Nerd Werd

Stop annoying resizing and moving of the browser window in FF3

2010-08-31T04:08:00.000-07:00

One of my friends recently sent me a link, it contained the bastardized and not even remotely as funny successor to the Rickroll, the saxroll.

Anyway, it wasn't a youtube link, but a page link to an embedded video and a script that resized the browser window and moved it around on the screen as the stupid video played.

Ofcourse I really hate these annoying annoyware scrips so I sought a methood to disable scripts abilities to resize and move my browser window.

So here's what I found:

In the URL bar of Firefox 3 write: "about:config" (without the quotes dumbass)
Next in the filter bar of about:blank write: "dom.disable_window_move_resize"
Double click the entry that is in the large window beneath the filter bar.

Viola, no more scripts able to resize or move windows..

iPhone rant revisited, AKA Welcome iOS4

2010-06-24T03:18:00.000-07:00

So iOS 4 is finally here, figured it was time to do another rant and revisit some of my old problems with the phone. There's not much else to say about it so lets dig in and see what on my wishlist came true and what didn

Native support for recording phone calls and saving voice mail as an audio file.

Allright, this is still a major issue, but given that the OS now allows for multitasking, maybe there will be a 3rd party app that can help this. Time will tell if Apple will allow it given that this wish has legal issues in some places. For example, I know that in 11 states in the US it's explicitly forbidden to record conversations, even if you partake in them. Whereas in Sweden it is fully allowed to record any and all conversations, over the phone or in real life, as long as the recordings are not made publicly available. In the instance where they are evidence of a crime, you should go to the police with them instead of sending them out online.

Unoptimized aka. "un-fucked up" photo synchronization.

This hasn't been resolved either, it's better, but still nowhere near as good as it could be. I have however found a way to get full quality images to view on it by sending them to myself in an email attachment and saving them to the iPhone through the mail app, in which case they end up unoptimized in the camera roll. This way they are viewable in full quality and also retrievable from any computer that you can access the cameras storage from.

File access, what is that?

Nope, not resolved either. Too bad really, would really be kickass to have command line control over the iPhones functions. Ability to build user scripts and other fun stuff is yet to be realized.

FLAC and ogg Vorbis support.

As far as I have seen, neither FLAC nor ogg Vorbis works on it, though i haven't tested it fully yet. Maybye someone else knows who have actually tested it?

Native support for syncing notes and text files.

This one is actually fixed in a manner, the notes app now gives you the option to store the notes in your IMAP mail account (for instance gmail gets a new lable named notes where they are stored as emails sent to yourself). Very handy and has done tons to alleviate the sense of claustrophobia I had with the notes app in the beginning.

Built in equalizer.

Also not resolved, a graphical equalizer would really be sweet. As far as I have found no real changes from the iOS 3 version of the equalizer settings has been made.

Native support for building and editing playlists.

Fully resolved! YAY! Ok, so the on-the-go playlists have been sent to the grave and you now have full access to edit, rename and delete any and all playlists in your media library. The immortal words of Carman sums up what I think of this: "Kickass!".

Editing audio and video meta data.

Nope, not resolved either. Sucks really..

So what other nifty features have come to light then, lets start with the ones I find most important:

Ability to turn off cellular data.

Go into Settings > General > Network to find your brand spanking new and shiny Cellular Data switch! Once again "Kickass!"

Alphanumerical password for your iPhone.

This is so sweet! Go into Settings > General > Passcode Lock and flip the Simple Passcode off to get a full alphanumerical password instead! Rock'n Roll Baby!

App Folders!

This feature is the perfect fix for the appoholic in me. Just hold on an app in your home screen until you enter edit mode (all icons wriggle) drag one icon ontop of another to create a folder (will let you name it to anything you want, or uses smart naming if you don't want to name it and names the folder after the category of the app you dropped onto the other) . Each folder can contain up to 12 apps (which means if you fill up the entire phone with folders you can add up to 2160(!) apps) .

The only downside is that the Spotlight Search function doesn't search for folder names thus far. Would be nice if you have a couple of folders named for instance Games 1, Games 2 etc. Typing Game into the search would list the contents of all of those folders.

Multitasking.

Multitasking in iOS 4 isn't exactly like multitasking in a computer, the app "freezes" if it's not built for iOS 4 and when they are built for it only certain threads may run in the background. But it's really nice to pick up where you left off instead of always having to go through all the huff and puff to get to where you were when you got sidetracked.

Homescreen and Lockscreen wallpaper.

Finally here, my homescreen looks so beautiful now with a nice background don't you think?

It really makes a difference no?

Problems:

iTunes or BloatTunes is still a horrendous piece of bloatware that is slow, laggy and generally sucks bigtime. Apple really needs to get rid of the people who wrote this piece of shit virus and hire some real programmers instead.

Denialism, a serious threat to the human race

2010-06-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

New Scientist have published an article that raises a very big concern, one that most people doesn't even know the full story of. Living in denial It's a must read boys and girls, time to do your homework for once..

iPhone rant aka. If I had known this beforehand I would have never bought an iPhone

2010-04-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

After having lived with the iPhone 3GS for a few months now I've actually come to resent it.

Don't get me wrong, it's an absolutely amazing piece of technology, the truly sad part is that it's full potential will never be reached due to Apples defective by design philosophy or whatever you want to call it makes this so called "smart phone" into an IDIOT phone. The constricting hold Apple has over it is so strangulating and painful that I can, for the life of me, not understand why anyone would praise them.

So this is (with all likelihood, only the beginning of) my list of functions that are missing that I consider a must if a smart phone is to be called a SMART Phone that are missing in the iPhone:

Native support for recording phone calls and saving voice mail as an audio file.

This one I have zero understanding for why it has not been implemented from the word Go in the Apple factory. Every smart phone worth a damn has some kind of, or the full feature, but with the iPhone you can't. Why can't you? Because you can't, that's why.

The only way you can do it is by using an external service that cost loads of money and god knows who at those companies are getting their rocks off listening to the recordings of your wife giving you the grocery list, or your daughter asking you to buy a specific brand hygiene articles that you can never remember the name of...

Unoptimized aka. "un-fucked up" photo synchronization.

Syncing photos to the iPhone is smooth and easy and ruins pretty much every photo you take. Even photos taken BY the iPhone (!) is ruined by this so called optimization when you add them to the library that is synced.

What is the optimization you ask: It's a cashing of thumbnails that are optimized to give a smoother experience when viewing photos on the iPhone. Too bad that the photos aren't worth watching after optimization. But Hey! At least it's a smooth and fast view through lowrez crap copies of the beautiful fullrez photos you wanted to sync.

File access, what is that?

One of my main beefs with the iPhone is that you don't have file access to it, you have to use a wifi sync app or some other buttfugly online sync hack to get your spreadsheets, pdf's and documents to the damn thing, not to mention the hassle of getting them back to a computer. I have 32GB of storage space that I can't use for anything but the pre-approved and very limited uses that Apple decided I am allowed (!?) to use it for.

Even a sandbox storage, isolated from the apps and function of the phone's OS, would have been better than no access at all.

FLAC and ogg Vorbis support.

If you allow mp3's on the damn thing why not FLAC and ogg? Seriously, ogg is in every respect a superior format compared to mp3. FLAC is what I rip my CDs to at home but they can't be used either. Apple Lossless you say? Why would I use a proprietary, defective by design, format when I have a free one that is just as good, just as easy and a whole lot less painfull to rip to at my disposal? And on top of that, I can play the music I PAID FOR (!) in EVERY (!) damn mediaplayer I wish instead of just in crappy iTunes.

Native support for syncing notes and text files.

In order to sync notes you make in the native Notes app you need to have Outlook (the full outlook, express won't do) installed on your computer, and the notes are synced to the notes function in that program. Well, safe to say, I haven't installed Outlook, nor have I bothered using the Notes app to any greater extent, despite that writing on the iPhone is such a pleasure compared to most other (real) smart phones. Instead, I have to resort to yet another buttfugly online hack by writing my notes in the mail app and mailing them to myself. I mean seriously, is syncing simple text files to a windows computer too hard for Apple? Do they really need big brother Microsoft's program just to be able to perform such a ridiculously simple task?

Built in equalizer.

So let me get this straight; the iPhone is, when push comes to shove, an iPod Touch with an added phone function right? So it's supposed to be a really kick ass mp3 player right? Then why, for all that is holy, is there no equalizer built into the damn thing? Why do you only have a bunch of crappy presets to chose from? Even iTunes have a real equalizer that you can set yourself (not that it makes any difference), but the iPhone? Nope.

I have never owned an mp3 player that hasn't had some form of graphical equalizer, everything from creative Zen's to Sandisk Sansa's. And now the supposedly most kick ass player in the world doesn't have such a basic function? You have got to be kidding me!?

Native support for building and editing playlists.

This is another one of my true annoyances. When do you want to create playlists? WHEN YOU LISTEN TO MUSIC! And since I never use iTunes for listening to music (since its a piece of crap bloatware) I want to make my playlists in the phone where I actually listen to the music.

Sure you have one, thats ONE, 1, uno, ein, en, on-the-go playlist that you can mess around with but after you sync the phone after having created it, it becomes a static on the go (that isn't on the go anymore) playlist that you can do dick shit with other than play.

This I find outright pathetic, why can't I edit my playlists? Because Apple for some inexplicable reason doesn't want me to. Is it a wonder that I'm starting to feel paranoid about what else Apple doesn't want me to do? Why on earth implement playlists in the first place if you don't allow editing of said playlists in the player!?

Editing audio and video meta data.

So you sync an album onto your iPhone, then pull up the album list and find that you have not one, but two, seemingly identical albums, by the same artist on the phone. WTF?

On closer inspection you find that in one of the identical albums you have all but one song, and in the other, the missing song. So how do you fix that? Not in your phone, nu-huh.. You have to fix it manually, in iTunes (shudders), then (!!!!!!) Resync the album (!!!!!!!!?) to get all the songs into the same album.

Why on earth is there no way to edit the meta data of your audiofiles on the iPhone? Seriously..

There is probably a whole lot more that I find annoying, these are just my main annoyances with the stupid thing. When I first got it I though I had finally found a phone worth the money, a phone that would not just be my companion and my friend, but also an ever present outlet for my creativity, somewhere I could write and explore when the mood struck instead of having to force myself into an artificial state of creativity in front of my computer.

It is with the bitter taste of having been royally deceived that write this. The freedom I had so longed for in my cell phone is but a mirage, the iPhone is so limited, not by it's technology mind you, it's a beautiful piece of tech, but by the squeezing iron fist of Apple. Owning an iPhone, really makes me feel like I sold my soul to the devil. I was given the illusion that this would be the phone that would finally set me free, allow me to explore my creative side no matter where I was or what I did. Boy was I wrong..

So, in conclusion, had I known this before I bought it, I would have shown my finger to the sales person and looked elsewhere to find a REAL Smart Phone instead.

iAd, iPad, iPhone rant

2010-04-09T03:21:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I bough an iPhone 3GS a while back and have had a whole lot of fun playing around with it. It's basically the perfect Apple Product, it works, it's clean and it's easy and intuitive to use.

As a long time windows user, and occasional Linux user I have never seen any advantage to even try Apples computers and regarded them as inferior products due the the obvious and genuinely ridiculous limits of the users ability to control the system, but the phone is just amazing.

iPad
Enter the iPad, it's a cool gadget, I give them that. The Star Trek Data Pad feel of it is pretty darn cool but in the end I can't help asking; What is it good for? What can you do with it that you can't do on a regular laptop? How limited is the user experience in comparison to a regular, similarly priced, laptop?

The simple truth is, the star trek data pad feel is just not going to cut it, it has to be some kind of revolution in technology if it's going to make it through the initial hype. Being a cool gadget isn't enough in todays world.

iPhone
iPhone on the other hand was a revolution in technology, it's intuitive user interface and excellent build was the perfect merger in order to build a success both in terms of monetary gain and enjoyment for the end user.

So now Apple has announced the iAd program, something I first reeled at as a real Apple (TM) buttfuck of their end users before I did a couple of searches on what it would mean to me as an iPhone user.

iAd
This is what I came up with after sifting through post after post, announcement after announcement. I could be wrong mind you, don't take anything I write here as anything other than a summary of what I have understood, the Apple iAd program can be a fully different beast altogether and I could be completely mistaken about some or all of the conclusions I've reached.

Most free apps are supported by ads today, there are only a select few that are truly FREE, we are already used to the ad supported programs offering an ad-free version for a price. So there is a way to "opt out" of ads by paying for the software instead.

My first impression of iAd was that it would place ads in formerly ad-free, paid apps until I started digging a bit more. iAd, as far as I can see it, is an API for the developers to support their free software in a more uniform and ordered manner than before.

Apps containing ads today exits you from the app if you tap an ad and starts up the web browser instead. This is annoying, and the accidental tap on an ad can ruin half an hour of work in said app without you being able to stop it. This, as far as I could make out of all the drivel on the web, is what Apple is trying to counter, by offering this API they are giving the developers and in the end the end users, a more streamlined way to support their apps through ads without wrecking havoc with the work you've done with the ad-supported app. This I see as a real breakthrough for Apple and if it is as I have managed to understand it, I applaud it with my honest approval.

There are a couple of concerns though, the fact that I've read on several locations that the ads WILL HAVE ACCESS to your location (through GPS and the accelerometer) is something I see a serious privacy concern with. Where I'm at and what I do is my business alone. I sincerely hope that Apple will allow you to block ads from reading the GPS and accelerometer.

The second worry I have is the same as with the ads we have in ad-supported apps today, bandwidth. Most of us iPhone users where I live have a limited bandwidth per month to connect to the internet through our phones. I can't help wondering how much data will the ads pull down from the net through the mobile connection? How much of the bandwidth I pay for will be wasted on ads?

The third concern is a pretty ridiculous one, though I would hope it will correct itself from the way users decide purchase software. My worry is that paid apps will contain ads outside the control of the developers, that the opt-out through paying for the app will not result in an ad-free environment on your phone.

Clearing the terminal buffer in Cygwin

2009-11-07T08:33:00.001-08:00

There are two options if you wish to clear the terminal in Cygwin:
1. Prest Ctrl+L
2. Install the ncurses (from the Utils category), then use the command "clear" to clean out the buffer.

Strange that ncurses isn't added by default though.

A new addiction

2009-07-09T03:55:00.001-07:00

Tetris Friends Online Games - Play Free Games Featuring Tetris

Tetris has always been one of my all time favorite games, finding this site was a tour in both nostalgia and amazement of the new developments in the field.

My new addiction is Tetris Sprint, where you are supposed to clear 40 lines in as short a time as possible. My current record (as of writing) is 2 minutes and 21 seconds. It has been a slow but steady improvement as I keep playing over and over again.

If you have nothing to do and/or love Tetris as much as me then check it out!

Who cares about the electric Cigarette

2009-04-22T05:38:00.001-07:00

Ode to Bald Women

2009-04-22T05:27:00.001-07:00

From Skrivbord

I can't seem to get this picture out of my head, it feels both strange and exciting at the same time. It's just so incredibly perfect.

Just wish I knew the name of the model. It has completely turned me around when thinking about women and baldness.

Interesting Quote

2009-03-12T14:06:00.001-07:00

Shakespeare, King Henry V, Act VI, Scen III

King Henry "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother;"

Topalov Vs Kamsky Round 2 PGN

2009-02-19T03:54:00.001-08:00

[Event "Sofia Match"]
[Site "Sofia"]
[Date "2009.02.18"]
[Round "2"]
[White "GM Gata Kamsky"]
[Black "GM Veselin Topalov"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "2725"]
[BlackElo "2796"]
[ECO "C65q"]
[EventDate "2009.02.18"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.O-O Bc5 5.Nxe5 Nxe4 6.Qe2 Nxe5 7.d4 Qe7 8.
dxc5 Nxc5 9.Nc3 Ng6 10.Qh5 c6 11.Bg5 f6 12.Rae1 Ne6 13.Bd3 O-O 14.Bd2 d5
15.f4 Qc5+ 16.Kh1 d4 17.Bf5 Rf7 18.Ne4 Qd5 19.Bxg6 hxg6 20.Qxd5 cxd5 21.
Nd6 Rc7 22.c4 dxc3 23.Bxc3 d4 24.Bb4 Bd7 25.Rf2 a5 26.Ba3 b5 27.b3 b4 28.
Bb2 Ra6 29.Ne4 Rac6 30.Kg1 Rc2 31.g3 d3 32.Rd1 0-1

Topalov Vs Kamsky Round 1 PGN

2009-02-19T03:53:00.001-08:00

[Event "Sofia Match"]
[Site "Sofia"]
[Date "2009.02.17"]
[Round "1"]
[White "GM Veselin Topalov"]
[Black "GM Gata Kamsky"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "2796"]
[BlackElo "2725"]
[ECO "D87i"]
[EventDate "2009.02.17"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 Bg7 7.Bc4 c5 8.Ne2
Nc6 9.Be3 O-O 10.O-O Na5 11.Bd3 b6 12.Qd2 e5 13.Bh6 cxd4 14.Bxg7 Kxg7 15.
cxd4 exd4 16.f4 f6 17.e5 Bd7 18.exf6+ Qxf6 19.Ng3 Kh8 20.f5 gxf5 21.Bxf5
Bxf5 22.Rxf5 Qd6 23.Raf1 Nc6 24.Ne4 Qe7 25.Qh6 Rxf5 26.Rxf5 Ne5 27.h3 Ng6
28.Rh5 Rg8 29.Nf6 Rg7 30.Nxh7 Rxh7 31.Qxg6 Qe3+ 32.Kf1 Qc1+ 33.Kf2 Qd2+
34.Kg3 Qe3+ 35.Kh2 Qf4+ 36.Kg1 Qc1+ 1/2-1/2

Graph Fever

2009-02-01T13:37:00.001-08:00

I got bored so I decided to make a graph over the Temperature Properties of the Elements.

From Skrivbord

PortableApps.com

2008-11-29T07:07:00.001-08:00

For those of you who don't know it yet, there is a very VERY easy and effective way to utilize your flash sticks. It's called PortableApps.com and it supports an impressive amount of appz custom made for running from your flash stick.

So go check it out!

John Conway's Game of Life

2008-11-16T06:27:00.001-08:00

When I first came upon this "game" I wasn't too impressed, the basic functions of the game and the fact that my patterns just disappeared annoyed me and I couldn't see a point in it. This was of course in the era of 386's when I was in my early teens.

Then I came upon a simple but fun flash that took the Game of Life and made a puzzle game out of it, and in the process taught me the basic rules of the game. Much appreciated and all of a sudden the little annoying app I couldn't understand suddenly made sense.

If you wish to play it: The irRegularGame of Life (sponsored by Newgrounds)

When I managed to plow through the 42 levels I found myself wanting more and started googling for a more updated Game of Life application.
It took a bit of working but finally I found Golly (on SourceForge). A very well developed and resource friendly application for the wonderful world of Cellular Automata.

The problem with the Swedish Language

2008-08-21T18:12:00.001-07:00

I usually don't bother thinking much about my native tongue Swedish but I've always had a strange distaste for it. Recently it hit me that it wasn't the languages structure or grammar that bothered me so much as that it contains a plethora of words that have a very strong negative/vulgar/obscene meaning for some of the most beautiful and pleasurable things in the world.

Take one of the prime examples that really turns me off Swedish: Nipple, in Swedish we have the word Bröstvårta which literally means breast wart (No I'm not lying).. Breast wart, like it's some kind of diseased outgrowth.. I like nipples, I like the word nipple. Really rolls well on the tongue and has a whimsical and happy feel to it. I'm struggling to find a good substitute to it in Swedish but so far turned out blank.

This goes on and on, the words used for different body parts in Swedish are loaded with negative connotations or are just assimilated medical terms with a clinical dryness that takes all the fun and pleasure out of them.

Aureole, in Swedish it's called Vårtgård (sigh...) Wart Yard ( or Wart Farm depending on the translation of the word gård).. Aureole... another word that fits perfectly in the mouth, almost delicious to say and really has that nice feel to it that you associate with Aureoles...

Language envy. Thinking of moving to an English speaking country and rid myself of the heinous linguistic heritage I've come to abhor so much...

Sick of pr0n

2008-08-09T14:17:00.001-07:00

Growing sick of pr0n was something I thought I'd never do. But here I am, watching one of the myriads of massproduced humpmovies and I can't for the life of me find it even the slightest bit arousing.

Is the girl goodlooking? Yep, check
Is the guy ordinary enough not to draw attention? Yep, check
Are they doing the standard poses? Yep, check...

Acrobatic sex, modern produced pornography can best be called acrobatic sex, none of the participants looks like they are doing anything but faking their enjoyment of it.

The poses they use are so weird that you can't do anything but think about how painful it must be doing them. Who in their right mind has sex in those ridiculous poses anyway? It sure doesn't feel good doing them, (trust me, I've tried much to her amusement), and it's so bloody uncomfortable that one can't help but wonder: Why do a whole multi billion dollar business devote so much money to make pr0n that is
supposed to be arousing and exciting, fail so miserably?

It's the wierd acrobatic poses, it's the lack of context of the actions, it's simply the lack of realism and that those who actually has some real life experience can plainly see that it just DOESN'T FEEL GOOD. No wonder amateur porn is growing so fast.. At least it's authentic... Well... Up and until they get too much money and they start doing the same mistakes the big producers repeat categorically.

Sick of this shit, why even bother with the crap.. Just glad I'm not wasting any money on it..

The golden Compass

2008-05-17T07:37:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I'm usually not that high on movies, (non interactive media is so previous century) but this one had me curious. Unfortunately the movie was so full of fail it was almost painful to watch.

The story itself was pretty good, the CG:work awesome, and Nicole Kidman, yumm (I dun care that she had the misfortune of dating Tom (Xenu) Cruise, she's still one of the utterly few truly drop dead gorgeous women in Hollywood).

The problem with the movie is that it failed miserably at telling the story, it didn't give any introduction to either the world, the setting, the reasons behind the story nor any of the characters. Everything was just pumped into the movie and heavily cut in order to ensure that it fit within the timeframe.

Other problems with the story itself, it didn't give reasons for almost any of the events, everything just happend leaving you with a feeling of "Huh? WTF? Where did that come from?" over and over again, The characters weren't properly introduced and allegiances were forged for the most mundane, pointless and ridiculous reasons. Characters were put into the story in the middle of the movie without giving even a sane explanation to why they were trusted to join up.

Final opinion on why it FAIL so badly :It seemed so heavily compressed that the whole movie felt like a mere teaser instead of a fullblown production. It was like reading a tl;dr version of whatever is the basis for the script. No wonder it flunked the theaters, despite Nicole Kidman..

Just a quick Uplink update

2008-03-24T12:38:00.001-07:00

Just plowed through the Arumor side of the main storyline. Also did a second bank hack at 700k credits. Dunno what to do with the money, I have the best gateway, all the most power full cpu's and all the highest versions of the software that is useful, now what? Start a new account and run the ARC portion?

As for the gamebible.zip being password encrypted, don't you think there is "too many secrets?" in this world already?

An old favourite of mine revisited

2008-03-22T13:58:00.001-07:00

For those of you who hasn't seen this game before, I can only say, check it out NOW. This is by far the most innovative and amusing game to play for all of us computer geeks.

The game starts with you signing up at Uplink to become a professional cracker (note the avoidance of the term hacker, hacker is imho something entirely different from a cracker) who makes his/her living out of compromising the security of everything from corporate mainframes to academic records to bank accounts to fulfill the tasks you are given.
Introversion's Uplink is one of the most captivating and innovative games I've played in a long time.

The best thing about this game is that the storyline is very loosely held, you play it when you feel ready for it. There are tons of other missions to complete to gain money to buy better programs, better hardware, and even upgrading your gateway (the computer frame you connect through when you crack computers).

And if you should stumble upon a bank account with a sizable content, then the only thing that is stopping you from moving those funds into your account is if you have the skill, knowhow, proper equipment/programs and backbone to do so. (my personal record is moving 900,000 credits into my own account).

It also features a fully functional stock market that you can both play and influence, have a job from a company that wants you to ruin their competitors? Buy the hiring company's stocks before the job. Do what you are asked to do, then fast forward 24 hours and watch your stocks increase in value.

A few tips along the way:

Whenever you crack, always connect through either the Uplink test server or the interNIC server first. InterNIC preferably since there is no trace what so ever from this server.
Always bounce through several other servers, the more servers the better. This will give you more time to perform your task.
Always delete the reroute logs fro the interNIC log so you cannot be passively traced.
Know when to bail when you have an Active Trace on your trail, if they get too close disconnect and try again.
If you have time, delete the logs from the target computer as well, this will cause even further confusion.
Connecting through a couple of goverment owned computers makes it harder for a passive trace to gain result.
Connecting though a server where you have a useraccount makes take longer for an active trace, connecting through a computer where you have a working admin account makes gives you even more time.
Buy the best software you can afford, there is no point in getting the v1 stuff unless you can't afford better.

Play it cool, don't download this game, buy it, Introversion is a small company with a lot of innovative ideas that pushes the limit of what we perceive as games. They deserve the income (at least imo).

Southpark? season 12, WTF!?

2008-03-21T12:52:00.001-07:00

Ok, just watched the two first episodes of South Park season 12. Boy was I disappointed. I mean, what the fuck?

The first one about HIV, the only thing funny in it was Kyle's joy over Cartman being infected. But seriously the story was piss poor, the humor steeped to a level of idiocy it was painful to watch.

Second episode, Britney Spears. Seriously?? A whole episode about Britney Spears? I mean come on, couldn't you think about anything better to make a whole South Park Episode about?

Both episodes so far have had piss poor manuscripts, lame and pointless humor. Butters dressed as a squirrel, so much more fun could have been had from that idea yet they completely blew it. Whoever writes the manuscripts need to get a serious whack in the head for writing this crap, come on, season 11 was way better than this.

Cygwin My new Love

2008-03-13T16:46:00.001-07:00

Cygwin

Alright, I admit it, I love the Linux terminal. But I've never known enough about linux to make the big step of migrating from windows. That's why I was completely blown away by this program.

Cygwin basically adds a lot of the functionality of the Linux bash shell to your windows installation. What this means is that the command prompt in windows has finally gotten a big fat injection of Linux steroids.

I must say I love using cygwin, it allows for advanced manipulations at the command prompt that is previously unheard of in a windows system, and it also allows you to get to know the Linux terminal before going for the full migration.

Part of the problem with linux is that installing it means you have to know a whole lot about it beforehand, if you don't, you won't be able to make very much use of it.
Cygwin helps out here, allowing you to get to know some of the power that lies in the linux system before having to deal with a full installation.

I know, there a re live CD's, but they still don't fully cut it IMHO, they have their uses but they still require some indepth knowledge about linux to be useful.

So why is Cygwin so useful? One of the base strengths of Linux is it's text manipulation functions. Something that only a handful very expensive programs can do in windows. Well, up until I found Cygwin that was true anyway.

If you wish to get to know the power of the Linux systems before you take the plunge into a full migration I strongly recommend installing cygwin.

Playing around with a webserver

2008-01-02T11:07:00.001-08:00

If you haven't done it already, i strongly suggest playing around with some of the fun free webserver stuff out there. i've compiled a list of links to interesting places that might spark your interest in these things.

WAMP - A Website solution containing MySQL (community edition), PHP, Apache Webserver and lots more. No need to get gray hairs trying to get PHP to recognize the MySQL installation or to get both working in Apache, this solution does it for you.

phpBB - A quick and easily managed free Web Forum solution. Really neat, check out v3 with the sweet new prosilver theme.

MediaWiki.org - MediaWiki is the Wiki system that Wikipedia uses. Play around with your own Wiki and have lot's of fun.

There is no need to make a full blown serious website, just play around on your home LAN. Set up an internal web server for your house, family etc. Tons of potential and lots of fun playing around with.

Bringing the beauty of the stars to your desktop

2007-12-25T10:08:00.001-08:00

Stellarium

I'm a sucker for good GPL applications, and this one really is one of a kind, Like many other programs out there (that costs a ton of hard earned cash) it is a live map of the sky. Some of the more interesting features is that you set your location in Longitude and Latitude (can be found either in Google Earth or with a handy GPS) then it will display how the sky looks at your location.

It has a ton of fun features with a good sized database of objects, you can zoom in and out (the graphics aren't as spectacular as the Sky Mode in Google Earth but good enough) lock onto a target (star, nebulae, planet, etc.) and have the system track it.

You can go back and forth in time (the algorithms are estimated to be accurate for at least a thousand years into the future) and see how the sky looked yesterday, or this time next year.

It has automatic constellation view, that lets you toggle the lines connecting the stars of the constellations, you can toggle the constellations themselves and if you feel like it toggle artistic interpretations of the constellations.

It also has several very exotic features, such as a special projector feature that allows you to create your own planetarium with a projector and a spherical mirror.
The ability to control up to 10 motorized Telescope mounts, (such as NextStar and LX200 mounts) yes control, meaning you select a star and the send the command through the program to a telescope server that in turn translates it into commands for the telescope to point at that star (forget the measly databases that comes with these kinds of mounts, Stellarium has over 600,000 objects in it's default intall database, this database can in turn, easily be extended A LOT further..)

Among all these features is a very easy and intuitive GUI that allows you to cruise the sky's and find your way among the stars.

Nexus Radio now with forced toolbars

2007-12-24T05:33:00.001-08:00

In a previous post I wrote about the Nexus Radio application, as it turns out the developers have changed direction with the program and I must say I am sourly disappointed in the turn they have taken with it. These blasphemous toolbars we all have learned to hate and fear are now a requirement to even run the application.

Safe to say I have now uninstalled the spyw.. err. program.

And a small joke to lighten up the mood of this post:

Q: What does the net-experienced person hear when someone utter the word toolbar?
A: Spyware/malware/adware ofcourse..

Nexus Radio - My new favourite

2007-11-11T07:11:00.001-08:00

Nexus Radio - Free Internet Radio

I was amazed at finding this pice of software, it's surprising that so few actually listen to the thousands of Webcasts out there. I strongly recommend you try this program out since it is not just one of the best ways of finding new Internet radio stations it also contains several very useful features such as:

Recording either everything the station broadcasts or only certain songs or artists etc. (TiVo Style)
A full database with several thousands of radio stations
A neat little effects editor to trim away annoying starts and ends in the songs
A very sweet little equalizer

I've been looking for a good companion when dealing with web radio, but Winamp, although a good player all in it self doesn't contain the features I wanted. Nexus contain all of them and several others.

So if you want to check it out, just click the link on top of this post, I seriously doubt you are going to be disappointed.

OpenOffice.org Base

2007-11-04T03:29:00.001-08:00

If you haven't tried out the free officesuite http://www.OpenOffice.org I would strongly recomend you to do so. But is it capable of replacing the MS Office or Star Office suite? Short answer, No, not yet. Several things need to be adressed before it can be conciderd a serious contender in the office market.

One of the most recent additions to the OOo suite is extending the database of OOo and making it a standalone application called Base. This is what I'm going to discuss in this post. I've been a casual SQL student for a while now, trying my best to find uses for pure text based database front ends but never finding anything that would allow me to make much use of it. Thanks to my busy schedule i don't have the time it would take to learn a dynamic page language such as PHP to build fun applications with.

Well that all changed when I accidentally clicked the unknown Base icon in my OOo installation, Databases. Fun fun fun.

Base is a very recent addition to the OOo suite, and suffers from a great deal of problems (among other things smoothing out the integration with the other OOo components, general stability issues etc.) that needs to be adressed before it becomes a real alternative to the Access database. But besides that the whole thing is amazing to work with for somone who might not be a hardcore SQL hacker.

Everything is visual, more or less, you can hack the code if you want but for all the different ways of doing things there is bound to be a visual way of doing it as well.

Anyway I digress, because it is so new, there aren't much written about it, but I did find a good place with some decent tutorials for the Base application.

http://sheepdogguides.com/fdb/fdb1main.htm

This place is very simplistic in it's layout but it covers all the basics you need to know to start using Base to play with.

Due to the still unreliable nature of Base I would suggest not to make it the main database for your business just yet. It still has a lot of kinks and problems that needs to be smoothed out, but aside from that it is a great application for building your own databases over your home library, record collection etc.

Timbland - The Way I Are

2007-09-24T06:10:00.001-07:00

Another really good song, Just love Keri Hilson's voice in this video.

Build your own Enigma Encryptor/Decryptor

2007-07-21T01:50:00.001-07:00

Enigma-E

Found this site a while back, here you can order your very own Enigma building kit. Perfect for those who love a challenge and a look into how the actual machine worked.

Probarbly the best music video ever

2007-07-20T03:54:00.000-07:00

Without a doubt the best music video ever made. I just love it...

Viewing video in an image?

2007-06-22T05:58:00.001-07:00

The Magic Color Out of space (shameless H.P.Lovecraft reference)

A while back there was a blog post about this but when I tried to search for it it turned up with broken images and for some reason the Author had put the color codes etc in the images so I had to back engineer the way he did it to get the contents of this post.. Anyway, I figured it would be a neat trick to be able to play video in the background of my text editors when I was working on something. (Don't ask me why, I just get these kinds of ideas sometimes.)

The principle behind it is that when playing a video in a player like VLC Media Player the hardware renders a one colored image that the video is then overlayed on, this is why problems occur when you try to make a Print screen screenshot of something in the video. The screenshot is of the overlayed one colored image instead of the video. There are ways around this but it isn't the topic of this post.

Now I was thinking, what if I could use this color to do some neat tricks.

Enter:

The video everywhere mode

Now this color is a very simple color (at least in VLC Media Player, haven't tried it in other players). Its color coordinates are #000001 or Red 0 Green 0 Blue 1.

You can easily get this color by simply taking a print screen screenshot of video playing.

But how is this useful? Since I'm writing a lot (it's one of my main hobbies), I figured: If I could play a video in the background of the text editor and still be able to work with the text I could have some real fun with this.

Enter:

The Text Editor Trick

Now since in editors like Notepad2 and SciTE you can define your own background color I figured I could have some real fun with it. (this also works in other programs where you can set your background color to a custom color. like IRC clients etc).

The basic idea, In either Notepad2 or SciTE is to change the background color to the color #000001 you can easily do this yourself (for a simple description  on how to change the background in SciTE check out my earlier post, and for Notepad2 I recommend switch to the second default color scheme and edit the background color)

Now that we have the background color set we can play around with VLC Media Player a bit. Since the Media player has a Wallpaper mode it already uses this technology so getting it to work is piece of cake. Just make sure you can play the video in Wallpaper mode and you should be all set.

Open the video in VLC Media Player and resize the window to fit your text editor window, then just minimize the media player and the video should still be visible.

If you have trouble with seeing the text over the video try changing your font color around a bit or got to Settings > Extended GUI in VLC Media Player and change the hue, saturation and contrast around a bit and you should be able to get a good clean image while still being able to see your video.

How is this usefull?

I haven't got the faintest idea, it's a cool trick but it can be a bit distracting. But since we can have wallpapers at our desktops why not wallvideo as well. It's a fun trick and it demonstrates some of the fun you can have with the video technology that is available for free on the net.

Multiplication Trick Video

2007-05-16T11:47:00.001-07:00

Easy Graphical Multiplication Trick Video

This is a fun and easy way of solving multiplication without having to use a calculator. Once you grasp it you can solve almost all forms of multiplication simply by drawing some lines.
Watch how it's done, very simple, lowtech way of of doing it, but it works wonders.

Scite Colours, when the white is too white

2007-05-15T09:56:00.001-07:00

I decided to write about the changes I made in SciTE to not strain my eyes as much as the white background did. So lets start off by making the whole background black shall we:

In SciTE press the options button -> Open Global Options file

The hit Ctrl + F and write this in:
style.*.32

When you locate it it looks kind of like this:
style.*.32=$(font.base)

I will list the settings I did to change it to a black background instead.
style.*.32=$(font.base),back:#000000,fore:#ffffff
caret.fore=#FFFFFF

Hit Ctrl + S and viola, you now have a black screen instead of that eye piercing white one. Make sure to poke around with the other settings found in this file aswell, just click the Help -> SciTE help drop down menu to be taken to a very good list of what most of the options here do.

Must say that I love the SciTE editor just as much as Firefox because they are both highly coustomizable.

Trues quote ever:

2007-05-10T10:37:00.001-07:00

"Computers don't do what you want them to do, only what you tell them to do." - 2003 Chris Pine

Learning Ruby the fun way

2007-05-10T07:15:00.001-07:00

This is the really fun way to learn Ruby it is an interactive guide and console available freely on the web.
Make sure you allow javascripts on the page otherwise the console won't work.

No get going, you are not going to regret it, Ruby is fun!!

Lets see if this works,

2007-04-25T04:22:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to embed a video, hopefully it will work.

Hot Video ftw!

2007-04-23T17:08:00.001-07:00

Ack.. I have a weakness, good music coupled with a sexy video. Check this out.

Another very usefull Extension for Firefox

2007-04-23T16:50:00.001-07:00

ScrapBook :: Firefox Add-ons

This is yet another really useful extension for Firefox, what it does is that it allows you to save pages in just a click or two. It also allows you to insert your own highlights and comments.

An absolute necessity for the web based researcher, blogger etc.

I'm so early in my blogging career but I have found a direct value of it as it allows me to save blogposts of interest without me having to dig back in archives etc.

Best thing about it is that the whole page is saved on your computer, some bloggs and posts have a habit of disappearing. This way you have total control over it.

The storage is a simple to use folder structure where you can organize your saved pages.

The whole universe at your fingertips

2007-04-23T09:55:00.001-07:00

SKY-MAP.ORG

This is an exellent map of the sky freely available on the web, I must say that as a hobby stargazer it is very comfortable to use yet still holds a lot of good info.

Take a look, you'd be amazed at what you can find out there.

Finally, a manual!!!

2007-04-23T09:48:00.001-07:00

Penis owner's manual

How I've been waiting for this, excellent page about pretty much everything you need to know about your little soldier.

A fun little game

2007-04-23T09:42:00.001-07:00

IndestructoTank!

this is a really addictive game, the object is that you are in an indestructible tank, and that you are going to use the explosions from the enemies to bounce around on as many enemies as possible without touching the ground.

Be warned though, it is highly addictive.

Math for programmers

2007-04-23T09:18:00.001-07:00

If there is something I like it's math, problem is, it so booring to learn in school. I found another blog post today about the whole thing, how to learn Math the fun and interesting way.

I definently recomend you reading this Blog Post even if you are not a programmer, it's a great read and the writer has a good way with words.

Del.Icio.us

2007-04-23T09:16:00.001-07:00

Social bookmarking is a lot of fun, here, check my page out: Joey_Alva.

For all of you who haven't discoverd the fun in social bookmarking yet I strongly suggest you look into either del.icio.us or stumbleupon. Both exellent services.

I keep going to the front page of del.icio.us and cheking out the most recent and hottest links. You never know what you might find there.

For all of you who are already posting there, keep up the good work, you are providing us all with new fun and interesting things to dig into.

An interesting toy for bloggers

2007-04-23T09:04:00.001-07:00

Scribefire... hang on, lemme link it for ya : Scribefire is to me a totally new tool for blogging directly in Firefox.. (Yes I so love this browser it's not even funny anymore).

This is my first post in blogging with this tool.. Lemme tell you, it was so easy smooth to add this blog to the extension.. I love the GUI aswell, it's obviously made by somone who blogs a lot. Everything is here, find a fun page on the net, one click on the statusbar Icon and you can write all about it. Surfing around and feel like sharing your thoughts on something, one click and start typing.

Haven't even started to look into all the cool things you can do with this extension yet, but I'm loving it already.

Check it out, the link above leads to the Mozilla extension page.

Firefox, a lifelong love

2007-04-22T11:29:00.000-07:00

What is the real difference between Microsoft internet explorer and Mozilla firefox? you can compare tech all you want, functions here and memory usage there.. I'm thinking more of a philosophical difference to be honest.

Think of cars, you have the everyday stationwagons, they do what they are supposed to do but with no frills no extras and little comfort or pleasure to use.

Then you have a hotrod, a car that functions the way it should but with a ton of extras, be it in horsepower, audio systems, comfort, responsiveness..

The philosophical difference between firefox and explorer is as simple as that..

Firefox is the hotrod of the webbrowsers, you tinker, you tweak, you add things, block other things. It's an endless process of user improvements adding themes and extensions. Never quiet done but by far more effective than the Proprietary counterpart.

Same as with hotrods, they are never done.. new seats, new cd player, new suspension, new rims ad infinitum.

Explorer is for those who simply want basic functionallity, whereas Firefox is for those who want to expand and enrich their browsing experience by their own hands.

Firefox is like hotrods, a lifelong love....