Cable companies spreading lies

Got to love those lying cable companies:

I seen some crazy lies by cable companies before, but this is a new low. They say tech companies want more money, but the truth is they do. Network Neutrality is a good thing. Go here or here to find out why. Or just watch this clip:

Infinite Crisis Changes

There have been quite a few people who have listed the number of changes made to the 'Infinite Crisis' hardcover over the original series and noted that they seem to be preceding a return of Earth Two as a concept to the DC Multiverse.

Which could of course be rather metatextual, with the 'Superboy punches' creating literal retcons in subsequent printings of the original work. A Grant-Morrisonesque work of genius, that hasn't been seen in such complexity before. See Steve Moffat's 'Continuity Errors' for another take on that theme.

However, I've been told by DC sources that, internally, they've been told to keep quiet about these retroactive changes, as it might be interpreted as poor planning on various people's parts.

So there you go. I'm staying mum on this one. Let's have a swipe file."

Shamelessly stolen from the great comic book column Lying in the Gutter

Cox Finalizes Newsgroup Upgrade

Cox recently finished its upgrade of their news servers. Here's what it means for their customers:

Increased retention to at least 30 days: Retention time for binary newsgroups is being increased from an average of 3 days to at least 30 days. Text groups will have even longer retention.

Boost transfer speeds by more than 30%: Each Newsgroup user can utilize up to four connections to the server, and transfer speeds for each connection have been increased from up to 384 Kbps each to up to 512 Kbps each.

On a downside they also had this to say about their upgrade.

"With this upcoming release, users can have a maximum of four simultaneous connections (of 512 Kbps each). Due to an incorrect implementation on our current Cox newsgroup server, a small percentage of customers have been able to connect to multiple newsgroup servers for a total of up to twelve (12) connections. Cox’s newsgroup policy has always specified a maximum of 4 connections, and 12 connections were never intended as an official part of the service offering."

Now we all know that of Cox's three news servers only two have "worked" in the past year. This means with a connection speed of 384 Kbps and 8 connections you had a maximum connection speed of 3072 Kbps. Now with the upgrade you have 4 connections and a connection speed of 512 Kbps, you have a maximum connection speed of 2048 Kbps. This is a speed loss of 1024 Kbps or 33 percent.

But given the huge increase in retention time I can easily live with the speed decrease.

LucasFilm financing Robot Chicken special

Found this on TVSquad thought you guys might enjoy.
"In case you didn't read my interview with Dino Stamatopoulos, you may be interested to know that he helped me to some interesting news about Robot Chicken. Here's what Stamatopoulos, whose show, Moral Orel, shares a production facility with Robot Chicken, had to say:

'We're actually gonna shut down on Friday because Robot Chicken has a special they're doing. I don't know if I'm supposed to say, but I don't give a shit, I'll tell you anyway. LucasFilm saw some of their Star Wars parodies and now they're financing a whole half-hour special that's gonna be played for one of the network's halftime shows for Super Bowl Sunday. So they're building all these Star Wars sets around here. The nerds are creaming in their pants.'

So there you go, Robot Chicken fans, a full half-hour of Star Wars-inspired Robot Chicken goodness. This was the first I had heard of such a thing, and I'll let y'all know when I find out more information."

Compusa to sell Wii @ $1,119.06

At least according to their website. Makes the PS3 seem affordable.
I'm sure this is just a typo and will be fixed soon. For now you can find a screenshot of their website here.

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Important Notice: Lik-Sang.com Out of Business due to Multiple Sony Lawsuits

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - OUT OF BUSINESS NOTICE

"Hong Kong, October 24th of 2006 - Lik-Sang.com, the popular gaming retailer from Hong Kong, has today announced that it is forced to close down due to multiple legal actions brought against it by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Sony claimed that Lik-Sang infringed its trade marks, copyright and registered design rights by selling Sony PSP consoles from Asia to European customers, and have recently obtained a judgment in the High Court of London (England) rendering Lik-Sang's sales of PSP consoles unlawful."

I personally think this has more to do with the fact that in the past Liksang has been known to sell items such as HD Xtreme, the Panasonic Q, and Swap Magic. Not quite the kind of products that Sony is happy about.

Read the entire press release @ the source

eBay restrictions on PS3 and Wii Auctions

eBay feels your pain and has put rules in place well in advance to stop some post launch insanity of Wii and PS3. Only one system per seller for pre-launch, The seller must only accept PayPal payments and have a minimum of 50 feedback, The pre-sale can only be in Auction, and The listing must include a clear photo of the pre-order receipt. More @ source

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UPDATE: ebay still seems to has some outrageous prices for PS3's with this auction currently going for $2,325.

Firefox 2.0 changes search bar behavior

Just a heads up starting with Firefox 2.0 pressing ENTER after typing a query into the search bar now causes Firefox to open results in a new tab. And pressing ALT+ENTER after typing a query into the search bar now causes Firefox to open results in the current tab. In previous versions of Firefox these shortcuts were reversed. While I welcome this change, some kind of heads up would have been nuts. I went nuts trying to figure out why my ALT+ENTER shortcut stopped working after I upgraded. Then I discovered the change.

Why Zelda shouldn't be on the WII

Guy Orders Ipod, Gets Soap Instead

This is awesome....We've all heard of the iPod's vaunted "clean design," but this is ridiculous.

read more | digg story

A guide to understanding Geeks

These are a few strange, but interesting articles dissecting the male geek psyche

One for the ladies: How to date a geek guy?
Girls Guide 2 Geek Guys
Another geek guys guide
The Jargon File's 'Portrait of J. Random Hacker'

Opensearch 1.1 (Draft) Support

We at Piatech are all about supporting cutting edge technologies. That's why as of today we've added support for the Opensearch 1.1 (Draft) spec. What this means for our readers is you can add Piatech to your Firefox 2/IE 7 searchbar by clicking this link, the link on the bottom right side of the page, or by choosing add Piatech from your browser's searchbar. More information on Opensearch and how to add support for it to your site can be found here, here, and here.

Six reasons to watch British TV

If you haven't checked out British TV here are six reasons why you should.

Dr. Who - one of the best scifi show on air (DL)
Torchwood - A spinoff of Dr. Who following Capitan Jack Hartness (DL)
Spooks - The adventures of British MI5 officers (DL)
Robin Hood - Everyones favorite outlaw (DL)
The IT Crowd - The shenanigans of a group of corporate IT workers (DL)
Sorted - Stories of the brave men of Her Majesty's Royal Postal Service (DL)

Torchwood

"A spin-off from the 'Doctor Who' series, Torchwood follows the adventures of a team of investigators as they use alien technology to solve crimes, both alien and human.

This British sci-fi crime thriller, from Russell T Davies, follows the team as they delve into the unknown. They are fighting the impossible while keeping their everyday lives going back at home.

The cast includes John Barrowman as the enigmatic Captain Jack Harkness, the ever-watchful heart of the team guarding against the fragility of humankind.

Eve Myles plays Gwen Cooper, initially an outsider whose first encounter with Torchwood sparks a burning curiosity to get to the truth and throws her into an unfamiliar but exciting world.

Burn Gorman plays the raw but charming medic, Owen Harper, and Naoko Mori is Toshiko Sato, the team member who specialises in all things technical."

Download s1e01, s1e02

Financial Tips from Scott Adams

The following is a list of nine financial tips by Dilbert creator Scott Adams.

:: Dueling Analogs :: Joy to the world and by world I mean me

Today's Dueling Analog comic really reminds me of our good buddy Silver-Streak.

Two Hellboy movies coming to Toonami - TV Squad

Listen up, fans of comic books and comic book movies: two animated movies that will serve as continuations of both the Hellboy comic and the feature film are slated to appear on Cartoon Network's Toonami block in 2006 and 2007. The first, titled Hellboy: Sword of Storms, will air on Toonami October 28 at 9:30 pm. The second movie, Hellboy: Blood and Iron, is set for sometime in 2007.

Source scifi.com via tvsquad

South Park Does It Again..........The Real Sword of a Thousand Truths

It's real. From the World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Closed Beta.

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Studio behind Viewtiful Joe, Okami and God Hand is dead

Clover Studio was shuttered by main shareholder Capcom. At a Board of Directors' meeting was held, and it was decided that Clover should dissolved. The reason? According to the Capcom IR release...Sorry Silver no more Viewtiful Joe for you...That sucks

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Mozilla plans dozens of simultaneous Firefox 2 launch parties worldwide

You can sign up to host a party or join one of the many already planned everywhere from Taiwan to India to Israel to Canada to Spain. If you're hosting a large party, Mozilla will send bundles of free schwag to pass out to guests!

digg story

The Wii Preorders

Preorders for the Wii start tomorrow at EB and Gamestop. I will be in line at EB on north rock to reserve on for a friend. Might even get one for myself. Deposit is 50 bucks so not too bad.

South Park takes on 9/11 conspiracy theories

This week South Park takes on the many 9/11 conspiracy theories that abound.

Change IE Automatic Search URL on IE6+

If you're like me, you use IE's Automatic Search on a daily basis. The problem is without a ton of tweaking this only works with some search engines. The ones who pay Microsoft to be included.
Up until recently I've used Goolge as my default search engine. Recently however I switched to Google's new Searchmash. And I wanted make IE's Automatic Search use this search engine instead. Here's how I did it.

Requirements Active directory, and local IIS and DNS servers

• First add a new CNAME record on your DNS server (in whatever zone is you AD zone) pointing ieautosearch to your websever's address (you also could you a A record pointed to your webserver's IP if you wish).
  
• Second add a new virtual website with the host header ieautosearch to your IIS server.
  
• Third save this file as response.asp in the directory your ieautosearch is pointed to.
  
• Fourth merge this reg file into your registry of the computer you want to use the new search engine. (This can be deployed across a network using GPO or logon/logoff scripts if you like)
  
• Fifth test your new setup.
  

References:
Configuring Automatic Search: http://tinyurl.com/eo3xm
Google Answers (see 9th response):
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=305908

P.S. Yes you can to do this without Active Directory and DNS by editing you hosts file instead. The drawback is you must make this every computer you want to use this feature with.

A Message From Chad and Steve

A word from the cofounders of YouTube on Google buyout of YouTube

Gamestop isn't guaranteeing PS3 preorders

I preordered my PS3 today @ Gamestop and got a fun disclaimer with my preorder:

Thank you for your reservation.
NOTICE: As GameStop cannot control production and shipping issues by the manufacture, the reservation deposit will only guarantee a spot in line when your reserved product becomes available. The reservation deposit does not guarantee receipt of a system available to purchase at launch. Online product pricing and availability will vary and will be fulfilled independent of store reservations. Reservations/purchase are limited to 1 per household.

So I'm third in line for the PS3 preorder and they still wont guarantee me a system on launch day. Great.

Gaming News Updates

PS3's are now available for preorder nationwide @ your local EB/Gamestop, but act fast most stores are only getting 8 units in their inital shipment. Two of which are allocated for sale to employees, leaving only six units per store available for the public.

Dark Alex has released what's being called 2.71 Custom Firmware SE-A. This is basically a modded version of the 2.71 firmware that allows running 1.00/1.50 homebrew w/o the need for Devhook. (more info: 1|2)

Soon you'll be able to run your PS2 in your choice of 480p/720p/1080i thanks to this new software.

UPDAT: Cox News Groups

As of tomorrow the 10/10/06 the regular cox news group servers will be up and running on their regular addresses. news.east.cox.net and news.west.cox.net. As you might not the central server has been out of commission for a while. Its one of those things. But enjoy the new faster speeds and longer retention times

Let's go Outback tonight

Maybe it's just me but Outback's new radio ad is really catchy. So catchy in fact that I decided to find out what the song, if any, was being used. The song is a lyrics changed version of Of Montreal's Wraith Pinned To The Mist (and other games). And just to make things great Of Montreal has the original version of this song available for free download on their website.

Component Video Switching

I was walking through Wally World's Electronics Department last night hoping to find, but knowing I wouldn't, a component video switcher. Shockingly they had one. It was a Philips 4way (meaning 3 in 1 out) box that retailed for $36.99. Now seeing as the cheapest component video switcher I seen up to that point was $99 I firgured I try it out. On my SDTV (standard definition) the picture looked great. I only really have three complaints with this unit: manual input switching, only 3 inputs, no digital audio switching. Not bad but with these features this unit would be perfect.
So I decided to look for some alternative devices, for when I eventually need to upgrade. And guess what I found the "perfect" device. The RCA HD4DCA can do everything the Philiphs can and more. It retails for $69.99, but you can find it as low as $31.78 online. It supports input switching via a remote, it's powered, includes digital coaxial audio switching, and is a true 4 in 1 out device switcher. Not owning the RCA model myself I can't speak of the image quality, but due to the fact it's powered I'm sure it's great.

News Updates

I recently came across two new websites I'd deem blog worthy, Searchmash and ngindex.
Searchmash is Google's test bed seach engine (more info)
ngindex has many of the same features as newzbin but without the need for premium credit.

Also thebroken episode 4 is out. As is Hak5 episode 2x03.

Cox upgrades newsgroup service

It appears Cox is now outsourcing its newsgroup services to Highwinds. Read the press release for more info. From what I can tell this happened back in September. From my testing the service is much improved.

Like WOWC, Like South Park watch this

South Park takes on MMORPGs. Enjoy.

65 More Windows Vista Mistakes by Chris "The Lockergnome" Pirillo

I know this article is kinda old (May 06) but it's a great list of what's wrong with Vista.