Friday, December 21, 2007

FBReader

FBReader is a free e-book reader for Unix/Windows computers and mobile devices.

Supported formats are

- fb2 e-book format (style attributes are not supported yet).
- HTML format (tables are not supported).
- CHM format (tables are not supported).
- plucker format (tables are not supported).
- Palmdoc (aportis doc).
- zTxt (Weasel format).
- TCR (psion text) format.
- RTF format (stylesheets and tables are not supported).
- OEB format (css and tables are not supported).
- OpenReader format (css and tables are not supported).
- Non-DRM'ed mobipocket format (tables are not supported).
- Plain text format.

More information is available here.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

A USB Hub that does SATA and eSATA

This USB to SATA/ESATA with 5 USB Ports Combo Hub turns any SATA or eSATA mass storage device into a convenient external USB 2.0 High-Speed drive. This adapter supports 2.5" and 3.5" SATA hard drives, SATA CD/DVD drives and eSATA drive enclosure.

This is great for sysadmins that need to get data off of a hard drive without an external enclosure!



More information is available here.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Creating a bootable USB flash drive for Windows XP using BartPE

A bootable flash drive can come in handy--but trying to create one might have you pulling out your hair. Windows expert Greg Shultz shares the method he followed, from configuring the BIOS to allow the USB port to act as a bootable device to creating a bootable image of Windows XP using the free PE Builder software (and a pair of Windows Server 2003 SP1 files) to formatting and copying the image onto a UFD.

You can check out how to do it here.

It uses BartPE. BartPE will give you a complete Win32 environment with network support, a graphical user interface (800x600) and FAT/NTFS/CDFS filesystem support. Very handy for burn-in testing systems with no OS, rescuing files to a network share, virus scan and so on.

Slipstreaming XP2 into Windows XP Media

OK, I don't see Vista becoming mainstream for a bit, so this seems to be useful.

So I've got Windows XP Pro on a CD. This is the original Windows XP CD no SP1 or SP2. Now, If I want to install Windows XP, I have to go install Windows XP, then two service packs. This can take forever. Microsoft releases all new XP media with the service packs integrated.

What this process does, is takes your original CD and adds SP2 to it.

This process does not use non-microsoft files, so you don't need to worry about it being tainted by spyware, viruses or malware.

You can check out how you make a XP CD into a SP2 CD here.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

USB Airsoft Turret

This an old article from inventgeek, but it's pretty cool!

Basically, it's a modified 350 rounds per minute airsoft gun, and a USB missile foam launcher.

Pretty cool setup, easy to build, and it doesn't cost much! Around 70$.

Check out build instructions here.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Open Source TV-B-Gone Kit

This is an ultra-high-power version of the popular TV-B-Gone. It's fun to make and even more fun to use.

This kit can shut off a TV from around 100ft away!

Cornfield Electronics and the original inventor of the TV-B-Gone decided to create an open source kit version. So, Yes this kit is legal!

More information on the kit is available here.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

World of Warcraft Reputation Calculator

Grumbles of US Burning Blade put together a Reputation Calculator.

All you have to do is enter your character's name and realm to calculate your World of Warcraft Burning Crusade rep levels. You'll then be shown what you'll need to do to raise your reputation standing to the next level.

He plans on adding the old school rep as well.

More information available here.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Feel the Bullets While Playing Shooter Games



A PC vest accessory that mimics the feeling of being hit by real bullets when playing first-person shooters will go on sale in November.

TN Games, makers of "physical experience hardware," will release a PC vest accessory on Nov. 21 that mimics the feeling of being hit by real bullets when playing first-person shooters.

Starting Price: $169.99 US

I wish I could get a hold of one of these to test it out!

More information is available here and here.

World of Warcraft Online Atlas

The new Online Atlas is an informative resource to help you navigate the many locations and regions of Azeroth and Outland using an intuitive Flash interface.

The online atlas has Detailed Region Info display mode which shows information about what is in each town, detailed city maps, and other areas of interest.

There is also a Customized Region Info display mode which shows transportation, trainers, region levels, and instance dungeons.

The sound track is also pretty cool!!

It's now available from Blizzard here.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Google gives users IMAP support!

Yes, finally google has allowed for IMAP! You can now retrieve your Gmail messages with a client or device that supports IMAP, like Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail.

Note: That it won't be available for all users yet, but should appear soon.

Client Information

Host Name: imap.gmail.com
User Name: Your full Gmail address, including '@gmail.com'

Incoming Settings
Use SSL: ON
Authentication: password
Server Port: 993

Outgoing Settings
Use SSL: ON
Authentication: Password
Server Port: 587

How to enable IMAP on your GMAIL account

1. Log in to your Gmail account.
2. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page.
3. Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
4. Select Enable IMAP.
5. Click Save Changes.

More infomation is available here.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

XKill For Windows

WiXkill is a small utility designed for Windows 98, 2000 et XP. With WiXkill, you can target any window on your desktop and then close it or kill its associated program.

More information and download available here.

Nintendo Wii Update - Official Patch Notes - Oct 10, 2007

There has been a new Wii upgrade released to the public.

Couple of highlights:
1. More USB Keyboard support
2. Enhanced Everybody Votes Channel
3. Updated Internet Channel

Patch Notes are available from Nintendo here.

This upgrade is available for download on October 10, 2007.

Friday, September 14, 2007

GnuPG Encryption in FireFox

FireGPG is a Firefox extension under GPL which brings an interface to encrypt, decrypt, sign or verify the signature of text in any web page using GnuPG.

It currently also supports encryption and decryption of Gmail messages.

More information is available here.

Tutorial is available here.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Create PDF documents on the fly for free.

CutePDF Writer is the free version of commercial PDF creation software. CutePDF Writer installs itself as a "printer subsystem". This enables virtually any Windows applications to create professional quality PDF documents.

More information is available here.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

WoW Stand Alone Equipment Template Builder

WowEquip is a stand-alone tool for designing World of Warcraft equipment templates. It is completely stand-alone and does not interact with the game in any way.

This tool will allow you to easily put together sets of equipment and view your stats and bonuses while using them.

Features

* Easy to use WoW-style interface.
* Support for all items, enchants, sets, and gems.
* Item download from Allakhazam.
* Report generation in a variety of formats.
* Talent bonuses can be included in generated statistics.


WowEquip is available here.

Friday, September 07, 2007

USB Tiny Applications

As defined by tinyapps.org, a tiny app (application) is software weighing 1.44mb or less. Also, preference is given to apps which are 100% self-contained, requiring no installation, registry changes, etc.

These type of applications are excellent to use from a USB key, or portable storage device.

You can check them out here.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

How to Capture Windows Media Streams

Here is a list of software that you can use to capture windows media streams.

I personally like using SDP Downloader.

Hi-Net Recorder looks pretty good as well.

Friday, August 31, 2007

Microwulf: A Personal, Portable Beowulf Cluster

Microwulf is a personal, portable Beowulf cluster, providing over 26 Gflops of measured performance, for less than $2500. Its dimensions are just 11" x 12" x 17", making it small enough to fit on one's desktop or in a suitcase.

This is pretty slick, more details available here.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Tired of automated customer service numbers?

Yeah, it's not really a tech or a game post. BUT, for the IT people out there who are on the phone with other companies constantly, this may help you out!

Gethuman is a database of customer service numbers tricks to get you in touch with a real human being.

Check it out here.

Friday, August 24, 2007

BarracudaDrive Update

I posted earlier on information about the BarracudaDrive Web Server, so now I would like to post an update on it.

Real Time Logic has come out with a new version of the BarracudaDrive.

Here's the bugger, they no longer offer a free version for personal use.

They've also crippled the old personal version. A lot of the features are now available only in the professional version.

Real Time Logic now let's you download BarracudaDrive and activate a free 45 day Service Period.

There professional version is available here.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Un-bricking a bricked PSP

It's called "Pandora's Battery". It'll fix a bricked PSP, and all you need is a spare battery, and a spare memory card.

More information is available here.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

McAfee SiteAdvisor

McAfee built a system of automated testers which continually patrol the Web to browse sites, download files, and enter information on sign-up forms.

With this information they can tell you:

  • E-mail practices of the website
    • They rate sites based on both how much e-mail they send as well as how the e-mail received looks. Does it look like spam or not?
  • Downloads
    • SiteAdvisor checks the impact of the site's downloadable software.
    • Does the software on the site have any viruses?
  • Online Affiliations
    • Does the site try to redirect you to a site that may cause harm to your clients?
    • Is your site a "feeder" site?
    • If your site has links to too many suspicious sites, it will be flagged.
  • Annoyances
    • Does this site use a lot of pop-ups?
    • Does this site request to change the user's home page or favorites list?
    • Does it try to use 3rd party tracking cookies?
  • Exploits
    • Does this site threaten the security of the user’s machine?
    • Is there software on the site that may be dangerous to a user?
    • Is the website trying to use a browser's security vulnerability to install software

McAfee also allows users to add comment and reviews for a site.

There is also a plug-in for Firefox available.

More information on McAfee SiteAdvisor is available here.

Robot Vision / Control Software

RoboRealm is a powerful robotic vision software application for use in computer vision, image processing, and robot vision tasks. Using an easy to use point and click interface complex image analysis and robot control becomes easy!

Something interesting about RoboRealm is that you can use it to not only control robot's but other applications using it's visual processing.

A sample of RoboRealm being used to control an application is available here.

RoboRealm is free, and available here.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Wii Firmware Update

Yeah, I'm a little bit behind on this. Been busy with the new house.

Nintendo's released an update for the Wii.

The update looks like it mostly effects the menu / shopping interface. They've also added USB keyboard support in Message Board. Some keyboards may not be supported.

More information is available here [thewiire.com] and here [ign.com].

Thursday, August 02, 2007

AM radio signal from your monitor

This little program runs under Linux.

Tempest for Eliza is a Program that uses your computer monitor
to send out AM radio signals. You can then hear computer
generated music in your radio.

You can even play MP3 files and listen to them.

More information is here.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Wii Remote Accelerometer

Now this is a pretty cool use for a Wii Remote.

Using GlovePIE, a Wii Remote, and a laptop you can track acceleration, braking, and G-forces while driving around.

Check it out here.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

World Of Warcraft Firefox Search Plugin Compilation


What is the Firefox Search Bar?

The Firefox Search bar comes pre-loaded with Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Answers.com, and Creative Commons search. Wherever you are on the Web, you can enter a search term in the Search bar and receive immediate answers from the search engine you’ve chosen. You can select a new search engine from the Search bar menu at any time.



So, I did a few Google searches and found that WOW Insider had a post about adding World Of Warcraft sites to Firefox's Search Bar.

This sounds like a great idea, but these plugins are all over the place. Some websites have them hidden in a dark little corner, and others don't provide them.

I've decided to make one post for all the plugins I've found useful. I've added a list of sites that provide search bar plugins, and a link to add them to your Firefox Search bar.

I'll update this if I find any more.

Search Plugins

www.thottbot.com - Add Plugin
wow.allakhazam.com - Add Plugin
Allakhazam WoW Items - Add Plugin
Allakhazam Wow Mobs - Add Plugin
Allakhazam Wow Quests - Add Plugin
www.wowhead.com - Add Plugin
www.goblinworkshop.com - Add Plugin
www.wowd.org - Add Plugin
www.wowwiki.com - Add Plugin
Curse Gaming - WoW Addons - Add Plugin
wowarmory.com - Add Plugin
eu.wowarmory.com - Add Plugin
forums.worldofwarcraft.com - Add Plugin
www.wowdigger.com - Add Plugin
www.wowguru.com - Add Plugin
www.wowinsider.com - Add Plugin

Extra Items

Firefox Search Bar for World of Warcraft Armory
Armory Search

OSX
OSX Search Widget

Friday, July 20, 2007

Wii Media Center

Wii Media Center X is a free multimedia server developed by Red Kawa. It allows you to stream certain types of pictures, music, videos and files from your computer (where the server running) to your Nintendo Wii. It runs on most major operating systems including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

From the looks of it, it's written in Java, and Uses Jetty and a few flash applications. Pretty slick little server.

Wii Media Center X is currently in the Alpha stage, so expect a few bugs.

Check it out here.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Mozilla Firefox on USB to go!

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition is the popular Mozilla Firefox web browser bundled with a PortableApps Launcher as a portable app, so you can take your bookmarks, extensions and saved passwords with you.

Available here.

PortableApps is an environment that allows for applications to run off of portable devices.

There is a fairly significant list of programs that work in the PortableApps environment.

Just a few from that list include...
  • GIMP
  • FireFox
  • Thunderbird
  • PuTTy
  • Audacity
  • VLC Media Player
  • OpenOffice
  • Sudoku
PortableApps also has a suite of portable apps including a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, antivirus, sudoku game, backup utility and integrated menu, all preconfigured to work on portable devices.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

What does your phone number spell?

This site has been around for a long time, but is always fun to play around with.

Just plug in your phone number, and it will show you what words and phrases your phone number can spell.

Couple of other cool features...
  • Enter the start of a phone number and see what words start with those digits
  • Enter some letters and see the corresponding phone number.
  • Enter your 16 digit Wii friend code and see what it spells.
Link to Phone Spell is available here.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Freecom MusicPal

I've been waiting to see Internet household items, like this radio, to appear.


Freecom MusicPal is a wireless digital Internet radio and MP3 player.

Features:
• Wireless digital internet radio and MP3 player
• Plays internet radio without the use of a computer
• Streams MP3 music from your computer or network
• Installs in seconds, easy to set up
• Supports over 5,000 radio stations
• Supports MP3 and WAV
• Alarm clock functionality
• Live RSS feeds / Blog feeds in display
• Built-in speaker and WLAN antenna
• Stereo audio out to connect to HiFi/Amplifier set
• Line out to connect to headphones or active speakers

One of the features not listed, is it runs on a Linux 2.6 kernel.

It runs 129.00 EU (about 187$ CAD). Preorders are available now, it ships in August.

More info and pictures are available here.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Sending SMS from Windows XP

I was surfing the web, and came out with a cool article on the O'Reilly Network.

This shows you how to use Windows XP to send SMS messages using Microsoft SMS Sender.

Yeah, I know.. this is an old article... but hey.. it still works!

The article is available here.

Monday, June 25, 2007

PSP Homebrew - Any Version - Demo

Well, as reported on a lot of sites, there is now a proof of concept that allows homebrew applications to run on PSPs with v3.10 - v3.50 firmware.

This uses Lumines to create a user-mode exploit using a buffer overflow in the savedata file.

Please note that this is just an Hello World demo, for now!

More information on this development is available here.



On a short "Fires Tech and Games" note....

Well, this last month has been crazy. I've moved, went in for surgery, and basically have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

Now that the craziness is all behind me, I'll be updating the site with more information.

I noticed that Google has indexed this site, So I would also like to welcome the new visitors!

Suggestions, of what people would like to see more information about, are always welcome.

Stay tuned for more tidbits that I find,
FireBelcher

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Optimus Maximus Keyboard

This keyboard looks awesome. 48x48 pixel OLED buttons allow for the user to change the keyboard layout.

Features from wikipedia:
* An aluminium body
* Extra-durable polymer plastic keys
* 48×48 pixel (for regular keys) screens, Truecolor mode
* OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) screen for keys
* USB 2.0 and FireWire connectivity
* A separate ergonomic version
* 4-5 year lifetime
* A key-saver mode
* Support for animation on keys
* Ability to form a mosaic using a combination of key images
* OS independence
* An SDK for complete display customization
* Swappable Keys

Concept Keyboard
http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus-concept/

Optimus Maximus Keyboard
http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/

Project Blog
http://community.livejournal.com/optimus_project/

Drivers for the earlier version, the Optimus Mini Three, have been available in Linux, Mac, Windows, Java and .NET.

Currently a limited production keyboard, the Optimus Maximus comes at a price of $1564.37 US, this keyboard doesn't come cheap! I'll wait until they get it into mass production, and the price drops!

Limited pre-orders start on May 20, 2007 at 3pm Moscow Time, along with more details on this keyboard.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Vista UAC - Override

So,

I'm running WAMP on my home system. It's great for independent development.

But, there's a problem. Every time Vista boots up, UAC stops WAMP from displaying in the system tray. This problem also occurs when starting FRAPS.

This can be fixed a few ways...

According to Microsoft's TechNet site there is a few ways to get by this problem ....

Scenario 1: Requesting an application to run elevated one time
- This is what i was doing, when it boots up, select the UAC icon, and tell it to launch the application. Annoying and what i'm trying to fix.

Scenario 2: Marking an application to always run elevated.
- This is the easiest way to fix this problem, and it doesn't open up security issues that the 3rd Scenario can cause.

Scenario 3: Configure User Account Control
- I can't believe Microsoft would offer this as a solution. Basically, you disable UAC Admin Approval, UAC installation prompting, or UAC Credential prompting.
- This is basically the "Use a sledgehammer to kill a fly" idea. Give access to everything, and don't prompt for anything.


I feel that I should offer a fourth solution to Microsoft.
- In the Windows Defender Software Explorer screen.
- Applications that are not "Trusted" can be set by an administrator to be allowed to run by the user non-elevated.
- Basically it gives an administrator the right to let a user use the program in a Non-elevated state.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Vista and Administrative Shares (C$, D$)

Aakk...

So I was trying to access a harddrive using the administrative share on a Vista computer, and I was unable to. Why? Well it seems that microsoft has disabled administrative shares in Vista.

According to Microsoft's "Vista File and Printer Sharing" site....

Sharing the Root of a Drive

Windows XP by default created administrative shares for the root folders of the fixed drives of the computer. For example, for the root of the C: drive on the computer named BobPC, Windows XP automatically shared \\bobpc\c$. The “$” at the end of the share name means that the share name will not appear in the list of shares. For computers running Windows Vista that are members of a workgroup, these administrative shares exist but are blocked for network access for security reasons. You can create your own shares to share your drives from the root of the drive, but Microsoft highly recommends that you share only the folders that you need to, rather than the entire drive.


So, Vista does not allow you to use administrative shares anymore. Unless you hack the registry ;)

From JB's Windows Vista Support FAQ ...

To allow administrators local to a computer to use their administrator powers when accessing the Vista computer remotely, please follow these steps:
  1. Click start
  2. Type: regedit
  3. Press enter
  4. In the left, browse to the following folder: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\system\
  5. Right-click a blank area in the right pane
  6. Click New
  7. Click DWORD Value
  8. Type: LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy
  9. Double-click the item you just created
  10. Type 1 into the box
  11. Click OK
  12. Restart your computer
Now I can access the administrative share from any system!

Monday, April 23, 2007

Going Green: Utilizing S3 Standby Mode

Nice little site that shows you how to setup your system to us S3 standby.

This setup saves money and you don't lose functionality. This is great for servers as well, it will automatically kick up the system from sleep if there is any local network activity.

Great write up!

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0 Released

Time to remove outlook from my machine, and upgrade to Thunderbird.

Thunderbird now supports Vista and 64-bit processors.

With the "POP3 password not savings" issue on Outlook, It's time to upgrade!

Thunderbird's available here.

Friday, April 13, 2007

World Of Warcraft - Flintlocke Cancelled

From Gamespy.com...

Farewell Flintlocke:

After several aborted attempts to restart the cool WoW comic with the crusty dwarf and his band of misfits, we have finally decided to call an end to the strip. The lack of an artist and Fargo's move to FilePlanet proved to be too much for the hearty band. Thanks to all the loyal readers. -- Warrior

It looks like Friday the 13th has just struck down a great comic!

Archive is available here.

/salute Flintlocke

TrueCrypt - Free Open-Source Disk Encryption Software

From the website....

TrueCrypt is a software system for establishing and maintaining an on-the-fly-encrypted volume (data storage device). On-the-fly encryption means that data are automatically encrypted or decrypted right before they are loaded or saved, without any user intervention. No data stored on an encrypted volume can be read (decrypted) without using the correct password/keyfile(s) or correct encryption keys. Entire file system is encrypted (e.g.., file names, folder names, contents of every file, free space, meta data, etc).

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Minimo

Mozilla project has released a new browser for mobile devices...

According to the website, Minimo is a small, simple, powerful, innovative, web browser for mobile devices.

Features

- Fast access to your mobile content via Homebase start page
- Best support for modern web standards (Javascript and AJAX).
- Social Bookmarking
- Tab browsing
- RSS Support
- Proven security (TLS, SSL3)
- International support
- Cross platform capability
- Widget and Extension support

More information avaliable here.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Dell Drops Axim's... Hopefully Support Stays!

Ok, as an Axim user, this sucks!

Dell has a great product, and now they are getting out of the market.

Dell has removed the Axim models from their retail site.

More Information Here

Vista Tweaks

I'm going to add a list of sites for tweaking vista here....

HWA - Vista Tweak Guide

Uncrippling Bluetooth In Vista

I've been looking for an answer to this problem for days.

The generic bluetooth support for vista is annoying. Vendors who don't support Vista 64-bit just make life difficult. Yes, it's a new operating system. Yes, it'll take a bit of time to adopt the new technology.

So... How do you get bluetooth to work properly under vista?

Answer: Take a look here.

From the post...

If you’ve found this page, that means that you’re one of the many legitimate Vista RTM users who have a plethora of Bluetooth devices that you were hoping to join up to your new shiny Vista machine and enjoy because as with all Microsoft products, they’re just supposed to work, right? Wrong.
.
.
.
This guide is an in-depth tutorial on getting complete and enhanced Bluetooth functionality in all version of Windows Vista RTM both 32bit and 64bit editions.


I'll test this, and see what happens!

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

World Of Warcraft Fishing with a Wii Remote

This site shows how to use A Wii Remote and a GlovePIE Script to fish in World of Warcraft.

Now if I just had a Nintendo Wii and a set of bluetooth drivers for Vista 64-bit, I'd be set!

FireFox 2.0.X Tweaking

Firefox 2.0 seems to be a bit more CPU / Memory intensive then it's predecessors.

After searching the web for information on this, I found a nice little link that gives you information on tweaking FireFox to use less memory and perform a bit better.

Top Firefox 2 Config Tweaks

TweakGuides - FireFox Tweak Guide

I'll add more sites, when I find them.

Monday, April 02, 2007

64-bit Software (To Be Updated..)

Paint.NET is free image editing and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. This looks like an interesting GIMP replacement.

A List of Vista Compatible Software / Games

avast! 4 Home Edition is a full-featured antivirus package designed exclusively for home users and non-commercial use.

Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit and Drivers

So after a hardware failure, I upgraded the hardware on my gaming system. I also decided to upgrade the operating system to Microsoft Vista Ultimate 64-bit.

Most of the hardware was supported without any issues. NVidia, Creative, Asus had fully supported drivers and the hardware worked fine after installation. But, there are problems with other hardware on Vista 64-bit. Vendors seem to be scared to provide 64-bit support on their devices.

Examples:

Kensington 33348 Bluetooth USB 2.0 Dongle - No Vista 64-bit Support Yet.
Diamond XtremeTV PVR660 USB 2.0 - No Vista 64-bit Support Yet.

Other Vendors are slowly catching up with their drivers and software.

Sony Ericsson will be releasing software updates in Q2 2007.

Oh well, I guess these are the "joys" of upgrading to a new Operating System.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Micro Coil Gun - Coil Gun Information

This guy modded a Robosapien V2 to use a Coil Gun to fire BBs. He also added a laser and an autoloader to the Coil Gun.

Nice hack!

Click here for more information.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Fiddler HTTP Debugger

Fiddler is a HTTP Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP Traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data.

This is a great little tool for finding out where all your HTTP requests are going. Interested in finding out what advertisement company a site is using, Fiddler can help you out!

More info here.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Fire's WoW Account Hacked - Fixed

So, 4 days later Blizzard has restored my character!

I would like to say, that is awesome!

My rogue's items were restored. All of the items!

Gold, Bags, Weapons, Armor, Trinkets are all back!

Congrats to the blizzard team for fixing the account that quickly.

Fire's WoW Account Hacked - Continued

So, nothing from Blizzard yet.

But they did say it could take up 2+ weeks before a reply.

I will keep this up to date with as much as I hear.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Open Source Image Denoising

GREYCstoration is an image regularization algorithm which is able to process a color image by locally removing small variations of pixel intensities while preserving significant global image features, such as edges and corners. The most direct application of image regularization is image denoising. By extension, it can also be used to inpaint or resize images.

More information available here.

Demo Images available here.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Fire's WoW Account Hacked

Well, this is not a good way to start the week!

Sunday evening my World Of Warcraft account was hacked.

I was playing my main character, a 64 rogue on Deathwing, when I was kicked out of the game.

I thought nothing of it, and logged back in.

5 minutes later, I was kicked out again. This time I was unable to log back into my account. "Your password / account name is invalid". What?!? I tried my password again and again I got "Your password / account name is invalid". What?!?!?

Frantically, I went to World of Warcraft's support site, did a password recovery and logged back into the game.

All of my rogue's items were missing, everything in the bags were gone, and the gold was gone.

I was left with a naked rogue standing in Stonebreaker hold. The only thing left was a dagger they couldn't sell, and a few quest items.

NOOOOOOO ... I thought to myself.....

I made a petition to the GM (Game Master). A few minutes later I got a reply, they are going forward this to the 'specialists' and it may take up to 2 weeks (or more) to replace my items.

That was the fastest reply I've ever received by a gm since I began playing World Of Warcraft in November 2004.

Flashback... 1 year ago.

I looted my first epic. It was an epic axe (Axe of the Deep Woods) that dropped from a worm in Silithus. I decided to throw it up on the auction house.

The next day I logged in hoping that it sold. There was no gold in my mail box, there was no epic in my mail box, and there was no epic on the AH.

I petitioned the GM about the missing axe. A week later I received a reply that it was impossible for me to retrieve my item. OUCH!

End flashback

Lets hope that Blizzard has better luck restoring my toon then they did my epic axe.

I'll keep this post up to date on what happens.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

HOWTO: Install Windows Vista from a high speed USB 2.0 Flash Drive

Kurt Shintaku has an interesting blog post.

It seems he found a way to install Windows Vista (or probably any version of windows) from a USB Flash Drive.

Why would you want to do this?

Well, the installation time drops to 5-10 minutes versus the 20-25 minutes it takes to install from a DVD. This timing is based off a Vista Ultimate installation.

More information is available here

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Direct Web Remoting

Direct Web Remoting (DWR)

(From the site...)

DWR allows Javascript in a browser to interact with Java on a server and helps you manipulate web pages with the results.

DWR works by dynamically generating Javascript based on Java classes. The code does some Ajax magic to make it feel like the execution is happening on the browser, but in reality the server is executing the code and DWR is marshalling the data back and forwards.

Clicky

Synergy

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).

I've been using this at work now for a few months between my Linux and Windows box. This has been a great little utility. 1 mouse, 1 keyboard, 2 systems! Synergy is easy to setup as well!

Clicky

BarracudaDrive 3.2

The Web Server that could... well.. this is what their site says!

BarracudaDrive is a free Web-Server for personal use. BarracudaDrive includes many advanced features such as a Web File Manager, WebDAV, HTTPS tunnel, and an advanced server side scripting language.

With BarracudaDrive, you can securely upload, download, and manage your files on your home computer from anywhere in the world. BarracudaDrive bypasses firewalls and proxies with the communication protocol HTTPS. The communication is protected by using SSL, allowing no one to eavesdrop on your file transfer.



Clicky

Monday, January 08, 2007

Java Parallel Printer Port API

ParallelPort is a simple Java class that enables you to read and write bytes to and from the parallel ports on your computer.

Here is the site.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

BitTyrant...

Here's a new BitTorrent client... called BitTyrant...

It's a "selfish BitTorrent client that improves performance."

More info available here.

Nintendo Wii Update - Official Patch Notes - Sept 14 2009

Nintendo has an update for the Wii, nothing really exciting... The Nintendo Channel was updated with several new features: See other users&...