i-junky.Technology

i-Junky Has Moved!!

2005-06-17T18:36:00.000+10:00

i-Junky Has MOVED!

New location: http://ijunky.blogsome.com Please update your links! And come take a look at the new i-Junky now under the Wordpress system.

Thanks.

Media Center Remote

2005-06-12T20:27:00.000+10:00

Are you one of those who think buying one of those complete Microsoft Media Center Systems is a waste of money? Are you one of those who think building their own system and finding some sort of substitutional operating system to use? Are you one of those who have built a PC suitable for multimedia applications and happened to have Windows Media Center installed?

Then looks like the only thing you guys are missing is the remote control! Now if you were to buy a complete Home Media Center PC like you see in most large retail stores with a ridiciously over priced tag on them, they would have a remote bundled with it (let's face it, if we were to have a multimedia system of some sort the most important thing is to lie down on your comfy couch and enjoy it with a remote control!)

What you need is one of these babies from Australian PC Market, which are selling them at a reasonable price.

If you did some hefty research and bargaining I won't be surprised if you can get one of these at the palm of your hands for about twenty or so dollars off the Aus PC market price.

And these are not your so average looking remote controlles either, with the styling they present - they almost certainly can pass as some sort of Japanese controlling device for dildo equipment.

Here are the specifications:

Remote control has USB dongle to connect to PC running Windows MCE2005

Base station also has IR sender to control set-top boxes, comes with 2x batteries

Used with MCE, it can control set-top Foxtel/Optus boxes with IR - 2 IR senders included

Remote can also learn from your existing TV remote to switch TV on/off and control volume by putting it head-to-head

Has "Skip" button that jumps 30-seconds at a time to bypass ads in recorded shows

Runs on 2x AA batteries, included

Source: Australian PC Market

Playstation 3 to be without bundled HD?

2005-06-10T13:42:00.000+10:00

The newly anticipated Playstation 3 is said to be launched next spring, but without a bundled hard disk.

According to Sony Computer Entertainment's Chief technology officer Masayuki Chatani, he claims a certain strategy has yet to be planed, however most gamers/users will want to upgrade to a higher capacity drive anyway.

More here

Apple switching to Intel chips

2005-06-06T22:44:00.000+10:00

According to CNET News.com and The Wall Street Journal Apple (well known for their Macintosh Machines in the PC market) will be switching to Intel x86 processors as of today announcing the change at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference after it's strong bond with IBM manufactured CPU's all these years.

However, this may be considered as a risky move by Apple, because switching to Intel chips would require new software to be written to adapt to the new processor.

"I don't know that Apple's market share can survive another architecture shift,"
Insight 64 analyst Nathan Brookwood told News.com. "Every time they do this,
they lose more customers."

Having that said, Apple will instead apply the new chips their low end mainstream machines such as the Mac Mini, in med 2006 and a year later for the higher end models.

More reading;

Optus finally has made the right move

2005-06-03T13:51:00.000+10:00

OptusNet lifts 28Kbps cap

Brad Peczka
Yesterday, 2:45 pm Optus got a news
tip?
IN BRIEF OptusNet has quietly increased the shaping speed for its Unlimited* and Unlimited* Pro broadband plans to 64Kbps.

The increase in speed comes after 3 years of shaping to 28Kbps, which has caused many heated user debates in the OptusNet forum here on Whirlpool. This also brings OptusNet in line with its competitors, who usually shape at speeds ranging from 64Kbps to 72Kbps.

The change is yet to be officially announced to OptusNet customers, but the OptusNet Rate Card has been updated to include a new condition that states "28.8kbps speed limiting applies to Basic 200MB, Starter Plus 400MB, and Value 1GB plan. 64kbps speed limiting applies to Unlimited and Unlimited Pro plans."

All I can say is, it's about time Optus decided to lift the cap, while other Cable ISP's have been limiting their capped speeds to this rate already.

Free Tebit! Err I mean Cebit!

2005-05-23T00:39:00.000+10:00

Firstly for starters who don't know what Cebit is, have a look at this website www.cebit.com.au basically it's some kind of Australian PC expo that happens every year, I did not know one single thing about this event until just 2 months ago when I decided to register on that site (because I was told too). Then later I found out, I can gain free entry to the event when it actually takes place - I was like ..um cool... then later I found out you can get free stuff while I'm there... I remember by this moment I needed a quick gasp of fresh air, so I went out to the backyard to have a breather, by the time I was done, went back inside, sat down ...cool free stuff, I'm going this year fo shiz!

Anyway 2 months past I almost forgot about Cebit completely until just about a week ago when I recieved this in the mail:

Now the confidential parts of the ID tag are blacked out, incase you scammers out there want to make a copy of this somehow - not exactly sure how it's possible but just a precaution... anyway.
I should also probably mention why I'm addressed as an IT Network Administrator of Lidcombe Tafe - well I wanted to start very early in my field of expertise... ok not really, but it was the only profession that popped up in my head at the time of registration on the Cebit site, you see to require free entry you needed some sort of profession and well I'm an IT Network Admin.

For those who want more information can just visit the Cebit website or have a look down here in the next photo, if you can see it clear enough you be able to make out the dates and times and the location of this Cebit event.

No doubt I'll be there to only just grab some freebies, don't let 'freebie' give you any impression of just cheap advert material of some sort, although they might - but I'm sure that won't be all the free stuff you can get your hands on.

Homer Mouse!

2005-05-15T00:16:00.000+10:00

I notice this mouse from USBGeek and thought, hey that's pretty cool I want one of those! Anyway here are some more screen shots and a review... boy do I feel like a geek at the very moment.

Source: http://sdmlanreview.com/modules.php?name=Reviews&op=show&rid=39

A red hat within a window! Wow

2005-05-05T00:20:00.000+10:00

Never thought it was possible to run multiple operating systems on the one machine - at the same time, well to be honest I never thought I was able to do so atleast. But by-diggity I seem to have it working, and at the moment I'm running a piece of software "VMware Workstation version 5.0" something or rather and it's great, not only are you able to run the operating systems in seperate tab like windows within the program, but also be able to choose certain settings like the hardware drivers you wish to load for each operating system.

For awhile - actually past three months I've been wanting to get a laptop mainly as a second system to use to have Linux Redhat installed to familiarise myself with the interface of Redhat (version 9.0), the GUI (Graphical User Interface) is much like windows, "well then why would you want to use it, if it's just like windows?" Well for starters I hate Bill Gates and Microsoft... well not really no, I need to know how to use Linux mainly because it's one of the operating systems I will be using next semester at Tafe for Diploma of Network Engineering.

Up until about a week ago I thought, what the hell - stuff the laptops and gave Virtual Machine thing ago and off I went to search up on the many things there is to know about Virtual Machine software, and just so happens I stumbled across possibly the best Virtual Machine software out at the moment -- VMware Workstation, and I love it's simple GUI. After I read up on the list of operating systems this baby can handle, I went through my business man type looking CD wallet (holds 480 CDs) to find my Linux Redhat installation media.

Surprisingly the installation went along smoothly within VMware Workstation, because as far as I know it, my previous experiences with anything related to Linux hasn't been much of a shinning moment, I have corrupted sectors on an old Seagate 4GB hard disk drive due to an installation of Mandrake Linux once before. Once the installation was completed, on first boot into Linux Redhat I noticed the performance was really sluggish (even though I had configured 256 of ram to be used within Linux through the VMware) so first thing I did was, see if the internet worked and checked out some porn... nah just kidding, I had a read at the help index in VMware and bingo, I had to installed some special set of tools a.k.a VMware Tools.

Basically VMware tools are software drivers being installed into the OS so that the OS is able to make the right configurations to use your video card and things like that.

Upon first boot of Linux, ah doesn't it just bring a tear to your eye? It's so sexy. Incase you're wondering if I just took a normal screen shot off the net and posted it here then no; take a look at this;

Now just ignore the right part of this image, as I'm running on dual monitors, the left you can see the Linux OS been loaded in the VMware Workstation and to those who are wondering how do I know if that is VMware, image is so small -- well shut your trap! Take my word for it, it's VMware and that's Linux Redhat 9.0 running in there, need more proof?

There's a window opened in Linux, and on the right... well half of my blog is there also. Now once I got Linux working I thought, I'd have some fun (checked out some porn... ok no I didn't, that's twice I mentioned porn now it's not even funny anymore). I played some of the Linux game, wow so leet haxor games I mean come on' it has chess and something else called Smile-Tris, it's so cool, it's like Tetris but with smily faces and when you join the same coloured and same face expressions together the faces explode! Come on Bill Gates, we all know you steal your work from other software developers, why not take the source for these leet games - it's open source OS to begin with, and make your "own" version of these games and bundle it in the next operating system or better yet release a software package under the title of "New Windows XP Games for the Leet".

I also installed Windows 2000 Professional, and had it running in another tabbed window in VMware, but that's not important - it's just windows.

L33t, kicka$$, hax0r3li7e

2005-04-13T14:41:00.000+10:00

It's been awhile since I've blogged, but I've been so busy lately upgrading my home computers and changing cases and adding new modifications, haven't had the time. But finally got it done.

Yes I planning to spray that ugly biege floppy drive black... some day.

Gotta love the blue-ness in it. Sticking in a 120mm fan soon. And if you noticed ... what's that? Why... it's an 80mm duct hole suck air striaght to my CPU (Pentium 2.4GHz @ 3.01GHz )

Can you say... sexy? Ok maybe not yet, it's still a work in progress. This baby is going to have a window soon aswell to show the nifty things inside, such a shame it's all being hidden at the moment.

My system as up to this date;

- Gigabyte GA-8IPE 1000-G
- Intel Pentium Northwood 2.4GHz Ver. C @ 3.01GHz
- 1GB (2x512MB) Double Sided DDR-Ram (Dual Channel)
- SoundBlaster Live 5.1
- GeXCube 256MB ATi Radeon 9600 PRO
- NEC 3520A DVD±R - LG 52x32x52 CD-RW
- Seagate Baracuda PATA 60GB 7200RPM HDD
- Western Digital PATA 80GB 7200RPM HDD
- Seagate Baracuda PATA 200GB 7200RPM HDD *External USB Powered Box*
- 2 x SATA Seagate 200GB HDD *coming soon*

All this running on dual monitor (20" Dell Trinitron and 19" Hitachi CM721F)

No more DVD ripping?

2005-02-17T12:23:00.000+11:00

"Macrovision Unveils 'RipGuard' For DVDs - [Computer
Security]
Submitted by HobbesHax on 2/16/2005 3:00:21 PM 14 Comments

Macrovision's new 'RipGaurd' software is designed to prevent people from
making copies of DVD movies.
"RipGuard DVD plugs the "digital hole" created by PC-based software that enables consumers to make unauthorized copies of DVDs containing copyrighted movies and music, officials with the Santa Clara, Calif.,
content-protection software company said.

RipGuard is a unilateral content protection system that is applied to DVD discs and requires no additional software or hardware to be incorporated into PCs, DVD players or DVD recorders, Macrovision said. The new product is available in select replication facilities, with general availability expected in the second quarter. "
Source: www.designtechnica.com "

I'm pretty upset with the type of ideas used to prevent piracy particuarly in dvd-movies, I can understand the reasons why in the music industry with recent issues with the RIAA and so fourth. But in protecting DVD movies? I mean come on' maybe I'm just over exaggerating but that's maybe because I just recently got myself a DVD burner not too long ago. Haha, ahh the possibilities are already ending for I.

Just a recap;

I've given this much more considerable thoughts and realise that is nothing more than just a mere threat to ~~thousands~~ billions of people worldwide who have probably already copied an extensive collection of borrowed DVDs, that or have some source to someone who does. Much alike the music industry as it is never ending concern to stop the music piracy, but there is always a loop-hole to everything, and in this case much with DVD piracy, it's never going to end; cause' most likely in about two or three weeks after the initial introduction of rip-guard on DVDs someone somewhere around the world would already have found a way to bypass this protection.

So Not much more of a concern anymore.