iPhone issues after software upgrade as promised.

An Apple software update is disabling iPhones that have been unlocked by owners who wanted to choose which mobile network to use.

It was announced earlier this week Apple said a planned update would leave the device "permanently inoperable".

Thousands of owners hacked their iPhones to unlock it for use with other mobile carriers and to run "unsupported" programs.

Apple requires iPhone owners to take out a lengthy contract with AT&T in the United States but there are a number of programs on the net that unlock the device for use with other networks.

What is truly upsetting is legitimate customers (who have not hacked their iPhones in any way) are also having problems. Many are blogging about it whilst others are posting on Apple's forums that the update is deleting contacts information, as well as photos and music.

People diss Microsoft for the things they do but at least MS have a different stance with hackers/pirates.

Comments are welcome.

Funny : Dog swallows Wiimote

Not exactly noteworthy news but I love the Wii and this made me laugh...

A family in the US town of Loveland became concerned when their dog started vomiting blood - something that the first aid chief on our floor will tell you "ain't quite right."

So naturally the dog was whisked off to the vet, where X-Rays revealed what appeared to be an old TV remote.

Vet-induced vomiting revealed that there were pieces of TV remote inside the dog's stomach, but there was something else in the pooch's tummy as well...

"The Vet started massaging the dogs belly and it just came flying out of the dog," said Marie Becknell. "I knew what it was right away by the color and shape of it. It was my son's video game remote." Yep, the dog had swallowed the boy's Wii Remote.

We're sure you'll agree that this is one talented dog, but instead of having him run around the living room, hilariously flailing the bat in Wii Sports, the family had the Remote removed.

"The dog spent the night at the Vet and boy's punishment for leaving the controller out was two weeks allowance to replace the Wii remote," said Mrs. Becknell. Don't him leave the SixAxis lying about...

Source



One has to ask, did the family have to move the dog around to play the games or see that the Wiimote still worked :)

Adobe Continues Blu-ray Support.

Adobe has announced that the latest version of their popular PC video editing software - Adobe Premiere Elements 4 - supports Blu-ray content. Adobe first announced Blu-ray support with the Apple OS-X version of this software, and has continued that support for this newest release. The software will optimize your video to Blu-ray standards in order to guarantee the highest video quality. Adobe Premiere Elements 4 is available now.

For even more on this.

Perform a Full Manual Defrag of Your HDD under Vista.

If you have tried doing a defragmentation of your hard disk under Windows Vista, you would have noticed that the defrag utility does not really give you any detailed information about your hard disk fragmentation level, show you the defragmentation progress while defragging and in certain situations even defragment when you ask it to.

This guide shows you how you can perform a full defrag of your hard disk under Vista and get at least a basic report on your hard disk fragmentation before and after defragmentation.

What's Happening Here

There are a number of changes between Windows Vista's defragmenter and XP's defrag tool. In general, Vista's defragger is designed for the average user and is thus tuned for automatic behind-the-scenes work: by default, the defrag utility is scheduled to run weekly. It defragments all the partitions on all your hard disks automatically. Unlike the Windows XP defragmentation tool however, it will only defragment files with fragments smaller than 64 MB on NTFS file systems. The lack of any useful user interface in the Vista defrag utility is consistent with this design decision of having an automated defragger running behind the scenes without user intervention.

Before you get too upset, let me say that this is a generally useful setting for the average user. Let's face it, if you are reading this, you are not an average user. Many users I know don't defragment their hard disks. They don't even know the concept, let alone how to get it done or what use it may serve. The default Vista setting is sensible for such users - a weekly schedule is more than adequate: too frequent and the constant defragmentation causes additional wear and tear on the hard disk for very little additional gain. And for most people, not moving file fragments if they are more than 64 MB is a good compromise - it speeds up the whole defragging process, and the fragments are large enough so that in most cases they don't cause significant slowdowns in the system.

Manual Defragmentation

There are of course reasons why you might want to override this default mechanism. For example, a full defragmentation of the hard disk may speed up certain hard disk backup operations. If you're doing it on a large scale with many computers, the time savings when backing up a properly defragged hard disk compared to one where the files are broken into many fragments may be significant. Another possible reason might be if you are capturing video on your computer and don't want any frames to be skipped; if the disk is fragmented without a contiguous free space for the entire video file, the hard disk head may have to skip over occupied sectors in the middle of recording, causing your recording software to skip frames.

To get Vista's defragger to give you some information about your hard disk, and to control which hard disk or partition it defragments, you will need to use the command line defragmentation utility. It will still not give you any feedback while defragmenting, just as the GUI version of the defragmenter will not, but at least you can get information on the fragmentation level of your hard disk, control whether to defragment even if the file fragments are larger than 64 MB, and control which partition or hard disk to defragment.

To use the command line defrag tool in Windows Vista, you have to run the Command Prompt as an administrator. In Vista, this is not automatic even if you are logged in as the administrator. Click the Windows button (previously the Start button in earlier versions of Windows), the All Programs menu item and the Accessories menu item. Right click the "Command Prompt" button and select "Run as administrator". A command prompt window will appear. Everything you run in this Window will be run with administrator rights.

1. To view a file fragmentation analysis of (say) your C: drive, type:

defrag c: -a -v

The "-a" parameter tells the defragger to perform a fragmentation analysis. The "-v" option tells it to be verbose in its report. If you want a report on drive D: or some other drive, substitute that drive letter in place of c:.

Be aware that defrag may tell you that you have no fragmented files even if you have some. On NTFS partitions, the reporting function of defrag does not consider fragmented files with fragments greater than 64 MB as fragmented. If you need truly detailed information, you may have to consider getting a third party defragmenter such as those listed on the Free Defragmentation Utilities page on thefreecountry.com.

2. To defragment a particular drive, say C:, type:

defrag c: -v -r

The "-r" option tells the defragmentation utility to treat files that are fragmented with 64 MB fragments or larger as though they are not fragmented. This partial defragmentation is the default for "defrag", and it's the only way the GUI defragmenter in Vista works.

You can also force the defragmenter to defragment everything. That is, even if the file fragments are larger than 64MB, the Vista defragmenter will still attempt to put the file into contiguous sectors. To do this, run the defragger with the following options:

defrag c: -v -w

As you have probably have guessed, "-w" tells the Vista defrag tool to do a full defragmentation. All file fragments will be consolidated where possible.

Source

I should point out something not mentioned within the source from where this came, that Microsoft has corrected this issue with Windows Vista SP1-Beta.

Vista SP1 is now available for download on Connect.

For those who have made it into the beta program on Connect,

Build 6001.16659.070916-1443 has been posted in both x86 and x64 versions!

Source: In-House

vista service pack 1 is now available for download on connect

Windows Vista SP1 Beta (6001-16659-070916-1443) Client and ClientN for X86 and X64 English

9/24/2007

9,625.54 MB

6001.16659.070916-1443_x86fre_Client_en-us-FB1CFRE_EN_DVD.iso

6001.16659.070916-1443_amd64fre_Client_en-us-FB1CXFRE_EN_DVD.iso


EXE Files:

Wave1_Windows6.0-KB936330-X64.exe 1,778.91 MB
Wave1_Windows6.0-KB936330-X86.exe 1,308.64 MB

More Info

HDMI...

I was roaming the AVS forums (check useful links) and came across a great post concerning the various versions of HDMI and thought I'd post it here for the lazy.

Cutting through the confusion about the digital audio/video connector.


No, HDMI doesn’t stand for Hard to Distinguish Multiple Iterations, although that’s how it has shaken out. The High-Definition Multimedia Interface is one of the more confusing and misunderstood features of HDTVs.


HDMI is the highest quality connection available for audio and video products, and it can support features including “Full HD” 1080p resolution and Dolby TrueHD that other connectors cannot. Moreover, HDMI is single-cable digital connector that sends audio and video signals, replacing eight or more audio and video cables.

The problem? HDMI comes in various versions—1.1, 1.2 and 1.3a—and you’re not guaranteed compatibility even within the same version. (All versions of HDMI, however, support 1080p resolution.)

More info on HDMI

Halo 3 is coming!

People, Halo 3 is almost upon us!

The Covenant control Earth. The Flood is unleashed and on the loose. With the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance, Master Chief is the only one that can save the human race. Master Chief, the last of his kind, is a warrior born for combat, bred for war … and humanity’s only hope.

More info on Halo 3

One game I got to go and buy, in just a few days.

Finish the Fight!


Click me!

Sony's 'Home' has been delayed! Yay! (not).

Well some rather bad news I'd like to bring some attention towards.

If you look down the page a little you'll see my blog concerning 'Home' which is going to be Sony's version of 'Second Life.' There's more on that and how I vision 'Home' much like 'Second Life' to benefit people such as myself and many others...

Go down and have a read for more on that! :)

Anywho, back to the bad news:

PlayStation Home, PS3's online social networking "thing", will not release this year as planned, Sony Computer Entertainment president Kaz Hirai has confirmed in his Tokyo Game Show keynote this morning.

Unlike E3, where the application was shown up and running, Hirai merely showed the Home logo on the Makuhari Messe stage and said that the service had been pushed back to "truly meet the needs and feedback of the users." Home was originally scheduled for a "Fall" launch this year, as announced by SCEE dev boss Phil Harrison at GDC this March.

During a Q&A session after his speech, Hirai said the delay wasn't down to technical problems, but was because Sony wants Home to be a worldwide service and to have functionality suitable for people in different regions.

He thinks it can be satisfactory to all kinds of users when it launches, he said, adding, "We want to make sure we have a full range of services."

PlayStation Home is an avatar-based, MMO-style networking application for PS3 users, allowing console owners to have their own virtual spaces, trophy cabinets for their game achievements, and so on. Players will be able to access features like downloadable content and play games with friends through Home.

Source.

Although I'm sad to see this has been delayed I do understand that Sony probably needs to prepare for all this. Despite what Sony say here I truly believe this delay will allow us the user a far better and stable infrastructure with 'Home'.

Heard of Second Life? Check out Home for the Sony PS3

Have you heard of Second Life and its success?
Second Life takes online inter-activeness to new leaps and bounds, opening many doors for forms of advertising and communication.
Imagine advertising your potential business via 'Home' and/or Second Life, creating a massive Billboard in your acquired Virtual space which promotes your business even further. Let's face it, we are moving towards a digital world, it has began but we really have no idea how far it will all go, I see a true potential here and I believe Sony have capitalized and also added this to their PS online infrastructure to give it just that much more to accommodate to everybody’s tastes and furthermore their needs.

Fortunately for many of us, Sony has also foreseen the endless possibilities a user can achieve and introduced Home. Considering Sony has a 100 million+ (you read that correctly) strong customer base with the PS2 already and the PS3 is truly a next generation console system that offers so much more than just a ‘gaming machine’ I’d have no doubts in saying Sony hit the nail on the head with this one, one can already see if they search for it that a majority of PS2 owners are wanting to move into the next generation with the PS3…

Like Rupert (aka. The Super-Viser), I see a bright future ahead with blogging and the way of the internet and online inter-activeness, especially when considering how many can make a living from it via advertising essentially, Second Life and Home are no different.

Well there is not really that much longer for Sony Playstation 3 fans to wait until 'Home' is released and best of all it's free I tells ya!

Check out the video here to see what 'Home' is all about.

Manic Monday

Hi Guys,

Well today has been a busy day with work, self employed work for that matter :)
Was unable to attend my work experience TAFE course today and it seems like the same deal Tuesday :(
On the upside I earned some $$ and that's always awesome, more of the same tomorrow and I should be a very happy boy for the week.

I'll try and squeeze in some changes and posts to my BlogSpot, hopefully before the end of the week.

Rupert, Andonis & Tracy hope to catch up next week.

AAQ.

More about my blogspot.

Well today I spent a considerable amount of time changing the GUI of my blogspot, as you can tell I am now rolling 'Wii style' :P

I find this current template to be more appealing to the eyes and also consider this to suit me best, as to who I am and what I'm about, also considering I love electronics and the Wii is no exception.

My next steps will be to include a slide-show banner (thanks Rupert for the idea :)) with different kinds of PC hardware and other electronic goodies; including the latest generation console gaming units available today.

Be sure to keep an eye on my blog as it's going to go through some graphical changes I can assure you throughout the next few weeks however I think the Wii will stay!

Be sure to come back now.

AAQ.

Windows XP Sp3 Beta Testing Approved!

Well getting back to the things that I enjoy! :P

Microsoft has chosen me along with a minimal amount of other testers to try out the Service Pack 3 available for Windows XP (Professional Edition here). The latest beta of XP SP3 will be delivered to MSDN and TechNet subscribers.



Note: Ignore the sidebar, which was something I added from Vista to XP, this in no way is incorporated with the Service Pack!

Funny enough the latest WMP and IE were not slipstreamed in this SP to WMP11 and IE7 respectively. Still a new build is in the works and I’ve received word that I'll have a new build within the next week or so to test, here's to hoping that there will be newer and greater improvements within this new build of SP3.

Now here's to hoping that Microsoft will accept me amongst the 10,000-15,000 beta testers for Windows Vista's SP1 build which also is to be released next week, all I can say is I have been accepted for that and am awaiting word further (or a download link).



I'll report more on how this all plays out, of course I'll have to water it down to please MS abiding by my disclosure agreement.

Where have you been?

Hi guys,

I have not blogged in some time, just less than two weeks in fact.

I've been very ill, unfortunately for me I was sick as a dog; Fever, joint and muscle aches not to mention the occasional vomiting which I guess was the upside of it all. :)
Still I can laugh and smile about it now being damn glad I'm over it but sadly I've spread it onto my other family members and now they are sick... :(

Oh well these things happen but now that I'm well and feeling pretty lively I will be blogging more occasionally.

Until a lil' later...

Cheers for now.

AAQ.