Archive for the 'Cool' Category

mIRC, a quick startup guide. General Use, Downloading, Customization…

Published by
admin
at February 4, 2008 in How to, Applications and Cool. 10 Comments

mIRC Edited logoSo, you have finally found IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and realize that it owns. Its a place where there is always some to talk to, all kinds of topics, and a great place to download files (especially for BitTorrent haters). You might have already found out how to join a server and maybe even how to join a channel…or not. Anyway, I’ve already found IRC and am writing this article to help people on their way to learning how to use it. I’m sure there are all kinds of guides out there for IRC, but I intend to write this one to contain just everything that you will probably use and not all the extra commands. So, lets get started!

.:The Client:.

Ok, first you are going to need a client. I guess you might already have one and all, but considering that you don’t really know how to use IRC yet, you probably don’t know if that client really is any good or not. Thus, it really shouldn’t matter if I make you download another one really quick will it? In my opinion, a great client would be mIRC. It is the most popular client used today in the channel, and has great features. But before you go rush on to Google to download the client, just know that doing this will give you a program without any great add-ons or anything. Then you get to go out everywhere, and try to find the best ones to dl and blah blah blah. Instead, lets just get mIRC with the SysReset script. Here is a link for the full package of SysReset: http://download.sysreset.com/sysreset255.exe

Basically, SysReset has file server capabilities and add-ons for helping you run your own channel, using fancy brackets, handling private messages, and Winamp functions(show playing song and more). It is also the most popular script, making it easier to get help when you don’t know how to do something.

On the Next page, we’ll start with General Use.

Pages: 1 2 3

An E-”Will you marry me?” [over xbl]

Published by
admin
at November 12, 2007 in Funny, Microsoft and Cool. 2 Comments

She said yes.

This news is a bit old, but I thought I’d post it anyway.

A guy with the gamertag Moviesign made a map in Halo 3 and set up what his girlfriend thought was just going to be a 2v2 match. After starting the game, he led her to a spot where he claimed he left an energy sword. “Instead there was a nice top-down view where he had spelled out a proposal in weapons. He then asked her to be his teammate for life.”-Xbox Website

That’s pretty awesome. Would it be mean to put this in my “strange” category?

Comments are good :)

Making everything match (Windows Theme Modification & Websites)

Published by
admin
at November 11, 2007 in How to, Applications and Cool. 1 Comment

(Click Pic for better view)GoogleDarkIf you have downloaded and installed a visual style for windows, you have probably went out seeking to make as much stuff match on your computer to that theme as possible. For example, if you have downloaded a dark theme, you probably want (but not necessarily ) a dark wallpaper to go with it. Or, you could get something to contrast it. Whatever the case, this little tutorial should help you take this desire to coordinate to the next level.

.:Get a matching FireFox theme:.

Before I begin, if you do not have FireFox, get it, and then make sure you follow this tutorial: Speeding Up Firefox

Now, an Internet browser is probably what you use most on your computer, so getting a good theme for it makes perfect sense. You can find themes for firefox here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:2

Note: My personal favorite that goes along with the dark theme I have installed: NASA Night Launch

Now, we can take it to the next level: making pages you commonly visit match your theme.

.:Making webpages match:.

  1. First, go ahead and download the FireFox plugin, Stylish.
  2. After you have installed the plugin, and have restarted FireFox…
    go to a page that you wish to change.
  3. Right click on the Stylish icon in the bottom right-hand corner of firefox(see picture, at http://images.xnr.be/68db967f0cafe3c99e40f70813c50881.png)

  5. Click on Find Styles for This Page.
  6. Click on some of the links and if you like it, press load into stylish. If you download one, and then don’t like it, go into the Manage Styles menu of Stylish. You can either delete it entirely with the delete key, or disable it buy selecting it, pressing the edit button, and Unchecking the enabled box.
  7. Now go to that webpage, and you’ll see it has been changed.
  8. NOTE: if you install some for Gmail, they will probably only work if you use the “Old Version” of Gmail. (As soon as you sign in, at the top there is a button for this)

.:Recommendations:.

Since I’m using a dark theme, I like all the dark ones…

Youtube: http://userstyles.org/styles/1078

Google: http://userstyles.org/styles/1693

Google Images: http://userstyles.org/styles/844

Google Video: http://userstyles.org/styles/845

The Pirate Bay: http://userstyles.org/styles/3296

find your own?? : http://userstyles.org/

You will notice that many of these are more for “improving” a site, rather than making it look better. This is especially helpful when you want to remove some nasty ads on a site you frequent.

Hope you liked this post. Comments are appreciated

Logitech G9 Gaming Mouse

Published by
admin
at August 24, 2007 in Cool, News and Hardware. 1 Comment

Logitech G9Customize your mouse to meet your performance and comfort needs.

Doesn’t that sound nice? Could this finally be a mouse that give comfort and performance, in which both and be modified for your individual needs? Quite possibly. The Logitech G9 Gaming Mouse has got interchangable grips for comfort, and a 3200 dpi laser engine with full-speed USB (up to 1000 reports per second) for performance. Heres an overview ripped right off of Logitech.

Performance

  • Interchangeable Grips: Use the included Wide Load and Precision grips to get a fit and feel that’s best for your playing style. The satin texture and fuller shape of Wide Load add extra comfort while the DryGrip technology plus compact shape of the Precision grip give you unmatched fingertip control.
  • 3200 dpi laser engine with Full-Speed USB: Get uncompromising speed and accuracy from a high-performance Gaming-Grade laser engine—plus instant cursor response with Full-Speed USB (up to 1000 reports/second).
  • Game settings to go: Take your personal mouse preferences with you. The G9 saves mouse settings in onboard memory—store up to 5 profiles (including keyboard macros, dpi settings, and LED color) on the mouse and play your way—without additional software installation*—on any computer.

  • G9 Laser Mouse

    Control

    • MicroGear™ Precision Scroll Wheel: Use Logitech’s exclusive MicroGear™ scrolling technology for precise, click-to-click scrolling—perfect for quick weapon selection. Or switch modes for frictionless, hyper-fast scrolling.
    • Adjustable sensitivity: Shift from pixel-precise targeting to lightning-fast maneuvers without pausing the action. The G9 gives you instant access to multiple sensitivity levels between 200 and 3200 dpi, without driver installation.
    • Weight tuning system: Prefer a heavier or lighter mouse? Use the weight cartridge and up to 28 grams of metal weights to customize your G9 for just the right feel.
    • Polytetrafluoroethylene feet: Super-slick feet glide effortlessly across almost any surface.

    G9 Laser Mouse

    Comfort and Convenience

    • Custom-color LEDs: A color LED display indicates the current sensitivity level and profile settings. Personalize the color LED display by choosing from hundreds of colors.

    More grip styles: Swap out your grip for a new look and feel. In addition to the provided Wide Load and Precision grips, other grip styles are available for purchase.

Its got weights, great dpi for fps gamers, a bit of bling with the lights, and the unheard of interchangeable grips. Finally, maybe I can get a mouse that “fills up” my entire hand! But… I guess we’ll have to wait until sometime in September for this to come out. If you are really psyched about this mouse coming out, you can use this link to sign up for Logitech’s notification service. They’ll email you when the mouse comes out!

Thanks for reading, next up either the new g15 keyboard, or Microsoft’s awesome new Sidewinder mouse!

UHarc, noticeably better compression than winRAR.

Published by
admin
at August 19, 2007 in Cool. 8 Comments

Although winRAR dominates the web today, that is not to say that it is the best compression utility out there. One such example is UHarc.

UHarc is a solid, high-compression 386+ DOS and Windows file archiver with multimedia support. It is written by Uwe Herklotz and is available in binary form, free only for non-commercial use.

Memory requirements depend on the compression method used (e.g., -mz needs less than -mx). Comparisons between WinRAR and UHarc generally show smaller filesizes with UHarc but a relatively substantial increase in decompression time (but much faster than PAQAR4, etc).

The latest beta is 0.6b (01 Oct 2005), but since 0.6a it has completely replaced the 0.4 and older archive headers and is not backwards compatible. There is a known limitation that archives must be smaller than a total of two gigabytes unpacked size, although there are some reports that it is possible to compress a 6gb unpacked sized archive.

Because of the difficulties of using Uharc with the commandline by some people, some GUIs have been created to simplify and allow the use of Uharc through a simple and modern graphic interface.

Wikipedia

As you read above, files compressed with UHarc are smaller than that of those produced when using winRAR. To see this myself, i did a little test.

The Test

For this little test, I found a folder on my hard drive containing 9.00 MB of data. For both winRAR and UHarc, the compression mode was set to Best. I then compressed this same folder individually with each program, and have recorded the file size of the compressed file, and the time it took to do so.

The Results

winRAR - 9.00 MB file compressed in about 4.03 seconds, with the compressed file at 6.93 MB.

UHarc - 9.00 MB file compressed in about 25.27 seconds, with the compressed file at 4.37 MB

So, winRAR beat UHarc by about 21.24 seconds for time-to-compress. However, UHarc topped winRAR by 2.56 MB.

Wait a minute, only a 2.56 MB difference? Well, even though the difference here doesn’t appear to be much, that is just because we compressed a small file to begin with. If, on the other hand, we had compiled a 100 MB file, or a 1 GB file, the differences would be much more significant. To show this, either tonight or tomorrow, I’ll start compressing a large file in both programs, and will post the results. Check back later for the update!

The UHarc program with GUI that I use, is UHARC GUI by Brhack 4.0.0.2. that you can download at http://www.softpedia.com/get/Compression-tools/UHARC-GUI-by-Brhack.shtml

Protected: If Business Meetings Were Like Internet Comments (Computer related humor)

Published by
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at August 19, 2007 in Funny and Cool. Enter your password to view comments

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Wake on lan (WOL). Turning ON your computer remotely

Published by
admin
at June 13, 2007 in Cool. 2 Comments

Ever wanted to come home and have your computer already powered-up, loaded, and ready to go? You could do this by setting up a scheduled Power-ON through BIOS, but maybe you have an erratic schedule…Then what? You could come home at 3:00, or maybe as late as 12:00, and you do not want your computer running needless hours. The solution for you would be the technology known as Wake on LAN (WOL). WOL works like this, when your computer shuts down, some power is reserved for your NIC card (Network Interface Controller). At this point, the controller waits for the “magic packet”. What this is, is a special packet, with some special code, just for your specific card. Upon the arrival of this “magic packet”, the listening computer receives this packet, checks it for the correct information, and then boots if the Magic Packet is valid. You can google if your network card was WOL capabilities, and just about every IBM laptop should have it.

Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake-on-LAN

FlyakiteOSX. Mac emulation, because it looks better.

Published by
admin
at June 13, 2007 in Cool. 1 Comment

Ok, windows is boring. Its not exactly ugly, but its not “uber-cool”. Its kind of “n00b”. Mac OSX on the other hand, it dazzling. With a sleek interface, great color choices, and the sexy dock, many users go on to emulate their windows operating systems to look just like mac. Of course, if you like the interface enough, you could just go out and run Mac OS, but then your life would suck(compatibility issues with everything you want). When I first started applying themes to my desktop, I used windowsblinds, a product of Stardock. It was ok for a while, but many programs would have to be installed to get the Mac look I wanted. So, I found flyakiteosx. Crazy name, but it is awesome. Although many of you have heard about this already (its quite old), you may not have used it before. Basically, it changes everything on your desktop to look like mac (while still keeping it windows of course). It changes the boot screen, the logon screen, the explorer bar, taskbar, everything. It also adds cool things such as the dock, the finder(top bar), and great transitions (such as the shadow effect). All you have to do it run the setup file and everything is done for you, no hassle. Also, if you just cannot get used to the interface, or just do not like it, a simple uninstall will revert it back to how it was before. Try it out!

http://www.flyakiteosx.com

http://www.osx-e.com/ (Mac emulation site)

http://features.engadget.com/2004/06/09/turn-your-pc-into-a-mac/ (Turn your pc into mac)

Microsoft’s Grand Unveiling - Microsoft Surface

Published by
Sabakunoneji
at May 30, 2007 in Microsoft, Cool, News and Hardware. 2 Comments

Today, Bill Gates revealed his latest creation - The Microsoft Surface. With its five special motion-detecting cameras, the Surface responds to the user’s touch, allowing someone to manipulate objects on screen with more freedom than ever before.

What makes this any different from a giant touchscreen? Well, not only can the Surface interact with humans, but it can work with other devices as well. Take a few pictures with a digital camera, and just place it onto the Surface. It’ll read the pictures from the camera, where it’ll load them on screen, allowing anyone to manipulate and edit the pictures with simple hand movements.

The Surface shows many promising applications. It can be used in restaurants, where diners can scroll through an electronic menu, dragging items they want into an ordering “pile” in the center of the screen. After the meal is finished, just throw your credit card onto the Surface and it’ll complete the transaction for you. They’ll be found in department stores, where the placement of an item onto the screen will cause data of the item to be displayed in an interactive menu. Look out for them in hotels and tourists attractions too, where they’ll be showing road directions, tourist hotspots, and more.

The Surface is planned to be available to various businesses by November of this year. If you’d like your hands on it, be ready to wait at least three years for a consumer version. At least this’ll give you plenty of time to save up the $5,000-$10,000 that you’ll have to pay.

Link: Microsoft Surface

Itunes Plus –> DRM free!

Published by
admin
at May 30, 2007 in Applications, Cool and News. 1 Comment

The important stuff:

Apple launched its DRM-free music tracks from EMI’s digital catalog on its iTunes Plus site Wednesday, keeping its promise that it would offer the music files in the month of May.

The DRM-free songs, which feature high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, are offered at $1.29 per song; iTunes will continue to offer its five million-plus songs in 128 kbps AAC encoding at 99 cents a song. Consumers can upgrade previously purchased EMI songs to iTunes Plus tracks for 30 cents a song and about $3 for an album.

Apple noted that iTunes Plus songs can be played on iPods, Mac and Windows computers, and widescreen TVs outfitted with Apple TV technology. The company said the songs can also be played on the Apple iPhone, which is scheduled to launch in late June.

This is great news for Itunes users like me who currently have to take “a long way around” to bypass DRM and play their files on other platforms. Sure its a bit more money, but I may end up buying a couple and see if its really worth it.

Thanks for reading!