ComicBookDB.com is the fastest-growing comic database on the web. The first goal of this project is to catalog every comic, graphic novel, manga, creator, character and anything else that could possibly relate to the field of comics. And it is built by anyone and everyone who wants to help.
read more | digg story
On Wednesday the Senate fired many angry blows against the gaming industry and the ESRB for "poor ratings" and violence, but nobody at that hearing seemed to know what they were talking about. They thought you could STILL buy hot-coffee-capable GTA and they showed the most violent GTA footage possible and claimed it was "part of the game".
read more | digg story
TwitchGuru explores the video game industry's development hell to find the greatest games never published.
read more | digg story
"Wow, what can't this phone do? We've already heard about the Motorola Q allowing users to watch TV through Slingplayer Mobile, and rock the satellite tunes through XM Radio, but the latest video that has popped up on the internet shows the Q running "Pocket NES.""
read more | digg story
This video is just hilarious, because I have seen all of these dances:
Evolution of Dance
Any video containing Bob Saggett and George Lucas rule:
Bob Saggett Video
Leave it up to the Japanese to create the most kick-ass doomsday simulation ever!:
Doomsday
Mario doesn't have it any easier than the rest of us:
Life of Mario
This lucky person has put up the collection for sale on eBay a piece at a time, releasing new copies of the Star Fox Championship Weekend game pak into circulation as well as prototype versions of Tetris and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past plus the second known copy of the English version of Earthbound for the NES.
read more | digg story
You will no doubt find some old favourites in the list, and probably a lot of other titles you�ve never played or even heard of. There are MP3 files for each one of the songs.
read more | digg story
A frugal public university installed a Linux'ed Xbox as a student server. Of course, most people wouldn't suspect that an Xbox might be a file server. You can probably guess what happens next.
read more | digg story
Several articles outlining in detail how Blizzard Entertainment (makers of World of Warcraft, Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, etc) have gained power, how they are wielding power, and the how the entire game industry has changed because of them. Especially how the rest of the world has changed views of people that play multiplayer games.
read more | digg story
Zasterisk is the old text-adventure game Zork, implemented as a voice-based game that you play over the phone using the open source phone-switcher Asterisk.
read more | digg story
The Wii Virtual Console has the potential to be one of the biggest things to hit gaming in a long time. Imagine having a huge library of great games all available to you at any time. The controller is not the only part of the Wii that is truly revolutionary. This could mean big things if Nintendo plays its cards right.
read more | digg story
I finally picked up Oblivion, and I'm loving it. It runs pretty decently on the Radeon 9700, if only at 1024x768. It's not anwhere near as bad as I thought it would be.
Because I'm a big geek and the Elder Scroll games are extremely open ended, my character Fothyl (a Nord Knight who casts destruction magic) has decided to keep a log of what is going on in his life. Check it out at http://fothyl-oblivion.blogspot.com.
Assuming anyone actually reads this blog, you'll have noticed a distinct drop in the frequency of my updates since this weekend. This is because my DSL connection is down. Yippie.
In an effort to not be without internet, I've tried finding open wireless APs around me, tried my hand at WEP cracking, and even going so far as to hobble together the worst wireless antenna setup ever. What do I get out of it? 20% packet loss.
The fruits of my labor shall be for naught, however. In the course of my desperate attempts to create an internet connection, I have learned much (among failing much). I shall impart such knowledge unto thee.
Wireless AP Searching/WEP Cracking
Perhaps one of mankind's greatest inventions was the Linux Live CD, specifically the Auditor Security Collection. This nify Live CD has just about any network testing program you can think of, both wired and wireless. Using a guide found at http://www.tomsnetworking.com, I learned how to use Kismet. I did not get to actually crack a WEP key as the one wireless network that had clients connected...I already knew the WEP for.
Overall though, the guide is very in-depth and well written. It oulines how to run the software, what some of the things mean, and the third part of the tutorial even shows how to secure yourself against such hacks. It's amazing what a 13db panel antenna and a 200mw card will pick up. If you live in a fairly populated area, it might be worth a shot to check out what wireless packets are floating around.
Please keep in mind you will need a Prism-based chipset in your wireless card. I did everything with a Senao NL-2511CD EXT2(F200)CY card ripped from a dead Engenius (Senao) bridge. From what I understand the cards themselves can be kind of hard to come by, so check on eBay for them. (As a side note, you can use those cards in a WET11 v1 box. Strangely, I got a few more DB doing this than compared to a regular Engenius bridge, but it may just be coincidence).
The Live CD is worth checking out, especially if you have a Prism-based card. The only thing wrong in the above tutorial is a command that was left out - to turn on 'Monitor' mode fot he NL-2511CD EXT2 cards (which the tutorial recommends), you have to run the following command before trying out airodump:
monitor.wlan [card id] [channel]
My Crappy Wireless Connection Setup
After my failed attempts at finding an open AP, I resorted to using my work's wireless towers. I have no line of sight, the Frankenbridge (Senao card inside a WET11 box), and two antennas - a 13db, and an 18db panel. Strangely the 18db panel is no better than the 13db, so I decided to not use it. Since work has access to lots of wireless equipment, I am now connected to the tower using a 13db panel, plugged into a 500mW amp (12db gain), plugged into a spare Engenius (~10db gain), netting me a total of 12db. So, doing the math, with just an unamped bridge I'm at...-23db signal. That's awesome.
And to top it all off, I have to mount the antenna in the bedroom window (ie: it's sitting on top of the bottom window pane beind held by only the blinds), not the office. So I've got my wireless router in the bedroom plugged into the bridge, and then the Frankenbridge in the office pulling the signal in that way. Because the Senao card has no real antenna and the jumper from the box I ripped it from is cracked, I've got even more loss in the office!
I miss my DSL...
Scroll down just a bit for a collection of amazing tornado pics.
read more | digg story
I did the upgrade yesterday, and it was the least painful upgrade I've ever done on any computer. If you have Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) or one of the Release Candidates of Dapper installed, you just run the regular 'Update Manager' and it pulls it all down while you continue to work on what you were doing. After it's all done, restart at your convience, and you're all set.
Total time to do two machines: 30 minutes, both downloading at 110kbps a second. Not a single problem on either machine.
Software Stacks
I still have my server running 5.10, and will most likely upgrade when I have too. One thing that Drake has are 'stacks' of software to do common software setups, such as LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) installs. While doing 'apt-get install apache php4 mysql' works too, but should be a much tighter integration.
Virtualization
Ubuntu has been working with VMWare, and now VMWare Player is available via apt. Now I can run VMWare Player without having to jump through hoops to get it to work on Linux. It is currently downloading, so we'll see how well everything works.
Other Updates
Gnome has also been updated, as well as other core programs. I'm not seeing a gigantic difference in things after the upgrade, but the boot-up and shutdown times are much faster now. If only Ubuntu had a nice, built-in way to play many commercial 3D games, I'd be all set. As for right now, it does everything other than that.
You can download Ubuntu Dapper Drake 6.10 here.
Microsoft is really trying to focus on enhanced security in Windows Vista. One thing they are trying to do (like OSX and Linux) is really make sure that what you are doing what you think you are. In OSX and Linux this works really well (basically enter a password to go 'root' temporarily for a command, such as changing IP addresses and the like), but Windows has become a bit paranoid.
read more | digg story
The new series of figures will feature updated versions of the first generation of TRANSFORMERS, inspired by the look and spirit of the original figures and characters. The line will include favorites: OPTIMUS PRIME, Bumblebee, Astrotrain and Megatron which will be represented as a blaster for the first time since the 1980's.
I love Transformers. But, Hasbro, you're making a toy of Hot Rod, not Rodimus. I'd hope you can at least get the names of the Transformers correct.
read more | digg story
FreeNAS, an open source NAS server, can convert a PC into a network-attached storage server. The software, which is based on FreeBSD, Samba, and PHP, includes an operating system that supports various software RAID models and a Web user interface. The server supports access from Windows machines, Apple Macs, FTP, SSH, and Network File System (NFS).
read more | digg story
Super Mario Bros. managed to sell through 480,000 units in it's first day, making it the fastest selling DS title ever.
I can't wait till I pick this up for the DS. Maybe once I finish Morrowind. If you don't already have it, you can pick up New Super Mario Bros. here!
read more | digg story
Because I know that minimum game requirements don't actually mean I can play the game, I've decided to reload Morrowind and play. It's not really what I want to play after seeing Oblivion on the X-Box 360, but I'm afraid that I cannot run it. Since games are not usually returnable after opening, I'd like to know if anyone has played Oblivion on a Radeon 9700 and how well it ran. Here are my computers specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2200+
RAM: 384megs
Video Card: Radeon 9700 128meg
It's a beast, huh? If anyone has run Oblivion on a machine somewhat like the above, I'd love to hear your experiances.
