Upgrade your wrt54g linksys router with dd-wrt

September 19th, 2009

What would make someone flash their perfectly fine router with software that’s created from third party sources. How will you know this stuff will be better than what’s already installed stock, or worse what if it bricks your hardware. Well to tell you the truth the software included on most routers are fairly basic standard stuff. In some cases the standard stuff can cause more issues then one would expect. So dont be stuck with this lackluster firmware support where they make updates maybe once a year hoping you will buy their new model instead of fixing the old one. Well dd-wrt is a third party firmware that can be flashed to specific hardware in order to bring additional functionality not initially intended for by the manufacturer. For example bridge/repeater support and additional security measures. This makes your old cheap router into a more expensive networking powerhouse. My initial impressions have me highly impressed. It has so many features It will take me a week to get to them all. It includes a bundle of addons compared to the original linksys software.

Hook your router directly to your computer for this. Do this the same way you would if you had the official firmware. I would recommend not uploading it with wifi, just to be on the safe side. I didnt change anything to dynamic to static I simply left it dynamic.

Ok now in my case I have a Linksys WRT54G v2.2. When attempting this please make sure that you know what model of router you have. It can be a bit confusing navigating there site but the do have a wiki and faq. If you dont have a compatible router I honestly cant say anything good will come of it. Make sure you look at the compatibility list for supported devices . I have attached below a video of the procedure which in my case and model was as easy as an official update.

Latest stable release download section

Tmobile pulls the plug on iphone data usage

August 27th, 2009

Have you been using your unlocked iPhone on tmobile hoping to save some of your dollars on data useage. Did you run from your first months AT&T bill to another carrier in order to avoid expensive rates. Well it looks like tmobile is not allowing unlocked iPhone users to connect with their inexpensive data services. While trying to browse I get this splash page telling me that I cannot connect using this plan and that I will need another plan to access data.

Why should tmobile care what phone I use on their services. Tmobile is a service provider and I paid for service that I can no longer use. Tmobile never has and from my knowledge never will begin to manufacture phones. So they should continue to be just that, a service provider. It’s interesting that when I call they always ask what phone are you using, when they already know.

Update:
It appears that when you remove the data settings from the iPhone and reenter them without guest as username and password it works again. Strange very strange.

iPhone 3G S Unlocked out of the box.

July 29th, 2009

I got my iPhone 3G S yesterday and of course I had to open it up and risk destroying it on day one. Well it all turned out very easy since the process has become extremely simplified. One word of caution before you begin the process. It would be wise to make your own back up for now if you know how to ssh into the phone. Copy your contacts and your sms and save it for later to restore back when your complete. When your finished jailbreaking don’t restore from back up. Setting your iphone as a new phone will prevent some small 3g bugs. Its better to start fresh anyway, trust me I wasted much time so let me save you some time here. Then ssh back and your message and contacts will be back the way it was. In the video I am comparing it to my 3G as you can see nothing changed in size. Overall in my opinion the “S” for speed is true. It loads everything significantly faster than previously. Especially cydia which started to take an eternity to load. And this is with all my repos back.

iPhone 3G S Unlocked out of box from Encript on Vimeo.

XBOX 360 Hitachi 59 Modification Tutorial

July 18th, 2009

What will you need Checklist

XBOX 360
Ability to work with Hardware. (Not afraid to open expensive stuff.)
Hitachi Drive v59
Computer w Compatible SATA Connections (Assumes you have SATA Cord)
iXtreme Firmware 1.51 (Latest for Hitachi Drives) *Legal reasons I cannot distribute this file.
JungleFlasher (Included is a Detailed PDF file *Must Read*)

Flashing your Xbox 360 can be a scary thing to do. It is not a toy and is very expensive if you were to somehow mess up. This is why I will try and ease some of those tension by making a guide that addresses how to flash your xbox 360. You might come across many sites but none really help you out. This is why I will answer any questions that you might have in the comments section. For this I used my Dell Vostro 420 with Windows XP for this and by luck or chance the SATA IC9H chipset works flawlessly with this drive. Other drives you might need to go out and purchase a SATA card to install but I will talk more about that later. Flashing your xbox drive has become a slightly easier task to accomplish with the help of useful new programs and tools. WARNING opening your xbox will void your warranty. This is only a guide to assist you I do not take any responsibility if you damage your xbox 360. If you follow everything you should and will be fine.

The first task of course will be to open up the xbox 360. I found this task to be a bit more difficult than opening up the original xbox. But this tutorial will not cover this process. Although I will forward a link to a helpful youtube video, just watch it a few times and have the proper torx screwdrivers. I stress that you read up on the jungleflasher pdf file prior to doing anything because this will bring you up to speed on your drive and what steps. You can find this pdf file included when you download jungleflasher. This is just so you feel more comfortable with the process.

Once you have this bad boy open things get a bit easier, that is if you are comfortable with hardware and opening things. But I assume you do since you made it this far. You need to have both your computer and xbox 360 open so that you can use easily access key components. The xbox 360 for power and your computer for data transferring. I want you to now take your SATA cable and plug it into an open space on your motherboard. Leave the power cable from the hitachi drive connected to the xbox. I at this point shut off my computer and restart it just to be safe.

Install the PortIO32: Xbox 360 Device Driver which is includes in the jungleflasher package. There is a folder called manual_install go in there and follow the txt file. Getting your xbox 360 recognized by your computer is the next step which can work funny sometimes depending on your computer setup. Just be patient and try it again if it doesn’t get picked up the first time. But now that everything is installed you should be ready to continue. From here if your successful you can follow the video which I made to help you out a little. Good Luck and Happy Flashing. Please remember to legally backup your game discs. This is by no means a lesson on piracy.

UPDATE
Video is fixed but I should work on a voice over.
UPDATE 2
Added Audio plus M$ is doing some serious banning so please do not play on live ever your console will be banned. Dont cry these are the repercussions of doing such things. Do you like live that much buy a second console im sure ms wont mind that.

Vimeo Last Rights for Video Game Content

July 13th, 2009

I received an email from rights@vimeo.com

Dear Encript:

Your video ‘Geometry Wars 1,000,000 points(921864)’ has been removed for violating the Upload Rules of Vimeo.com:
Vimeo does not allow game walk-throughs, game strategy videos, depictions of player vs player battles, raids, or any other video gaming video that simply depicts individuals playing a video game.

If you believe this was an error, please reply to this email in a civil manner with your reasoning (”I see other people do it” is not a valid reason).

Regards,
Vimeo

Thank you vimeo but this part makes me laugh especially hard

or any other video gaming video that simply depicts individuals playing a video game

So if I am just playing a video game in a video It will get removed? Why Vimeo, is what I upload not entertaining enough or helpful for people. Does everything I upload have to be approved by Spielberg. I know this is suppose to be a video sharing site, with the intention of sharing high quality videos. Its understandable that not all content belongs and can be harmful in someway. Such as content that depicts or promotes violence and pornography. But what did my little Geometry Wars video ever do. Some people found it helpful, this is why the internet is so great if you have a question, just search for it and more than likely someone else already has an answer. I wonder why youtube is so popular.

Vimeo’s Statement

If the true problem is the size of the video why not make a cap. Say make your game videos shorter to not stress the transcoder.

Like shown in this post in case you forgot. Link Had I known deleting video game content is what Blake Whitman meant by this

but we are taking measures in the upcoming weeks to combat the increase in traffic

I probably would have been a lot more vocal.

Here was the original post How to get 1000000 points in geometry wars.

Proscan 1080p 40LC45S 40” Review

July 6th, 2009

I decided it was time to upgrade my older television set and get a brand new one. I was looking around for a 32” Inch HDTV at Best Buy, but to my surprise I seen a 40” inch HDTV. It was by no means a brand name TV. Having already owned a Norcent 2200 I was no stranger to owning no name brand electronics. I read all the reviews and it has an amazing positive rating. Tons of good feedback. But one thing stood out to me from the few negative. People were complaining about some sort of annoying humming sound that emanates from the TV even when it was off. This sounded a little scary to me and probably would make others not want to buy it. But for $499.99 you cant go wrong (or can you?). I decided to take a chance. I went to actually see the Proscan TV at my nearest Best buy location, but Best buy for some reason does not display it. Maybe because they don’t wish to take sales away from their big ticket items such as Sony and Panasonic. Especially when people see that there isn’t very much in difference between this TV and more expensive ones. I instead pulled the trigger and bought it with in store pick up because shipping would have killed the deal. My brother and I went to go pick it up. When we got it home we immediately set it up. The first thing I did was hooked it up to my Xbox 360 and was blown away. For this price who could turn down this deal. If you have the money I say go for it if you dont mind having a Non name brand TV in your house. I for one have yet to experience any humming or buzzing sounds coming from the TV.

Cons.
1. No Swivel or Pivoting stand.
2. Red power light might be distracting if you have this as a bedroom TV.
3. Sound seems lower when using HDMI most likely because HDMI should be used in a surround sound setting and not with the small built in speakers.

Pros.
1. Inexpensive
2. 40” HDTV with 1080p output
3. Comes prepared out of the box (Even for wall mounting)
Built in digital tuner.

Overall this is a great tv for the buck. It’s price is perfect and does everything the more expensive brands do.

Update:
The 499.99 price is no longer. But 579.99 is still not a bad deal for those looking for a cheap HDTV that can do what the big boys can. But if your smart you will book mark this page because when the holidays come around you know this will be significantly cheaper.

A2DP on iPhone 3G not fully Compatible

July 3rd, 2009

I was very eager to update my iPhone 3G to the latest 3.0 firmware. With this new firmware they would unleash a2dp upon the earth; they will finally allow us iPhone users to enjoy wireless music bliss. So I didn’t hesitate to purchase new wireless bluetooth stereo phones. So I ordered a pair on eBay. I ordered a pair of Motorola S9 headphones. I did some research and read good reviews about these as they didn’t look to geeky plus they are stylish and very popular. To my dismay after I paired it up with the iPhone 3G I noticed I could not change tracks backwards or forward. I could only pause and change the volume but that’s it. Why is this? Apparently not all a2dp headphones are 100% compatible with the iPhone 3G. I am hearing from others having this exact same issue with their headphones. This is from apple’s own discussion board. How on earth are cheaper cell phones on the market capable of handling a2dp with no issues but when apple allows it they do not work completely. If anyone would be able to get this perfect it would be apple. Unless they did a rush job and did not test bluetooth headphones. If by any chance apple somehow comes out with special Apple iPhone bluetooth headphones I will be very upset. If somehow their headphones work perfect but others do not will be strange and suspect. Is anyone else having these issues with other types of stereo bluetooth headphones if so please speak out. At least there can be some type of compatibility list so people can know what to buy and what not to buy, seeing as how these things are expensive and apple didn’t specify not all headphones would work.

Update:
As stated in the comments it’s not a2dp to be blamed because it does indeed stream music but it’s the avrcp profile that is not fully implemented. However it is foolish for apple to release this knowing that these two profiles go hand and hand. We all known how long it takes apple to release new firmware updates. Should we keep waiting and for how long?

5 Things that should be in the new Youmail app

June 22nd, 2009

1. The ability to hear messages from the phone and not speaker phone or headphones. Just for privacy concerns.

2. The ability to record greetings directly from the phone. If you don’t have access to a computer and you want to change or add a greeting, it would be a nice feature to have.

3. Pictures of your contacts. Either from your phone or if you could upload them to the site.

4. Ditch-Mail access (Toggle on or off). If you do not want to talk to someone you can send them directly to “ditchmail” from the phone. This would be awesome.

5. Push Notification (To let you know when you got a new message). You could easily enable sms notifications. However if you don’t wish to use your own text message account limit, push would be the ideal method.

Hackintosh Blue Monitor After Changing Resolution

June 21st, 2009

If you have had problems after changing your monitor resolution this little thread from the apple discussion board might come in handy link. I have a GeForce 8400GS and after playing around with higher resolutions I was no longer able to see what was on my monitor. That is until I followed these “Blind” instructions on how to get to the dialog box to change the resolution to something more suitable. Scroll over to the last post by BSteely and follow everything to the letter. Trust me it works if you can see whats on your screen.

Update:
Actually when using dvi and not VGA this blue monitor thing does not happen and it changes smoothly.
Update 2:
Using NVDarwin seems to work better than NVInject for some reason. But only when there is absolutely no other injects. That means on a fresh install.

Youmail iPhone app not perfect on purpose

June 18th, 2009

The Youmail service Youmail link for those who do not know what it is, is a voicemail alternative for your cell phone or possibly your home phone. They provide rich features like customizable voice greetings for each of your contacts. It is a really cool service. They recently added an app to the iPhone app store. Soon as I received their email announcing it’s release I jumped on and downloaded it. Well…….. It works. But it’s lackluster on purpose. This is because its features and services are too similar to AT&T visual voicemail. Therefore when you get a voicemail no photo of the person will show. In addition to this when you play a voicemail it’s forced to play in speaker phone. What developer would do such a thing, haven’t they heard of privacy before. You can solve this by grabing some headphones but if you don’t have a pair with you expect your messages to be played aloud.
This is a major concern, if Youmail is to be taken seriously they need to address these matters soon. Also Apple needs to release the stranglehold on developers to create rich content for everyone to enjoy.