Ubisoft Dissapoints

I got some people around today to play some games on the Xbox 360,
the games we already had were:
Gears of War
Ghost Recon

We looked through some video hire stores to find a game to hire and finally
decided on Rainbow Six: Las Vegas; the only decent looking one that claimed to have "2-4 offline co-op, 2-16 System Link and 2-4 online co-op". Lacking broadband and having the 2-4 group that the game claimed to support; we hired it.

We started with some Ghost Recon and Halo 2 action which went well; Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six are both done by Ubisoft; have the same setting, are both about Mexicans and in a lot of ways are generally similar.

We decided it was time to play our hired game, we signed into our profiles, selected multiplayer and tried to get slots. That's as far as we got to having a decent multi-player experience.
The controllers were shown on the slot selection menu, but there was only two slots avaliable.

Confused, we turned to the internet for help and found two pages which pretty much summed up the answer we needed.
Ubisofts page
Xbox forums

So it turns out that the only way to get more than two players is to use System Link.
So what? Just get another console!
It also turns out that once system link is activated your limited to one player per console.

I can say that our only consolation is that we didn't buy the game; we don't intend to now either.


As a final few words for Ubisoft:
Great job on tricking people into getting your game you BASTARDS.

Microwhat?

When I logged on to my computer to this morning I found Windows Update prompting me, upon checking the list of update available I was a little confused by an entry asking me to update Windows Media Player 6.4, so I decided to follow the link and investigate.

As it turns out that even though Windows Media Player 11 is installed, Windows Media Player 6.4 is kept hidden in Windows to provide compatability.


I have installed Windows Media Player 11 on my computer. Why am I being offered the Windows Media Player 6.4 security update?
While Windows Media Player 11 is not vulnerable, Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition will still have Windows Media Player 6.4 installed on the system for backwards compatibility.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS06-078.mspx

Downloading Files through a Network

Most networks will have filters that block downloading of most filetypes; Simple solution, change the extension or remove it completely, if all else fails then changing the extension to .html and using a batch file to rename the extension provides an easy method of getting files through the filter.
Free web-hosts are popping up all the time, if your webhost is blocked simply find another one.

This technique can be used to get usefull apps like Portable Firefox which can also be used to bypass locks on Web Browsing which only affect IE although you may find your browsers refferer ID being blocked when it is discovered it can be fixed by changing it to match IEs in about:config.

http://www.firefoxmyths.com - Don't be fooled.

Blogger Beta

Gasp, I have moved to the Blogger Beta!

h4x0r!

Sick of logon scripts disabling your right clicking and control panel privileges in Windows?

Windows has a procedure:

Verify Login -> Login Scripts -> Other Scripts

But by disabling the network connection by yanking the network cable or using a keyboard that suports sleep or suspend modes straight after your login has been verified you can bypass the loading of scripts!

A side effect is that without the scripts loading is that certain things that might need to be setup like proxy information won't be added automaticly so will require you to manually enter it; But without it being disabled by the logon script it's possible to enter it!

Freedom

This is my first non-tech related post but it is relevant in a way.

Countries are generally said to be ruled by it's populace; but current events and writing all seems to add-up that we are loosing control, meaning that Democratic systems are slowly turning into Totalitarian control.

Certain countries already rule their people through a deprivation of information and forced propaganda; this isn't what we want our Democratic systems to become.

Britain has already passed what could be considered an anti-privacy law, practically banning the use of encryption. While this may uncover some of the more advanced criminals the majority of us haven't committed a crime and yet are being treated with the same manner. Some may argue that "if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear" but it is the principal that matters; I don't want to consent to being watched and this supposed Democratic system should help, but objection just becomes lost in blogs and slowly people loose their control.

Well where does this control go? Surely it can't all be one party, other parties are sure to object; but without the majority caring the same people are allowed to stay in parliament, even without being the winning party they still have power in events.

There's nothing much to do as an individual against the system but to wait and see.

Styling XP

Recently i've downloaded three things:

WMP11 RC1 - Best WMP yet.
StyleXP
Samurize


StyleXP has one initial purpose: To patch the uxtheme.dll to allow unsigned themes to be used.
Now since this can be done without an app StyleXP also manages themes, allows the boot screen, login screen to be changed and just change display styles in general.
This program isn't free but is worth a look at.

Samurize is a configurable app that displays system status/info, able to utilize plugins and a script editor it is able to customize you desktop with live info.
This app is free and although I haven't found it to be of great use to me others may find otherwise; Nothing wrong with free.

Apache and PHP obscurity tweaks

Was playing around with conf files and found some options to increase the obscurity of the server.

In apache.conf setting these should set Apache to reveal minimum information about your system and webserver/version:
ServerSignature Off
ServerTokens production

You also may want to disable/comment the /manual/ and /icons/ directories that are setup for a default Apache install.

Setting this setting in the php.ini file will stop PHP from revealing itself to the browser:
expose_php = Off


Just a few settings that will help obfusicate yourself, of course this wont protect you against actual exploits; but it's a start.

And remember to validate/strip tags from all forms PHP sends to a database.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Download F.E.A.R . Combat for free

Download the full multiplayer component of F.E.A.R. - one of the most acclaimed PC shooters of all-time. It's FREE!

http://www.joinfear.com/

--

Have heard mixed opinions about the actual game; But if it's free there's no reason not to try.

Intel Wins

AMD is going to have a hard time keeping up with Intels new efforts, this may be a bit late but Intel isn't going to sit still while AMD plays catch up; Last time Intel was in this situation, but it seems now to be a reversal of roles.

Intel has a Quad Core processor comming up sometime near the end of the year along with it's new socket.

On the server side the new Xeon 7100 series is out August 27, they come with 16mb of level 3 cache and look worth keeping an eye on.

Not much can be said for the Laptop market, basing the Memrom on trends should mean it'll make a good impact; heres hoping.

Personally i'm going to be waiting for Vista before investing in a new processor (I can wait) just on the offchance that something else will take the lead around that time.

Wikipedia: Intel Core 2
HardOCP Gaming Performance
Tom's Hardware review

Microsoft and the EU

I think some people have their definitions mixed up.
A monoply exists when one company owns EVERYTHING, not when there's competition.
Maintiaining a monoply consists of that company buying out the competition.
If Microsoft bought out Apple, GNU, BSD and all those other OS then perhaps there would be a case.

But in the case of the EU, people are just lazy; They want to get a peice of the pie without having to work for it.
People will do anything to promote their product regardless of how crap it is.
If I like your player i'll use it, hence why I have Winamp installed but not the POS that is Quicktime or one of those Realmedia players.

Adding in your own software to your OS is a smart buisness move, not maintaining a damn Monoply, if you want to have your player included then design your own OS.


Microsofts Compliancy:
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/legal/eudecision/
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/legal/eudecision/faq.asp

Q: What are the names for these new versions of Windows XP?
A: These new versions of Windows XP will be named Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N, where "N" stands for "not with Windows Media Player."

Episodic Gameplay and Piracy

Crazy statistics firms seem to believe that everything stolen equates into lost profit, I highly doubt that these kids would be able to afford the thousands of dollars worth of pirated goods.


SiN + Episodic Releases + Steam = ???

What do you get when you add three bad things into combination? Only time will tell...
Of course I most likely wont get the chance to play it due to the aforementioned Steam.
No, I don't want to pay to download games. Heck, I was even considering buying that HL2 pack until Valve sued them to get it removed.
Consider this a boycott.