Wifi Direct...the possibilities

Looks like the Wifi Alliance is going to announce Wifi Direct. What is this and how much of an impact it will have? This technology will allow you to establish a direct connection been two or more devices over current Wifi standands (without the need for a router). You probably been using this technology already with certain gadgets already in the market, such as the Nintendo DS, which allow you to connect two DS together and team up or play against each other. Since it's based on current Wifi standards, speed is maxed out at 300Mbps, watch the video below to see the possibilities this will open up.

Wi-Fi Direct from Blake Robinson on Vimeo.

Running multiple OS with VMWare Player

I love to have access to multiple operating systems (new and old) but I hate the fact of creating a multi-boot with 5-6 OSes, seems a bit messy and too much work for my liking. The solution, VMware Player, this allows me to run another operating system from within my main operating system.

I have Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate as my main OS and have access to other flavors of Windows 7 as well as older OSes such as Windows XP and Windows 2000 via VMware Player. I bet the first question you'll ask is how I can accomplish this with just VMware Player? The player only access virtual machines that have been created by VMware Workstation, a version of VMware you must pay for. The answer is EasyVMX.com, EasyVMX will create a complete virtual machine for you base on the OS you plan to run on it. All of this is done online and in matter of seconds you can download the virtual machine. Once the virtual machine is created, you can access it with VMware Player.

EasyVMX only create the virtual machine, no OS is installed. This is something you must do with your own license of the OS. To do this mount your OS installation CD to the virtual machine and have it boot off of that. If I mount my XP installation CD, when I start the virtual machine, it will boot into the installation CD and initialize the setup of XP and away I go. I then setup XP as if it was on any other PC. If you have more OSes, do the same and create virtual machines for those OSes. 

There are functionalities differences between VMware Player and Workstation, hence one is free and the other is paid but if you are just looking for a solution to run multiple OSes, VMware Player will probably suffice.

 

Japan is the capital for Vending Machines

In Japan you can literally get anything via vending machines, by everything I mean weird things. To name a few, egg, rice, used panties (see what I meant by weird and everything!! :), fruits and vegetables, and something I never thought was possible, live seafood!


JapanProbe dot com
Uploaded by pubjapaned. - Explore international webcam videos.

How many of these 749 NES games can you identify?

This week the beloved Nintendo Entertainment Systems (a system that closed to my childhood) celebrated its 25th anniversary and NESGuide.com made their tribute with a 15 minutes montage featuring 749 NES games, how many can you identify?

"Back to the Mac"

There were a few announcements made today and to summarize the event, here's what coming...

• New version of iLife (iLife 11) - Free with new Mac or $49 upgrade, available today (read more here)
• Facetime for Mac - beta available for download here (read more here)
• Mac OS X 10.7 Lion - Summer 2011 (read more here)
• Mac App Store - available in 90 days (read more here)
• MacBook Air - 13.3" and 11.6" (read more here)

Looks like more exicting stuffs coming from our friends at Apple.

Concerning about Facebook security?

It's no secret that Facebook has its share of privacy concerns and they have done quite a bit to beef up security. But there are things that you the user can also do to protect your account. Below are a few precautionary measures you can do to ensure that you are doing your part.

1. Change your password regularly

This practice should not only be applied to Facebook but any accounts that you want to keep secure, email, online drop box...etc. When choosing a password, use a mix of letters and numbers, lowercase and uppercase, use special characters, don't use common words, the longer the password the better, and memorize your password so you can avoid writing it down. Lastly, don't use the same password for all your accounts.

2. Facebook One-time Password 

If you are using Facebook from a public terminal or on your PC via public wifi, you can jeopardize your account. If you are concern about this, you can take advantage of Facebook one-time password. All you need to do is text "otp" to 32665 (FBOOK) on your mobile device. You will then receive a password for one-time use which will expire within 20 minutes. Note that currently this service is only offered in the U.S.

3. Logout

When you are finished with that status update or adding a friend, remember to sign-out of Facebook before abandoning your PC. I ran into situations when launching my browser and navigating to Facebook, I am presented with my profile, already signed on. This is because the last time I used Facebook on that computer, instead of signing out first, I just exit my browser thinking that will do it. 

You can also log out of Facebook remotely, to do this, go into your Facebook Account Setting and you can see where you are currently logged on with the option to perform remote logouts. You can also setup alerts to notify you when a computer or mobile device logs into your account. To do this go to your Facebook Account Setting and then Account Security, here you can setup email or SMS notifications.

4. Applications and Games

I myself avoid applications and games on Facebook, and with the latest news that came out this week (http://bit.ly/buDn6d) reporting that games such as Farmville and Texas Holdem (just to name a few) were transmitting information to advertising and internet tracking companies. Just exercise caution when adding applications to your profile.

The world is back to normal...in the NHL that is

The Leafs lost last night to the Islanders after going undefeated for 4 games to start the 2010-2011 seasons. This was the best start in 17 years, where the Buds won 10 straight to open the season. Any realistic fan (with a bit of common sense) wouldn't have predicted a 4-0-1 start, earning 9 of a possible 10 points. Saying that, we (Leafs fan) should remain realistic and shouldn't get carry away and hold off a bit longer before planning that parade route. 

This year Leafs looks a lot different from past recent years, not only the addition of new faces but you can see the effort on the ice. Guys are completing their checks, battling against the board and often than not, the battles are won. They are much tougher, as shown by the checks as well as the number of fights so far this season and goal-tending has been big so far (aside from a few questionable goals). Their play results in finding ways to win rather than finding ways to loose, something we are too familiar with. 

This is great start and it looks like it can continue as long as each player on the ice continue to play with the same effort and toughness shown in the first 5 games. The Leafs may even capture a playoff spot this year, but let take it one game at a time and not think about the CUP for now.

GOOG-411 is going away...On come BING-411

Google announced recently that it's free directory assistance service is going away but the good news is Bing-411 is here to stay. From reviews it looks like BING-411 has always been the better of the two and offer more contents with more features. So if you are ever find yourself in a situation where you need to look something up and don't have a Smartphone handy, hit up 1-800-246-4411 (1-800-BING-411) for assistance.

Watching Netflix with the Wii disc-free

Awhile back Netflix support came to the Wii via a Netflix DVD. Well today you can go disc-less with Netflix on your Wii. Just head over to the Wii Shop Channel and download Netflix directly onto your Wii and it will appear as a channel allowing you to use Netflix without swapping out your game disc. This is great timing to those of us up in Canada as Netflix was only made available to Canadians a less than a months ago. 

For more info. see the full press release @ http://press.nintendo.com/articles.jsp?id=25904.

Outlook Annoyance - A program is trying to automatically send e-mail on your behalf...

Have you ever attempted to send an email from another program (Other than Outlook) but have Outlook send out the email? If you do then chances are you ran into the annoying prompt below...

This is a "security" feature of Outlook in an attempt to warn you that a third party application is attempting to send out email via Outlook. I see this as more of an annoyance than security. When searching the Microsoft KB on how to disable this, I came up blank because the only way is to turn it off on your Exchange server side. So how many people run an Exchange server in their own home for personal email? I didn't think I would get too many yeses. 

Luckily I found a pretty neat utility that will automatically answer Yes to the annoying prompts. It not only click Yes for you but it will bypass the counter (time you need to wait before that Yes button become available for you to click). Just head over to Context Magic (http://www.contextmagic.com) and look for a program call ClickYes. They offer a free and paid version, the paid version will allow more flexibility, controls and support for later versions of Outlook, but if all you’re after is to get rid of that annoying prompt and you are running Outlook 2003 or older, the free version will suffice.

Installing and using the free version is straight forward...

1. Download the free version of ClickYes.
2. Double click on the downloaded file and follow the prompts to install.
3. When you run ClickYes, it will appear in the notification area of your task bar with a small red x. Indicating that it is running in suspense mode. You can activate ClickYes by double clicking on it to take it out of suspense mode.
4. With ClickYes activated, you will see the Outlook prompts pass quickly by when sending emails through Outlook from a third party application. 

Should the same laws and rules be apply to social media?

The reason I ask this question is in recent days, I came across two stories, one south of the 49th and the other in my own backyard, where Google is the center of two lawsuits. The first is an ex-model with a degree from Duke and Columbia who is suing Google to reveal the true identities of those who made derogatory comments about her on YouTube (http://bit.ly/aZLxpU). The second is a police officer who was ridiculed through YouTube for doing this job during the G20 in Toronto (http://bit.ly/9HAroU). 

I personally support these two individuals and believe the same law that governs our society should apply to the net especially with the recent popularity of social media. We should be responsible and held accountable for our actions, regardless of the delivery method. Making rude and derogatory in person is bullying and considered a form of assault and why should this be different when the same actions are conveyed behind a computer monitor? Many of these offensive remarks (if not all) are uneducated, a display of stupidity and serve one purpose, to hurts and attack the other person. 

My toddlers love to watch children nursery rhymes on YouTube, but I was very surprised by the comments made against these videos. I see comments that are racist and beyond rude. Go ahead and head over to YouTube and search for “Ba ba Black Sheep” and view the comments. If these types of comments are made against children contents, can you image what you will see for others?         

Future Firmware for A4 iDevice Jailbreakable with PwnageTool

Some good news came to light today, MuscleNerd from the Dev-Team tweeted the possibility of PwnageTool being able to jailbreak all future firmware for A4 based iDevices, this covers the iPhone 4, iPod 4 and iPad. Looks like this is possible by combining PwnageTool, limera1n and @comex hack. This makes for less headache and allow us "jailbreak junkies" to keep current while being free from Apple's nonsense.

iPhone Jailbreaking

When people see that I have an iPhone they usually ask "is it jailbroken?” Let just say the first thing I did when I got my first iPhone (3Gs) was jailbroke it. Jailbreaking allow you to unlock the full potential of the idevice and there are tons and tons of things you can do once it’s jailbroken. The one thing I don't like Apple for is them limiting the potential of such a power device. In iOS3 and earlier, the only way to a clean and organize screen was jailbreaking your device and use a program called Categories. Apple did a bit better in iOS4 with the introduction of Folders, but they managed to screw that up. You can only add 12 icons to each folder and you guess it, the only way around is jailbreaking and install a tweak that will overcome the limitation that Apple imposes. 

If you have an idevice and wishes to jailbreak it, there are 2 options, limera1n and Greenpo1son. Below is a guide to jailbreak using limera1n for Windows.

How to Jailbreak with limera1n - Windows

1.     Download the limera1n Windows jailbreak from http://limera1n.com

2.     Connect your iPhone to your PC.

3.     Double click the limera1n icon.

4.     Click "make it ra1n".

5.     Your phone will be put into recovery mode.

6.     iTunes may pop up telling you that it detect your phone in recovery mode, click the X on the top right to close this message.

7.     limera1n will tell you to hold down your power and home button, do this.

8.     A few moment, it will tell you to let go of the power button, do it, but continue to hold down the home button.

9.     When limera1n tells you that you are in DFU recovery mode, you can let go of the home button.

10. Hang tight and in a moment you will be told that your phone is jailbroken. Next step is to install Cydia via the limera1n icon.

Now you are free from Apple...have FUN!! 

Mac Snow Leopard on Eee PC 1005-HAB

About a year ago when I traveled to Beaverton Oregon for work, I picked an Asus EeePC 1005-HAB netbook because I wanted something portable and light that I can travel with and allow me to watch movies and TV shows while trapped in seat 20A. My netbook came with Windows XP at the time of purchased and I upgraded to Windows 7 as soon as it became available. Well I kind of got bore with Windows (being my laptop and PC both ran Windows as well) and decided to check out Mac OS X. I didn't wanted to spend the price tag attached to a Mac so the economical route was to purchase the Mac OS and through the power of the net, got it installed and running on my Eee PC.

While searching Google to see how this can be done for my model, I came across this great blog with detailed instructions on how to accomplish this task (http://maceee.blogspot.com/2010/02/snoweee-install-mac-os-x-snow-leopard.html). There has been great development since these instructions were posted, so I will repost the instructions here with the updates incorporated, but ALL CREDITS GOES TO this blogger – JoQ and contributing reader Colin. Note that the instructions below are what got my Eee PC 1005-HAB running Mac OS x SL 10.6.4.  

What’s working?

* 100% working OS X retail/vanilla netbook

* CPU with Hyperthreading

* Sleep (closing lid, return with any key, sadly not by only opening lid)
* Power button

* Sound (internal speakers and output)

* Microphone (internal mic and input)

* Graphics with QE/CI and even VGA out

* Screen brightness (Fn+F5/F6)

* Volume (with the use of Spark)

* Camera (Photo Booth and Skype...)

* Battery indicator fully working (see Others section if your system have 1GB RAM)

* Automatic sleep
* SD Card Reader

* WiFi and Ethernet

What you need:

* The 1005HAB Snow Leopard Kit (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BEHQ2D6C)

* Retail 10.6 Snow Leopard DVD 

* 10.6.4 combo update (google it...)

* 1005HA similar Eee PC 

* USB Drive, either harddrive or flash, min. 8gb

* Another computer running OS X 

* A USB-mouse and keyboard

Create the USB Installer:

* Mount your retail Snow Leopard DVD

* Launch Disk Utility and select your USB drive (USB memory or USB harddrive)

* Select the Parition tab and choose GPT (Guid Partition Table) under Options.

* Use Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as format.

* When finished, go to Restore tab and select your Snow Leopard DVD as Source and your USB drive as Destination.

* Launch myHack installer and select your USB drive as destination

* Under customize, check the following (uncheck the ones that aren’t listed)

com.apple.Boot.plist
EvOreboot.kext
NullCPUPowerManagement.kext
SleepEnabler.kext

* Press Install
* Browse the USB Install Drive and you should see a folder called Extra, and inside this folder there should be a sub-folder called Extensions. Copy all the kexts in the "System/Library/Extensions from my kit to /Extra/Extensions on your USB Install Drive. 
* Now copy and replace dst.aml and com.apple.Boot.plist from the /Extra folder in my kit to the /Extra folder on your USB Install Drive.

Installing:

* Plug in your USB mouse and keyboard.

* Plug in your USB drive to the your Eee PC and turn on the computer.

* When the computer post, press Esc and select the USB drive.

* Chameleon will now show up, just choose your USB drive and press enter (if encountering problems, boot with ”-v” without the quotation marks and write in comments where you get stuck)

* If all goes well you will be greeted with the language selection.

* Open Utilities/Disk Utility and select you internal drive, partition it (1 partition, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), GPT, GUID Partition Table)

* Close Disk Utility and select the internal drive

* Click on Customize, select if you want printer support or not, additional languages and check Rosetta.

* Press Ok, and Install

First boot:

* Press Esc and select the USB drive to boot.

* Press any button when you see Chameleon to abort the autoboot.

* Now select your internal drive and press enter and let it boot.

* If all is well the “Before you begin...” should show up. Follow the guide!

* When it’s completed, you should see your desktop. 

* There are only a few steps left. DON’T reboot until I say so!

* Open myHack installer from the kit. Do exactly as you did before, except select the internal drive as destination.

* Now transfer all the files to Extra located in the Extra-folder in the kit.

* Transfer the kexts from the kit “/System/Library/Extensions” to the same folder on the internal drive.

* Double-click the VoodooHDA.prefPane inside the kit (/Sound). And install for all users.

* Run pfix, select you internal drive.

* Now shut down your computer, and unplug the USB drive.

Second boot:

* Power on the computer and let it boot.

* Everything should now be working!

Upgrading to 10.6.5

* Download the 10.6.5 combo update from Apple.
* Download the the patched mach kernel here (http://www.mediafire.com/?jfph92xtp16m13m).
* Backup "AppleIntelGMA950" and AppleIntelIntegratedFrameBuffer" kexts from /System/Library/Extensions (just drag and drop to your desktop).

* Mount the SL 10.6.5 combo update and then run the update. 

When the update complete, DO NOT RESTART, you need to replace the mach_kernel before doing do.

* To replace the mach_kernel, follow the steps below.

1. Copy the mach_kernel you downloaded to your desktop.

2. Open Terminal.app
3. sudo -s
4. Enter your root password
5. cd /
6. mv mach_kernel mach_kernel_1062
7. cp ~/Desktop/mach_kernel_atom /
8. mv /mach_kernel_atom mach_kernel
9. chown 0:0 mach_kernel

* When done, click restart from the combo installer window.

Installing Wifi:

* Install the IO80211Family.kext from the Wifi folder in my kit using Kext Helper (also available from my kit).

* Also install the two graphic kexts that you backed up before you ran the combo update using Kext helper (AppleIntelGMA950 and AppleIntelIntegratedFrameBuffer).

* Run pfix and when done restart.

* When you boot into SL, you should see the airport icon on your status bar indicating that wifi is available.

Installing Ehternet:

* Download the ethernet kext here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=N0N53N9T

* Installing using Kexthelper

* Run pfix and then reboot when done.

Other:

* Battery meter will show an X on systems with 1GB RAM, to fix this, you need to edit your DSDT file and change the following...


CODE
OperationRegion (BIOS, SystemMemory, 0x7F7AE064, 0xFF)
(it's for 2Gb systems)

to

CODE
OperationRegion (BIOS, SystemMemory, 0x3F7AE064, 0xFF)
(for 1Gb systems) 


Thanks to reader "Salo-man" for digging this up.


* To get the FN volume key working, download the AsusHotKey kext from here (http://www.mediafire.com/?7vc5r4thd54956r) and install with KextHelper. 

Credits and Thanks goes to Blogger JoQ (check out JoQ's blog) and contributing reader Colin 

Have fun!!