On November 4th of this week, Digg announced on their blog a new feature they call, “Digg Trends”. It is a new feature that identifies and highlights upcoming stories that have garnered quite a bit of attention or activity. These stories are tagged based on the amount of activity surrounding them (the number of diggs, the number of buries, or the rate of comments being posted an hour). The story pops up onto the front page of Digg and is displayed for ten minutes so users who have not seen the story can view it. There’s also a cool big timer which is set to ten minutes that is set right beside the link to the story. Each story is given ten minutes of attention on the front page until it gets taken down for the next story.

While I was at work, I miraculously fell upon this new feature. I do not know how they delivered the feature but I think only some people can view the beta while others can not. I do not exactly know but I found the feature cool. Although it does seem kind of annoying to have a big huge timer counting down in front of you, especially if the Digg home page is not the center of your focus while you’re on the computer, It is not noticeable once you just scroll down to the next bunch of stories. It was a good idea to just implement it on only the top part of the home page. I hate it when those ads come up on to the screen and they block half the screen off and when you try to scroll, it follows. That is very annoying. I played around with it for about five minutes before I got disinterested in the story and moved on but the five minutes of using it has allowed me to see something. On the right side of the story, there is a number which states the number of people that have checked out the story. I kept on refreshing the page to see if the clock was working in real time too and what I noticed was that the amount of people that have ‘checked out the story’ kept on changing. The numbers kept on changing at random but within a range of 400-600. I do not know if Digg has fully implemented the functionality of that part of the feature but just looking at the values change every second is very, how do I say it…wrong. That’s misrepresenting the activity of the story. I actually don’t remember what the story was because I did not actually click on it. I think it had to do something with New York and Wall street or somewhere around those lines. The numbers kept on changing and at first I thought that more and more people were actually clicking and viewing the story but the numbers were also decreasing. At first the value was around 700, then it was at 400, then at 500, and then back down again to 400. This pattern kept on going until I just said, “Fuck it, it’s still in beta, they’ll work it out later.” Still though, if this was deliberate, they should have just waited a little longer to get that part of the feature functionally working.

I started doing some machine level coding this month and it is the most complicated programming language I have ever seen. It takes quite a bit of time outputing “hello world” on the terminal. It’s not the same as just importing your libraries, creating your class and typing out, system.out.println(“hello world”);, or printf(“hello world”);. The high level programming languages like C, C++, C#, or Java make this so much easy for you, but once you start assembly language, you’re done! It will take a lot more time to get to know how the language works.

So, I figured the best way to write assembly language is in linux. So I decided to hop on the band wagon and download the most popular unix/linux variant I can find which happens to be Ubuntu. I downloaded Ubuntu 8.10 or what many like to call it, Intrepid Ibex. I already have Hardy Heron (8.04) on my computer as dual boot with Windows XP so I decided to install it on my 8 Gb USB key. I used this article from PenDriveLinux in order to install to USB. The installation process is actually the same thing as just installing it on your computer. The article states that you should remove any existing hard drives in your computer/laptop before you plug in the USB, but you don’t have to. As long as you know the name of the hard drive(s) on your computer and the name of the USB key, you should be fine. Oh, you have to make sure to set your BiOS to boot from CD and if you want to use the Ubuntu USB, then you better make sure your computer can boot from USB as I learned the hard way. In the partition option, they give you which storage device you can partition and it will show you the USB key. Choose the USB key from the list and start the installation. Usually installing Ubuntu on a computer takes around half an hour. It depends on the reading/writing speed of your hard drive and the CD/DVD drive. If you install it on USB though, you better make some popcorn because it will take a while. It took about an hour and a half to finish installation but when it finally finished installing I leapt with glee, only to have it brought back down to observing HOW SLOW it is on USB. The operating system is so slow on USB; due to the fact it is SSD technology slowing it down, a lot. I’ll open up Firefox and it will take about thirty seconds for the program to pop up and when I create three empty tabs….it takes a LONG time for the program to respond. You actually might think that the program stopped responding but, just be patient and you’ll see. Anyways I had enough of that once I tried out the many applications that came with Intrepid Ibex. They just took too much time to boot up and I couldn’t do any work on it. The terminal was even slow and I couldn’t do my machine level coding on it.

Well, it was waste of 8 Gb. It was cool installing the OS on my USB key but the end results do not satisfy the curiosity. Next time I’ll install it on my external hard drive and see how that goes.

So I recently started using Apple’s Macs this year and I have to say they are actually cool…until you see how different it is from Windows. As a Window’s user, migrating from Windows to Mac is quite time consuming until you realize after the first few seconds of using a Mac keyboard that all the keyboard short cuts for OSX are the same, you just have to replace control (ctrl) with the apple key (comman key, or the ⌘ key (Unicode 2318). I have found that every keyboard short cut I use for Windows can be replicated on the Mac side. All but one…PRINT SCREEN! Unfortunately the Mac keyboards do not have the print screen button so unfortunately when using Windows on a Mac, I am pretty much screwed when I need to take a picture of the desktop.

Fortunately I have been able to find a couple of solutions to my problem:

1. Press ctrl + F4 (unfortunately this does not work on all builds, only boot camp apparently?)
2. Press F13 or F14 (unfortunately, not ALL macs have an F13 or F14. I don’t even know if any mac keyboards have F13 or F14)
3. In Windows go to Start–>All Programs–>Accessories–>Accessibility–>On-Screen Keyboard (you need to arrange your windows in a way so that you can easily crop out the on screen keyboard as that will appear in your print screen)
4. Use screen capture programs like Gadwin, or Print Screen Deluxe (Yea, last resort, you have to download software to do it for you).
5. If you really want to go last resort, you can go into the hex editor in windows and use a certain key combination or useless button to do your print screen for you. (I have not figured this out yet though)

I am a regular listener to the TWiT network which is hosted by none other than TechTV alum and ‘Call for Help’ host Leo Laporte. I finally got a chance to listen to last week’s Security Now netcast hosted by Mr. Laporte and Steve Gibson (the man who discovered and coined the term, ’spyware’) and once I heard Steve say, “I mean, for example, we’re seeing an increasing number of Mac exploits and vulnerabilities now. I mean, those are happening. We’re getting security patches from Apple at an unprecedented rate compared to the past because hackers have Macs now. It used to be that they predominantly had Windows machines. Now they’ve got Macs, and they’re poking around
in there.” I knew my prediction was true.

Since now, Apple has become basically a fashion statement where its cool to use Apple products like the iPod and the iMac – lets not forget about the iPhone, I see so many people buy and use these products. Many people buy Apple products because they want to be cool like everyone else and they look nice and stuff. I understand that because no one wants to be the outcast, the one person who does not have th product that all the cool kids at school have. I’ve been there and I’ve definitely seen it.
In this case though with Apple products, I say, “you guys are so stupid.” No matter what, just because it looks cool doesn’t mean its better and don’t give me that bullshit saying that the Leopard OS is safer than Vista or even XP because its not. It is only ’safer’ because hackers predominantly use Windows/Linux and hack into other Windows machines because Windows is the only OS people have. Now, all these hackers have macs and they’re developing and finding exploits to use against all the fan boys out there. Once you get infected with a mac virus or worm, GG to you. Its just like using Windows all over again.

Soon enough though, when enough people use macs, Leopard will become like Windows and then no one will be able to trust either Microsoft and Apple anymore and then everyone will say, “Fuck it, lets go with Linux!”

Ever since I discovered this game back in high school, I have been hooked on it and playing a couple of games each and every day. At first when I started playing FreeCell, I did not know what to do. I did not know you would have to press F2 for a game to start as usually when I play the games that come with Windows like Hearts, Solitaire, Minesweeper, Spider solitaire, and Pinball, the game has already been set and the computer waits for my first move. FreeCell actually doesn’t do this on default and I had a wonderful time looking at the in the middle of the window look from left to right as I dragged my mouse around in the game. At this point I still have not found out about the F2 process. When I did finally figure it out I saw all fifty-two cards arranged in piles. There were four spaces for cards on the top right and top left corner of the window. As I tried to figure out how to play this game, I discovered that the boxes on the top right side of the window are for the cards I set free and the ones on the top left hand side are basically the ones I put on probation. After looking at the arrangement of cards, I trivially though that this game was like Solitaire which basically is, you just have all the cards face up in front of you so you can arrange them in a descending, alternating colour pattern.

I managed to rack up a lot of games played over my first few months of playing the game. I played about 2000 games with a winning percentage of around a high 50%. Now after reformatting my computer, I have a long way to go playing 2000 games but my record right now is 100 winds and 58 losses at a 63% winning percentage. I have an 8 streak win and a 4 streak loss. I say, it is pretty good to have my win/lose ratio this high. Usually my win/lose ratio is around a 40% and then I manage to bring it up as I play more games.

Playing this game, I discovered a lot of neat tips and tricks to winning. I also discovered many cool cheats and stuff. While surfing on the internet, I managed to find some really cool things I did not know about FreeCell:

1. If you press Ctrl + Shift + F10 while playing a game you get a message that asks you to choose ‘Abort’ to Win, ‘Retry’ to Lose, or ‘Ignore’ to cancel. If you choose ‘Abort’ and then move a card, all the cards quickly pile up into their free cells and you win the game.

2. If you want to select a game, press F3. The neat thing is, what happens if you enter a negative number? If you type in ‘-1′ you get a game that, well, you can not possibly win. All the cards are piled up in eight rows just like always but they are piled up in a way that will just make you laugh.

3. When selecting a new game, type in ‘-2′ and you’ll get an arrangement similar to ‘-1′ but the cards are arranged in a different order, and you might be able to win this one if you think really hard about it.

4. If you don’t like your stats, you can always change them. You’ll just have to play a lot more games and make sure you win all of them. OR you can type in ‘regedit’ in the ‘Run…’ command from the Start menu in Windows and with the window that pops up, go to this location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Freecell
From this point you can edit all of your stats to make it look impressive, but you’re gonna have to know how to convert to Hexadecimal first. Don’t worry, it is not that hard.

So far these are all the cheats that I have found so far. There could be more, but I have not found them yet. With these cheats, its pretty much GG for FreeCell.

I’ve lately been playing the game Team Fortress 2, developed by Valve in 2007.  The Heavy update finally came on August 19th and I’ve been playing non-stop for a week now trying to gain all the achievements.  I’ve managed to get twenty-three of the thirty-eight achievements available and am now using the nicely made K.G.B.  What pisses me off though is the keyboard I am using.

I know for a fact that since I am a gamer that wired keyboards and mouses are preferred to rather than their wireless counterparts. The main problem being that you never know when the batteries will run out, especially the batteries for the mouse that can crap out on you when you get ambushed from behind by a pyro wielding a backburner.
I’m using the Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop 3.0 package and I can tell you, I do not like this keyboard what-so-ever. The keyboard and mouse have their advantages and disadvantages but the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages.

The Pros:
1. Ergonomically, the design is alright and the keyboard feels nice on the hands
2. It has many programmable macro keys for your programs and also has for short cut keys like a button for MSN messenger, calculator, my documents, my computer, notepad, e-mail, and the internet.
3. It contains media player buttons which are always good for watching movies, television shows, and also listening to music.
4. The mouse feels great and is ergonomically designed and fits the hand well. It feels very nice to hold it.
5. Mouse and keyboard do not take up that much battery power. For two years of owning this keyboard, I haven’t replaced the keyboard batteries and I’ve only replaced the mouse batteries twice.
6. The range can go up to five feet at least. I didn’t test at any further distances as my room is not long enough for this testing.

The Cons:
1. The program that comes with the package is easy to use and easy to install. It is very easy to navigate through and is intuitive. Unfortunately the macro keys and the shortcuts do not respond very well to the programs that are assigned to these buttons. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. I had a problem with always resetting the macro keys to their respective programs. The keys would respond for a short period but after a while or even after restarting the computer, the macro keys stop working.
2. The mouse wheel is too sensitive for me. This is a subjective view as I like the old school mouse wheels in which you can feel each click the mouse makes. The mouse wheel rotates very smoothly and you can barely feel any of the clicks. The wheel feels nice though with a translucent rubber finish. The scroll wheel can be moved from left to right which is used to help navigate through the tabs in Firefox and Opera but it seems as if the keyboard problems extend to the mouse as well.

Now the biggest problem:
3. This keyboard is not suitable for gaming what-so-ever! If you are a gamer, do not buy this keyboard because it will fail you and get you killed countless times, so many times that you will want to throw the keyboard and mouse out the window in frustration. The major problems that occur with this keyboard is that somehow the keys become unresponsive and de-sync somehow while you are trying to move your character. Just by pressing two buttons at once, your character will stop moving. This is very problematic especially if you try to crouch jump onto a ledge or even try and dodge while strafing and running forward.

While playing a scout in TF2, double-jumping is very important. What happens when you regularly double jump is you jump forward first and when you try to do the second jump you stop moving and just jump upwards – very frustrating.
Rocket jumping also is a big problem as jumping and trying to move forward is a big problem. Many times while rocket jumping I never move forward but only upward.
The biggest problem is strafing. Many times as I run forward and strafe to the left or right, the keys malfunction and de-sync or so and my character stops moving thus sending me to my untimely death.

These problems though never occur when I play DoTA, but mostly in WC3 its all done with the mouse and the keyboard hot-keys are not usually pressed at the same time.
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In the end, this keyboard is ideal for any kind type of computer use except for gaming. It is great for businesses and casual typing. It is great for typing your blog or finishing off an essay for school but it is definitely not for games. If you are a gamer, stay away from this keyboard.