So, I just got out of the shower a little over two hours ago, only to find that while I was gone someone decided to hack into my Gmail account and send a little present to all of my contact’s inboxes:
Hi,friend
I bought a laptop last week and i have received it.the product has
low price and high quality.the seller also solved the tariff for me.it
is a Chinese website: www.boelud66.info . all the electronic
products are original and new. I hope you can order their products too
and I believe this is a wise choice.
Luckily, Gmail logs the last couple of IP addresses that you’ve logged in from, so at least I have an IP address to go by. I can already see that this is going to be lots of fun. Meanwhile, if anybody feels in the mood to launch a full-fledged DDOS attack, I think there’s somebody at 115.49.95.223 who is in need of one. Have fun…
It’s that time of year again, and Google is prepared to join in the fun like every other year. This year, you will notice that they’ve changed their name to Topeka, and the vowels have disappeared from Gmail. You can read more on Google’s and Gmail’s blogs.
Johnnyboyxo’s Trannylicious Album was just released today! You can pick up your own copy at Amazon MP3 or iTunes. You can learn more about Johnnyboyxo on her YouTube channel. Samples of her music are available on her Facebook page.
Yes, it’s techno done by a tranny. And you know what? It sounds awesome.
I know that this news will break many skeener’s hearts, but TehSkeen, home to a community of Wii and Gamecube modders, is gone. For more information, see Brakken’s message at Tehskeen.com. In the meantime, I’m going to go cry now. Why Brakken??? Why???
UPDATE: I found a post from DJDynamite which explains the situation a little better. Apparently one of the servers went down, and their backup of all the content was corrupted. Really sucks that they don’t put the forums back up and start from scratch.
Anyone who has modded their Wii or has followed the Wii Scene closely knows who Waninkoko is. Waninkoko has made plenty of great contributions to the Wii modding community, including his cIOS, Backup Loader, USB Loader, and Menu Patcher. As you may know, Waninkoko said goodbye to the Wii Scene back in June, and is now working on development on the PS3. Unfortunately, it appears that he has recently removed all of his Wii-related software from his blog on TeknoConsolas. His domain name, waninkoko.info, used to link to this blog, but just yesterday he started running a Drupal installation on it. Drupal is a popular open source content management system. Right now Waninkoko’s site is pretty bare, but I’ll be very interested to see what Waninkoko has up his sleeves for it.
Team Blackbolt has finally released their first open beta of Ellipsis for XBMC (Xbox Media Center). Xbox Media Center is a free open source media center that works on Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and of course the Xbox. I’ve been waiting over a year for Ellipsis to be released. Up until now I’ve been using the MC360 skin for XBMC, which gives your original xbox an interface not unlike the 360. If you use XBMC, as most people with modded xboxes do, I highly recommend heading over to Team Blackbolt’s website to download your copy of Ellipsis now.
Nintendo has just lost yet another court case, this time in Paris. They sued Divineo for distributing DS Flash Carts, not unlike the ones mentioned in one of my earlier posts. The judge ruled that Nintendo’s protection against running unsigned code on the Nintendo DS is illegal, and that if flash carts are the only way people can run their own code, then they should be able to have them. I personally agree with the judge’s ruling about the flash carts, but I think that he’s going a little bit too far when saying that how Nintendo is protecting their system is illegal. I think a manufacturer should be allowed to use any protective measures they can come up with, provided they don’t sue us when we find ways around them.
So, last night there was this big halo around the moon. Looked really cool. I think it technically was a really thin rainbow. I’m posting pictures, but they really don’t do it justice. Still worth a look if you didn’t get to see it. We’re supposed to have a blue moon this month as well, but with how cloudy it is outside I probably won’t get to see it.
Okay, so I’m tired of seeing people download trial versions of WinZip and WinRAR on their computer simply because they didn’t take an extra five minutes to look for a free solution. 7-Zip is a free, open source file archiver. It can open many different types of archives, and can use many different compression methods. Oh, and did I forget to mention, it’s FREE!!! So quit dealing with those nag screens, and quit dealing with time limits on trial versions of software, and download 7-Zip today! 7-Zip works with multiple archive formats, and can even create self-extracting archives. It also features multithreaded extracting and archiving, so you can get done faster. Finally, it features multiple encryption techniques in case you want to protect your archive with a password. If someone can give me one good reason to buy WinZip or WinRAR over using 7-Zip, I’d like to hear it. For the rest of you, head over to 7-Zip.org and download your copy of 7-Zip today, so I don’t have to yell at you next time I see you wait for a nag screen to disappear…
Techdirt has posted an interesting story about a Spanish court dismissing a complaint from Nintendo against counterfeit DS cartridges. In Spain, copyright law forbids the circumvention of copyright devices. The judge in this case ruled that although the cartridges do circumvent Nintendo’s copyright protection, they also provide additional features that are perfectly legal.
Spanish copyright law includes an anti-circumvention clause, but as Leo Martins alerts us, a judge in Salamanca, Spain has taken a much more nuanced view of it in a case pitting Nintendo against Grupo Movilquick, who produced alternative cartridges for Nintendo DS devices. The judge’s ruling (translated from the original) appears to find that the alternative cartridges do, in fact, circumvent Nintendo’s DRM and can be used for “pirating” games, but also extend the utility of the devices for perfectly legal purposes. For that reason, the judge dismissed the lawsuit (translation from the original) noting that it doesn’t make sense that the law would be intended to say that only Nintendo can expand the functionality of its devices, and the fact that Nintendo doesn’t offer similar functionality shouldn’t preclude others from doing so. There are areas where Nintendo can still bring a lawsuit, such as for patent and trademark issues, but the judge notes those should be dealt with in a civil court.
I happen to own the M3i Zero cartridge, a cartridge not unlike the ones involved in the lawsuit. While it would allow me to pirate games if I chose to, I use it for the legal benefits it provides. I have an 8 gb micro sd card that I copy all of my DS games to. That way, I don’t have to carry all of my game cartridges with me, just one. This is great, because I don’t have to worry about losing my games or having them stolen. It also allows me to use my DS as a media player for music, pictures, and videos. This is very convenient, because now I can listen to music, watch videos, and play my games all on one device. Finally, there is plenty of homebrew software available to download for the DS, that give it even more functionality. Many of these programs can be found a Tehskeen, a console modification news site that I read often.
It’s a shame that so many people with these modified cartridges use them for illegal and immoral purposes, but I don’t think that should justify making the cartridges themselves illegal. Should DVD burners be illegal because they can be used to duplicate copyright material? Should guns be illegal because they can be used to murder people? Should cars be illegal because they can be used to go over the speed limit? I should hope not.
