classification.gov site gets hacked an is now down and NEW BLOG FEATURES COMING YOUR WAY!

Firstly, as at 7:09pm on Saturday 28 March, the Australian Governments classification board sit, http://www.classification.gov.au, was down with the error message "Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)". Earlier today the site was hacked and the hackers changed the front opage test to read ""This site contains information about the boards that have the right to CONTROL YOUR FREEDOMZ, The Classification Board has the right to not just classify content (the name is an ELABORATE TRICK), but also the right to DECIDE WHAT IS AND ISNT APPROPRIATE and BAN CONTENT FROM THE PUBLIC" This was donwe shortly after Stephen Conroy had spoken on Q+A on the ABC last night. I assume this was done in response to Senator Conroy's Internet Filtering and certainly got the message through but these people, when and if they get caught, are in for a lot of trouble. Great Cause but Stupid Idea.

Next I would like to announce some new blog features that will be coming soon:

• New Theme (again)
• Facebook Group
• Twitter use
  
• Music player
• Better use of forums
• Handy Tips and Tricks
• Podcast (tentative)
  
• iPhone App (tentative)

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Internet Censorship, Windows XP Support shutdown and Sims 3 DRM

Firstly I would like to say that Modern Warfare 2, the next game in the Call of Duty franchise. has been given a release date of November 10 2009. This is great news if you loved the franchise. Infinity Ward is developing this game, much to everyone relief. Hopefully it will by a solid game but nothing can be said until we see more. Anyway here is the trailer...



Next is that Stephen Conroy, the 'mastermind' behind the proposed internet filter, has appeared on the ABC's Q+A program and was asked question about the internet filter idea. He tried to defend the stupid idea for a nationwide filter and someone even said that "it will be like making a dam wall out of chicken wire" and made reference to the Wikileaks scandal. Personally I think that Mr Conroy is making a bad decision by going ahead with this filter and I think that he should just scrap the idea and never talk about it again. Louise Adler, a publisher, made a good point on the show that instead of having a mandatory internet filter we should be looking for the causes of paedophilia and addressing that directly without censoring the internet.

Next is the news that on April 1 Microsoft will be stopping support for Windows XP and Office 2003. This is not new news but just a friendly reminder about this.

Finally, EA has confirmed that the Sims 3 will not have the internet DRM that featured in Spore but instead they will go back to the old Serial Number method. This is great as it saves hassles if you have to reinstall windows or you get a new computer and want to reinstall the game. Why EA had to go with the Intenet and Phone DRM for Spore no one will ever know, but this news about the Sims 3 will save a lot of hassles for gamers all round.

More GDC!!!

Here's some more stuff that has come out of GDC...

Unreal Engine 3: Epic Games has been using this for a while to make Gears of War 2 and Unreal Tournament 3 but now they have released their engine for developers to license and use for their own games. I won't dwell on the massive changes to UE2 or even list them so i'll just post the trailer....



Next is the Zeebo which is a cheap console for 2nd and 3rd world countries. This is a great idea and will bring gamign to countries where only the elite can afford such luxuries. The Console can be plugged in to TVs and it features the followign specs:

Platform
• Qualcomm Chipset
Applications Processing (Audio/Graphics)
• ARM 11 / QDSP-5 running at 528Mhz
3D Graphics Processing
• Qualcomm Adreno 130 Graphics Core
• Mobile Display Processor (MDP) (Concurrent 3D Rendering & Screen Operations)
Internal Memory
• Non-Volatile Memory:
1 GByte NAND Flash
• RAM:
128 MBytes DDR SDRAM + 32Mbyte stacked DDR
SDRAM in MSM7201A
Output Color System
• PAL-M and NTSC
Video-Out Resolution
• VGA (640 x 480) - 4:3 aspect ratio
Banding
• Quad Band GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900) MHz
• Tri Band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA (850/1900/2100) MHz
Antenna
• Internal
Modem Processing (Integrated in MSM7201A)
• ARM 9 CPU / QDSP-4
Power
• External Power Adaptor (Battery Not Required)
Power Supply
• 100 – 240 V (50-60Hz) (universal)
Ports and Slots
• Three USB 2.0 Standard A (for accessories)
• USB 2.0 OTG – Mini B
(Accessible to Service Centers and Developers only)
• RCA Connector (Video Composite TV Signal, x2 Stereo Audio)
• SD Card Slot / Interface
Power Key Functions
• Power On / Power Down / Power Off
Software
• BREW-based
Pre-Loaded Content
• 4 Games + 1 Free Wirelessly Downloaded Game
Audio Formats
• MIDI (72 voice polyphony 512 KB wavetable, 44kHz sampling rate)
• MP3
• PCM
• ADPCM
• CMX
• QCELP
Messaging
• SMS, server initiated
User Interface (UI)
• Proprietary Zeebo User Interface (Updatable wirelessly)
Console ID
• International Mobile Equipment Identity – IMEI

This a really good idea but will never replace the more expensive consoles in most 1st world countries.

GDC News Galore!

A lot has come out of GDC so far. With 1 day to go I thin k we have squeezed a lot from GDC Sofar.

Firstly is OnLive, which is a new service based on XBox Live. It allows you to host your PC games on a cloud computing server where all graphics are rendered there and the game is completely housed on their servers. Sadly I don't think that this will be feasable within the next 5 years duer to bandwidth issues but it reaslly is a good idea.

Next is CryEngine 3, Cryteks newest game engine. This really isn't as good as you think it is. It is just a port of their previous engine, CryEngine2.

Next is a new Wii Storage solution. Nintendo have today released a system update that they announced a GDC which will add support for SDHC Card of up to 32GB. It also adds an SD Card menu and all channells except for the Nintendo Channel and the menu can house up to 240 Games. This is a major improvement over the feable 512MB of storage in the Wii at launch.

Finally Nintendo has released a new part of the wii shop called Virtual Console Arcade which will house arcade games not availiable for any other console. This is great and hopefully there will be some overlap with teh Xbox Live Arcade.

AWESOME!!!!

I saw this on Top Gear last night. It was so awesome i just had to shown you. This car is truly the future i think.



Thanks
AndrewCow

My perspective of life has changed for ever

I was just watching a TV show and it said in fact the Myths about the internet being 99.9% porn is actually the opposite. A study was carried out about internet content and it was found that in fact less that 1% of the internet is Porn but more than 80% of emails are spam:) Who would have thought?

AndrewCow

How to make a media server for your PS3

I am sorry this has taken so long. I said I would do this post about 2 months ago but I couldn't be bothered but here it is:)

Have you ever been looking through your PS3 and seen "Search for Media Servers" and wondered what it is?Well I did and found out. IT IS AWESOME. Are you like me and have TONNES of 'very very legal' media on your Computer. Well I do(i have 2250gb of space to store it :) )and I have been having to hook up my laptop to my TV to view media and it gets VERY VERY anoying. Well with the media server you can stream straight from your PC to your PS3. Now I highly recomend using an ethernet cable and not wireless to prevent lagging but wireless still works, it just needs to buffer more:)

Step 1 -
Get the software. Now I use two different programs(both free) because one supports more formats but stuffs up more and the other one is more reliable(but for some reason crashes when the other one is open). These are SimpleCenter and D-Link Media Server(the ones at the bottom and not the TV one)(In order). For their free downloads click on the names.

Step 2 -

Install ether pieces or both pieces of software and then follow the guide for the respective software.

Simple Center - Once open, click settings, then Media. Just add all your media there. Then go to the server tab and choose your name. If you add something to the folder you have added to the server, click on the tab for whatever type of media it is(on the main menu out of settings) and then click on 'Add Movies'(if you and in the movies tab for example)and scan all watch folders. Now this does not do it for every media type. You will need to do them separately.

D-Link Media Server - Once open, go to the 'File Types' tab and make sure all types are selected. Then click on 'System' and put in the name for the server. Next, to add media, go to 'Shared Folders' and click 'Add a Folder'. Locate the folder and add it.

Step 3 -

Make sure your preferred media server application is open and leave it open(can be open in the background).

Step 4 -

Go to your PS3 and find where it says Scan Media Servers(it may have done this automatically). And there you go. Go into the server and watch anything(file format supported) that you have added to the server(note: you can add multiple folders).

ENYOY

If you have any questions, comment.

By the way, we have redone the forums and hope you like them. They are much better now and have lots to comment on. Also put your name on the internet blocking thing up the top.

Thanks for Listening

AndrewCow