The Singaporean Gamer

Wired has a nice article on why Adobe flash will never come to the iPhone, citing the license agreement and Apple’s unwillingness to allow any interpreter, other than its own, to run code on the iPhone. I guess there’s no hope for Java either.

I have my own theory why Flash won’t come to the iPhone. It’s because Apple knows Safari Mobile sucks when handling pages which require huge amounts of memory.

Yesterday, I found out about iTunes DRM when I wanted to sync my iPhone with iTunes. I decided to wipe off the jailbreak and restore from a clean slate. This morning, I Google-Reader’ed on the bus on the way to work.

The verdict? Reading Gizmodo feed on Google Reader mobile caused Safari to crash. Twice.

Ok, so I realised that jailbreaking doesn’t seem to have much effect on the crashes I encounter on Safari. But I did notice one thing. Google Reader on the iPhone isn’t your normal web interface. The whole page does not get refreshed, just the feeds within the page. (From this point on, I’m just hypothesizing. Correct me if I’m wrong.) Safari always seem to crash on me when opening image-heavy sites (some memory issue I presume). For example, I can’t seem to go to VR-Zone forums on the iPhone. Anyway, my theory is that for Google Reader, since the page never refreshes, each time I open a feed item, the memory used for the page itself increases, until I “mark all feeds as read” and they disappear or get replaced(I set it to show only new items). Thus, if I were to open a few image intensive feed items, somehow it gets overloaded attempting to show these feed items, even though they’re opened only one at a time.

Imagine if flash were ported to the Safari Mobile. Or java? Die! Both eats resources like no tomorrow!

In order not to reveal that the iPhone is actually just like Windows Mobile, aka. a crippled small brother of a much better OS, isn’t it much better to just not allow these things to be in there? After all, Apple users are snobs!

Maybe that’s why I can forgive the pitfalls Symbian OS readily. There’s no benchmark or a reputation to uphold against a more developed and powerful OS.

Now, can anybody lend me an Andriod OS smartphone, so I can get that off my chest too?

When I first got my iPhone 3G, I was running Windows XP. Recently, I discovered the itch and decided to change to Windows Vista 64. Everything was running smoothly, until I decided to try to sync my iPhone.

My safari mobile for some reason kept crashing while doing simple Google Reader-ing. Ok, probably it’s because I jailbroke it. I decided to restore to original settings. All syncing went fine, except for one thing:

Source: ZDNet: iCrash: Buggy apps tarnish iPhone 2.0 appeal

(I had to grab that off another site, as I forgot to take a screenshot of mine.) Googling around, I came across this discussion thread on apple forums. I had to click on “Store” > “Authorize…” to authorize this PC somehow. And after doing so, that’s when it happened: iTunes kindly informed me that I had used 2 out of 5 available autorizations.

What. The. F*ck.

The only thing that had changed was the operating system. My PC internals was still the same as it was back then. Who wants to bet that if I had re-installed the same copy and version of Windows 5 times, I would have used up all my available authorizations? Of course, after using all 5, you could theoretically de-authorize all your computers. Of course, there’s a catch involved. You could only do that once a year.

I didn’t buy Mass Effect or Spore because I hate the install limits it pushes on to me. I would probably not get Red Alert 3 or Far Cry 2 either. Exceptions to buying these games would be to see if a crack is available. Who am I kidding? A crack is always available. I would have to download it first. Is it about time to search for a suitable workaround for this too?

Or maybe I should just go back to owning a Nokia phone. My fiancée’s E71 is looking mighty nice right about now. And couple that with an Iriver, Cowon or Archos media player. Something like this looks mighty tempting…

Source: Anything But IPod: Archos 5 review

This had got to be a glimpse of the future for movies-goers who happen to be gaming fanatics as well. The Time Machine: An Interactive Adventure is, as the title implies, an interactive movie. At the end of each segment, you will be prompted with two actions for the characters to choose. It is actually a link, which brings you to the next part of the show, based on your decisions. It is really too cool!

The first part is below:

Clicking on the link on the screen will bring you to the next part on youtube. Try it!

Source: Miss Cellania - The Time Machine: An Interactive Adventure

Very cool video by FutureShorts. Enjoy!

My fiancee has somehow become quite the spammer, but at least she only forwards the ones she finds good. Lucky me, we have the same taste. This is one of such emails:

Ah Beng bought a new mobile. He sent a message to everyone from his Phone Book & said, ‘My Mobile No. has changed. Earlier it was Nokia 3310. Now it is 6610′

Ah Beng: I am a Proud, coz my son is in Medical College.
Friend: Really, what is he studying?
Ah Beng: No, he is not studying, they are studying him.

Ah Beng: Doctor, in my dreams, I play football every night.
DR: Take this tablet, you will be ok.
Ah Beng: Can I take tomorrow, tonight is final game.

Ah Beng: If I die, will u remarry?
Wife: No! I’ll stay with my sister. But if I die will u remarry?
Ah Beng: No, I’ll also stay with your sister.

Ah Beng: People consider me as a ‘GOD’
Wife: How do you know??
Ah Beng: When I went to the Park today, everybody said, ‘Oh GOD! You have come again.’

Ah Beng complained to the police: ‘Sir, all items are missing, except the TV in my house.’
Police: ‘How the thief did not take TV?’
Ah Beng: ‘I was watching TV news…’

Ah Beng comes back to his car & find a note saying ‘Parking Fine’.
He writes a note and sticks it to a pole ‘Thanks for complement.’

How do you recognize Ah Beng in School?
He is the one who erases the notes from the book when the teacher erases the board.

Once Ah Beng was walking he had a glove on one hand and not on other. So the man asked him why he did so. He replied that the weather forecast announced that on one hand it would be cold and on the other hand it would be hot.

Ah Beng : Why are all these people running?
Man: This is a race, the winner will get the cup
Ah Beng: If only the winner will get the cup, why others running?

Teacher: ‘I killed a person’ convert this sentence into future tense
Ah Beng: The future tense is ‘you will go to jail’

Ah Beng told his servant: ‘Go and water the plants!’
Servant: ‘It’s already raining.’
Ah Beng: ‘So what? Take an umbrella and go.’

A man asked Ah Beng why Ahmad Badawi goes walking in the Evening and not in the morning. Ah Beng replied Ahmad Badawi is PM not AM.

Source: unknown

How can this be? Fallout 3 has been released around the world from October 28th to 31st 2008! It’s now the 13th of November, and still Singapore has yet to get it. I checked out 3 stores in IMM; all of them has the Xbox 360 version only. Amazingly, one shop even has the strategy guide for it!

Someone’s obviously not doing their job. I wonder who’s the stupid distributor. New Era, no doubt.

To keep my materialistic self happy, I had to get something. Lucky, GOG.com to the rescue!

I have only tried Sacred previously, and I loved its hack-n-slash nature. With Sacred Gold, I’ll be getting Sacred Underworld as well. And all for only US$9.99. Pretty worth it. Go check it out. And support DRM-free games!

Gizmodo has a very interesting write-up on the 50 skills every geek should have. Since I am a self-proclaimed geek (note to self: buy a pink tee), I tried to pit myself against this and give myself an appropriate geek score.

Let’s go through the list one by one, shall we?

1. Install a hard drive in a laptop
I never really needed to install one new. But just out of curiousity, I did take out my laptops SATA drive, and put it back, just to try it out. So I’m giving myself a full point here. (1 point)

2. Perform a clean OS install on a machine with two OSes
Hah! I did with three OSes before: Vista 64, XP & Ubuntu. (1 point)

3. Swap out the battery on your iPod/iPhone
Nope, not tried yet. It’s too big of a risk for me to experiment with. And I don’t really have proper electronics tinkering knowledge/training. (0 points)

4. Jailbreak an iPhone
Apple can’t tell me what to do! (1 point)

5. Wire your house for Ethernet and Coax cable
As I don’t have a house yet, I have not done this. But of course, once I do, if it is necessary, I will! (0.5 points)

6. Use BitTorrent and RSS to automatically download new shows from trackers
I use BT and RSS, but never together. I would if I could and my BT client evenhas that feature, but I use a private tracker, so I’m giving myself a half point just for that. (0.5 points)

7. Use an A/V receiver to its fullest capability (every port is taken)
Not yet, but I foreesee I will. After marriage, that is. (0 points)

8. Calibrate an HDTV without the manual
Nope, I’m not really good with calibrating. (0 points)

9. Use a DSLR in full manual mode
I don’t have a DSLR (no $$$!), but I did use my prosumer camera in manual mode before. (0.5 points)

10. Hack the encryption and mooch your neighbor’s Wi-Fi
I have mooched off a wifi AP before, but not cracked one yet. (0.5 points)

11. Solder cleanly enough to get around a circuit board
Like I said, I don’t know how to do electronic-y stuff yet. I want to though. Can someone teach me?(0 points)

12. Use your 3G phone as a Wi-Fi access point
Yup, of course I have done that on my iPhone. Oh wait, you’re not supposed to do that on the iPhone… (1 point)

13. Shove the guts of a modern game console into a retro game console
Nope, can’t. (0 points)

14. Design a webpage in HTML by hand that features a picture of your cat
Is the “cat” part necessary? This must be a reference to LOLCATS website, the most irritating site on the interwebz. I can’t even bring myself to link to them. (0.5 points)

15. Use Photoshop to imperceptibly doctor a photo
No photoshop software to use (not legally anyway), but I did make use of the popular Paint.NET editor to remove the background of my photo ID before submitting it to the ICA for my new passport. And it got approved! (1 point)

16. Abstain from buying extended warranties
More “unaffordable” than “abstain”. (0.5 points)

17. Know where to buy cheap cables and accessories
Yeah, but it’s definitely not a friendly place. (1 points)

18. Fix your parents’ computer over the phone without looking at a computer
I can’t. Mainly because people cannot describe effectively to me what is on the screen. And I end up getting frustrated. (0 points)

19. Enter the Konami code
Not even knowing what a “Konami” code is, I would have to say no. (0 points)

20. Comment on Gizmodo from your phone
I don’t really like to comment. Makes me feel like a troll. If it interests me, I would just post it on this blog of mine. (1 point)

21. Type quickly using T9 texting
Nah, I’m not a big fan of predictive text input, from T9 to iPhone’s in-built dictionary. But that doesn’t mean I can’t text just as fast! 1 point for extreme skill! (1 point)

22. Program a universal remote
I can’t afford a good universal remote. Though I have bought a 3rd party remote, specifically made for my particular brand of TV before.(0 points)

23. Contribute code to the Linux kernel
I’m a user. I can’t develop for nuts! (0 points)

24. Hide porn from your significant other
Not just from your significant other, but every other person who lives with you, or visits often. What I must say is the method of hiding becomes more sophisticated the geekier the people around you are: from simply using wierd nested folders (store in C:\Windows\System32\ImportantSysFiles), hiding them and using command line to access (”cd” and “explorer .”) to folder encryption. Would love to give myself 10 points for this. (1 point)

25. Avoid DRM on everything
Of course! I have yet to buy music online as no DRM-free store is supported in my country. Bummer! And knowing where to get cracked exes and mini-images is a must! Again, can I get 10 points here? (1 point)

26. Know how to back up your data to networked storage—and actually do it
I don’t have a network storage for now. But I do know how to, from using FreeNAS to Clonezilla server. (1 point)

27. Watch TV shows on the internet for free
I’m a BT freak! But I also like Miro as well. (1 point)

28. Edit together digital video ripped from YouTube
Nope, but I have joined two avis together before, and also stitched my own videos as well. (1 point)

29. Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator
SNES on PC, DS, Wii.. Done them all! (1 point)

30. Reset expired trial software by messing with the registry
Yeah, but usually, just get a crack or keygen. But I stopped doing that now. Yes, I did.. (1 point)

31. Hackintosh your PC
I want to! But no support for ICH10R southbridge on my Asus P5Q Pro when I wanted to! Maybe I should check again now… (0 points)

32. Download pre-release movies from Usenet
Didn’t subscribe to Usenet, but I did try a 3 day trial on Giganews before. (0.5 points)

33. Hack the Wii to play homebrew games
Just did it! Had to borrow a copy of Zelda though. (1 point)

34. Get around web content filters on public computers
Proxies anyone? (1 point)

35. Get into a Windows computer if you forgot your password
Ophcrack to the rescue! (1 point)

36. Securely erase your data so it can’t be recovered
I don’t have that sensitive data. But when I sell my old HDDs, I do a multi-pass format, just because I can. (0.5 points)

37. Share a printer between a Mac and a PC on a network
No macs around the house to try this out. (0 points)

38. Build a fighting robot
Nope. I wanted to get Lego Mindstorms, but will probably only do so when I get married and have my own house. (0 points)

39. Write your own Firefox plugins
Nope, I don’t understand the plugin language that Firefox uses. (0 points)

40. Navigate and reorganize the files on your computer in DOS
Been there, done that. A long time ago, in a PC far, far away. (1 point)

41. Get something on the front page of Digg
Nothing I write has not been written before, or written in a much better way before.(0 points)

42. Get through to executive customer service
I’m not such a confrontational guy. I got a friend who is though. Managed to wring 7 free passes to a Pizza Hut buffet from the Director Of Operations before. (0 points)

43. Rip a CD to V0 quality MP3s
If your player supports lossless formats, MP3s are so passé. (1 point)

44. Rip a DVD to DivX
Did it once, but didn’t like to lose all those commentary. I prefer ripping it to region-free ISOs now. (1 point)

45. Build your own computer from parts
Pfft.. (1 point)

46. Swap out the hard drive in your DVR for a bigger one
No DVR. Prefer HTPC actually. (0 points)

47. Get an NES cartridge working again by blowing in it
No NES, but will SEGA Genesis do? (1 point)

48. Calibrate a 7.1 surround-sound system
I don’t have a dedicated gaming room to accomodate 7.1 surround. (0 points)

49. Play downloaded games on a Nintendo DS
Urm.. Let’s just gimme a point here. Nuff said. (1 point)

50. Talk about things that aren’t tech related
Of course! I’m getting married. I need to be able to do this, so I won’t freak her out. (1 point)

Total score: 29/50.

By Gizmodo’s standards, that’s “You play a lot of video games and read a lot of blogs, but that’s about as far as your geek cred goes.”. That’s a good balance I think, considering that the next one says that you went to “computer camp”. That’s transcending “geek” to “nerd”.

This just cracks me up!

This is a damn good price for a 1 Terabyte harddisk. You better believe it.

Link to store: http://www.thepotterhouse.net/livestore/product_info.php?products_id=5214]

Saw it on a thread in VR-Zone forums.

Has the terabyte age has dawned upon us already? I remembered pestering my dad to buy me a 4.3GB drive back in the 90s, for about S$200+. Now a disk 200 times larger costs less than that. At S$199, it’s roughly S$0.20 per GB only. Harddrive prices are going down so fast! Now how about them SSDs?

Of course, don’t be fooled by the lingo. The “1 TB” referred to here is simply a marketing term, meaning it has 1,000,000,000,000 bytes (check out the footer on the specifications section of its product page). Whereas an actual 1 TB is 1099511627776 bytes. Thus, when you plug this in your PC, your Windows or Linux OS will display 931.32GB (actual value is 931.322574615478515625 bytes). Sorry Macs, I’m not sure if you can simply upgrade or add disks like that (but I have a strangely strong feeling you can’t).

However, I would still love to add this to my repertoire soon…

The following is a message from Bender Bending Rodriguez:

So remember the rule on piracy, D.O.I.T.