Recent Posts

3376

Living Room / Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 16, 2010, 01:55 PM »

Hey guys,

In the next few weeks, I am hoping to find the time to upgrade what has become my main machine since I broke my beast 

Currently...I'm running on:

Onboard Graphics
Onboard Sound
1GB RAM
3.0GHz P4
19" 1080p Screen
Appx 4TB of HDD Space {Internal + External} (Prob the only good thing about this machine lol)


My MOBO doesn't support PCI-e or AGP...gawd knows why, but it doesn't matter much cause i have a gigabyte 7NF-RZ sat in a drawer of my PC table doing nothing and even though its old, it supports AGP, so if not good PCI gfx cards are available, then i suppose ill change my mobo to the GB one lol.


Anyone got any good ideas/links to what I should stick in the machine?

Thanks

-Stephen

 

3377

Living Room / Donationcoder: How did you find it + What has your experience been like so far.

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 15, 2010, 09:27 PM »

Hey guys, was just talking in the Donation Coder IRC Channel and we got to talking about how we all found DC and its awesome forum

So, the question is, how did you find DC, and what do you think of it 

I was brought here by app103, and I LOVE it

3378

Living Room / Re: Stephen's Weekly Tech News - Edition 5

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 15, 2010, 07:02 PM »

@Stephen - thanks again for your hard work to keep a quality Tech News column coming to us regularly!

-40hz (March 14, 2010, 09:16 PM)

Nice news update, thanks for this 

-mouser (March 15, 2010, 01:48 AM)

Thanks for bringing me up-to-date, again!     

-Lutz_ (March 15, 2010, 06:39 PM)

To all the above, Thanks for your support, but, in all honesty, it's not needed.  All I need to see, to be happy, and continue doing it, is a nice view count - Even if the views only hit 10-20, I would still do it, for those 10-20 people who wanted to read it.  (Any readers is a great amount haha)

15 memorable quotes from the Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde

The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde was beamed into a conference room by Skype at South by South West Interactive today to talk to interviewer Elizabeth Stark about the Pirate Bay, his views on copyright and whether the Pirate Bay can ever be fully shut down.

While Sunde was often non-specific about the issues when pressed, he did drop some gems into the interview. Here are 15 of the most memorable quotes from his interview.

On why he didn't personally attend SXSWi:

"If I come to the US I will get so sued that I won't get out of the US for quite a while."

On the threatening letters received from lawyers...Read More...

-Stephen66515 (March 14, 2010, 07:15 PM)

I must admit, I found some of his 'Replies to legal threats' section on TPB rather amusing.

I don't agree with people who say he should be jailed, but I must say, I can't condone a lot of what he says/does.  He seems to live in the knowledge that nobody can touch him, and those who make a 1/2 decent effort, all fail and he will be back online within hours of being shut down! - At the end of the day though, .torrent files contain nothing illegal, its what they LINK to that is illegal (generally), so on that note, hes perfectly OK by me to keep his website up.

Can we really get done for showing people where illegal information is stored?  If so, could Google get done for listing TPB in their search engine?, Could Youtube get done for the amount of music videos (uploaded, and recorded ILLEGALLY) get done? Could any site that remotely mentions, or links to another that contains illegal data, get done?...I could go on and on but I don't want to get in to a huge rant about this!

ICANN delays decision on pornography domain

ICANN has delayed its ruling on the proposed .xxx internet porn domain until this summer.

Today, at its meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, the ICANN board voted to push a decision to its next get-together in Brussels this June, while giving its CEO and chief counsel two weeks to prepare recommendations on how to proceed with the .xxx proposal. These recommendations will then be open to comment for 45 days, the AP reports.
 

In 2005, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - the net's overseeing body - approved a longstanding proposal for a top-level domain dedicated to pornography. But after opposition from various governments - including the US, natch - it went on to...Read More...

I don't see why such a TLD would cause such problems over @ ICANN! - This TLD would certainly make the Internet a much safer place for children and people not wanting to fall across these websites...IMO, .xxx should be FORCED upon any website containing pornographic images/video's/data, and any running on generic TLD's (.com, .co.uk, .net, .info etc...) should be given the option to either A> Move to .xxx, or B> Shut down all its operations.

This should also be used for gambling websites (.GAM) maybe? and any other website we don't want children coming into contact with (Yes, i know...Use Filters and such, but even with that in place you have no such guarantees, if you could simply filter out .xxx and .gam websites then all is good and well with the world)

I agree that some websites will go under the radar, but if .xxx was given to companies for FREE, then why would they have any reason to try go under the radar?

Can a Clown-Nosed Wand Move the Needle for PS3?

Sony put PlayStation 3 fans in a tizzy by whipping out its latest controller, which it calls the "Move." It looks a whole lot like a black version of Nintendo's WiiMote controller, only it's got this big, clown-nose ball on the end of it. That ball actually serves a purpose. The Move's motion is partially registered by a...Read More...

As a huge PS3 fan, and a big follower of Sony, and Sony related products, I should feel bad for saying this, but, meh...I don't...

Seriously, the guys down at Sony need to get a grip on reality and bring us something new, fun, and interesting, rather than re-designing something readily available for OTHER consoles made by OTHER companies YEAR'S ago!

They say that we currently only use 15-18% of the PS3's possible power...so why not bring us something to make use of the 72-75% that we don't already use?!

Gimme 3D gaming, Gimme motion sensors...GIMME SOMETHING FUN

3379

Living Room / Stephen's Weekly Tech News - Edition 5

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 14, 2010, 07:15 PM »

Well...It's been 5 Weeks since I took the reigns on the Tech News section and a lot has happened since I started.

I have had A LOT of great feedback since starting and I must thank you all for your support in my new roles, here on DC!

Anyway, hope you enjoy this weeks edition of your Tech News  

-Stephen


Obama to 'aggressively protect' intellectual property

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama was young, a technology fan, and appeared to be an establishment outsider. For those reasons some techies hoped he might be sympathetic to copyright reform.

Those hopes are fading fast as President Obama appears to have lined up on the side of....Read More...


At SXSWi, Facebook flexes its gaming muscle

AUSTIN, Texas--Facebook envisions its technology as a powerful unifying force in the gaming world, games program manager Gareth Davis said to a packed house of eager coders at the social network's "Developer Garage" event on Sunday afternoon here. The get-together was held as part of the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi), which drew developers and...Read More...


Shuttleworth heir opens up on Ubuntu biz

When you have Mark Shuttleworth as your backer, as commercial Linux distributor Canonical does, it is a bit like having money in the bank when the bank also believes fervently in your cause. It is a rare combination, and one that has allowed the Ubuntu project to reach out from its Linux desktop beginnings into commercial servers - and with the latest releases, cloudy infrastructure - without having the profit pressure that most startups have to deal with as they try to grow.

While Shuttleworth may be the...Read More...


Google '99.9%' certain to pull China search plug

Google is now "99.9 per cent" certain it will shut down its Chinese search engine, according to a report citing "a person familiar with the company's thinking."

The Financial Times reports that the web giant has drawn up detailed plans for closing Google.cn, saying the company's discussions with Chinese authorities reached an impasse. The news came hours after a Chinese minister warned Google that it would "have to bear the consequences" if it stopped censoring results on Google.cn.


On January 12, after alleged Chinese hackers pilfered some sort of intellectual property from the company, Google announced it had decided to "no longer" censor search results in China, saying it would spend "the next few weeks" in...Read More...


ICANN delays decision on pornography domain

ICANN has delayed its ruling on the proposed .xxx internet porn domain until this summer.

Today, at its meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, the ICANN board voted to push a decision to its next get-together in Brussels this June, while giving its CEO and chief counsel two weeks to prepare recommendations on how to proceed with the .xxx proposal. These recommendations will then be open to comment for 45 days, the AP reports.
 

In 2005, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - the net's overseeing body - approved a longstanding proposal for a top-level domain dedicated to pornography. But after opposition from various governments - including the US, natch - it went on to...Read More...


Android Has Enough Class for Opera

Users of Android smartphones now have a new option for browsing the Web: A beta version of Opera Mini 5 was released Thursday for the Linux-based Android platform. New features in the software, which is an upgrade to the current version 4.2, include tabbed browsing, Speed Dial, Opera Link and Download Manager...Read More


Can a Clown-Nosed Wand Move the Needle for PS3?

Sony put PlayStation 3 fans in a tizzy by whipping out its latest controller, which it calls the "Move." It looks a whole lot like a black version of Nintendo's WiiMote controller, only it's got this big, clown-nose ball on the end of it. That ball actually serves a purpose. The Move's motion is partially registered by a...Read More...


All Your Apps Are Belong to Apple: The iPhone Developer Program License Agreement

The entire family of devices built on the iPhone OS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) have been designed to run only software that is approved by Apple—a major shift from the norms of the personal computer market. Software developers who want Apple's approval must first agree to the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement.

So today we're posting the "iPhone Developer Program License Agreement"—the contract that every developer who writes software for the iTunes App Store must "sign." Though more than 100,000 app developers have clicked "I agree," public copies of the agreement are scarce, perhaps thanks to the prohibition on making any "public statements regarding this Agreement, its terms and conditions, or the...Read More...

Thanks to 40hz for linking me to this story


Sniffing Out an HTML5 Conspiracy

Should the next version of HTML, the Web standard that embodies how pages are laid out and constructed, include explicit specifications for inline, 2-D dynamic graphics? There's valid arguments on both sides. One side believes that the ability to plot charts and animations would have been part of the original HTML standard anyway, had the technology existed on the back end in the beginning; giving HTML 2-D graphics now, they say, plugs a hole left open for too long. Another believes the...Read More...


15 memorable quotes from the Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde

The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde was beamed into a conference room by Skype at South by South West Interactive today to talk to interviewer Elizabeth Stark about the Pirate Bay, his views on copyright and whether the Pirate Bay can ever be fully shut down.

While Sunde was often non-specific about the issues when pressed, he did drop some gems into the interview. Here are 15 of the most memorable quotes from his interview.

On why he didn't personally attend SXSWi:

"If I come to the US I will get so sued that I won't get out of the US for quite a while."

On the threatening letters received from lawyers...Read More...

Video of The Week

Thanks to mouser for the video to celebrate 'Pie Day'

Got a story you feel needs sharing with the world? Submit it to me via PM and, after approval and verification, I will happily add it to next weeks Tech News!

3380

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: [Freeware] BatchBlitz - batch process digital photos

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 12, 2010, 08:03 PM »

 

3 Thumbs up for this software, Thanks you VERY much

3381

Living Room / Wanna win yourself £100,000 for breaking something?

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 12, 2010, 07:58 PM »

http://www.playthefuture.co.uk/

3382

Living Room / Re: First compelling reason to switch to Windows 7

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 12, 2010, 06:02 PM »

This is the first really compelling reason I have seen for switching from XP to Windows 7:

http://arstechnica.c...fun-for-xp-users.ars

-xtabber (March 12, 2010, 05:44 PM)

Solution: Buy older HDD's =]

3383

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 11, 2010, 05:19 PM »

If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue

This shows no sign of being bothered that their ads consume our bandwidth, distract our attention and give us nothing we want in return.

If you never click on the ads, even when you see them, there's absolutely no point in wasting bandwidth (both ways) by having them onscreen. So the argument isn't really about whether the ads are blocked but whether they produce enough revenue, and there's an assumption that adblockers will be clickers if only they could see the ads. I suppose the next stage, if there isn't enough ad revenue after eliminating adblockers, is to make bigger more intrusive ads or to ration pageviews to users who click often enough.

-Dormouse (March 11, 2010, 05:15 PM)

"Please click on 5 of the links below to get to the section you originally wanted to see"

I can see, and feel it coming...it's already a fundamental piece of some websites I have had the misfortune of stumbling across.

3384

Living Room / Re: is there CHINESE in this form??

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 06:48 PM »

Wow... I can't imagine what kind of crap will show up if you translate a forum to Chinese?? I've tried in French before... You might as well not have a translation.

-patrinac (March 10, 2010, 05:27 PM)

Works fine in greek

3385

Living Room / Scalpel + Pen + Excess Food + Bordom = Some funny end results

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 06:38 PM »

Now, I must stress, none of this work is mine.

I got them from a chain mail letter (my mother insists on sending me useless stuff every single day, and for once, she finally sent something of interest!)

So, here are the end results lol

3386

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 05:55 PM »

Flattr? Saw it, wasn't impressed. It's interesting but not what I'm looking for. The concept is unique, but it's too different and difficult to grasp to see wide adoption.

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (March 10, 2010, 05:39 PM)

How about one like here on DC? (I can see Lashiec's post going completely off topic now lol)

3387

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 05:09 PM »

When oh when will a good micropayments system come around?

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (March 10, 2010, 05:05 PM)

Flattr

3388

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 04:18 PM »

In any case, to me the whole situation is simple. Like the site? Get on with the program. You don't like the site or the program? You're free to do what you want. Making things more complex would only throw everyone into a rat race, and I think we already have enough with music, films and now books and videogames. You can extract several lessons from those fields to know how to improve your current business and make your readers happy at the same time.

-Lashiec (March 10, 2010, 04:14 PM)

Agreed...If people block, let them, if they dont, oh well, but dont punish those who like ad-free experiences.  If you don't like that, then put your premium content locked behind paid membership areas.

3389

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 04:04 PM »

My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content. It can also put sites into a real advertising death spin. As ad revenues go down, many sites are lured into running advertising of a truly questionable nature. We've all seen it happen. I am very proud of the fact that we routinely talk to you guys in our feedback forum about the quality of our ads. I have proven over 12 years that we will fight on the behalf of readers whenever we can. Does that mean that there are the occasional intrusive ads, expanding this way and that? Yes, sometimes we have to accept those ads. But any of you reading this site for any significant period of time know that these are few and far between. We turn down offers every month for advertising like that out of respect for you guys. We simply ask that you return the favor and not block ads.

His argument is simple, yet completely wrong.

How can a website, not having advertisements affect its quality?  I personally know plenty who do not run ad's and it doesn't affect them, sometimes ads are highly irritating (like: Watch this video, but we are going to FORCE you to watch a 5 minute clip about kids in Africa), Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for giving third world country's money, but, just like the comments in the quote, its completely irrelevant and not a good argument.

He seriously needs to get a grip on reality.

Advertisements do not make a place good, and can only ever make a place bad (not ALWAYS, only usually)

DC has NO ads, is completely VOLUNTARY DONATION driven, and has some of the best content (IMO) on the Internet.

3390

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 03:52 PM »

This has been a long time coming.  Sites are getting annoyed that they get paid on a 'per view' basis, and nobody is viewing their popups.

Personally I dont have any addon software to block popup's for me, but Opera does a pretty sweet job (hence me not having external software to do it).

Seemingly, we are going to get punished for not viewing the ads...

If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue

Nobody ASKED you, nor FORCED you to provide us with information, so stfu moaning and get on with your life.  You wont be missed by me if I get blocked from using your website ^_^

Whats next?  We going to get an electric shock when we go make a coffee during TV show Ad Breaks?

3391

Living Room / Re: Stephen's Weekly Tech News - Edition 4

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:48 AM »

Thank you for this compilation!

-housetier (March 07, 2010, 10:40 AM)

Always a pleasure

3392

Living Room / Re: This Car Runs on Code

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:46 AM »

The F-22 is an absolutely AWESOME piece of technology.
Unfortunately, it has proven to be too expensive to build.  So the program will be shutdown.   

-parkint (March 09, 2010, 09:03 PM)

(see attachment in previous post)
Sorry, it was the first thing I thought of. 

-app103 (March 10, 2010, 10:35 AM)

LMFAO, Could you imagine the look on the pilots face, if he looked down to see THAT on the monitor! 

3393

Living Room / Re: Will you miss newspapers when they're gone?

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:45 AM »

Some kid in the future is going to end up with anarchy t-shirts, stuff decorated with Miley Cyrus, a bunch of bad punk CD's, and a heap of zombie & vampire related books.

What the heck is going to go through their mind when they see that stuff for the first time?

-app103 (March 10, 2010, 09:26 AM)

Possibly something along the lines of "WTF???" 

-40hz (March 10, 2010, 10:44 AM)

Well, depending on how de-sensitized they are

3394

Living Room / Re: Speaking Of: Torrent Sites

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:40 AM »

Might it work for companies, which need to transfer different files and stuff all the day?
Please note, that this doesn`t happend only inside the company, so network-drives wont work.
If we leave out Ftp-servers, how would it work with torrents then?

-RedPillow (March 09, 2010, 03:44 PM)

Companies that use BitTorrent? You may want to ask Blizzard. They've got a little side-project going right now that uses BitTorrent to deliver updates. It's called World Of Warcraft. Don't know if everyone's heard of that program yet, though. 

-Innuendo (March 10, 2010, 09:42 AM)

 

What an interesting fact, I have never thought that! :O

How about those japanese mmorpg-copies?

-RedPillow (March 10, 2010, 09:48 AM)

I know of at least 12 different games companies, who offer their download via BT, and also offer every update to be downloaded in BT format.

Asides from this, there are also multiple audio and software vendors who choose to do the same thing.  Bandwidth is saved, money is saved, and this reflects (sometimes) on the end price of a product, because the community is gathering together to provide the vendor, its downloads.

3395

Living Room / Re: Pirate vs. Paying Customer illustrated

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:35 AM »

Actually I used to "pirate" my legally bought DVDs

-CheckUserFirst (March 10, 2010, 11:25 AM)

I still do, and my PC games as well, mainly because I like to have a digital copy on my computer, but I own DVD versions for a few reasons:

1: Piracy is against the law, but there are no laws about having an illegal version of a game when you own a legit copy, so long as the legit copy the same version as the copy you have downloaded.

2: I don't want to, now, or ever, go fully digital with my game and DVD purchases.  I would much rather have a huge collection of Games/DVD's/CD's that friends and family can browse through at their leisure if they wish to borrow something.  Also, not wanting to go digital is also about having a hard copy of the game, and its contents (Booklet, Instruction Manual etc...) because I feel this brings 'owning it' more to life.

3. Going fully digital stops my ability to be able to just install a game at my leisure, play it, and uninstall, without ever having to go online.  Some people are on limited connections (I am on mobile broadband with only allows me 500mb of data transfer a day) and that stops us from downloading games at 4-8GB each.

4. I don't like companies such as steam, who offer single-player, offline only games, yet FORCE you to be online while playing.  They also (I don't know about the latest version of steam, I now refuse to ever own it again) punish you for losing internet connection.  What I mean by this, is, if you unexpectedly lose your connection for any reason, while steam is in ONLINE mode, you CANNOT get to your games.  You have to be ONLINE to turn the damn thing to OFFLINE.

I could go on, but I think I would just be ranting if I did! 

3396

Living Room / Re: Watch a game instead of playing it - NextgenWalkthroughs.com and others?

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:26 AM »

Pretty awesome website, but I have had to stay away from a few of the game videos on there because i am determined to try the games out first hand.  But I can say, the videos for COD and BF:BC are brilliant, I have played both these games and they are totally represented in what the videos show 

3397

Living Room / Re: Browser Wars: Why did you choose yours?

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 10, 2010, 11:24 AM »

I've tried Safari and: "Dude, I'm like totally unimpressed."

-40hz (March 05, 2010, 03:13 PM)

I could not agree with anything more.  Last time I installed Chrome it was purely for testing ONE website, within 3 minutes of installing it, I had a complete system crash (Windows 7) which, when I looked in to it, was caused by a huge memory leak coming from Chrome.  Now, I cannot specifically say that Google Chrome is a bad egg, but I can certainly say, you would be better off without it, and if you do use it, make sure you keep an eye on its memory usage.

3398

Official Announcements / Re: March 2010 Discounts and Giveaway Drawing

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 09, 2010, 12:21 PM »

Mouse, if you want, ill compile a list and contact all the companies to ask if the discounts are still available, if they are/or not in some cases I will let you know which to remove/keep.

3399

Living Room / Re: MMORPG Players - What Games do you play + Plug for Myth of Soma Server

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 08, 2010, 07:55 PM »

I swore I would never play another MMORPG again. The amount of time I have spent on those things gives me the shivers thinking about it. A few years ago I decided I wanted to learn to play the guitar. I haven't spent much time on it, so I am not very good. If I spent a fraction of the time I spent playing MMORPGs practicing the guitar, my god, I would be awesome.

-Tekzel (March 08, 2010, 06:26 PM)

I understand, I Sympathize, I feel the exact same, apart from one thing...Im not that bad @ guitar, but if i focused more, id prob be 1000x better haha

3400

DonationCoder.com Newsletters / Re: Newsletter for March 8th, 2010 - "March Madness"

« Last post by KynloStephen66515 on March 08, 2010, 03:46 PM »

Nice 1 Darwin