From version 3.0.2 VirtualBox included an experimental support for DirectX.
Although many believe that running complex 3D applications (i.e. games) inside a virtual machine is pure heresy, this goal could not be so far away. Virtual Machines are getting more and more popular mostly because they express the latent desire of every user to be allowed to choose the desired operating system without being forced by the software which too often is designed to run on one OS only. Should you have a fast and capable computer it could be possible in the near future to run a brand new 3D video game inside your virtual machine.
I recently discovered the new feature of VirtualBox which once selected allow the guest system to access the 3D graphics capabilities available on the host.
I created a guest system on my Ubuntu 9.04 host system by installing my old copy of Windows XP. The 3D graphics implementation in MS Windows is called DirectX which includes a whole set of APIs to manage several multimedia tasks. As you can imagine enabling the 3D acceleration on VirtualBox isn't sufficient to access the Direct3D functions as the direct interlocutor on the host side is OpenGL.
In order to reach my goal I had to find a way to translate the Direct3D calls of my guest machine to OpenGL. By googling I found WineD3D, a WineHQ project which works as a wrapper for MS Direct3D calls. You can find a brief description of the project plus the instruction to compile the DLL on a Ubuntu system here. To use WineD3D on a native Windows system -which is what I wanted given that I was interested in replacing the Direct3D DLLs on my Windows XP guest machine- you can find precompiled binaries here.
After having downloaded the package run the Windows XP guest machine in safe mode. Then launch the WineD3D setup, select the Direct3D version you want to replace (notably 8, 9 and 10 -experimental-) and that's it, the trick is done.
Now you can run dxdiag in your guest Windows XP machine (Start --> Run..--> dxdiag) and check the DirectX components which are implemented and available. You will see that the d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll are marked like files that can cause problems and need to be reinstalled. Just ignore the warning because those are the DLL which have been replaced by WineD3D.
This guy seems a little crazy. He microwaved (for 5 seconds) a dvd to ensure data can't be retrieved anymore from them. I used to work for a big company which manufactured optical media and I'm inclined to believe that the system can work. As long as the dye, the substance filling the cd/dvd/BD track which is supposed to be figuratively "burnt" by the recorder, is really burnt the information contained in the disk should be similar to the memories of a brain splattered against a wall (ah gore!). I'm no computer forensics but I can't think of any way information can be extracted from such a mush.
Anyway, given that I've never done something like that I don't recommend you to do it because this method surely isn't much healthy neither for the microwave nor for the meal you're going to cook inside it after having burnt a few disks. The dye is meant to evaporate as the compound was originally a liquid made of powder mixed with solvents. Most of the solvents evaporated during the manufacturing process called drying but who knows how much solvent is due to evaporate when you bake the disk inside the microwave?
If you're interested in the process the guy posted a video here.
Image from NightRPStar published under this Creative Commons license
I was googling to find a software for Ubuntu which helped me to mount and unmount .ISO files, you know the same job DaemonTools does so flawlessly on Windows.
Well I found a four years old post in the Tutorials&Tips section of Ubuntu Forums where Sonny explains how to create a script which will enable you to to the job directly from Nautilus.
I know that you can already do it on the newer version of Ubuntu but I find sometimes nice to hack here and around obtaining the same effect with some home brewed script.
I tried it and it perfectly worked on my Jaunty version so I thought it would have done good to spread the word around.
Here's the recipe.
First thing to do is create the folder where the files are going to be mounted. Open a terminal and type:
sudo mkdir /media/iso
You can create whichever folder you like but the Sonny's way will place the folder next to the cdrom and other media in the system
Now we must create the script itself so always in the terminal type:
gedit ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/Mount\ Iso
When the editor opens up paste the following code inside, save and exit
#!/bin/bash
for uri in $NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_URIS; do
gnome-terminal -x sudo mount -o loop -t iso9660 "$1" /media/iso
done
Now get back to the terminal because we need to make the script executable, so type:
chmod +x ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/Mount\ Iso
That's all folks! Now, next time you encounter a .ISO file just right click on it and from the context menu select script and then Mount Iso. Type the user password and you will find the .ISO mounted and ready to be used directly on your desktop.
The next part is to create the script to unmount the .ISO. It doesn't really work for me this but I suppose it's worth give it a try and let me know if it works for you.
open a terminal and type:
gedit ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/Unmount\ Iso
When the text editor showup put this code:
#!/bin/bash
for uri in $NAUTILUS_SCRIPT_SELECTED_URIS; do
gnome-terminal -x sudo umount "$1"
done
Make executable by typing in the terminal:
chmod +x ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/Unmount\ Iso
And now you can simply mount and unmount the .ISO images directly from Nautilus and with just two clicks. According to Sonny it's possible to mount also .cue and .nrg images by just changing the parameter in the script. You could then have one script for each type of image you need to mount/unmount. Again, if you try to do so drop me a line to let me know if it worked or not.
Every computer tuner or even a PC hard core gamer knows that cooling down the processor means not only the promise of fast performances but also avoid crashes and, ultimately, damages to the CPU, fans, and other components subjected to stress in high temperature conditions.
Jared Bouck at Inventgeek.com developed his own homebrew compound to cool down the processor and it happens that his product works better than the most high end cooling compound in the market!
Jared's article is so concise, simple and precise in the the description to compete with a recipe worth of the best chef cookbook. However, instead of preparing whatsoever delicacy for our taste, it explain how to bake your own diamond grease and apply it to the processor so that the heat is effectively conducted to the heat sink.
Regular compounds are currently made of silver suspended in silicon grease. Silver has a thermal conductivity of 429W/m K while diamond has 900-2320 W/m K. Obviously some production reasons, like acquiring large amounts of pure diamond powders, are retaining products based on diamond from the consumer market. However, given that you're own homebrewed production such problems shouldn't concern you.
Just check the interesting article for detailed instruction. however, in order to entice you in trying out this DIY product I'll post here below the performance comparison between the diamond grease and a high end commercially available compound. Again, see the article for test details.
Did you know that in 1973 Chuck Thacker, Alan Kay and other engineers at Xerox PARC used an image of Cookie Monster, the popular character from the wonderful educational entertainment for kids Sesame Street, as the first program of one of the earliest personal computers ever that was called Alto. The computer was small enough to fit under a common desk. Two years later they released a mail-order computer kit called Altair 8800one which did inspire a geek to be named Bill Gates, and the rest is history... PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) history is worth to be read as this top level institute is well known for being at the same time one of the biggest success and failure of the private company which founded and paid the bills for several years. From PARC developed several milestones in the history of the computer which have a fundamental impact on the information technology we know today. Some of them are:
* Computer generated bitmap graphics
* Graphical user interface featuring windows and icons
* WYSIWYG text editor
* InterPress (a resolution-independent graphical page description language and the precursor to PostScript)
* Ethernet local area computer network
* Fully formed object-oriented programming in the Smalltalk programming language and integrated development environment
Several of the developments the likes of the above listed where included in the Alto computer.
Unfortunately Xerox was at the time a very conservative company and wasn't interested in exploiting the wonders its own research center produced. Apart from printer innovations, like the development of the laser printer, all other PARC develops became prey of others who were much more keen to them. It's maybe worth remembering Apple visited the PARC and got enticed by the PARC GUI onto which the first commercially successful Macintosh GUI was based (at least as a conceptual idea).
If you're a super geek you may want to check Altogether, is a microcode-level simulator for the Xerox Alto personal workstation (by Eric Smith).
The Cookie Monster image of Sesame Workshopand it's here reproduced under the terms of the Fair Use. I will comply with remove the image if requested by the owner. I don't currently know the owner of the Alto picture and I will comply with naming the owner or remove the image if requested by the owner.
Cédric Delsaux isn't just an excellent photographer and a fine artist, he's also a Star Wars nerd!!
Check his website, he's totally awesome (the website is appalling though..)
Who never wanted to become an astronaut when he/she was a child?
Most of us, member of the geek and nerd tribe, still crave for the day when we’ll have the chance to cruise outside Earth rather than around the Mediterranean.
Maybe we will see our children or grandchildren fulfil what was once our dream but in the meantime we can make space come into our diet!
Astronaut Foods offers a wide range of tasty freeze-dried authentic astronaut’s food.
You can chose among desserts like Astronaut Ice Cream Sandwich, candies like Astronaut Mars Fireball and Moon Brakers, and dinners like Astronaut Beef Stew Space Dinner plus some other science related gourmandise like Tyrannosaurus Eggs and Dinosaur Fossilized Bananas.
Astronaut foods brand was created in 1975 by American Outdoor Products together with the National Air and Space Museum to offer their museums visitors authentic space food.
Their food products are consumed by real astronauts on NASA missions today.
The upcoming Star Wars The Old Republic, the online deployment, or MMORPG, of the Star Wars world is a project about which I’m not particularly fond of, not because of quality or ideological issues but simply because online games just don’t turn me on.
Anyway, speaking of quality, the game web site has a video teaser, more a short film, which is worth of be watched by all the Star Wars legions or science fiction fans. You can see the clip from you tube here below but I strongly advise you to download and watch the high definition version.
Then tell me: is it or not somewhat better than the last three theater episodes combined?
Today the KDE community announced the released of their 4.3.0 desktop environment, codenamed Caizen.
If you don't know KDE you should give it a peek because, either you like the philosophy behind or not, the project is important and daring.
As I mentioned before KDE is a desktop environment. It's commonly related to the Kubuntu official derivation of Ubuntu Linux and other Linux distributions in general, but the environment can be installed also on Windows and Mac.
The main purpose of the KDE community is that of providing a strongly integrated, easy to use and stunningly stylish desktop. This is pursued not just by a pure aesthetic work but by a strong effort to propose and follow a their own concept of human-machine interface. The stress is always on the integration of the applications with the desktop composed of a stylish layout and sleek objects seen as track leading to simplicity and tidiness. The desktop is completely composed by widgets which float over the surface like objects on a table. Unlike a table however you can't just drop a file onto the surface, the way you would with any other desktop environment, but you must place them inside a dedicated desktop widget. This can be frustrating at the beginning but after a while you will likely find the desktop widget easy to use, intuitive and helpful in driving you to keep your monitor free from the mess.
A strong asset of KDE is that it's built on Qt libraries which is an extremely powerful and modern UI and application framework (probably the best). For this reason all a series of features, like graphics, graphical effects, etc.. are comparable to those found on Mac OSX and far better than those implemented in Vista, with the surplus of working smoothly even on my 4 years old average end laptop.
Unfortunately but physiological given the youth and ambition of the project, KDE suffered of many bugs during its life. However the community behind KDE is strong and the bug solving process did not lag behind. With the 4.3.0 version they claim the "communityfixed over 10,000 bugs and implemented almost 2,000 feature requests in the last 6 months".
Check all the freshly implemented features of KDE 4.3.0 Caizen here.
The aliens came 28 years ago and landed in Cape Town. Humanity kept waiting either for their wrath or for them to bring a new order of technological and social advance. Neither of these came.
The aliens, refugees from another world, were initially welcomed and began to mix up with the locals. Then problem arose. Hospitality did worn out over crime and culture shock. Multi-National United (MNU), a private entity, became the main contractor for handling the alien situation. MNU main purpose is to exploit the aliens’ technology and especially that related to their advanced weaponry. Unfortunately all attempts are unsuccessful. The alien wonders are out of human reach simply because they need alien DNA in order to function. Because of MNU real interest, aliens' welfare is completely obliterated. They are treated as a racial inferiority and segregated from the earth population mostly inside Distric 9, the township which gives the name to the movie.
District 9 is a reminiscence of the real District 6 in Cape Town, a symbol of the south-african apartheid politics of the ‘70s. This is also the key to reading the movie. Aliens are called non-humanslike the black people were once called non-white. A lot of the town areas as well as services are prohibited to the aliens who are kept living in poor conditions.
The promotion of the film heavily relies on viral marketing. The producers made up several web sites. The official web site is maintained by MNU and the visitor sees different content depending on whether they enter as human or non-human. Human content has a relaxing and reassuring tone, the visitor can check the town map which depicts mostly accessible areas and consult career opportunities.
The non-human web sites has a harsh tone, the town map shows nearly all restricted areas and what is offered is labor. The non-human web content is also primarily written (and spoken) in alien language with the English translation always available. Apartheid-like posters are spread all around the world, sometimes restricting restrooms or pubs to humans-only visitors, some other times warning that a bus or a cab stops only for human customers. In all the advertisement campaign a toll free number (1-866-666-6001) is always present and connects the caller to MNU automated speaker which provides some options including report non-human activity.
There’s also a blog called MNU spreads lies, run by an alien named Christopher. He’s a resistance type and basically reports on how’s living under inhuman (inalien ;) conditions inside the Distric 9 slums and crushed by MNU appalling regulations. Christopher reports that all the members of their species are forced to be assigned with an English name, that they have no basic work rights, that their spawn are registered and tracked and so on. He also provides a counter part of the highly censored MNU video in which he shows his face that was pixelated and pronounces the words “we only want to go home”.
This strong viral campaign is comparable and maybe superior to those notorious of The Blair Witch Project and, lately, Cloverfild. I just hope this effort is not done to reach the same aim of the former two: to arise a storming buzz and then deceive the audience (or most of it). You can call those two movies a huge marketing and economic success, an blazing experiment, but the reality is that their content was in no way worth the expectations generated by the viral advertisement and, shortly, of those of any blockbuster which they pretended to be.
My expectations about this film are big so I hope it will maintain the promises and be a damn stunning blockbuster, full of tons of special effect and with a soul!
District 9 is produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Neill Blomkamp. It originates from an independent short film, also from the same director, called “Alive in Joburg” which investigates the apartheid theme introducing the alien factor.
The film is due to release on August 28 in the United States and later on worldwide.
Should you be interested in take a deeper look in the subjects related to this movie you can check this article by JK Flower
Below some images related to the movie and the viral sites plus a trailer of District 9.
All the above pictures and the video are copyright of eitherQED International or Sony Pictures under TriStar Pictures (not completely sure)and here reproduced under the terms of the Fair Use.
