora’s box and created themselves an even bigger problem as millions of users go rogue. If they ban consoles, same effect, at this point they have backed themselves into a corner. Sony could have stayed silent about the issue and tried to fix it in the background, Either way its a long road ahead and an uncertain future with the PS3 since one of the main keys has been released. Looking at the possibilities…

The worst case scenario? Sony throws up there hands at the ps3 and shoehorns the PS4 into service with little to no upgrades and completely alienates there user base.
Another possibility, Sony finds an amicable fix that doesn’t break too many consoles but leaves older unsupported software unplayable.

Hopefully Sony finds a way to not completely screw up everyone’s game library.

well.. in the next few weeks, we will see..

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The state of gaming.

Ever had one of those days where you look at something and say hmm.  Well, I’ve been doing that for about a few months.  For awhile Now I’ve been wanting to spread out my gaming more than just between the WII and the PC.  Both platforms in my opinion are suffering from bad development and bad companies.   Well, After long thought and wondering if I’d be better off with a Bluray Drive for my PC or Some other upgrade I finally decided against both and went with the black sheep of the decisions.

Continue reading “The state of gaming.”

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Phone Fun IV: A New hope.

In our last episode of phone fun I had got an HTC TOUCH , Well…… That didn’t work out so well. Exactly 360 or so days the HTC touch Starting having issues with the screen and Calls.  Now, from trials and tribulations with sprint I learned the last thing you want to do is call *2 on your phone.  Doing that is like crank calling the deathstar while its in orbit around your planet.  Sprint Over the phone support basically told me I had to buy a new phone. Which I don’t have money I can magically pull out of my ass.   So I did the next best thing, I headed down to a sprint corporate store.  Since I pay my phone bill locally by walking into these stores I figured I’d get a better idea of what to do. After a short talk they sent us down to Boxboro Massachusetts.  They have a repair depot up that way, anyways  after a 30minute drive and a 30 minute wait they told me the phone was shot(radio was damaged).  After a short wait they sent me on the way with another HTC Touch(#2), After getting that home with-in a few hours the audio on that phone sounded like a cat barfing in your ear.   Called *2 and sprint offered to send out yet another HTC touch(#3). They shipped it overnight which was very nice and it arrived on monday.

I had that phone no more than 48hours when the phone would just lock and gave a screen of death, Now I am fairly careful with phones and use screen protectors and such. After wasting 3 of them I was not exactly happy.  That Phone went back to sprint. To make a long story short, I’ve gone through alot of HTC touches and as Far as my last post about this phone in 2008 . How does the phone rate up?

A bit of a learning curve which kind of surprized me but none the less I like it so far. As far as my requirements for a phone

Requirements for a Phone

  1. to make calls
  2. The Phone is configurable
  3. good battery life
  4. add/make ringtones
  5. Applications that don’t cost a years pay for a small 3rd world country
  6. Durable

Well… After a year with one phone and 1 to 2 months on 4 others.

1 The phone defiantly passes on. For a refurbished HTC-Touch that is debatable.

2. Again you can’t knock the touch on this, its extremely configurable once you figure out the interface.

3. battery life… That is actually pretty good.  Although using the GPS Or other intensive options I would recommend a car-charger.

4. You can make ringtones till you puke with this thing rather than jumping through hoops trying to convert soundfiles into strange formats.

5. As Far as applications go, you can find most of the common apps you need on the phone although I’d recommend downloading Google maps. With enough looking you can find pretty much any app you want for the phone but, this is where i’d give the Iphone or palm pre a small advantage with an “app store” for centralized buying of applications although the Iphone is more like Locked into the app store which I believe you can not install any 3rd party apps w/o jailbreaking the phone.

6. Lastly durability I seriously question, as the phone did make it One year. as Far as the refurbished HTC-Touches.. Those sucked ass.. there’s not enough swears in the English language to say what shit the HTC Touch Refurbs are. I may of run into a bad line of them but that is hard to believe that i’d of gone through that many phones.

as far as my current phone, Sprint has offered me a HTC Diamond,  Again i leave this post open till the next time I come back to phones.

As far as sprint is concerned – It seems they are OK as far as support as long as you get the right person.

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Mind over matters, E3’s motions controllers. (project natal)

After following the news for E3 for awhile I knew MS and Sony would announce there motion controllers.  The funny thing that comes to mind is that for 2 years most people complained that the wii motion controls were a gimmick .. alrighty than.

Interesting yes but, As far as the Microsoft motion controller is concerned it has many faults that are not pointed out.  I could point out that this system is the eye toy but thats been beaten to death with a dead horse. From the demos I have seen there are seemingly a lot of lag time in motion to screen reaction, at one point in on of the demos you could clearly see that the person and on screen avatar were completely out of sync, The wii’s controls seemed more in sync than this and I’m curious that the people playing around with natal were just in a state of ZOMG NEW TOY mode rather than objectively using the device.

The second thought of this is natal with more than one player it just doesn’t seem like it will even work,  If it does it maybe more a space issue since your stuck in the field of view of the lens. Just imagine trying to play rabbids in the point of view of a camera with two or even 4 people, Hospital visits would rise to the point of Armageddon and Bruce Willis would have to be sent in to nuke your console.  From another site

Natal is so smart, in fact, that, if your room is narrowed by a pair of couches, it can signal to a game to narrow the level. It can see about 15′ x 20′ of a room, according to project leader Kudo Tsunoda’s informal estimation.

(this was part of a post I made on june 5th but I decided to hold off to see if this held water or not.  I left this part of the post originally to show where my thinking was at the time. Anyways)

2 weeks later and finding out where the motion controller is now, and many articles later.

gamemediasites

Sony’s motion controller seems to be playing the same Houdini game where its a announced and disappears. I think its because its closer to the wii controls and everyone’s uppity about the project Nu-toy, As i had Started to point out the Microsoft Motion controller seems to have more faults than positives.  Even further It seems that the technology in this “controller” (to which i lightly say) implemented is going to confusing as fuck compared to the normal – In a video of them playing burnout paradise it looked closes to step dancing for dummies playing that game. Car Racing games is not really the best format to show responsiveness.  Microsoft here has put up the unicorns farting rainbows approach to marketing this device, Hyping the living hell out of it.  It almost feels like a Fail in motion.

the second thing about the microsofts control setup is that all gaming sites have jumped on this like its the best advance since pong(again eye-toy).  As far as I’ve seen with the pre-natal, It just seems more of a “gimmick” than the wii-mote, I mean since “you” are the controller do you really think people are going to play Halo with this? also the lack of a device will make the experience more confusing, it will basically come back to the hell people went through of getting the powerglove to work  right.

Everyone’s gone bullshit over this to the point of gollum and the one ring.  but as far as the experience is concerned microsoft is expecting you to fill in too many blanks, There has to be some device in between to work and feel correct.

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bing? bing.. Its just uhh.. yeah..

Microsoft has been flapping there PR mouth over there new search engine bing. After the failed livesearch and another companies shit fest of a search engine.  It seems like Microsoft has learned a thing or two about search engines but, not much. It was more like “lets just rip off another popular search engine. ” Microsoft has been smearing there new Bing.com everywhere, Hulu is running ads , likely there is ads on TV . but, it appears that bing will be not ignored like cuil was, Microsoft will likely force bing down our throats every way possible.  Just to give an idea how microsoft will pull is.

  • Windows update will force some update as “critical” to internet explorer forcing bing to the front
  • Update MSN clients to have bing built in
  • Windows 7  will likely have it forced on the desktop
  • Come out with some goofy firefox plugin (maybe already done mystery plugin for firefox had come out *cute stealth install too*)

hemantm writes “A routine security update for a Microsoft Windows component installed on tens of millions of computers has quietly installed an extra add-on for an untold number of users surfing the Web with Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser.”

Looking into the name  bing the first definition that comes up on dictionary.com is

bing

1 –noun British Dialect. a heap or pile.

As funny  as that is , Bing is almost an identical ripoff of  Google.

binghere’s the same same search in google .

googlethe result pages look almost EXACTLY the same.  Microsoft has made an attempt to make a search engine but, its a blatant ripoff of Google.  Playing around with Bing it seems alright but, again looking at the search engine there’s no fucking difference. The supposed Smart search engine that bing is just tries to give you the same results. Yes there are features in this search engine but Google already does 99.99% of bings search results.

Do we need another Google? NO, if Microsoft actually made something unique it would be one thing, At least cuil made an attempt at being unique.  In order to do something better with the search engine Microsoft should try something different than work from there with a dynamic interface that takes opinions from users.

But my vote on this search engine is no , its a shamefully blatent ripoff of google.  Its insulting, microsoft has billions of dollars yet they can’t come up with there own search engine?

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Logitech G7 double click Abyss

I’ve just about had it with the G Series of Logitech mice. I don’t know why but, they always seem to get the double click of death after only months of use.

right now my mouse is inthe process of being sent to Logitech, Thankfully support was willing to RMA my mouse for a completely different mouse.

our Warranty Department and I can offer you the MX1100 Cordless Mouse as a replacement.

The MX1000 I had lasted 4 years before any problems what so ever with that mouse and I hope the quality is better than the Logicrap G7

So hopefully there should be a Review of the MX1100 thats Favorable instead of Hulk angry want to kill a mouse rant.

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Console Gaming without a TV part V (Samsung 2333HD monitor)

From my last post I had talked about getting a new Monitor and retiring the Wii VGA cable . The thing is the post was getting to the epic dictionary size so I felt the need to make another post, After doing much research after my first failed attempt at getting a monitor I noticed they were making Monitors with TV tuners built on to them. Personally I don’t want a TV with a VGA input on it for many reasons, TV generally have very limited resolutions as far as computers are concerned.

Looking around I stumbled upon Samsungs lines of monitors with TV Tuners built in, the T2#0HD line of monitors are basically monitors with an HD Tuner built in.  I like the idea of a monitor that has a built in TV tuner,  It removes the need for a TV and also it is more convienent for me,  The major problem with these monitors is there fucking imposible to find locally in a store, best buy has them on there site but there all WEB ONLY which is a pile of moose shit, they went you to purchase a TV rather than taking more convienent route of getting a monitor with built in tuner.

After the fun I had with the Samsung 2253BW, I just for the hell of it looked at TV’s on the Office Depot site- which hit me with a profound yet silly answer– I had to look twice because the model number did not make sense- Samsung 2333HD 23″ Widescreen LCD HDTV? Wait a sec.. 2333HD? And I just had a 2253 ? and the T220HD ????? What the.. going to google it made alot more sense after.  The model number didn’t look like a HDTV Model number, after dealing with a TV problem in the house that needed to be replaced I became familiar with model numbers. Usually a model number from samsung for a monitor would be ####AB where-as tv’s used a much differnt sequence like – Samsung LN26A450. The only exception I’ve found was the T###HD monitor line, which is still much different than any model numbers for TV’s.

Comparing the T220HD to the 2333HD yielded another interesting result. The 2333hd Can goto 1080p while the T220HD could only achieve 720p.  After a call to Office Depot I manages to get the 2333HD.

For A TV analog channels do look a little fuzzy but on HD channels this monitor really shines, as for the Wii, It Removes the need for a VGA cable, it also has enough inputs to not clusterfuck the back of the pc with inputs and outputs. The sound from the built-in speakers is very tinny. The easy fix is to use the optical out on the back of the monitor which provides excellent sound through a Stereo reciever. As for the wii using a RGB Component in with the audio inputed in through the TV Also is a huge bonus (less cables all over the place).

As for the monitor end of things the monitor give an excellent response time for gaming with no noticeable trails or other things that would otherwise annoy you. Also the monitor goes into standby when you turn the PC off which is the BIGGEST thing I wanted and the reason I did not want to buy a TV. When you turn off a TV with a PC connected 95% of the time your left with a screen that says “no signal” and your just wasting power. the 2333HD does not do that after you shut down your PC the monitor happily goes to standby.

the Images look great as far as I’m concerned and this really is the best of both worlds when considering your options for a setup for a console without a TV.

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Oh the fun of Windows XP (fun with windows activation)

I’ve made some hardware updates to my machine and really the biggest pain of any machine I’ve built is one thing…  Windows XP.  As I sit here I have a legit copy of the software but, Every time I’ve reinstalled since maybe the 5th time I’ve reinstalled over the years there is one nagging thing that outright just pisses me off.

Windows Activation….. Its basically the most annoying prospect on this planet.  After entering the product key than clicking the keys in the small keys in the bottom right it says “you can activate windows over the Internet or over the phone” the Internet will be quickest and easiest .. my ass…  if you have had windows a couple of years you will run into this same activation wall.  Basically, once you have activated your windows a few times you will get an error:

“this copy of windows has been activated too many times”

An option for a entering another key comes up or you have to dial up the 1-800 Number, So you call the 800 number and you are greeted by a female robot that asks you questions.  Rather than being able to input your answers by keypad your stuck with dealing with a voice response system.   Now being a voice recognition system your already aggravated due to the point you have to speak like Anakin Skywalker from the first starwars movie,  if you don’t speak with any emotion or even twinge the wrong way you should get through the first prompts ok, but when it comes to the next part which is speaking a forty-eight digit string of numbers.

You will need the powers of a jedi , A vulcan and an android in order not to loose your sanity.

8 groups of 6 numbers each , or so you think….. you start slowly and speak each number like every emotion has been ripped from your head and your the original terminator .. if you succeed  you will hear a bell signaling that you’ve just passed the first trial, if not the “friendly” robot voice says it does not understand you and to repeat the numbers again.  You try the numbers a second time and wait for the bell.. if not your treated to the third form of this torturous adventure.  Keypad entry …. If you input the keys on a poor signal from say a cell phone, your fucked, because the robot will kick you back to voice prompt or the 4th option. If your lucky and you don’t fart breath the wrong way or scratch and itch you get to the end of the numbers.   The robot now tells you to hold on and is validating your install.. You breath a sigh of relief for a mo- “sorry I can not validate this install You are now being transferred to a representative”

In the moment you channel every emotion you’ve held back in the past 5 minutes and try to channel enough anger over the phone hoping that the robot explodes. As your own robot demeanor slowly turns into darth vader after finding out his ship was towed for parking in a non-sith  zone.

darth_xp

The thought of throwing the disc across the room and killing something with it comes to mind.. Finally you get an operator, They ask for the First six digits of the installation ID, Than after that it turns into a interrogation.

You get asked questions

  • Did you buy this software at a store…
  • How many Machines do you have this software installed on.
  • Is this your first time activating this software
  • How many machines is this software installed on(again)

This is what pisses me off to the core.. I purchased this software from a fucking store.. I have in my hand the damn case for the disk an original CD and now I’m getting 20 questions?  I did not pirate the damn thing.. (who would be stupid enough to call on a pirated disk ? ) And the fact they ask you twice about how many machines its installed on is just about Saying your trying to steal the disk.  what the fuck?   How about instead of beating around the bush.. just ask outright .  ARE YOU STEALING THIS SOFTWARE!  After the interrogation you get to the next fun part of the “easy activation”

Now i have nothing against foreign call centers but at this point your bloods boiling you’ve just used every ounce of mental strength not to go batshit crazy over the phone and now the fun begins.. you are read a forty-two digit code from someone who does have an accent that sometimes can be VERY hard to understand. So at times your asking to go back but occasionally you will get a person who is rattles off the numbers like they’re an Auctioneer onethreefoursevensixfive HOOOOOOOOOLD THE FUCK ON…

after what seems forever and a day and half you finally get through this depleted and wanting to kill something you have windows activated till the next time you upgrade/something goes wrong/you look at windows the wrong way/ your cat sneezes.

this activation crap needs to be fine tuned .. or at least have some sort of system where you can de-authorize an activation like bioshock did.  Honestly when it comes to the next edition of windows or even Vista I cant afford it.  So I’m stuck on XP. But every time I’ve had a problem i don’t feel like saying more numbers than a Stock sheet in the newspaper.

If you look at it, Its a 48 to 96+ digits for an installation key because of the autobot phone lady, Not to mention if that fails its another 48+ digits after that. six more digits If you get “too many activations and the megamaid robot cant authorize your windows”. Than another 42+ digits for the “confirmation ID”, so in total its anywhere from

Ninety-six to one-hundred and ninety-two spoken numbers over the phone..  that’s just totally insane.