I almost thought it was a joke when I first heard about this! However, this a true story. France Sony BMG got caught using pirated Microsoft software on its servers. That isn’t the worst part though. Guess how Sony got caught? They actually called Microsoft tech support and gave them their illegal key. Can you believe these fools at Sony BMG? After they install root-kits on peoples computer and crack down and P2P and music-sharing college students they use pirated software on THEIR OWN servers. Stupid French. However they only got a fine of $450,000 which is like pocket change to a massive corporation like Sony when they are charging college students $5,000 for sharing a couple of songs.

I have two words for Sony BMG:

EPIC FAIL!

Fun Stuff!

Its new segment time! Previously, I’ve been issuing news updates that consist of several stubs of stories that aren’t post-worthy individually. Well, Miscellanea isn’t exactly news, it is more like a collection of unrelated, cool stories that I want to bring to a larger audience. OK then, lets jump right into it.

First of all, Acer’s Vice President, James Wong, had said that they plan to release an open platform gaming console. To quote Gizmodo, “WTF?” Wong allegedly takes issue with the current proprietary, closed consoles that dominate the market. The console should use PC technology. I think the decision to make it entirely open platform closes off some potential money, but since it is good for the consumer, I’m fine with it. My German isn’t good enough to fully comprehend the original source, but if someone is better than Google Translator, feel free to repost it in the comments.

• GameStar (Translated English)
• Gamestar (Original Deutsch)

Read the rest of this entry »

Finally, Microsoft has honored their promise of SP1, and it ushers in a startling amount of changes. I would have posted the release notes here, but they are several pages long and can be found here instead. The pack, weighing in at 434.5MB (or 726.5MB for the 64-bit version), rolls in 23 security updates and 550 hotfixes. Apparently the update is taking its sweet time showing up, and if you cannot wait to download it, here are the direct links:

• Windows Vista Service Pack 1 x86 (32-Bit/Normal)
• Windows Vista Service Pack 1 x64

In the way of changes, Microsoft says SP1 will bring “. . . improvements that address many key pieces of customer feedback, especially in the areas of performance and reliability.” Release note highlights after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

3D Film and Projection: 

After many years of learning from the Jedi, we have learned to make our own holographic film, although it IS a little more crude than those in the Star Wars movies. Right now, our main source of entertainment is that little metal box we call TV. But that all will change soon as a new polymer will develop to help doctors, military personal, and engineers to analyze disorders, plan battles, and plan future constructions respectively. (If you feel offended that doctors cannot plan battles or engineers cannot analyze disorders, please make a mental block on the word “respectively”. Want to move on now?) Best of all, these holograms could soon replace the TV and computer! Score: Mankind-1 Dolphins-0!

To read more about 3D-Projections, click here. 

Teleportation: 

As there could be a possibility to hack the universe, why couldn’t there be a way to teleport from point A to point B? In fact, it is very easy to teleport with a new, revolutionary idea. First, we must understand that the shortest distance from point A to point B is a straight line that can be called line AB. Then, there could be a number of different ways to get from one point to another by a route of more than one point. Let’s call any such path A…B. Finally, let’s consider the mechanics of going forward or backwards. When we head toward point A from point B, we are going forward in the right way. However, if we begin to walk away from point B, we would be going forward in the wrong way. Finally, we can see that we are still approaching point B even if we are going the WRONG way. As a result, by going the wrong way toward our target, we must be going faster at our target the RIGHT way than a straight line. Thus, by going the WRONG way, we have discovered how to get to point B in a shorter distance than a straight line. What do we get if the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line? Teleportation!

I recently came across a site called Social Wallpapering. This site takes a Digg-like angle to wallpaper. All wallpaper is user-submitted, and members thumb-up or down the wallpaper so that the best climbs to the top. However, I have found that even going to the middle of their archive, the wallpaper is excellent. I have downloaded over 60 wallpapers from their site and am using WPchanger to cycle through them.

Their site features great web design, incorporating PHP, CSS, XHTML, and AJAX. It looks amazing and works seamlessly, with almost no load times. They have a great community of users and a forum community. You can also mass-download their wallpapers via bittorrent.

Read the rest of this entry »

Firstly, a new development in the Middle East internet cable story has come in. Earlier this week, two cables were supposedly cut in the Mediterranean Sea by a boat anchor during a storm. The fact has now been revealed that those two cables were in a restricted area that no boats were allowed into. The cables are only 2 cm thick. It also seems that a third and possibly fourth cable has been cut and Iran had a short outage but is now operating at %40 capacity. Repair of the cables has been delayed so all traffic going through the Middle East and some of India will be significantly slowed.

EDIT: According to this article, a fifth internet cable has been cut.

Windows Vista SP1 has recieved an RTM status, which means that it is slated for a release in mid-March. Although it fixes some driver problems, it reportedly introduces some more, so Microsoft has made it a non-automatic update for those who have known errors. At least Microsoft knows that they have made mistakes. SP1 will increase operating speeds and should fix some other errors, but we’ll have to see once it comes out. Read the rest of this entry »

I did an article earlier highlighting the piece of software WPchanger, which allows you to automatically cycle wallpaper from a list of your pictures. Now there is a new program that adds RSS feeds into your desktop on top of that feature. Story is from Lifehacker.com

Windows only: Freeware application Chaos Wallpaper embeds RSS feeds in your desktop and shuffles your wallpaper on-the-fly. The application is a standalone executable (meaning it requires no installation), so just download, unzip, and run it to get started. If you only want one feature, Chaos can simple shuffle wallpaper from a folder you point it to or embed clickable links from your feeds on your desktop. If you’re looking for a different approach, check out how to create an RSS-embedded desktop with Netvibes or shuffle Flickr pics with Flickr Wallpaper Rotator.

Chaos Wallpaper [via FreewareGenius]

Office Poltergeist is a program that allows you to take limited control of another’s computer and prank them.
It allows you to:

1. Play spooky sounds
2. Open or close CD drives
3. Transmit text through your victim’s keyboard
4. Make windows shake
5. Turn monitors on and off
6. Move windows slightly left and right
7. Send popup alert messages

All you have to do is set up the client on their computer and it will give you their ip address.
Office Poltergeist is open-source and released under the GPL.

There is also a Firefox extension which is even easier to install and adds the option to replace text and open webpages.

Today I’d just like to put out a review of WPchanger:

Wpchanger is a compact program that allows you to specify the amount of time between automatic wallpaper changes. You can save lists of wallpaper, and cycle through them in however short time you may want. The free trial is unlimited, but lacks features of the pro version like dual monitor streching wallpaper; it still applies the same wallpaper to each screen.

WPchanger gets my seal of approval.