A Cat

I just found this too...I just couldn't not post it

By richius at 2009-12-29

XBMC 9.11

Well, it was another boring day in the old homestead so I did what I usually do when I'm bored out of my mind and browsed over to lifehacker.com

Now lifehacker has been a particularly favorite pit-stop of mine since my days as an intern at BDO. There's always at least one decent post to read and expand from.

So when I saw the post about the XBMC update, I didn't hestiate to head on over and download it for my home media Center

(which I am proud to say now includes a 37" Full-HD Samsung LCD TV connected via HDMI to my PS3 for all that 1080p HD glory!!)

Ahem...too many acronyms in that sentence...

anyway, so yeah...I downloaded the thing and IT WAS BEAUTIFUL...


since they apparently switched directX it is faster, sweeter and all around better than anything I expected to get out of that old computer of mine, but...and thats a big BUT


...It didn't play video...I KNOWWWWWWWW!!!

I mean that's the point of the whole exercise, isn't it?? What good is a media center that doesn't play video...

So I check the forums and apparently this bug has been around since November! and there is no fix!

So I try my best, update drivers, play around with directX..nothing works

So I give in and try to reinstall the old version, but wait...there's a catch

The new install effed up my library, It can't display movies and shows properly with thumbs and synopses and fanart...

By this time I'm sacred out of my mind...I remember how long it took me to compile that stupid library in the first place...but no matter what I do it doesnt work...and I have to uninstall my previous profile, install the old version of xbmc (AGAIN) and compile the library from scratch...which is what I have been doing for the last 5-6 hours

So the moral of the story boys and girls...is always backup your crap!

had I exported my library before I made the update I would not have been in this position...


C'est la vie

MM

Darkly dreaming dexter

So I just finished reading this novel, the first novel of the dexter series by jeff lindsay which is the basis of the popular TV series of the same name.

In fact, the fourth season just ended two days ago and I have to say, it was fan-freaking-tastic. I don't usually like to quote other bloggers out there in the blogsphere, but i really DO love how the show "operates outside my comfort zone".

I have to say though that when this season started I thought it was the worst season yet, but it really started to pick up in the last few episodes. I can even tell you the exact moment it miraculously transformed, for me, it was the instant you find out about Arthur's connection to Christine hill, the reporter, it was a classic Dexter twist that put everything up to that point in a new light.

And how about that ending folks, I truly did not see that one coming, and although I'm usually all for killing off main characters if it benefits the storyline, I can't help but feel a little sad to see that particular character die...


Anyway, back to what I was saying, I just finished reading the novel and I have to say...I didn't like it!!!

It kind of ... well ... it sucked!

I didn't care at all for any of the two dimensional characters portrayed in the novel. There was barely any character development, heck there was hardly any plot development.

But that could be coming from the fact that I already watched the show before reading the book.

Characters that seemed alive and entertaining in the show suddenly became dead and uninteresting, Angel Batista - sad, lonely, looking for love after his wife left with his daughter became Batista-no relation which means less than squat to me since I have zero knowledge of Cuban history.

FYI: Fulgencio Batista was the Cuban president and dictator before the whole Fidel Castro and the Cuban revelation thingy...hey don't look at me...I barely know my own country's history!

back to the subject at hand...and what the F is with all the stupid fart jokes Dexter keeps making?

I mean once was funny, twice was ok, but he just keeps repeating them with a new line every few chapters...not funny.

The only character I enjoyed in the book was captain Mathews which was a surprise since I never really cared for him in the series. I loved his straightforwardness and Dexter's funny comments about him like how he has such a diverse vocabulary due to writing police reports for many years.

and the book did explain some of the quirks the detective LaGuerta character - she wasn't a lieutenant in the book- displayed in the first season.

Her mannerisms always felt a little weird for me in that first season and didn't really make a lot of sense given how the story turned out. Its like they started out by trying to make her closer to her book counterpart, but then they suddenly changed their minds. So now I know.

Overall I'm glad I didn't pay the BD 6.800 for this book at "the bookstore" or is it the "bookshelf"? anyway its that place in Budaya or the BD 5.400 in Jashenmal for this piece of crap writing.

I may just read the other books of the series out of respect to the show and also I want to see how the dark passenger turns out to be the spirit of some diety. Yes, that was a spoiler and I read it in the reviews on amazon so you get to read it too!!!

Most people seemed to think that he just turned the genre around last minute, but knowing that I think he made it pretty clear in the first book where he was heading with this dark passenger crap.

Anyway, this was my rant for the day...hopefully someone will read it and benefit from it somewhere.

Later

~MM

10 things I love about my new Nokia E72

1. Control my downloaded torrents

Using Utorrent WebUI mini I can check download rates and add new torrents remotely so I can download anything I want before I get back and have it ready by the time I’m home. Its this tiny add on that you download to utorrent after you activate WebUI in the preferences which adds a phone compatible webpage to the WebUI GUI
I love checking my speed and ratios on the go!!


2. Search!!

I loved the search function on my old E61i and now the new E72 makes it even better!
Instead of wading through 5000 messages the search function makes it easy to find the one you want. You can also search media, contacts and your calendar for whatever you want. The new search function is more refined and easier to navigate not to mention significantly faster. I love having it on my standby screen ready at a moment’s notice.

3. Check weather, time, exchange rates, news, flights and email.

The phone has the wonderful “world traveler” software preinstalled and preset email configurations for Nokia’s OVI mail, Gmail and Windows live hotmail among others. This makes setting up your email as simple as typing in your login and password.

Plus now that they actually got the phone to work automatically with gmail I don’t have to wait for the phone to download ALL my emails before I can read them. This was a royal pain with my e61i and I’m glad they fixed it.


4. The OVI store

Ok, I don’t really love this cheap imitation of apple’s app store, but Its still nice. The way everything is presented, its easy to find what you’re looking for and downloading and installing is much simpler and much faster thanks to the improved processor inside the phone

5. I love me some Active notes!!!!

Anyone who knows me can tell you how terrible my memory is, and that is exactly why “Notes” has always been one of my favorite applications in the Nokia E61i. And now they’re even better!
I always use notes when I’m driving around town trying to find the best deals on different products, or I want to leave myself a reminder to check out a new movie, game or restaurant. The fact that they are only text never really bothered me till I saw what you could do with the new and improved “active notes”.

Now you can add images, phone numbers, files that are stored on your phone and you can even link them to a contact so they display when you make or receive a call from that contact number!!

Who wouldn’t want to see “Don’t forget to buy her this necklace on your anniversary in September” accompanied by a picture of the aforementioned necklace when they get a call from their significant other??

6. Dictionary
Now who can honestly tell me they didn’t wish they had a dictionary in their phone!! I love the way the Finnish think!!

7. Wirelessly plug into my Upnp network at home

There was this wonderful new addition to symbian devices which I stumbled upon when I first got my new E72 called home media that can access media servers on your network. Now I can share new media from my phone and stream music to my phone from my laptop, PS3 and TV media Center!!
This is amazing all I have to do is pick whatever I want to listen to and it plays it perfectly directly on my phone! I can’t get it to play movies on my phone yet, but I have yet to try real media files. I’ll post an update If I find a way to do it.



8. One touch keys

Although you no longer have that wildcard key that you had on the E61i, with four quick access keys to the menu. Calendar, contacts and email exchange (which you can reconfigure if you are so inclined) you now have the two application keys free to set to whatever you need.

I have mine set to camera and active notes. In addition to the 6 standby applications I can access anything I want with fewer click than ever before.

9. Flashlight, Bluetooth and silent keys

The e61i didn’t have a camera flash (or autofocus for that matter) so you couldn’t use it as a flashlight which you can do by simply pressing the spacebar on the E72.

You also had to memorize the Blue arrow + ctrl combination to activate/deactivate your Bluetooth connection. Now you have a single clearly marked key to perform this action.

And of course you can switch your phone to silent mode by pressing and holding “ctrl” which you could also do with older models albeit with a different key, but now it is clearly marked and you don’t need to look through the manual to know about it.

10. Predictive calling

Instead of remembering numbers you can simply type in names and the phone will automatically display possible contacts. For example if you want to call “John Doe” you can simply type the name on the keyboard and you can make the call!

Amazing stuff!! I really love this new device and this new OS. I cant wait to see what else they come up with in the future.

C'est la vie...

I still haven't gotten around to finish the third episode of the media center series although I've been using the system for months now. I just have more important things to consider at this time...

Its called finding me a job and its driving me insane, I've basically cut off everybody who continuously asks me how the job hunt is going! It's become really annoying and embarrassing to say the least. Don't get me wrong I appreciate the sentiments and I have had calls and interviews, but the gears seem to be moving slower than a 56k connection!

If I compare my job seeking situation to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief where a person passes through

• Denial (this isn't happening to me!)
  
• Anger (why is this happening to me?)
  
• Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
  
• Depression (I don't care anymore)
  
• Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)

I would have to say I am in a transitional period between depression and acceptance.

So as part of my acceptance phase I think I'll satisfy myself by waking up every morning to a nice healthy breakfast, an annoyingly cold shower, an hour of exercise and a few sent CVs.

and after a bird sized portion of a lunch I'll sit back and watch my shows!

Indeed a good life, n'est-ce pas?

So to celebrate this occasion I'm doing one of my famous reviews the shows I'm currently watching

So...

SHOWS

• White Collar (Fridays)
  

I finally saw the pilot of this interesting show yesterday. I have to say that I was pleasantly amused by the show which I thought would be just another civilian/cop show (bones, castle, the mentalist, etc...) which seem to have dominated the screen as of late.

Nothing really stands out in the show, the civilian character "Neal" seems to be more lucky than smart relying heavily on his criminal contacts and pure luck to get the job done. Maybe that's not completely a bad thing...god knows if I've learned anything these past few months its not what you know its who you know!

The characters are definitely likable, however I would really like to see Neal's actual talents come into play in the coming episodes.

Bottom line: Recommended

• StarGate Universe (Fridays)
  

Okay, I've never been a fan of the StargGate franchise. I liked the original 1994 movie, but I could never really get behind any of the series. So when I was thrown into the StarGate Universe umm.. universe I was a little confused, but a couple of minutes on the SG wiki cleared things right up.
You don't really need to be an SG expert to follow the series just know that humanity through the stargate program was able to finally master faster than light travel "FTL" and although you only need seven symbols to operate a stargate they found a code with nine symbols that takes them to an ancient spaceship during one of their trips.

The show is quite good and so far it's been concentrating more on the characters rather than the actual journey which is nice. There are however, some quirks in the show that i find annoying. For example, in the first episode they said that the ship itself has some supplies that were "not to be touched". Now considering that the crew brought no supplies and are plagued by disasters due to that issue wouldn't it be prudent to at least check those crates at some point? Also they make a point of telling the audience how huge the ship is and how they only occupy a fraction of the available space. Why are they not exploring the ship yet??

In any case I would really like to see these issues addressed in the comping episodes.

Bottom Line: very recommended

Thats it for new shows this season. As for returning classics you have the ever popular

• House (Mondays)
• Castle (Mondays)
  
• Two and a half men (Mondays)
• Little mosque on the prairie (Mondays)
• Dexter (Sundays)
• Merlin (Saturdays)
• Nip/Tuck (Wednesdays)

Other new shows that are out, but I didn't feel deserved to be on the list include:

• Hank
• The middle
• Modern Family featuring Ed O'Neil (Al bundy from married with children)
  

How I built my own media center (Episode 2 of 3)

If you thought that spending my days jumping from place to place looking for the best priced components was the hardest part of setting this up…you’d be wrong!!

I spent countless hours downloading and trying out different media center software to find the best software and configurations that work with my hardware. Not to mention all the trouble I got into for focusing too much on the project and forgetting the people around me.

Now for the software I focused on three main points

• Stability – I needed something that would work without a lot of hiccups that would force me to switch back to keyboard and mouse input in windows XP.
  
• Speed – Now back in the day this computer was a beast. It would eat up any game you would throw at it and spit it out like it was nothing, but time was not kind to my old beast and these days it can barely boot without me being there holding its hand. So I needed something that would leave enough resources for the computer to do its thing.
• Price. – This was the most important factor. I was not about to pay for my software! It had to be free!
  

Now as a windows user, my options were rather limited. Especially since Batelco was so kind as to cap my speed to 56k before I even got to Bahrain for not paying!! How the hell was I going to pay with me out of the country!

Even as a 256k user I was having a little trouble downloading the software. Damn those corrupted downloads!!

Anyway, I narrowed my choices down to 3

Sesam TV – Small download size easy to work with and all the remote buttons worked except for fast forward and rewind. Unfortunately it also has a problem playing DVDs since it doesn’t come with its own decoders and for some reason it can’t access the codecs installed on my system correctly. These issues proved to be tiresome to fix so I switched to my next choice.
MediaPortal – Now this is an Excellent open source media center with great support. The remote worked like a charm without much configuration and it played everything I fed it. There were only two problems with this software.

• The download was a bitch! The installer (25 megabytes) needs dot net framework 3.5 (231 megabytes) to work which requires windows installer 3.1 to install (smaller download). After 6 hours of downloading the dot net framework twice! I had to use utorrent to fix the corrupted download which was an even bigger hassle because there weren’t any seeds around!
  When I was finally able to get a working copy of Microsoft dot net, I found that the media portal installer needed to download another 4-6 components depending on whether or not you have them on your system. This was just unacceptable, but I stayed with it because I knew I was getting a quality media center (I had tried media portal before on y laptop).
  
  
• The second problem was speed. The thing was just too damn slow. It had to initialize everything at the beginning and playing videos would take forever.
  

This led me to my last hope

XBMC – I had tried xbmc once before, but didn’t find it to my taste. I don’t really remember why. Whatever it was, the new version works like a charm. Some of the buttons on the remote like the play/pause and stop buttons don’t respond, but you could work around that easily as I will explain below and it comes with 3 different themes and unless you’re using a brand new HD television for this setup I recommend the mediastream skin since the fonts are more legible and if you’re connected to the internet you can get those nice show and episode synopses, If they’re named correctly.

With that you can move on to other aesthetics.

First of all I recommend you download:

Bootskin which is a nice little application that changes your windows boot screen for free. (You know, that ugly black loading screen with the windows logo you get when you start windows). You can download different boot screens from www.wincustomize.com.

You can also change your logon screen with

logon studio, but I don’t have a password setup since I want the media center to load with as little human interaction as possible so this doesn’t really affect me.

I also downloaded some nice Icons to replace the default windows XP setup,

I also chose a desktop wallpaper to go with the overall theme, removed all unnecessary icons from the desktop (I only left the recycle bin and one Misc. folder for quick access).

Icons for Full and empty Recycle bin and Misc. Folder

Note that you can access My computer directly using the remote.

The last episode of this series will be dedicated to configuration and setup of the media center.
Which requires that you have windows media player 11 or higher installed on your system.

How I built my own media center (Episode 1 of 3)

The media Center project has been on my list for two years now. It started out as a home-made PVR project, but in time I found that to be a bit infeasible. The thing with a PVR is that you really have to find a reliable guide if you want to automate anything, which I am sad to say, does not exist in the region. Anyway. All the good shows can’t be watched here anyway since they’re

• Late
• Usually, they are out of sequence
• I download mine an hour and a half after they air through IRC and torrents (Commercial Free and sometimes encoded nicely in HD)

HD is also a pain in the butt, none of the channels here air in HD and it’s almost impossible to find a DVB satellite card anywhere in the kingdom – trust me, I looked -. So the best that you can hope for is converting your digital signal to analogue using a regular TV card and losing some quality in the process.

Anyway, I finally settled for buying a cheap new dish with a free to air channel receiver for BD 38 instead.

SO here are the hardware components of the media center:

• Old desktop computer AMD 2000 Athalon XP processor with the NVIDIA 4200 TI 8x graphics card with S-video output.
  
  Price - Free!
  This actually cost me quite a bit back in the day and I also had to change the power supply and motherboard to fit it (Crazy I know), but it shouldn’t be that expensive now and any video card will work as long as it has a video out so you can connect it to the TV.
  

• One S-video to RCA adapter and cable
  
  Price - Free!
  I got this with the graphics card. You can also probably get one from radio shack or you can get an S-video to RCA cable instead. They all work the same way and they shouldn’t be too expensive. You can use any composite rca cable to connect to the adapter.
  
  
  
  
• One 3.5mm stereo jack to RCA cable
  
  Price – Also free.
  I got this with an old CyberShot Digital Camera. You can get the two jacks one, but those inputs are usually in front of the TV and I wanted this one to be hidden and only work on the video channel.

• Digital sattalite dish and receiver - Arabsat, Nilesat and Hotbird
  
  Price - BD 38 including installation
  

• One External hard disk (1 Terabyte of space). You can use the internal hard disk of course, but out of the two hard disks I have installed in my computer I have a fried 40 gig drive that fails on boot and I had to bypass its initialization completely in order to get the computer to run unassisted and the other is a puny 120 gig that I would fill up in 14 minutes if I tried.
  
  Price - $169 Canadian
  I have a LaCie Hard Disk designed by Neil Poulton 1TB USB 2.0 - 7200RPM that I bought last year. Sharaf DG in Bahrain had an offer on a nice I0mega with one Tera of space for about BD 40 a while back so I wouldn’t pay more than that.
  

• One PC remote controller. This was a really hard to find here in Bahrain. I spent an entire day looking for this before I found it at colors 2000 while going to see a movie in Seef Mall with friends.
  
  Price - I got the nice looking one for BD 7.5.
  They have another one for BD 6.5, but it doesn’t look that pleasing to the eye and it doesn’t have that nice analogue stick to control the mouse which I found to be extremely useful.
  

• One Wireless-G router. I personally connected My old 3com wireless router to the computer using an Ethernet cable that I had since it doesn’t have WIFI capabilities, but you can get a Buffalo USB wireless adapter for around BD 10 at Sharaf DG.
  
  Price - Free. I had this for a while. I don’t remember how much it cost to be honest and I didn’t bother checking. Given a choice I would actually go with one of the new N routers instead of the G and connect it using an Ethernet cable to both the Playstation 3 and the computer since it gives better speed and connectivity.
  

Note – Don’t Pay more than BD 12 for a wireless adapter.

Optional -

I also connected my Playstation 3 to the network wirelessly. It has excellent capabilities and another 80 gigs of storage on the network can’t hurt.

Total Price I paid for this setup minus optional and pre-owned components

BD 45.5

And thats the end of episode 1! I’ll write another post to explain the software I used and to show you how to connect everything together, but this should be enough to get everyone started :D

Good luck and happy streaming!!

All hail the new Sam-mobile!!!! :D:D:D

I have to say...When I first got this car I wasn't too excited..
I really wanted a nice dark titanium 2009 dodge charger...

But!!! beggars cant be choosers and after staring at this things for many hours, I have to say that I think that I'm going to love this car!!!
So to all of you who think that you can do better ... YOU CAN KISS MY A$$!!!

I love my shiny new blue Camry...

And now you can love too ... (Insert Evil laughter here)

Hottest PS3 Games coming in 2009

Now We all know that I'm one heck of a PS fan, but some of these titles are just too good to be true.

If you didn't think you'd love to have a PS3 before, just check out the trailers for God Of War III and Bayonetta on youtube.. AND DONT YOU DARE NOT WATCH THEM IN HD!!!

GOD....I think I'm in love....

The 10 Hottest PS3 Games to Be Released in 2009 | Unigamesity

The 10 Hottest PS3 Games to Be Released in 2009

Jan 26th, 2009 at 2:47 pm | By Calin |

Today we continue our preview of the year ahead – we’ve already looked at the 10 hottest PC games to be released in 2009, and now it’s time for the PS3 titles to be analyzed. As I was saying, this year will be a great one for video game fans, since we’re having an impressive bunch of very promising titles announced and, to be honest, I found it really hard to choose just 10 games since other highly promising titles like Borderlands, MAG, The Agency or Batman had to be left out. (And no, I did not forget about FFXIII which can’t be included since it only comes in 2010). But enough talking! Let’s check out the 10 hottest games to be released in 2009 for PS3 systems:

10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II – it’s clear that Activision will have a tough competition this year for their upcoming Modern Warfare title, but this doesn’t mean that people will simply forget about it. Its predecessor turned the franchise into a real legend and, since it’s still one of the most popular multiplayer games, we have to place it on the list. The fact that it’s just at number ten just proves how promising other upcoming PS3 games are this year!

9. Bayonetta – there are still pretty few details about this upcoming title, but what we know so far is enough to make us want much more. Because we have a hot heroine to start with, who fights against monsters looking like angels and, as the cherry on top – she has guns in her boots, which means that combat sequences will be like nothing we’ve seen before. However, since Bayonetta is created by the man behind the Devil May Cry series, we truly hope that it won’t become yet another pointless button mashing title…

8. Prototype – shapeshifting, superman-like abilities, all sorts of disguise techniques and stealth options – these are just the things to get you started when it comes to Prototype. Add to that a general mass destruction (initiated by the player), fast paced gameplay and absolutely impressive visuals, and you have a GOTY candidate. Oh, yes, this has a cherry on top, too: it’s a sandbox type of game, which means that GTA could finally get a worthy adversary. We’ll see when the game is released to the public, but until then, you can check some Prototype videos!

7. inFamous – another sandbox-styled game that will only be available for PS3 owners this time. It will be a really electric game which allows players to be either heroes or anti-heroes – either way, having fun with their super-powers in a city that never sleeps, nor lacks action. The game is being developed by Sly Cooper creators Sucker Punch, which doesn’t really help the violent inFamous, but every company has to start somehow…

6. I Am Alive – one of my favorite upcoming games (since I am a sucker for Lost, Surviver and all similar shows) and possibly one of the biggest and most pleasant surprises of 2009. The game started pretty strong with an impressive trailer which I urge you to check out, proving that Ubisoft Montreal might have learned from its mistakes with Lost: Via Domus and is ready to give us the adventure of our lives. For real!

5. Heavy Rain – I hope that most of you still remember the impressive Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy) developed by Quantic Dream, the company which was one step closer to reviving the dying adventure genre. The same company decided to take things to a whole new level on PS3 consoles and deliver us a magnificent psychological thriller that promises to revolutionize both gameplay mechanics and visual standards for “new-gen gaming”. Probably a hidden diamond eagerly waiting to be found, Heavy Rain at shows bags of potential, to say the least.

4. Resident Evil 5 – there’s no surprise to have this title on a “Top 10″ list, since all previous games in the Resident Evil franchise proved to be high quality products. Of course that’s not the only reason: RE5 promises to be a game as good as its predecessors and probably, just like Resident Evil 4, the previous game in the franchise, it will be able to set new landmarks in action/shooter games. Either way, everybody is waiting to get their hands on the game this March when it hits the shops.

3. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Nathan Drake made its debut in the video games world in 2007 and amazed players with its intriguing combination of third person shooter, platformer and treasure hunting. Naughty Dog, game’s developers, promise that this year Nathan Drake will take us all to the next level and will soon become “bigger” than Lara Croft. Hopefully they’re not talking about certain body parts…

2. Killzone 2 – the game will be released exactly one month for now, reviews have already surfaced the internet and some gamers already tested Guerrilla’s tactical shooter and the general opinion is unanimous: Killzone 2 will rock the PlayStation 3 consoles and is clearly the hottest PS3 release of the first half of the year. And there’s really nothing else to say ’bout it!

1. God of War III – a game that promises to bring “hell on earth” as gods and titans battle each other in impressive settings – everything rendered at full 1080p HD resolution, with some visuals which will make Gears 2 jealous, is clearly a game to look after. Kratos will be up for a brand new adventure and, even though we have very few details about it or the final product, we can already anticipate that, just like the previous GoW titles, this will also be a “must have” for PlayStation owners.

What PS3 games announced for 2009 would you add to the list?