crushed-core

Today various websites claimed that The Pirate Bay had been sold by the current owners to Global Gaming Factory X AB. The deal, reported to worth roughly 60 million Swedish crowns ($7.7 million USD £4.5 million GBP) is quite a way off the actual worth of the torrent sharing website.  It has been reported that any profit from the sale of The Pirate Bay would go to projects about the freedom of speech and the freedom of information on the internet. A statement on The Pirate Bay Blog read;

Yes, it’s true.

News reached the press today in Sweden – The Pirate Bay might get aquired by Global Gaming Factory X AB.

A lot of people are worried. We’re not and you shouldn’t be either!

TPB is being sold for a great bit underneath it’s value if the money would be the interesting part. It’s not. The interesting thing is that the right people with the right attitude and possibilities keep running the site.

As all of you know, there’s not been much news on the site for the past two-three years. It’s the same site essentially. On the internets, stuff dies if it doesn’t evolve. We don’t want that to happen.

The new owners wish to create a new business model that compensates the copyright holders and content creators. One of these potential avenues for earning money to repay the owners would be a new digital service called The Video Bay. Rumoured to be launching shortly, the rival to Youtube et al. with have it’s work cut out in order to gain a footing and a dtrong userbase. The Pirate Bay founder, Peter Sunde, claimed the new Video Bay would inplement the latest features from HTML 5 but warned of it’s ongoing developmental nature.

I have finally gotten around to installing and configuring Synergy on my PC and Powerbook. I first came across this open source project quite some time ago, but at the time didn’t really appreciate how easy it could make my life. Now my computer usage has changed and I find myself using my old Powerbook next to my main monitor so much I thought being able to use a single keyboard and mouse to control everything would be a major plus. So what exactly is Synergy?

Synergy enables you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without any special hardware. It’s intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).

Using your mouse and keyboard is as easy as moving the mouse off the edge of one screen and onto another. Synergy also merges the clipboards of all the systems into one, allowing cut-and-paste between systems. Synergy can also syncronise screensavers between systems but this feature does not currently work on the Mac OS X version, but I use Flurry screensaver for my PC workstation and I don’t really miss this feature in Synergy.

Setup is as simple as downloading and configuring a main ’server’ on your primary computer, this is the computer that has the keyboard and mouse you wise to use across all machines. You then install Synergy on the other secondary systems and tell the software the relationships in location between each screen. Initially I had some issues with the configuration, I could get the mouse from the main screen onto the Mac but could not get it back. Turned out I was missing one of the links relationship between the screens on the main server configuration, but it was easily solved by looking at the FAQ.

Overall Synergy is a great little program that could make your life a lot easier and a lot less cluttered.

Playstation 3 owners in Japan can now download Final Fantasy VII from the Playstation Network store. The full title Final Fantasy VII International is availble for both Playsation 3 and PSP for the sum of 1500 yen, quite a bit more than other classic Playstation games sell for. I for one probably will not be forking over the cash for Final Fantasy as I’ve still got my old PSX copy, which I play on both my PS3 and PC with an emulator every now and then. Can’t wait for it to come to the European or American store? Think that you’d rather be playing the latest and greatest edition of the series? Let us know what you think of this.

As a bit of an automotive and photography geek I was very excited when I came across a site combining the two. BikeEXIF.com showcases the latest and greatest from manufacturers and dedicated tuners to the retro and antique masterpieces that deserve recognition.

DasKeyboard – Very cool, also very expensive.

31 Port USB Hub

Red modular cameras

Bronze

• Into the Storm… (secret) – Enter the Canyon
• Saved! (secret) – Unlock Elika’s Saving Ability
• Wallrunner – Completing the Canyon
• Compass – Use the Compass
• Now who’s the Hunter? (secret) – Kill the Hunter in his Lair
• Death of a Warrior King (secret) – Kill the Warrior in his Fortress
• Death of a Concubine (secret) – Kill the Concubine in her Palace
• Traitor’s End (secret) – Kill the Alchemist in his Observatory
• Explorer – Explore every part of every region
• Block Master – Block 50 attacks
• Deflect Master – Deflect 20 attacks
• Sword Master – Perform 14 hits in one combo
• Improviser – Use the environment against an enemy
• Up against it – Win a wall mini-game in combat
• Ruined Citadel Runner – Run from the Sun Temple’s Fertile Ground to the Fertile Ground in Windmills in 5 minutes
• Vale Runner – Run between the Fertile Grounds in the Construction Yards and Heaven’s Stair in 6 minutes
• Warrior Special – Dodge the Warrior’s attacks 20 times in one battle
• Hunter Special – Deflect the Hunter’s attacks 5 times in one battle
• Alchemist Special - Defeat the Alchemist without using the acrobatic attack
• Concubine Special – Defeat the Concubine without using grab
• Light Seeds Finder – Collect 100 Light Seeds
• Light Seeds Collector – Collect 200 Light Seeds
• Light Seeds Provider – Collect 300 Light Seeds
• Light Seeds Locator – Collect 400 Light Seeds
• Light Seeds Harvester – Collect 500 Light Seeds
• Light Seeds Hoarder – Collect 600 Light Seeds
• Light Seeds Gatherer – Collect 700 Light Seeds
• Light Seeds Accumulator – Collect 800 Light Seeds
• Light Seeds Protector – Collect 900 Light Seeds
• Speed Kill – Kill 10 generic enemies before they spawn
• Throw Master – Throw 10 Soldiers of Ahriman into pits
• Assassin View – Find the Assassin’s view
• Titanic view – Find the Titanic View
• In Harmony – 500 co-op jumps
• Precious Time – Take one minute to think
• Where’s that Temple? – Talk to Elika
• Getting to Know You – Get to know Elika by talking to her
• Good Company – Learn about the world, and Elika’s history
• Climbing to New Heights! – Find the highest point in the world
• Sinking to New Depths! – Find the lowest point in the world
• Speed Demon – Finish the game in under 12 hours
• Combo Specialist – Find every combo in the game

Silver

• Heal the Land – First Healing
• From Darkness… Light! (secret) – Reimprison Ahriman
• Royal Palace Runner – Run between the Fertile Grounds in the Royal Gardens and Coronation Halls in 4 minutes.
• City of Light Runner – Run between the Fertile Grounds in the Tower of Ahriman and City of Light in 7 minutes.
• Light Seeds Master – Collect 1001 Light Seeds

Gold

• Saviour of the City of Light – Final Healing
• Be gentle with her – Elika saves you fewer than 100 times in the whole game
• To be continued… (secret) – The End

Platinum

• Master – Unlock all trophies

Bronze

• Back on the job – Complete the tutorial
• Prologue Complete – Complete the Prologue in story mode
• Chapter 1 Complete – Complete Chapter 1 in story mode
• Chapter 2 Complete – Complete Chapter 2 in story mode
• Chapter 3 Complete – Complete Chapter 3 in story mode
• Chapter 4 Complete – Complete Chapter 4 in story mode
• Chapter 5 Complete – Complete Chapter 5 in story mode
• Chapter 6 Complete – Complete Chapter 6 in story mode
• Chapter 7 Complete – Complete Chapter 7 in story mode
• Chapter 8 Complete – Complete Chapter 8 in story mode
• Bag Lady – Find all three hidden bags in a chapter
• Ran out of fingers – Find 11 hidden bags
• On the clock – Beat the qualifier time on any Time Trial Stretch
• Access all areas – Unlock all Time Trial Stretches
• Baby steps – Attain a Time Trial star rating of 20
• Prologue Speedrun – Complete a Speedrun of the Prologue below the target time
• Chapter 1 Speedrun – Complete a Speedrun of Chapter 1 below the target time
• Chapter 2 Speedrun – Complete a Speedrun of Chapter 2 below the target time
• Chapter 3 Speedrun – Complete a Speedrun of Chapter 3 below the target time
• Chapter 4 Speedrun – Complete a Speedrun of Chapter 4 below the target time
• Chapter 5 Speedrun – Complete a Speedrun of Chapter 5 below the target time
• Chapter 6 Speedrun – Complete a Speedrun of Chapter 6 below the target time
• Chapter 7 Speedrun – Complete a Speedrun of Chapter 7 below the target time
• Chapter 8 Speedrun – Complete a Speedrun of Chapter 8 below the target time
• Chapter 9 Speedrun – Complete a Speedrun of Chapter 9 below the target time
• Head over heels – Complete a chapter without ending up in a heavy landing
• Untouchable – Complete a chapter without getting shot
• Pacifist – Complete a chapter without firing a gun
• Martial artist – Perform a melee hit from a wallrun
• Mine! – Perform 15 successful disarms (outside of the tutorial)
• Tango down – Knock out 20 enemies in melee combat
• Sweet goodbye – Triggered the flip-off move
• Hey, it’s-a-me! – Execute a stomp move on an enemy

Silver

• That’s a wrap – Complete story mode on any difficulty
• A for effort – Attain a Time Trial star rating of 35
• Vrooom! – Maintain sprint speed for 30 seconds
• Up, over, under, onwards – String together: jump, coil (over obstacle) slide (under obstacle)
• Free Flowing – String together: wallrun, jump, speedvault
• May I have this dance? – String together: wallrun, turn, jump, wallclimb, turn, jump
• aaaand safe! – String together: wallrun, jump, coil (over obstacle), skill roll
• Test of Faith – Complete the game without shooting an enemy

Gold

• Pro runner – Complete story mode on hard difficulty
• Packrat – Find all 30 hidden bags
• Still counting – Attain a Time Trial star rating of 50

Platinum

• Over the Edge – Unlock all other trophies

Old lenses, new cameras.

New cameras. Canon 5D Mark II.

5 used PS3 games for less than the price of 2 new ones. This is credit crunch living.

So what’s in store for the next few months? Well firstly I’ve been working on a new site design, which all going well, should launch in mid January. I’ve also been working on lots of content and there is now going to be a new focus to the site. I’ve been busy with lots of detailed guides on all sorts of topics from modding old laptops to making your own 8-core Xeon ‘hackintosh’ Pro using VMware. Also I’ll be posting a lot of ways to make money online (to fund that geek habit) and I’ll be posting a case study and results as I work through the up coming months.

Stay tuned!

I recently picked up a Dell E228WFP widescreen monitor to replace my 3 year old Xerox display. Going from a tiny 17″ display to a 22″ widescreen was an amazing improvement in desktop screen estate. It has greatly improved my productivity and now a lot of tasks are a snap instead of a chore. However, one of the must have tools for widescreen use is Winsplit Revolution. It effortlessly divides and arranges your windows and programs with quick hotkey shortcuts and customizable commands.

What is WinSplit Revolution?

What is it for? WinSplit Revolution is a small utility which allows you to easily organize your open windows by tiling, resizing and positioning them to make the best use of your desktop real estate.

What can it do? WinSplit is especially useful for high-end LCD screens with high resolutions because it helps you to efficiently manage many active windows. For example WinSplit is useful for owners of the Dell 2407FPW monitor. As you can see in the screenshots below, the advantages of using WinSplit is that it saves you from having to drag and drop windows by allowing you to snap windows into specific tiled configurations using simple keyboard hotkeys.

Winsplit Revolution