Windows Vista pre-RC 1 - English Edition

Microsoft has made a very limited number of copies (100,00) of Windows Vista build 5536, the pre-RC1 version, available to the public. Act quickly (if you actually want Vista, I know I don't)!

Add an icon to anything to My Computer and/or the Control Panel

A long time ago I devised a method to add icons to programs into My Computer. My method required a ton of registry editing and litteraly was a pain in the ass to perform. While my method worked it was hard for the avergae PC user to perform. While browsing a blog I frequent I stumbled across a post on adding System folders into My Computer. A post on DownloadSquad listed how to add even more system folders into My Computer. Then I stumbled across a program called Folder2MyPC. This program has made it extremely easy to add shortcuts to programs, folder, and system folders into not only My Computer but also the Control Panel.

Star Wars "The Last Supper"

Krust Dogg found this: on digg and it was so cool I thought I'd share it with everybody.

WSU owns public class B IP network block

I was surfing the web on campus today and decided to do some research on the IP WSU's dhcp server assigned me. Low and behold it was a valid public IP address. This got me thinking, if I was able to pull a vaild public IP from a WSU wifi hotspot. How big own network did WSU own. So i did a IPWHOIS on my ip. Here are the results

OrgName: Wichita State University
OrgID: WSU-1
Address: University Computing
Address: 1845 Fairmount
City: Wichita
StateProv: KS
PostalCode: 67260-0098
Country: US

NetRange: 156.26.0.0 - 156.26.255.255
CIDR: 156.26.0.0/16
NetName: SHOCKNET
NetHandle: NET-156-26-0-0-1
Parent: NET-156-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: ELBERT.WICHITA.EDU
NameServer: PRINCETON.WICHITA.EDU
Comment:
RegDate: 1991-11-25
Updated: 2005-10-11

OrgTechHandle: HOSTM636-ARIN
OrgTechName: hostmaster
OrgTechPhone: +1-316-978-3900
OrgTechEmail: **********@wichita.edu

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2006-08-23 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

As you can see from that WSU owns the class B network 156.26.0.0/16. It blows my might that a state university would not only own a entire class B network, but also give each student who connects to their wifi network a valid public IP (at least when you connect from the enginnering building that is). I'll plan on doing some more testing and while post the results on a later date.

Ultimate List of Free Windows Software from Microsoft

This is a huge list of cool free software available from Microsoft

:: Dueling Analogs :: You Gotta Crawl Before You Strafe

Dueling Analogs has posted a new comic. D&D, Diablo, and
Bualder's Gate players should really enjoy this one.

Duel PSP Satchel

Don't know why you would need this considering a PSP will easyily fit in your jean's pocket. But an adventurous company has decided to make a backpack who's main purpose is carrying your PSP.

‘Morning After’ Pill Is Cleared for Wider Sales - New York Times

By GARDINER HARRIS for the New York Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 — The Food and Drug Administration today approved over-the-counter sales of the “morning-after” contraceptive pill to women 18 and older, resolving one of the most contentious issues in the agency’s 100-year history.

Read the entire article @ its source.

Ultimate Spider-man Clone Saga

Those of you you've been reading Spider-man for awhile may remeber the original Clone Saga. Are you fearful that the Ultimate version while be just as bad. Stop worrying. The Ultimate Clone Sage kicks ass. If you can still get copies of USM #97 and up from your local comic shop I recommend you do so. If not I try using other means, like online. Demonoid has issues #97, 98, & 99 (every part printed so far) availalble. And Zcultfm has a mega torrent collecting issues #.05-98 if you're really far behind.

Weird Al Advocate's Music Piracy

Weird Al has released a new song "Don't Download This Song". It legally free to download here. Also the music video for "Don't Download This Song", directed and animated by the great Bill Plympton, will debut Tuesday August 22nd at 10 PM Pacific time on Yahoo!

UPDATE: The music video is now on YouTube.

Dueling Analogs Update

It seems Dueling Analogs has posted three new comics recently:
E.T. for Two
Xed Box
Faster than a speeding bullet...

Rock. Paper. Scissors.

Kevin Smith promises to reveal his next project if a member of the WizardWorld Chicago audience defeats him in a rock, paper, scissors battle.

Stargate SG-1 Cancelled !!!

The future of Stargate is in question today, as SCI FI Channel has cancelled the long-running Stargate SG-1, Multichannel News reported today and a GateWorld source has confirmed. The news regrettably follows the airing of the show's milestone two-hundredth episode on Friday.

digg story

Super Mario SohoMix

The Star Wars Kid now has some competition.

Captain N: The Game Master

I recently was in the mood to watch the classic cartoon Captain N: The Game Master. After doing some searching I found two web comics based on the series: The Legend of Captain N64 & Captain SNES. Also I found a torrent site, Underground Gamer, which has all 3 season of Captain N available for download.

PSP Homebrew: DevHook 0.46 Fully Setup by Chaos Zero

What is Device Hook?

Device Hook (or DevHook for short) is a Homebrew App for PSPs running the 1.5 Firmware. DevHook is used to play your backed-up Game ISOs from your memory stick, or your UMDs. It can run every game up to date. DevHook also emulates the latest firmwares, including 2.71, giving you the ability to use the newest firmware perks!
Web Browser, RSS Feed, LocationFree Player, Windows Media Audio (WMA) File support, Flash Player! All are functional!

Fastest torrent speed to date

So I was grabbing a torrent off the Internet today, and achived the fastest speed I've ever seen when downloading torrents. A whopping 1.25MB/s! Don't ask me how this happened because I don't know. But here are a few things you can do to help your download speed.

This is a Great Transcoder MediaCoder

Ran into this great little encoder when I was looking for something to encode all of my anime for use in my ipod. With a couple clicking everything was setup to be transfered to my ipod. No hassles everything is presetup for you and just works like a charm. Give it a try I know you'll like it

Running apps off of a USB Drive

While searching through my bookmarks I found lots of software designed to run off a USB drive.
Microsoft's XP Key Update Tool
Hacking Apps
XP on a Thumb Drive
Windows in your Pocket
Knoppix USB
DSL on a Thumb Drive
YourWar Setup
Handy programs to put on a USB stick
A Directory Of Programs Designed For USB Drives
Portable Apps for USB Drives
Portable Apps
Best Free Portable Windows Freeware
The Ultimate USB Key
Portable USB Programs
Essential USB Memory Drive Projects & Tips
Must have programs for a USB card (scroll down to the comments)
TinyApps
TiddlyWiki
The Portable Freeware Collection

PS3 vs. Wii - Apple Style!

Great comparison of the PS3 and Wii

:: Dueling Analogs :: Crash and Burn

New Dueling Analogs has been released titled Crash and Burn

Digg Blog: BusinessWeek Story

Kevin Rose speaks out about the $60 million he's worth.

We'll be offline shortly

"Blogger will be down for maintenance today for 45 minutes starting at 4pm (Pacific Time)." Since PiaTech is hosted by blogger this means we will also be down while they are. Don't worry, we will be back.

UPDATE: This has been reschedule to tomorrow (8/10) at 4pm.

Amazing Pool Table Tricks

Cool tricks done on a pool table.

Nerd Rapper: Raps about Coding, Algorithms and Binary...

MC Plus+, an extraordinary geek rapper, has released "Chip Hop," a new CD of nerdcore rapping; including a great track called "MySpace Pimpin'" that really rocks. It's all freely downloadable, too.

digg story

Crash XP on demand

I was rewatching old episodes of Hak.5 and they run a demo of how to crash a Windows 2000 or higher box on demand. If you want to know how watch episode 3.5 or read about it here

digg, Engadget, ehomeupgrade, and lifehacker News Updates

Since there has been so much great news over the past couple days on some of my favorite news sources, digg, engadget, lifehacker, and ehomeupgrade, I decided to make one massive post containing the best/most interesting news from all four sites. Click read more to see the whole list.
Integra Debuts NVS-7.7 Integrated Media Center PC Purpose-Built for Custom Installers
Fluendo Announces Cross-Platform Media Center Solution for GNU/Linux and Windows
Vista MCE FAQ ... Cable Card No Go
Yellow Machine Introduces the Ultimate Home Media Server
Super
Video Transcoding for Dummies
WHY, WHY, WHY Move to Mac if You're a Windows User?
AOL to Give Everyone 5 Gigabytes of Dedicated Storage
Video Presentation: MythTV / KnoppMyth
Norco DS-1220 12 Bay 3U SATA NAS Subsystem
DIY NAS Built on Desktop Linux and Hardware RAID
CinemaNow claims 94% of download-to-burn DVDs work
Bump keying: $1 keys open any lock
Sony gets official on new Vaio UX Micro PC
Sony launches mylo
Download of the Day: Universal AutoCorrect
Download of the Day: ClipPath
Download of the Day: Shazou Firefox extension
Two-paned blogging with your browser's sidebar
Wikipedia Lookup Extension
Google patent list
Shira
Google Testing New Layout For Videos - Try It Yourself
A Brief Hacker History
Happy Birthday World Wide Web!
How to add a Google Map to any web page in 30 seconds.
AOL Search Data Shows Users Planning to commit Murder
roofnet
AMD to drop ATi brand
How To Crack 128-bit Wireless Networks In 60 Seconds
Family Guy: Best of Hitler
The Myth of the Living-Room PC
Every Super Bowl XL Commercial (including the forbidden ones)

Family Guy: Best of Hitler

The best appearances of Hitler on the show Family Guy.

Dueling Analogs - He didn't make the paper cut

A new Dueling Analogs comic is out. Todays topic: Paper Mario.

PS3 Interface (From E3)

Sony has a demo of the interface for the PS3. It's amazing how similar it looks to the PSP interface.

Hak.5 - Episode 2x01 Released

Hak.5 Season 2 has started. Details on the episode:

In this episode Darren shows us how to unite Windows, Mac, and Linux desktops with Synergy. Wess builds an automatic LED lamp, while Limin Li joins us to show off the setup of the digital DJ. Plus Interviews with Harrison Holland of Sploitcast and Jason Davis of MD5Lookup at the sixth Hackers On Planet Earth conference in New York. And as always details on this month’s LAN party, trivia, poll, and geeky sketches.

Play pinball while installing XP

Using the guide @ source you can play pinball while you install/reinstall Windows XP. Have Fun.

Black Hat Takes Vista to Task

Vista not even out yet and hacker have defeated its security using Vista SDK features. Read more @ source.

Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2005

I was surfin the web today and found a website which has posted the entire 2005 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show as streaming video. You can watch it @ the source or download it here, here, or here.

'Firefly' Gets Hi-Def Makeover

Joss Whedon's "Firefly" will air in HD on UHD starting September 24.

This is so great Firefly in HD awesome

digg story

Cool Tools Part 2

Over the years I used tons of various software to get me by day to day. Out of all that software here's a list of my favorite tools which every Windows user needs.

Firefox
Thunderbird
WinRar
WinAmp & other Nullsoft tools
Waste
CockOS
USB Apps 1
USB Apps 2
USB Apps 3
USB Apps 4
Command Prompt Explorer Bar
FolderBox
TrueCrypt
Lava Lamp
Zone Alarm
AVG Free
DVD Shrink
DVD Decrypter
Alcohol 120%
w.Blogger
Xvid
Media Player Classic
AC3Filter
Launchy
OpenOffice
Windows Defender
Perfect Disk
Quicktime Alternative
Real Alternative
Azureus
Comic Reader
BootSkin
Network Stumbler

Just Say No to All

Every time you move or copy files from one folder to another, Windows checks the target folder for files that have the same names as those you are copying. If it finds a duplicate name, it asks whether you want to overwrite the file in the target folder. When more than one file is selected, your choices are 'Yes' (overwrite just this file), 'Yes to All' (overwrite all files with matching names), 'No' (don't overwrite this file), and 'Cancel' (stop the whole process now). If you click 'Yes' or 'No', you will see the same prompt for each duplicate that Windows finds. If you're just resuming an interrupted download from a server, you can click 'Yes to All' to overwrite everything and save yourself some clicks. But this approach slows down the process as Windows overwrites files you downloaded previously. Why not just say 'No to All'?

Burak Gül of Eskisehir, Turkey, has the solution. To say 'No to All', simply hold down Shift as you click No. Windows will move or copy all files except those with duplicate names in the target folder. Note that if you move or copy folders as well as files, you still get at least one prompt for folders and another for files when duplicate names are found.

How can I block users from accessing the Microsoft Web application service that determines unknown file extensions?

By default, if you try to open a file that has an unknown file extension, you'll be given the option of selecting a program with which to open the file or using the Microsoft Web service to help ascertain
the required application to open the file type, as the figure at http://list.windowsitpro.com/t?ctl=72DC:2EA6F shows. To block the Web lookup of extensions, perform these steps:

1. Start the registry editor (regedit.exe).
2. Go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system registry subkey.
3. From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD Value.
4. Enter a value name of NoInternetOpenWith and press Enter.
5. Double-click the new value and set it to 1. Click OK.
6. Close the registry editor.

The change takes effect immediately, and the user now sees only the dialog box for choosing the application to use; the option to connect to the Web service is gone.

Cool Tools Part 1

As i was researching thisd post on cool tools for Windows I came across a blog called Download Squad. This blog chronicles all kinds of cool tools for Windows, Macs, and Linux. Below are the best tools which I found using this blog. In part two of this post I list the best tools I've found via other sources.
MyTunesRSS
WireShark
FEBE and CLEO
Democracy Player
Insecure's 2006 Top 100 Security Tools
Songbird
Google Reader
Vibe Streamer
RipIt4Me
ZuluPad

Part 2 coming soon

Aptana: The Web IDE

Aptana is a robust, JavaScript-focused IDE for building dynamic web applications. Highlights include the following features:

• Code Assist on JavaScript, HTML, and CSS languages, including your own JavaScript functions
  
• Outliner that gives a snapshot view of your JavaScript, HTML, and CSS code structure
  
• Error and warning notification for your code
  
• Support for Aptana UI customization and extensions
  
• Cross-platform support
  
• Free and open source. (Source available soon)
  

The.Matrix-ASCII

I found this on digg about a year ago and thought I'd share it with our readers:

The.Matrix-ASCII is the original Matrix movie encoded in text. The finished product is an MPEG-2 file 7989979136 bytes in size, too large to fit on a DVD5. I re-encoded the ASCII movie to fit on a standard DVDR. The DVDR is available through BitTorrent. You will need a media player that can play MPEG-2 videos to watch either sample and a DVD player to watch the movie.

Current .torrent stats can be found here.

My Favortie Firefox Extensions

Here's a list of all the Firefox Entensions I'm currently using. I plan on updating this post every time I add/remove an extension.

Fetch Text URL
Firefox View
IE View Lite
Google Images Re-Linker
Greasemonkey
Add Bookmark Here
Download Manager Tweak
Session Manager
Google Browser Sync
Adblock
Adblock Filterset.G Updater
Meebo Sidebar Extension

If you have a favorite extension that we didn't list here, please leave us a comment with the name and a link to that extension's homepage so we can check it out.

Online Comics

Here are some online comic I enjoy:
Penny Arcade
Ctrl+Alt+Del
Dueling Analogs
RPG-TV
F@NB0Y$

What are your favorites?

Interview With The People Working To Save Your Digital Media Rights

This is a very good article. People really need to get on this band wagon so we don't have all of our rights for content stripped away.

This is an interview with members of DefectiveByDesign, the Free Software Foundation anti-DRM campaign that sent HazMat suited protesters to Apple stores.

digg story

South Park: What really happens when you download music illegally

Another great find by our man Krust Dogg. Think downloading music is cool, think again: