Let My Documents remain mine!

I'm not the only one who is sick and tired of having his My Documents folder piled full of shit without permission. I implore all developers, please figure out a standard. Windows 7 isn't going to make anything better either.

Transfer your VM to your HDD

So you've tested out a nice customised OS in a VM. You've played around with it loads and modified it to suit your needs. Your satisfied enough to want to use as your main OS, but now you have to burn it to a disk, reinstall it to your physical HDD and re-customise it.

Wrong!

Download clonezilla iso (its useful for more that just this, very handy to have around).
Mount the iso into your VM.
Boot to the iso.
Clone the drive to an external disk (or whatever).
Boot clonezilla from your physical bios, and copy the cloned HDD image onto your physical HDD.
If you're using Windows 7 you might need to run a repair to fix the MBR being hashed incorrectly.

Desperation Drivers Guide

Ive found an interesting and fruitful way of getting obscure drivers. Since I installed XP64 on my Toshiba, I've been finding it hard tracking down some drivers for it.

For the few drivers that eluded my search, I devised a simple solution.

Go into the device manager.
Right click on an unknown device.
Open the properties
Switch to the details tab
Open the panel to show the hardware ID
Copy and paste the ID's into Google along with your OS version.
Profit!!!

Most of the search results got me inside the INI file for the device drivers, from there you can try to move from different levels and find the drivers.

After you've downloaded and installed the drivers do a driver update just in case.
Note: Some devices had to be disabled then re-enabled before they would work.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Oblivion Lost

You've all heard of the game Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. The the developers originally named it; Stalker: Oblivion Lost, and later changed during production. The developers struggled over many release dates to deliver the near-vapourware game, eventually creating a vastly different game then they initially intended.

Oblivion Lost is a collaborative mod from the Stalker fanbase, it seeks to mould Stalker into what it should have been. Speaking from personal view, Shadow of Chernobyl is an amazing game, excellent graphics even by todays standard, vast explorable and interesting landscapes and a good storyline. The guns apparently have realistic ballistics and are all modelled on existing weapons. It lacks in some aspects however; there are no vehicles, the variety of monsters is disappointing and the bugs can really screw your game up.

Oblivion Lost fixes all these, and much much more. The first huge difference you notice after installing is the lighting, when you reach outside you no longer see dull rainy european skys with brown-grey radioactive dust, you see an amazing sunset burning an orange glow across everything. When night falls, it falls hard, visibility is only few feet and enemies cant see you either. "Blowouts" happen every now and then, when a blowout is near you hear sirens in the distance, if you dont get to cover in the next few seconds, youre going to be fried alive by nuclear radiation. You get tired aswell as hungry, a little sleeping bag allows you to rest (Oblivion style), you can choose how long you sleep for. You might want to sleep in shelter, probably with allies, blowouts can happen or bandits might arrive. If you dont sleep you get drowsy and see double, if you dont swig an energy drink or sneak a quick nap you could conk out mid battle.

More weapons, vehicles and enemies have been added, most if not all bugs have been fixed, shopkeepers can repair your armour. New stronger bosses have been added, loads of new items and tweaks. Might I add, some textures, models and graphics have been updated to make it compete with todays games.


Heres a movie I found on YouTube that shows off a few features:


Downloads:

1.0005 Patch

Oblivion Lost

I suggest you install it with "FCAR" and "VI-NPC Invul" addons to make it extra perfect, these prevent important NPCs from dying and allow you to befriend factions by paying them off. Youll have to go hunt for them yourself ;)

Commodore 64 Style

Me and Gary went on a 1337 expedition to the local dump, once there we went to the recycling center, (I jest). Our eyes were appalled to see some old hag throw out a beautiful treasure. A C64! Gary scrambled to it, grabbing joysticks and cassettes!
For the princely sum of €3 (which we banded together to pay), we headed off into the sunrise to test what once was the grandfather of games. It now sits in my boot.

Get Past (most) Trojans & Viruses

Today I spent a long time setting up and installing a modded version of XP onto a 1TB Raid-0. With my new system I wanted some new programs. Keep everything fresh.

Just a little background on some trojans and viruses. They usually dont "embed" or "insert" themselves into executables. They generally embed the executable into them, they appear exactly like the executable. And when their run they execute their malicious code, THEN they execute the executable to ensure you dont notice anything suspicious.

So I *Legally* Got myself a copy of Windows Media Player 12. Except it had an embedded trojan. The modded version of XP had 7Zip installed and integrated, I was confused when the context menu included 7Zip for exe files.

So I messed about and extracted the exe. Viola! I found the original Windows Media Player 12 install inside the trojan exe. Completely bypassing it!

My upgraded PC

Ive stuck a beautiful Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 (3Ghz) into my Bad Axe II motherboard. Its not supposed to happen, the board only has an FSB of 1066Mhz and the CPU has an FSB of 1333. It took a long time but I finally got it working, even managed to inadvertantly overclock my RAM speed. Heres the current specs:

CPU: Conroe E6850 @ 3.0Ghz
Board: Bad Axe II (3xPCIE slots)
GFX: 9800GTX
RAM: 2 x 1GB DDR2-800 (@833Mhz)

Let me douse some rumours:
The 8800 Ultra is far superior
The 8800GTX is still superior
The 9800GTX is incorrectly named, its just a cheaper 8800GT, NOT the landmark groundbreaking next generation card its name suggests.

But it still plays like this!






Note: Assasins Creed is running on max settings @ 1680*1050 (limited at 60fps)
FRAPS captured at half resolution and half framerate (still a 2GB file!)

My Laptop: An Epic Story

Chapter 16: A Genius Idea

Im not going to complain about Alienware, everyone else is doing it for me.
My laptops broken again (looks like my theory was wrong).I'm thinking of upgrading its GFX card to a nice x1900, its controversial but I have 2 main options.
Both of which i am seriously considering.

1) Buy a new card, i have a selection of x1800, x1900 or do another hard search online.

2) Get a job in Alienware. Do a commando mission behind enemy lines and retrieve the parts through whatever means!

Ill send in my CV after my exams. I just wonder what position I'm interested in...

Toms Bathroom Bedlam

Its about time this was posted.

WARNING: If it is illegal to view Garrths nipples in your country/state.
You best not be watchin.



The production quality is just amazing...

My Laptop: An Epic Story

Chapter 15

Figured out the exact cause of its problems and fixed them! So as you found out in previous chapters, (Im doing a starwars thing here where i start off on 15 incase i need to backtrack), i spilled diet coke all over the keypad of my laptop. Of course I blame Chris for this...

But it would get a garbled boot screen every time it started, and would only boot properly in VGA mode or Safe Mode. Which is shit. I went through a long thing with Alienware, who refused to fix it (Because their wankers). For months i thought "Oh my graphics card is fucked, either that or somethings really wrong with the motherboard", I expected to buy a new GFX card, I still might feel like upgrading.
But alas, all i feared was naught.

After i opened it up it still refused to work, then suddenly, no garbled screen and a perfect boot! This happend for about 24 hours, it stopped working the next day in college. I tested it in the heat, and in the cold. I didnt really do anything inside, just checked for surface damage, then put the parts back. So i thought it was a thermal thing, me moving the parts about freeing something allowing it to cool qiucker or something, i had no proper explaination.

Last night i opened it up again, i had to procrastinate for this exam i have in a few hours. I questioned why instead of using thermal paste or traditional thermal pads, they seem to be using a spongey pad and a rubbery pad. Ive never seen thermal bridges like these before. The ones for the memory chips were rubbery and the one on the GPU was spongey and kind of dampish. I put it down to some kind of thermal grease in the sponge, but i think now i was wrong.

I believe because of the immense heat of the GPU and the addition of Diet Coke, it turned what was once a rubbery thermal pad, into a spongey greasey Coke monster. I took it off and wiped away some moisture around the chip, it was in between loads of transitor things. Stuck some proper thermal paste on the GPU and stuck back the heatsink. First boot again was a disaster, however every boot since has been perfect.

Ive had to open the laptop a few times since for various reasons, i monitored the GPU temp and it creeped toward 100 degrees, my laptop shuts down at that point. Opening it up again showed that there is a great distance between the heatsink and the GPU, the paste never connected them. I added more paste and fashoned the blue rubbery stuff into a more economic fit. And a few times i forgot to reconnect the fan. However now, my temps idle aroun 78, around what the used to.

Operation: Procrastination

Yeah I have a shit exam in Systems Modelling tomorrow and im doing as much procrastinating as possible. My Alienware laptop is currently in my fridge, why? I nearly burnt out the GPU. But thats a good thing, It works. At least sometimes.

What i learned today? The existance of "MXM", the first and only standard GPU interface for laptops. It basically means i DONT have to send my laptop back into the clutches of the evil corporations to fix it, i can buy a new graphics card and just simply slot it in. Its a great invention but its purposely kept quiet. Most new laptops have it, bet you didnt know! Yours probably does, except itll say it nowhere on any documentation.

Heres what it looks like:


Note: Coke cap added for good measure...

Stuff I Have Learned Today

What a "pee puck" is: Hilariously, it’s a frozen block of piss in the shape of a puck, which if crafted properly, can be slid under someone’s door for various reasons...

Why not to EVER have any dealings with Alienware:
Alienware are a corrupt company well established in their capitalist regime. They not only overprice their computers, but refuse to fix or replace broken parts after warranty, even if you pay.

I’ve had first-hand experience with this, alongside many others. More than 90% of their stuff is faulty (figure pulled out of my arse). I’ll do a larger write-up.

What about Dell computers? I used to just think Dell were bad because their computers were a little inferior. Not by much, just by gaming standards and the fact their bios was in-house software that wasn’t very well managed. However they are just as bad if not worse than Alienware. Their support staff are given a form for each customer who complains, their jobs are at stake if they don’t get the customer to call back between 10-15 times for whatever reasons. Think about that the next time you’re fobbed off.

I've added this hilarious : definition to Urban Dictionary.

Lesson: If you want a new desktop pc, build it yourself. If you want a laptop, search hard for a company with good customer support. Pull your finger out and get your ass to Mars.