Final IT Blog

Well I've now finished IT for the year. I just handed in my final piece of work, my wireless project report form. It was a good year, I just wish I had done IT over my first 2 years at college :D Oh well, better late than never. I don't really know what else to write so I shall bid you farewell.

Ubuntu Desktop Task

Today I was bestowed a task by Roger to setup a computer running Ubuntu for the Info Systems classed to be assessed on. All the computer needed was Ubuntu, a few apps and a DVD drive, so Roger gave me a computer that had a CD drive and a DVD drive to put into it. Jack offered to chuck in the DVD drive because he was going back to music to finish up his recording stuff. I got Ubuntu off Roger and attempted to install it.. the PC wouldn't give me a picture and made a series of horrible beeping noises. So I opened it up, took a punt and removed a stick of RAM, that didn't work. Put the one I removed back and took the other one out, this worked. So now I had picture and managed to boot into the Ubuntu installation screen. Now the problem was Ubuntu ran so bad it was mournful. I figured it could have been the DVD drive Jack had put it or the Ubuntu disc itself, so I went to get another optical drive just for the installation when I realised Jack had put in another CD drive, it was simply in a DVD box. So, now I had to get a new optical drive and figure out why Ubuntu was running so poorly. I tried a few different drives and just figured that the computer Roger gave me was a complete pile of shit because the disc worked fine on the HP's in the IT lab.

Roger got me another computer, a Dell that was worthy of my presence and I began to work again.. this Dell wouldn't boot either, no picture and another series of strange beeps. One stick of RAM out and it worked. I then finally could install Ubuntu. Got that installed then Dirk came along and we had an epic conversation about sudo, debian packages, package managers, Dia, GIMP, Blender, MySQL and a few Linux orientated topics.

Now to install said packages.. should have been easy enough but the package manager wouldn't work. It was more than likely being blocked by the proxy and security shit the school has in place so we don't haxx0r the shit out of their network and download bad things such as themes for Opera. I Tried to install it through sudo and the command line, this was more than likely blocked as well, as it failed. Then I downloaded the debian packages and they gave me a "dependency could not be satisfied" error. Ubuntu's dependency is insatiable... I looked around on a few forums and most people suggested using sudo to install the programs. So I spoke to Dirk and we came to the conclusion for me to take it down to computer services and use the connection down there that they use to update machines.

I will finish this off during help desk tomorrow.

MASSIVE BLOG. Resistance 2 got a 9.5 at IGN Woo!

I took the comp' down to computer services and kept getting the same errors. I then realised I would have to set proxy settings for the package manger so I did that and it all worked fine from there on in. I got all the programs Dirk wanted installed. It was a good project, I've worked with Ubuntu before and I enjoy it. I learnt a few new things as well which was good.

Diagnostic Tools

I'm not really a fan of diagnostic tools and the like, a lot of what they do can be done with a simple restart, by a firewall and much simpler and better programs like CCleaner.



Advanced System Optimizer - ASO contains a load of features, some great, some completely pointless such as the wallpaper changer.. I really don't think you need a program to do this. While some features of it such as the system and disk cleaner and registry cleaner and fixer, these tasks can be done by the much simpler, smaller and better (in my opinion) CCleaner.

WinXP Manager - Essentially the same program as ASO with a few more features tacked on, such as an icon manager. I would consider downloading this program for the icon manager so I don't have to have a 3rd party application running constantly in the background.

FreshDiagnose - FD has a terrible interface when in comparison to the other I have wrote about so far. It has a set of benchmark tools for various things such as CPU, memory and network. FD has a lot of detailed system information for you to view also.

PC Doc Pro - Worst splash screen ever. Worst interface ever. Worst reminder system ever. I do not want to buy this program.


-------------------------------

CCleaner - CCleaner is the best diagnostics program ever. Download it now. It is an essential piece of software, even more so than an operating system.

Super PI - Super PI can be used to check system stability, especially when overclocking.

Firefox Myths

I found this to be a rather interesting read, while it is outdated, some of the myths on there still hold solid ground.

The Greatest ISP Ever, Just Got Better.

I've been with Exetel for three or so months now and within that period my on-peak downloads have gone from 6GB to 12GB. Now, 6GB may not seem like much, but when you have 48GB at your disposal during off-peak, which I might add falls in the rather generous time frame of 12am till 12pm, it was still worth it in my opinion. $45 a month, 1.5Mb connection and a now 60GB total bandwith limit, not to mention the host of other features Exetel provide, you'd be silly to be with anyone else.

Exit Reality.. Enter.. 3D!

Exit Reality is a plug-in type application for Internet Explorer and Firefox that renders your webpages in 3D. One you have chosen the website you want 3D you can walk around in it with an avatar you can modify. I didn't bother creating one as I got over Exit Reality after I walked around Google for a minute or so. There is a complete social networking side to this as well, if you want to check it out further go HERE

Vice City MP and Science Network Computers

Last week in IT, Jack, Aidan and I started to set up some computers for a science class that wants to do networking with them. We had a bit of trouble with room and the layout of how we were going to have them, but eventually we got there. The computers we are using have removable optical drives (much like laptop optical drives) and out of all the computers we are setting up only two have optical drives, so we had to set up 2 at a time. This doesn't take too long as we only have to install Windows 2000 with no extra drivers or anything. We still have a few left to set up, we will be doing the remaining computers through this week.

Early on in the project for DIM I am doing with Phil and Jack, I had the idea of trying to get the mod Multi-Theft Auto (MTA) working to make some of our scenes a lot easier. During the above IT project when we got a little bored we started playing around on Vice City. After that Aidan and I had the idea of setting up a dedicated server for MTA. When we discovered MTA has no LAN support Aidan found another mod called Vice City MP which did have LAN support. We proceeded to set up the server for this using the switch already in the SIM lab. This wasn't working for us, we came to the conclusion that the switch we were using was blocking the port we needed to have open for VC MP. That could have been an easy fixed problem but the switch had been password protected and no one knew why, as no one had set it. So Roger got as a new one and it all works fine with the new one. We currently have 3 computers on the VC MP network.

IT Project

The IT project Aidan, Jack and I are doing is the "Evolution and Progression of Online Gaming" We nearly finished it off today and should easily have it finished by Thursday.
If you haven't figured out what our project is covering by now, it's about online gaming and its evolution over time. Here's a few slides.

Lego Mindstorm Robot

Jack, Aidan and I had to make a couple of robots using the Lego Mindstorm kit for IT. It was pretty cool, we made this strange vehicle which wasn't too hard and Alpha Rex, the 'human' robot. He was a bit harder but again, not too hard. Just a lot more time consuming and we had a missing piece so that delayed us a little bit more.

Here's some pictures of Rex.

ATI Radeon 4800 Series.

The battle for top spot in the GPU market has been fought between two major competitors for a long time now, Nvidia and ATI. They have both been on top at different times, with Nvidia most recently pretty much annihilating ATI with the 8000 series. But are the times changing once again with ATI releasing the 4000 series of graphics cards? It appears they may be. Nvidia are currently having to deal with defective hardware and revenues short of what they expected and now they have to deal with ATIs 4850 and 4870 cards, selling for $235 and and $399 respectively. And soon to come the 4870x2, ATIs monster card that will be sporting 2Gb of GDDR5 memory.

Benchmark with the 4850, 4870, 9800, 8800 and 3870

After looking at that it clearly shows the best two cards as the Radeon 4870 and GeForce 9800 GTX+

The 4870 costs $399au while the 9800 GTX + costs inbetween $450au and $500au. So really making the decision rather one sided considering ATIs high end card the 4870x2 hasn't been released yet and when it does it will probably only be a little more expensive than the 9800 GTX + and judging by what shows in the benchmark it will murder anything out by Nvidia at this moment.

And to shame Nvidia even more Tom's Hardware HD 4870 better than GTX 260!

Nvidia GTX260s can go for up to $550au and Nvidia GTX280s can go for up to $899au. For the difference in performance, I don't think anyone could justify the purchase of an Nvidia GTX280.

Look at the results and judge for yourself. I myself am happy to see ATI back up on top and will be interested to see how the 3870x2 performs.

Science Laptop Project.

Aidan, Jack and I were given the task to upload a master ghost image and succesfully image a number of Toshiba laptops for science.


The first problem me and Aidan encountered was when we tried to upload the master ghost image to the ghost server. The first switch we used was dead, didn't work at all. Second one we tried was so slow and took about 3 hours for us to upload the master image to the server. Now that I think about all that though I don't know why we just didn't directly link the server with the master laptop...

Once we got finally got the master image up we (Aidan, Jack and I) multicasted the image over to two laptops using the slow switch, this took about an hour and a half. Once they'd completed we attempted to change the SID IDs on the laptops so no network conflict would happen but these imaged laptops will no longer fully read the ghost disc which is needed to change the SID IDs. Even after formatting them with a Windows disc they still hang on reading the ghost disc which is really really strange.

Yesterday Roger brought in a new switch that was actually fast and we were able to ghost all the remaining laptops in one go, taking no longer than 20 minutes to image them all. After that was done all we had to do was change the SID IDs.

All in all it was good and pretty easy apart from the few minor setbacks.

Modified Opera

Here's a screenshot of my Opera 9.5. I've modified Speed Dial to show 20 dial rather than 9. Deleted some buttons and things, re-added the small sidebar button that opens the sidebar and got an awesome theme.

What on earth Microsoft, what on earth.

Windows XP is the best operating system ever made. In my opinion that is and a fair few other peoples. I love it and will use it untill I am no longer able to.

Windows Vista I don't mind. When I was running it I had little to no trouble with it apart from a pretty hefty decrease in my gaming performance. I don't think it's as bad as some people make it out to be although I can see where they are coming from. It's deffinatly not worth the money.

Now Windows 7 is scheduled for release in 2010 to replace Vista. Kind of what happened with Windows ME, it was so poor MS got XP out pretty fast to replace it.

I'm keen to try Windows 7 but after seeing this series of screenshots I don't know what to think. Obviously it's still in development but my god. Take a look for yourself



That.. Had better not be the new WMP. I love WMP for my music, not so much my video as I find WMP Classic to be more reliable. Look how childish and kiddy it looks! It looks like a bath toy not a media player. WMP 11 is fine. Don't fix what isn't broken and WMP 11 is far from broken (I am aware that point could be argued for days but I don't care, this is my blog and obviously it contains my opinion) If I am forced to use this one day I will be begging the creator of Amarok to make a version compatible for Windows as I've used this on Ubuntu and it's a really really really good media player.

The following set of screenshots show the Windows desktop with what could and hopefully will be a different set of themes as they are a bit over the top and not to my like at all.







This next one isn't too bad though. Just needs to tone down on the transparency.



Still I prefer the UI of XP with a nice simple theme and a dock such as the Zune Desktop Theme and RK Launcher.

The new Windows Media Center isn't looking too shabby, pretty nice I think.

I wont be able to make my final judgment on what it looks and performs like untill it's released but I'm really hoping that MS make the UI a bit more normal and try not to rely so heavily on 3rd party applications. Windows is really needing the ability to open and view simple files like a .PDF without a 3rd party app like Acrobat or Foxit. Something even like Preview in Mac OS X would be good..

Images and more from here

Screencast and Intelligence test.

Just finished my screencast before. It's about setting up a Mac with the wireless network at school, will be uploading it tomorrow.

Also just did that intelligence test for IT. Rather random I must say.

Ghoooooooooooooooooooooooooooosting.

Yesterday in IT, Jack Miller a few other people and I ghosted a couple of the Dell laptops for the science class. It was extremely easy. No trouble at all, apart from the ghost server not having network drivers for the d610 laptops, this prevented us from doing all this last week.

All in all, it was really easy and I showed a couple of people how to do it. Woo go me :D

Digital Distribution

Digital distribution is exactly what is sounds like, distributing goods digitally. I'm pretty sure everyone who is going to read this knows what it is and may have even participated in 'legal' digital distribution.

Now I know this is not new at all but some companies, one being Microsoft think this is the key new medium (Personally I think they shifted their beliefs into this gear so quickly due to the fact HD-DVD got annihilated by Blu-Ray)

Well I don't. It's stupid, If I'm going to pay for something I'd much rather have a hard copy of it. I'd much rather have all my games, movies, music and whatever else as physical objects not data on my HDD, why?

1. It uses your bandwith - Internet costs in Australia are pretty expensive so unless you are fairly well off you probably have a rather mediocre plan. Probably something like.. say, 512kbs with anywhere from 5Gb to unlimited downloads. An Internet plan truly not worthy of DD. So if you're someone with a download limit you're either going to get your net shaped to a much lower speed or you're going to find yourself with a massive Internet bill at the end of the month. Imagine downloading a game that are the size of DVDs and sometimes dual layer DVDs. My 'on-peak' limit is 5Gb so I'd be shaped pretty much instantly if I were to download a game. $30 game + $44 for my Internet cost and what do I get? A virtual copy of my game and Internet that crawls along with dial-up for a month? I don't think so.

2. Physical proof - What's better? Having all your games on your HDD? Or having them all in the physical world. I think the latter. Looks better and you can show them off (if you're that type of person) It is generally cheaper to buy the game online but that comes with hassles. On the website Direct2Drive.com you can get Unreal Tournament 3 for $29.92 (I think that may be a special at the time of writing this as the price of $49.95 is crossed out) Be it either of those prices it's cheaper than in stores. If you went to JB, Big W or wherever you go you'd probably be looking at something like $70 through to $100 if you're really unlucky. So imagine your HDD fails and you want to play UT 3 again, have fun downloading it again while I simply re-install it.

Plus when you buy the physical version you get a cool box and maybe a manual. I find manuals are not as common with PC games while being standard in console games. Seriously though I find it hard to actually find the words to describe how much better owning a physical copy is. It's just.. One of those things. Would you rather have a physical dog or a Tamagotchi?

3. The Internet in Australia sucks. Australia's broadband service is among the worlds worst. It's overpriced and with silly bandwith caps I don't see how MS could even think of digital distribution, and that's just Australia. I'd hate to see Internet plans in some lesser developed countries.

I'm sure there are a host of other reasons why DD sucks but these are my main reasons to hate it.

Now, of course we are well off seeing DD as any form of mainstream media distribution and by the time that happens.. If that happens. Things will be different in broadband and telecommunication services.

Links
Wiki
Direct2Drive
MS for DD

Opera Web Browser..

.. Is better than FireFox. Yes, It's much better. In my opinion anyway. Everything about Opera is superior to that of FireFox. With FF you need to download a bunch of 'Extensions' for it to even come close to rivaling Opera in features and usability. In fact, a few of the great features within Opera have been made into extensions for FF.

Speed Dail
Mouse Gestures

These are two great features that Opera comes default with while FF you need to download extions for them. Take note that these extensions were not available untill these features were included in Opera. These two features alone increase the useability of Opera so much. Speed Dial has pretty much rendered the home page obsolete by replacing it with 9 mini-home pages. Mouse Gestures are great, hold down right click and drag your mouse down and your are welcomed with a new tab, hold right click and scroll allows you to scroll through your open tabs. There are many, many mouse gestures you can perform to make browsing that much better.

Integrated mail client, integrated feed reader, spell checker, easy access to dictionary and thesaurus (highlight word > right click > dictionary/thesarus), integrated note taker, bookmarks, widgets, skins/themes, history, kiosk browsing ability, voice browsing and many many other features unique and standard in most browsers make Opera a great browsing experience.

FF is almost as ugly as IE6. I think Microsoft have actually made IE7 look superior for FF, it looks like a browser you would find in 1996.. Netscape. Opera comes with style and beauty allowing you to gaze upon it's majestic grace as your browse your favoured websites.

In a nutshell.. Opera rules. FF sucks.

Download Opera

Cell Broadband Engine

The Cell Microprocessor is a Microprocessor developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba. Development of the Cell started in 2001 with a budget approaching $400 million US.

The Cell contains one power processing element and eight physical SPEs in silicon.

The first major implementation of the Cell was in the Sony Playstation 3 and a few other systems. With the Cell in the PS3 1 SPE is locked out and another is reserved for the OS (Operating System) leaving 6 for gaming.

The application Folding @ Home has been designed for the PS3 to take advantage of the Cell processor and it's power. PS3 users can use the PS3 to fold if they wish. The Cell is more powerful than basically any/if not all desktop processors at the moment so it is a real advantage for F @ H to include it with the PS3.

I can't be bothered writing anymore so click the link below and digest the novel of information that is.

Cell Pocessor Information

MS Training Courses.

MS Training Courses i have completed.

MS Office 2003
Office Security Basics
Add Graphics And Keep Them Where You Want Them
Audio course: So that's how! Great Excel features

MS Office 2007
Keyboard shortcuts in the 2007 Office system
Get to know Excel 2007: Enter formulas
Get started with PivotTable reports in Excel 2007

Graphics from insanity... And the PS3

Games with insane graphics.. Gran Turismo 5 and Crysis.

I'm pretty sure most of the people who read this will be familiar with Crysis and it's oh so amazing graphics. While they are good, I'm thinking GT 5 is getting better and will be better by the time it comes out. Seriously, it's beginning to look crazy.

Gran Turismo 5 

Now, you can't tell me that doesn't look amazing. Because it does. Each car for this game takes 6 months to model.

Crysis

Crysis does look amazing, but. You need a pretty expensive computer to get Crysis running at an acceptable frame rate with an acceptable resolution. With Gran Turismo 5, slide the disc in and become entranced in it's beauty as it is a console game, PS3 to be exact. I own both a computer aimed at gaming and a PS3 so i have the best of both worlds but my 
computer is getting old and frail now, age has taken it's toll upon my once rather powerful machine. 
I mean, it's still worthy even with recent technological advances. Pumping out Bioshock on high, CoD 4 
on high, Crysis on low - med and for some reason MoH Airborne on low... At about 3 FPS. I still deem it fine. 

And within my last sentence, one of the worst problems about PC gaming.. Stupid problems. MoH airbourne 
by no means even rivals Crysis in visual ecstasy but runs like absolute shit on my computer, why? 
Because it's a computer. If i had MoH Airborne on PS3 it would work and it  would run on the best it could. This is one reason i prefer console gaming. There are a lot such as being able to relax when you play a console game, you can just kick back in your chair instead of being half a meter away from your computer screen banishing your eyes into oblivion, everything just works, they are not actually as expensive as people make them out to be and there are a few more but i'm too tired to get into it.

Well that's about it, another game that's shaping up to look promising is Killzone 2

See you all later.

Sony Tank Game

"We've seen videos of Sony's Tank War Demo for the PS Eye before, and they
looked intriguing. But after having a hands-on today, I'm really excited over
the simple tech demonstration.
As long as you position the various elements
of the tank in proper relative positions (tank body middle, treads off to the
side and a turret up top), the software smoothly integrates the design to a
badass killing machine.
After shooting the video, I drew a tank of my own
and was incredibly impressed by the easily digitized product. Because while
we've seen this tank game before on plenty of platforms, playing with your own
customizable character on screen is unbelievably fulfilling. Sure, the first
thing many of us think is perverted drawings cropping up in multiplayer matches,
but watch the vid and you'll realize that the unforeseen potential in the
technology could bring interesting gameplay possibilities—even in a small tech
demo like this one"

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ARTICLE AND WATCH THE VIDEO

This is lush, you have to watch the video to fully embrace this game. This is basically a 'next gen' version of the old top down Tank Wars game, enhanced for the PS3. Being able to draw your tank on a piece of paper and have it appear in the game and to have it fully controllable is really really cool. This feature could be implemented in future games rather well if enough time was put into the thought of it, like maybe an RPG or something. The PS Eye has already been used in a PS3 game called The Eye of Judgment, it's a trading card game where you buy the cards in real life (much like you would with Pokemon or whatever floats your boat) and hold the cards up to the Eye and it then creates a 3D render of the card on the screen and creates the battle and stuff Via the PS3 so you can actually see what's happening. What makes it cooler than what it already is, is the fact that you can play it online with other people around the world using your own deck of cards. 3D head tracking is also possible with the PS Eye. You should watch the video if you don't know what I'm talking about.

The Eye of Judgment

Head tracking with the PS3

IT Dell Laptops

I have finished setting up my Dell Laptop for IT. It was easy and i had no trouble with it. We had to install Microsoft Windows Pro, Firefox and a few other needed applications (Opera is more needed than Firefox) The class also had to set up some old Compaq laptops, a lot of them were stuffed, i went through about 3 and none of them worked which was a tad gay. All in all i had no trouble with the Dell and it is now ready to continue it's epic adventure.