general mumblings

nt
2000
security

everything else

If you still use Netscape.... your a looser (if your on win or mac)

It's REAL sad when IE 6 is only out a week, and it's already used more than Netscape 6, which has been out six months or more.... One might argue that this is a Monopoly, but, I equate it to the days when I was the only person in the Navy (it seemed like) using Word... and I had to ensure that all those Word Perfect people could read my docs.... Now, no one even thinks about document conversion between companies, much less internal to your own company. ( I remember a time when we had 4-5 different word processors at my command)

So if IE 5.x/6 were the only browser used, then it would be SOOO much easier to create web pages... if only Microsoft would make a version for Unix flavors....

as reported by win2000mag.net
* IE 6 ROARS OUT OF THE GATES
In the first week since its release, Internet Explorer (IE) 6 use
has experienced a sharp increase, according to Web research firm
WebSideStory, which notes that 2.4 percent of Web users are already
using the new browser. This news means that more people already use IE
6 than Netscape 6, and IE 6 use will probably surpass total Mozilla use
within days or weeks. What's odd, of course, is that IE 6 is such a
small upgrade compared to the previous version. It seems that Microsoft
has to keep releasing browsers these days to dominate the market. I
miss Netscape.
posted by sonicbum at 6:29 PM

A little Gaming News and Links

ClanBase seems to be a really good Quake/Half-Live news site. I've found several COOL movies lately that are totally worth the download to watch. The first, which is by far the best clip I've ever seen of Quake and Counter-Stike is worth the 100MB download. In the words of JoeFX, "It makes me wana play Quake right now!"

EuroCup 3 Finals!!! - Best movie ever

CPL European Championship

Here is a link to a CSTV demo movie

Here is a cool interview with HLTV/CSTV's creator (not a video)
posted by sonicbum at 1:32 PM

funny stuff about Microsoft

As reported by WinInfo Daily UPDATE @ win2000mag.net
* DEAD PEOPLE CAMPAIGN FOR MICROSOFT
You just can't make this stuff up. Letters purporting to be from
Microsoft supporters showed up at the offices of the Utah attorney
general this year, which is no big deal, except for the fact that the
people who supposedly wrote the letters are dead. The letters, along
with at least 400 others, are part of an expensive and carefully
orchestrated campaign to fool state attorneys general into thinking that
there's a grass-roots movement in this country in support of Microsoft.
The letters are all different and use different stationery and printing
in an effort to make them seem real, not manufactured. For its part,
Microsoft says that it wasn't behind the effort. Suurrrre you weren't.
posted by sonicbum at 12:41 PM

Down with Linux
I love this shit... always been a Windows fan, or rather a feature-complete OS fan...

As reported by WinInfo Daily UPDATE @ win2000mag.net
* AND SPEAKING OF OPEN SOURCE NOT CUTTING IT...
I don't say this very often, but I told you so. In the face of a $290
million quarterly loss, VA Linux--a white-box, mom-and-pop PC maker that
rode the Linux wave all over Wall Street a few years ago--will change
its approach and start to sell--gasp!--closed-source software. I guess
those publicly traded companies have to actually make money.

* QUAKE DEVELOPER RIPS INTO LINUX, MAC OS
His company sells products for Windows, Linux, and the Macintosh
(Mac) OS, so id lead developer John Carmack knows his stuff. And what
does Carmack have to say about the viability of Windows competitors Mac
OS and Linux? "It has been pretty clearly demonstrated that the Mac
market is barely viable and [that] the Linux market is not viable for
game developers to pursue," Carmack recently wrote. "Linux ports will be
done out of good will, not profit motives. From an economic standpoint,
[developers aren't] making a bad call if they ignore the existence of
all platforms but Windows." In response to how well Linux games have
sold, Carmack made some grim comments about the open-source solution.
"[The sales from] all Linux games ever sold [combined] don't add up to
[the sales generated by] one medium-selling Windows title," he said.
posted by sonicbum at 12:38 PM

The theme of 2001

Being a generation X-er, I'm not used to a falling econimy... but this stuff is getting so bad, I want to screem.

As reported by WinInfo Daily UPDATE @ win2000mag.net
* AOL CUTS NET JOBS
AOL Time Warner will trim more than 1200 jobs at its online media
business, taking a third-quarter charge of more than $100 million. The
company will also cut 500 jobs related to its takeover of Netscape. I
think we all realize that times are tight in the online industry, but
when the industry titan starts cutting jobs, it's time to sit up and
take notice.

* S&P SAYS GATEWAY IS JUNK
To Gateway's critics, the company's machines have always been junk,
although I should note that Gateway's recent products are quite nice.
This week, Standard & Poor's reduced Gateway's credit and bank-load
rating to junk status, another nail in the coffin for the struggling PC
maker. "The downgrade reflects extremely competitive industry
conditions, a declining revenue base, and the company's expectation that
it will not return to material profitability until fiscal 2002," the
rating agency said. Yikes.
posted by sonicbum at 12:36 PM

Hi. I went to Washington DC on last Saturday. I took the traiin. I went to the Zoo. I realized that i could come see you by getting on the orange line at New Carrolton and not getting off for 25 stops. There are always interesting people in the subway. I saw some very scantily clad interesting people. My wif saw that I saw them and tried to make sure i would never see again. I found some nice resteraunts while in DC. I didnt eat at any of them though i had a cheeseburger at the zoo. I also had chicken mc nuggets shaped like animals, 6 in all. I got to the zoo early and left when the masses (thats what i call the 95%of the american public with no manners or intelligence) got there and started sucking the life out of my head. I got an interesting email the other day. Im going to share it then i gotta go drink beer.

you are an alien disguised as human and or have the technology to travel physically through time I need your help!
Also if you are from, I'm not sure this is the correct pronunciation: The planet (Valnator) please reply.
My life has been severely tampered with and cursed by a very evil women of my past.
I need to be able to:
Travel physically back in time.
Rewind my life including my age.
Be able to remember what I know now so that I can prevent my life from being tampered with again after I go back.
I am in great danger and need this immediately!
Only if you are an alien or have this technology please send me a separate email to:
core0139@aol.com
Thanks
***********************
63434

Hmmm
posted by jsaturn at 5:11 PM

DC/VA/MD Public Quake III and Half-Life Servers

I found a few servers local... and thought it would be cool if we used them as 'home base'. Does anyone have particular servers they frequent?

From recongamer.com
205.143.209.112:27015 - Counter-Strike
205.143.209.113:27015 - Counter-Strike
205.143.209.114:27015 - Day of Defeat
205.143.209.115:27015 - Counter-Strike
205.143.209.116:27015 - Counter-Strike
205.143.209.117:27015 - Counter-Strike
**Note, I've checked these out over the last few days... they are on a very, very fast backbone, but no one uses them. Could be a good place for playing w/o loosers :)

From GameDomainLLC.com
63.220.12.217:27015 - Counter-Strike

From NetworkAnnihilation.com
206.161.117.129 - Roger Wilco for Day Of Defeat only!
Roger Wilco for Q3A coming soon!
206.161.117.129 - Day Of Defeat
206.161.117.129 - Quake III Arena
posted by sonicbum at 11:46 AM

Note about Netscape

Since I don't feel like massaging my code to fit the little guys, or your Linux freaks... I'm gona say that this page will not look as pretty using anything but IE. I don't use anything fancy, but just using Netscape 6.1, I notice that my table sizes aren't perfect...

so, get IE, or suffer
posted by sonicbum at 3:37 PM

capitolpunishment.org

128 people will rock the LAN Party starting in 5 hours!! I gota get a nap in before I play Counter-Strike and Quake II: TA for 48 hours. I've got a whole case of Bawls to get me thru it though... made available at 34 Degrees by the fine people of the CIS pseudo-clan, hope to see ya there.
posted by sonicbum at 12:46 PM

Overheated AMD

I've recently experience my first PC heat problem. I’ve read about them, but never thought they could happen to me. In May of 2001, I built a completely new system with an AMD Duron 800MHz (mines the one on the right), and got a ‘Twister’ CPU cooler (Looks like an orb) that gave me 17CFM and 5K RPM on the fan. This is by no means a ‘hardcore’ (see here for hardcore)fan/heat sink, but it did the job.

Now, with PC parts falling like a rock, I just had to add more stuff. So I got a 1.2GHz Thunderbird, Arctic Silver II thermal paste, and a blue CPU shim about two months later. I read that the shim would keep you from cracking your CPU, and I remember the first time I installed the heat sink, I was afraid I might...

Well, putting the new 1.2G in with the blue shim, new thermal paste, and my current cooler didn’t go so well. It only booted once, and after hours of CMOS resetting and chip reseating I couldn’t get it to even POST. So I RMA’ed the new 1.2G and slapped my 800 Duron back in with the new spacer and paste.

For a week from that moment, I would have one of the most miserable troubleshooting events of my life. See, I’m a gamer, and there is one thing you don’t keep from your gamers... games. I had been playing the new Diablo II Expansion Pack a lot lately, and the moment I fired up my PC I started have lockups. BSODs, boot errors, Diablo II locking up my PC, MP3 ripping getting a GPF. You name it, and I experienced it.

For days I was frustrated with the random mood swings that my PC would have. And after reseating all cards, and running some diagnostics, I was going to try a Win2k CD repair... but even booting from the CD caused it to lockup. I had enough... I took a break, and started to read some UseNet posts about my symptoms, when I just happened to run across one that said to ensure your temp was ok. I thought “I’ve got the heat sink on it... and it’s worked fine for the last three months.” So I didn’t check it right away, but later, after I saw no resolution in site, I checked VIA Monitor... and it said my CPU was currently running at 55c. Now I remember it sitting around 30c idle, so I did a MP3 rip from CD to get my CPU working (wonder how hot it would get at 100% utilization)... and the temp went up to 70c!!!!!!!!!(AMD says it will melt at +90c) I stopped the ripping before doing real damage, and realized that HEAT was my problem! Which explained all the random faults during CPU intensive games and boot-ups.

But why? I ensured I didn’t have any unusual BIOS settings, and proceeded to undock my cooler, only to notice that the CPU core had barely transferred any of it’s thermal paste to the cooler... meaning that they were not even touching! Then I realized that it was the shim that was causing this by keeping the heat sink from sitting down all the way (see pic). It seems the Twister had a small ringed ridge (looks like the seam of two different metals) on the bottom that was hitting my shim, and keeping it from contacting the core. After removing the shim, and reapplying paste and all, my PC works just like new, and I probably sent back a perfectly good 1.2G (now I feel stupid).

So, the moral of the story... don’t play around with CPU heat! Respect your fans and heat sinks. I spent my PC support days on 286’s thru sub ~100Mhz Pentiums. Back then, 33Mhz didn’t even require a heat sink.

Needless to say, I just ordered a Thermo~~~~ to ensure my 1.2GHz Thunderbird will run as cool as possible. See the review of the Thermo~~~~ here, and a comparison of it to the new Volcano II here.
posted by sonicbum at 9:39 PM

Final Fantasy - the next day

I must say, it was everything I had hoped visually! It is true that at times (especially in the middle of the movie) you can actually forget that what you are seeing onscreen IS ALL CGI. …er 'hyper-real' as the Director calls it. I found there to be too much dialog, story building, and slow scenes for an animated sci-fi. The movie held true to the FF form, by pulling in the popular 'mother earth spirit' idea that is common to FF. But I did miss the elegant mix of old and new technology that FF usually adheres too (gun-swords, flying wooden boats). The washington post totally spit on the movie (I bet if it was made by Disney, it would have been their pick), but Hollywood.com and msn.com both gave it a realistic middle-of-the-road rating.

If anything, see if for the artwork. And man, I hope I'm still alive when all computers are holographic!
posted by sonicbum at 11:55 AM

Final Fantasy The Movie

Ok, I have almost lost sleep from the excitement of FFTM coming out this Wednesday. I've been looking forward to it for nearly a year. It will change the way the world looks at Computer Animated Movies forever. If we keep this pace.... we won't need actors in 5 years. You have just got to see the trailer if you haven't see the TV spot yet.

Official Site, Trailers
posted by sonicbum at 11:09 AM

What is a LAN Party?

Goal: To game till you can't game no more.
Purpose: Friends bring there PC's to one place, and use a LAN to eliminate the high ping/lag problem with Internet Gaming.
Length: Most often for an entire weekend, 24/7.
Examples: lanparty.com, getcis.com, P'cola LANation.
Where: The Big List
posted by sonicbum at 10:53 AM

I've been baking Hamburgers and cooking cakes. I cant even get that right. Joe you think you could help me out??? I just heard that the "Navy" is going to start using "ships" now. I imagine they'll put these "ships" in the water, fill them with people and drive them around in a similar fashion to the bumper boats at your local Town Carnival. What will they think of next. Oh and Bret, forgive my ignorance but what in H@#$ is a "LAN party" and how come I wasnt invited? I'm usually pretty good at parties!
posted by jsaturn at 8:02 AM

RECON 2000 - the aftermath.

But I still had fun with the other 700 people who went. Get full-size pics here (small ones to come later)

Many Thanks to lestat, slacker, quaz, shok_wave, lobo, HellCat, and all the cs.net and cis gang I met. I had a great time (when we weren't sitting up front yelling at kids w/o name tags :)~ ). I hope to now attend all cis events, and lestat, I'm now a cm.cs.net fan.
posted by sonicbum at 11:09 PM

RECON NETWORKS SUCKS recon2000.com, reconnetworks.com

Ok, many others have said it: lestat, Slacker & Quaz, Shok_Wave at CP2.0 etc. But I need to state it again. This may have been my first LAN party over 6 people (around 700 attended R2K), and I must say... I could have done better just by myself.

Even with all the lack of planning (until the event started... then they planned), and all the impressive servers and switches performing like my mom config'ed them, and the power surges, and the lack of a staff manning plan, and the fact that us staff were no more informed than the security guards about event happenings..... the two coordinators could have at least been NICE. But no, they tried to be cool and pull all-nighters before hand; and with someone asking them every 2 minutes "when will the CS tournament start?", they quickly shut everyone out and just tried to ride out the storm.

The only decent thing recon can do now is email a formal apology to everyone who went.
posted by sonicbum at 11:03 PM

recon2000.com
I'm gona be tech support at one of the biggest LAN PARTYs of all time, 1200 people!!!
posted by sonicbum at 12:37 AM

I have been baking cakes and cooking hamburgers.
posted by JoeFX at 2:09 PM

i have been listening to tool's new album, lateralus, every day for the last few weeks since it's release. it's the best one yet, and you must own it. a great review of it here. a great interview w/ the band here.

the complex rhythms and melodies totally move ya. 3, 5, 9 all have conflicting beats that separate and combine making for a toe taping, steering wheel slappin' good time. i can get lost in this album like no other.
posted by sonicbum at 12:19 PM

earthamaps.com
just as good as mapquest, without all the add banners and extra graphics... great for the dial-up user
posted by sonicbum at 11:20 AM

now that i am a bit settled in my job, and i have the few minutes a day it takes to keep this web flowing with goddies... i'm naming this fishbrains 2.0
posted by sonicbum at 4:03 PM

Well...I was just wondering where everyone is at as well...I have to say that I've been extremely tired and teaching all the time isnt helping any either. I'm currently teaching a 2000 track, and it gets tiring. I must say that I've learned that this is not a field for everyone and I also believe that everyone should be honest with themselves and realize that if this is not for them they need to leave the field and go bake cakes or cook hamburgers. Let me know what you guys think. Peace!
posted by nikemike at 8:15 AM

looks like nokia is cleaning house at the C|Net 'cell phone tournament'. see where you cell stands in the rankings.
posted by sonicbum at 10:42 AM

well, just as soon as i get this web site rollin, i quit my job. now i'm not focusing on engineering as much, so i won't have many techinal updates for the time being. i will be creating a nice jeep area to boast about my 2000 wrangler and all the mods i'm preforming. my honey and i will be going to the va jeep jamboree in a month, and i'll have some coverage of that when we get back.
posted by sonicbum at 10:38 AM

Wheres everyone been???
posted by jsaturn at 8:51 PM

battery types:. you mean you can't remember the difference between nickel cadmium (NiCad), nickel metal hydride (NiMH), .lithium, and zinc-air batteries? get informed at point.com's faq center about cell phones, which are typically on the forefront of battery technology.
posted by sonicbum at 7:40 AM

Doesn't anybody know where the f*&kin ketchup is? I mean crap, all I wanted was a measly Pastrami and provolone!!! Hey here's something!!!

Oh and if your using Windows ME version 3000 pre release don't open the control panel until you download this Patch!!!
posted by jsaturn at 12:02 PM

I just wanted to let everyone know that you can use Joe's little tweaks to get some good performance increase...but where do you see the valuable effects that these little reg tweaks make the difference? Well you can go to TOAST and see the effects for your damn self.
posted by nikemike at 6:39 PM

Just wanted to put my post up here and say that if anyone needs any cracks...you can try and get them here this site is pretty useful for all of our little programs that we like to use that we have acquired.
posted by nikemike at 6:31 PM

yes!! tool's new album, systema encéphale, is due in april. if you're a fan, you should get salival, a dvd of their videos and a cd of live and unreleased stuff. i got it for Christmas, and it's good ya'll.
posted by sonicbum at 11:23 PM

symantec has a public beta download of pc anywhere 10.0.
posted by sonicbum at 8:33 PM

allaire, makers of coldfusion and homesite is merging with macromedia. this should make for some very interesting software, considering they now have most of the popular html, database, and mutlimedia designing tools under one roof. call 'em the microsoft of web creation.
posted by sonicbum at 5:16 PM

After 14 years of holding down bass duties for Metallica, Jason Newsted is leaving the band. See article here.
posted by JoeFX at 9:16 AM

Optimizing your TCP/IP settings for high speed Internet connections, such as Cable or DSL is explained at http://www.speedguide.net and http://www.pcpitstop.com. They offer free downloadable reg files that will tweak your registry for optimal performance from your DSL/Cable modem.
posted by JoeFX at 9:20 PM

i always figured id software, the makers of quake and doom, were a little loopy, but i now consider my opinion fact from this nice employee bio list.
posted by sonicbum at 8:27 PM

star trek x (that's number 10 for the uninitiated) is in the works. it looks like it's gona have the tng crew in it again, with some new suprises for data. also, the next weekly series, star trek v is also in the prelim. and i thought i wasn't going to have a show to watch after the last season of voyager.
posted by sonicbum at 8:21 PM

use litestep much? i stumbled on this a year or two back, and it's the best thing to happen to windows since 3.0 (not really). what is it you say? it's a 'shell replacement' for explorer.exe, which is the microsoft look and feel you are used to in windows. litestep replaces that look and feel with a totally customizable interface that can change the way you compute.
posted by sonicbum at 8:15 PM

JoeFX comes onboard.... aaaa shit
posted by sonicbum at 7:31 PM

today is the day i officially start my sucky blog (er. web-log) of my life! wow what a free feeling i have. i-think-today-is-the-first-day-of-the-rest-of-my-life-until-i-have-another-first-day-for-the-rest-of-my-life, which should be tomorrow.
posted by sonicbum at 12:29 PM