Saturday, February 23, 2008

New Host for GeekandHumor

Hello everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I'm working on a new host for GeekandHumor so posts might not happen for a little bit.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Thumbdrive OS's - or, Taking your security OS with you


Ok, so lately I've been wanting to have a Operating System that I could boot from a USB thumb Drive.

I'm a geek right?

So Why WOULDN'T I want hang an entire operating system on a lanyard around my neck? The Nerd factor is OFF THE CHAIN! *Cue "I'm so hood remix"*


Yeah, UH!

(It works best to get your swagger on and read this next section with the music above bumpin)

I've got tha bling upon my neck! Chain swung low to hit tha deck! Yeah, my life is so hi-tech!

myDSL is the weapon of choice! Shut up man, don' wanna hear ya voice.

Free BSD? Oh Please for sheeze; that **** is just another freebie!

So what's the difference might you ask? Looks like I'm uh HaftaTakeYouToTask


I CAN TRANSPORT ALL MY FILES AND GET ROOT ACCESS ALL THE WHILES!

YEAH!


Ok, thats enough.

So I was thinking, if I could boot my operating system off of a thumbdrive, I could have complete admin privileges no matter who's computer I was on, and I could take all my preference's and files with me.

Plus, If I wanted to, I could use it to do computer maintenance when the host computer is Jacked up beyond belief.


Ok, so whats the deal? Sounds cool right? Basically, I have set up my usb thumb drive ( you can do an entire USB HD if you want) to run a virtual Operating System on top of the Native OS on a computer.
Now, the setup I used is only available for Windows, but I know there are other options for you Mac's and Linux people out there. In fact, the virtual OS that you'll be running is a VERY stripped down Linux 2.4 kernel.
In fact, it only comes to 50mb when all is said and done.

Interested? Go to www.DamnSmallLinux.com and start reading up. Basically you just need to download and unzip the Virtual DSL onto your thumbdrive and double click the appropriate .dll extension.
If you want your myDSL OS to remember all your settings, you're going to want to set up a virtual HD on your thumbdrive as well. DON'T freak out! It's fairly straight forward and all the utilities and instructions are included.

ALSO, if you're into Security, XeroBank is coming out with a similar product in the next couple weeks. They do have a beta out, but I was never able to get it to work.

What kind of set-ups do you guys have? Does anyone have a Thumbdrive OS that they can either boot off of and/or run in emulation? I think that would be great to have a persistant OS that could boot or run emulated.


Friday, February 15, 2008

InstantAction gaming - First Look Video

Ok, so I've had the chance to use Instant Action's website for about two days now, and I've compiled a short video tour through the user interface and a short bit playing a game.



Keep in mind this is still in it's closed beta stage and many features have yet to be fully implemented. For instance, there are no leaderboards or personal bests records. It will tell you if you've beaten your previous best which leads me to believe that the information is being gathered, there simply is no GUI for it yet.

Also, I tried and tried and tried to find a recording codec that would allow me to record me playing the game smoothly. But every codec I tried made the game and recording uncontrollably choppy, so I had to revert to an uncompressed format for the short stints that I was actually playing the game.

So please, enjoy the video, register and apply for the beta test, and be sure to check out GarageGames who are putting this all on!

-Josh

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Instant Action! Play 3d games in your browser!

Ok! so Instant Action.com (GarageGames) has just announced that their brainchild had just been launched for a closed beta!



Instant Action allows you to play 3d games directly in your browser! It doesn't matter if you have the game installed or not! All that is required is a small plugin (Firefox installation was a breeze) on the page and your set!

I've been playing marble blast for the last hour and it's awesome! A tad glitchy, but this is BETA folks!

Head on over to http://www.beta.instantaction.com to apply for the closed beta. If you want to be instantly accepted, e-mail me and I'll invite you!

-Josh

OSx86 - Macintosh on a PC



Anybody Notice anything Funny about this picture? Thats right, it's Macintosh's Leopard Operating System on my Home Computer.

Apples switch to the intel chipset for cpu's has opened a huge door for this possibility. It is now fairly straight forward to install osX on your home PC. The only thing is, there isn't a whole lot of support for video devices and sound and ethernet cards. So don't expect this to become your main OS just yet.

But you'll be even more surprised when I tell you I'm running on an AMD cpu. Kernel hacks have made it possible to run on many AMD chipsets as well.

To learn more about osX86 , go to
osX86scene.com
or
InsanelyMac.com

FireFox 3 Beta!

FireFox 3 Beta has been officially announced! ARS Technica has a great in depth review!

Monday, February 11, 2008

Egg and Apple - newbie art with science


Update at the bottom


Well, I am currently enrolled in a beginning art class. Why? I used to love drawing. I would draw constantly, especially in class, so I thought a class about drawing made sense!
Actually, I mostly want to be able to draw my own concept art and storyboards for my videos. So this is hopefully a venture that will pay off for me in the end. Just one more thing to add to my portfolio.

So, our out of class assignment was to draw some still life with one major light source coming from the right. The still art needed at least one piece of fruit, and two eggs... OK? Heh, well eggs arn't the most interesting thing (not to mention suprisingly hard to draw), so I decided to spice up my still life set-up.

I decided to use an old Dr. Science trick I learned when I was a kid. I would stand the eggs on end in a seeming impossible way. Can YOU stand a egg up on one end? I can. (plus one lying down)


Haha, I can just see my teachers face when he goes to grade my drawing. "This is not right, the proportions are all off! This egg looks like it's standing upright!"

Well it IS, I just poured a little salt underneath the egg and nestled it in the little salt pile. Now my scene reminds me a little of crop circles for signaling aliens.

Despite how simple this scene looks, given my minimal talent in drawing, it is actually pretty hard to draw and I am quite embarrassed at my skills. Nonetheless I shall show it to you. I SHALL get better!
Please... be kind.


UPDATE:

So I went to turn my art in, turns out we're getting Peer reviews this time. Ha! So remember, my idea was to create a drawing that befuddled the viewer and make them look at it longer. Turns out it worked! I mean there are obvious improvements to be made, but the people thought it was good! One guy said it Soothed him (He's OCD), and another girl said it made her uneasy to view the rigidity and the seemingly impossible composition. Woohoo! Now, I also got some tips on how to make the perspective work better, and how to draw the fabric better, but all in all I am pretty proud of it!

Tell me, what do YOU think?

Saturday, February 9, 2008

My recommended Firefox Plugins

You fill me with such browsing pleasure! Never before have I had such an easy pleasurable experience on the internet. I remember courting you back in Version 1.0, buying the T-shirt, and touting you to my friends. Now you're all grown and going through puberty. It's a beautiful time.

But seriously folks. By now firefox is well know by many people and is easily considered the best browser in the world. In fact, on several of the websites I own, firefox is the NUMBER ONE browser used to view my webpages.

This mostly stems from the fact that Firefox is small, lightweight, and super simple. But recently I have discovered a new side of my beloved firefox that I never knew existed.

AD-ONS!

Thats right, you can now customize your browser to do all sorts of crazy, useful, and amazing things. Now I know for some of you this isn't news. But I never knew this!
I was sitting in one of my tech classes and looked over at my buddies screen, all the sudden his browser turned into a 3D cube and spun around to display the next tab.
"Hubbawha?" I was confounded and befuddled to say the least.
My uber technical geek friend explained to me that it was a simple add-on for firefox.

"You do have firefox don't you?" he asked.
I pointed at my screen, then at my chest where I was proudly wearing my Firefox 1.0 t-shirt.

So I promply set out to find this add-on. What I found was a storehouse of browser goodies.
You can even do browser themes! Now, I know many of these things are possible with other browsers, don't get your panties in a bunch if you love IE or Opera. But the ease at which you can do it with firefox is unparalleled.

To get your own add-ons for firefox, go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ and don't forget to install and USE firefox if you havn't already yet.


The Three Add-ons that I ended up getting (and USING) for now are:
FireFox Zune Theme
Tab Effect
PicLens (this one is AMAZING, you need to check it out. Viewing pictures on the web will never be the same)