tech.nocr.at » linux

AirPlay On Linux

Frank — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 03:55:42 +0000

Apple’s AirPlay is a great technology. It lets you stream music and video wirelessly to Apple products like iPods, iPhones and to the Apple TV. It also can be used to stream to Apple approved hardware like speaker docks, AV receivers and stereo systems. The problem with it, like most Apple technology, if your not on the “Apple approved” list your SOL.

The thought of AirPlay being supported in open source software is unheard of, until now. The Totem media player, which installs by default on most Linux distributions, now has an unofficial plugin that will let you stream media via AirPlay.

Instructions

Clone the git repository

git clone http://git.sukimashita.com/totem-plugin-airplay.git

Move the files you just cloned (make sure you create the appropriate directories if needed)

mv * ~/.local/share/totem/plugins/airplay

That’s it. Start up Totem, enable the plugin and start to enjoy streaming media from any other AirPlay capable device. Now that the open source world has nailed down the AirPlay standard, it shouldn’t be too long before we start to see it supported in things like XBMC or Android.

[Link to Totem AirPlay Plugin]

AirPlay On Linux originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2011/01/22. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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Open Source HTPC’s That Don’t Suck

Frank — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 21:30:11 +0000

In our next installment of Distros That Don’t Suck we will be looking at open source HTPC software. Sure you can load up VLC or even use Windows Media player, but having a dedicated solution with a UI that is made for a TV is a lot easier and pleasing. I’ve left the PVR-centric software like MythTV and Freevo off the list since their main purpose is to act as a PVR. I’ll be reviewing open source PVR software by itself at a later date.

XBMC – The Xbox Media Center Project started as homebrew software for the original Xbox gaming system and has since been ported to Linux, Windows, OSX, AppleTV and even as a standalone Linux based LiveCD/LiveUSB image. It offers a clean UI, intuitive interface and can play just about anything you throw at it. It offers a plugin system with a huge repository of community plugins to enhance the experience. It’s real easy to setup and it’s configuration is portable across operating systems. If you have an old Xbox laying around this makes a great HTPC that is powerful and best of all cheap.

MediaPortal – This is a Windows based HTPC software so technically it’s not 100% open source since it requires Windows and doesn’t offer a Linux port. If offers everything you would expect in HTPC software; Video streaming, DVD playback, Internet Radio, Picture Gallery and it’s own plugin system. You will need a compatible TV Tuner card to enjoy PVR features and to watch TV but it’s not needed to run the software. If you are a Windows fan and are looking for an alternate to Windows Media Center this is as close as you can get without the cost.

Element – Element is an open source HTPC system that comes pre-loaded with XBMC and the ability to play back just about any media locally or over the Internet. Element also has it’s own framework for offering add-on modules that allow you to play content from services like Hulu, Cooliris, Boxee, Clicker, Amazon on Demand and Youtube. They have adapted the UI’s of popular open source software like Firefox and Pidgin so that it fits the TV experience better than their native desktop versions. They also offer an Android app that allows you to use your Android phone as a remote control; definitely a neat idea for the times you can’t find the remote anywhere.

GeeXboX – A Gentoo based fully functional media center that can be run from LiveCD, LiveUSB, or be installed on a hard drive. GeeXbox is a very lean distro that doesn’t require a lot of processing power so it’s perfect for older hardware. It uses Enna as it’s primary media center application to play your music, videos or look at your pictures. This is the perfect distro for the no-frills experience when you just want to play your media and aren’t looking for any additional functionality.

Open Source HTPC’s That Don’t Suck originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2011/01/06. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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Open Source Firewall/Routers That Don’t Suck

Frank — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:07:18 +0000

Following our list of Linux Distros That Don’t Suck, More Linux Distros That Don’t Suck and Even More Distros That Don’t Suck, we are going to start to narrow our lists to a specific role.

In this installment of our “Distros That Don’t Suck” we are featuring routers/firewalls. Sure you can use your default DLink or Linksys hardware router to preform these tasks but why not bring it to the next level with much more control and features like VPN and bridging?

NOTE: The contained list includes projects that are 100% free and open and don’t charge for additional components or functionality. There are plenty of projects that offer a lite or free version of their solution but charge you for more advanced features.

pfSense – pfSense is a FreeBSD based stateful packet filtering firewall with a whole slew of features. Besides your basic NAT/Firewall capabilites, pfSense offers packages that can enhance it’s feature set like a transparent virus proxy for web surfing and Snort for sniffing packets. pfSense also comes with PPTP, IpSec and Open VPN support baked in and support for OpenBSD’s CARP hardware failover which allows you to have two boxes configured as a failover group. I’m been using pfSense for a few years now and love it. It’s an enterprise grade product with an easy consumer interface. Definitely my favorite.

m0n0wall – Another FreeBSD based stateful packet filtering firewall which is what pfSense is based on. It’s pretty much has the same feature set as pfSense with a few minor exceptions. It’s really stable and is one of the older distros in the firewall/router game. m0n0wall will run on pretty low end hardware and offers an embedded option so you can run it on embedded hardware like an ALIX board. A great option if you want something you can set and forget.

IPCop – Originally a fork of the SmoothWall project, IPCop is a Linux based stateful firewall built on the netfilter framework. IPCop offers a simple update mechanism to install updates and offers many addons that add additional functionality like QoS and virus checking. Geared toward the home or SOHO user, IPCop offers a highly configurable firewall/router that can run on almost and hardware you have laying around.

DD-Wrt – If you don’t have a spare computer laying around to power your router/firewall and would like to take advantage of a hardware WLAN you already own then DD-Wrt is right up your alley. A fork of OpenWRT, DD-WRT is a Linux based alternative firmware suitable for a long list of WLAN routers. If your hardware router is supported a simple firmware upgrade to DD-WRT will add a lot of the same functionality to your hardware that most of the distros in this list offer. A great way to mod existing hardware to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the unit. May I suggest the Linksys WRT-54G-L.

Zeroshell – Zeroshell aims to provide an easy to install and maintain Linux based firewall distribution. Zeroshell is powerful enough for an enterprise load but surprisingly easy to configure with complete set of options like VPN, QoS and VLAN support. Based on Linux and available as a LiveCD or Compact Flash image, Zeroshell falls into the “easy and powerful” category. Great for someone who doesn’t want to screw around too much and just wants something that works.

I’m sure I have missed other great projects that offer a firewall or routing. If you know of a distro that should be in our list let us know in the comments.

Open Source Firewall/Routers That Don’t Suck originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/12/30. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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PS3 Private Key Hacked

Frank — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:11:08 +0000

During the Chaos Communications Conference 27C3, hackers calling themselves failOverflow gave a presentation in which they claim to have the private key used by Sony to authorize code to run on the PS3. This essentially would give full control of PS3 systems without the need of a USB device

The group plans to show off a demo tomorrow at the conference and they say they will explain more about their discovery when their website launches. This hack isn’t designed for piracy but to enable software to be authorized to run on the PS3. Essentially this would open up the homebrew market and allow Linux to run on the PS3 regardless of firmware version.

PS3 Private Key Hacked originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/12/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Top 10 Of 2010

Frank — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 05:51:37 +0000

Another year is almost behind us and thanks to our dedicated and loyal readers our 3rd successful year bringing you the latest in gadgets, gaming, technology and the bizarre.

We have brought the monkeys in (by monkeys we mean a crafty worded perl script) and have compiled the the most viewed posts here on tech.nocr.at. This list doesn’t just contain posts from 2010, it contains the top ten most viewed posts this year regardless of when they were created.

Without further ado, tech.nocr.at’s top 10 posts of 2010:

Let us know in the comments what were your favorite posts of 2010.

Top 10 Of 2010 originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/12/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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Even More Linux Distros That Don’t Suck

Frank — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 03:39:16 +0000

Following my first two distro lists; Linux Distros That Don’t Suck and More Linux Distros That Don’t Suck, I bring you the long awaited third installment in my distro lists; Even More Linux Distros That Don’t Suck.

As a fore-warning, this list is just what I have used in the past and what I have experience with. I know that talking Linux is like talking religion, everyone has one and not everyone likes the other guy’s. With that in mind you are free to comment and hammer me about my list, just know that it’s only my personal experience here.

Mint – What can I say, it’s Ubuntu done right. If what you are looking for is a solid desktop replacement OS, one the whole family can use then look no further. Based on Debian and Ubuntu, this distro comes with everything you need to get going and it looks sexy as well. It’s got full multimedia support right out of the box and it’s super easy to use. Perfect for grandma.

ZeroShell – This distro is awesome. I have used this multiple times on embeded devices and it’s always come through for me. It’s fully administered via a web page and it offer’s a host of network services like Load Balancing, UMTS/HSDPA 3G modem connections, QoS and Lan-to-Lan VPN just to name a few. If you need a solid industrial all around firewall/gateway this should be at the top of your list.

Tiny Core – If you think Damn Small Linux is bloated then Tiny Core is for you. At a whopping 10MB with a full desktop, this has to be the smallest release I have ever seen. If 10MB is too big for you, you can grab a 6MB version that is console only. This is an awesome distro if you want to start small and build on it. Perfect for those older systems.

Elive – Based on Debian, Elive looks to provide a complete desktop replacement while offering eye-candy with minimal hardware requirements. I have this installed on an older laptop that my daughter uses. She loves to work with multimedia and this distro scratches her itch perfectly. It’s runs well on older hardware while still looking good. If you like to work with video, 3D or audio then you should give this distro a once over.

Mythbuntu – It’s really not a distro per-say, it’s a custom roll of Ubuntu with MythTV built it. For years I used KnoppMyth for my MythTV needs and only recently did I switch to Mythbuntu. If you don’t feel like building your HTPC from scratch take a look at this, you won’t be disappointed.

Tinfoil Hat – For the truly paranoid. As their website says “The Illuminati are watching your computer, and you need to use morse code to blink out your PGP messages on the numlock key.”. This distro is perfect for those who fear for their privacy. It’s compiled with static libraries and ships on a single floppy.

LegacyOS – This was formally known as TeenPup which is based on PuppyLinux. The main purpose of this distro is to ensure a smooth user experience on hardware that’s 5-10 years old. If you have an old machine laying around and are looking for a decent suite of software then look no further. Don’t plan on doing any intense processing with it but basic usage it’s great.

As always this is a list of distros I have experience with, this by no means is a “perfect” or “greatest” list. It’s just stuff I have used and like, feel free to let me know what you think in the comments.

Even More Linux Distros That Don’t Suck originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/09/06. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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New XBMC Beta Released

Frank — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:14:42 +0000

The latest beta of the awesome XBMC (Windows, OS X, Linux, AppleTV) code-named Dharma has been released and is packed with wonderful new features. Probably the most notable one is built in functionality to make sure that all your plugins and skins are updated automatically and the ability to play back BlueRay movies.

The list is way to long to list, so head on over to their milestone page to find a complete breakdown of everything that has been added or updated.

[Via XBMC Blog]

New XBMC Beta Released originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/09/01. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Shogo Linux Powered Tablet

Frank — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 04:45:24 +0000

Looks like someone is trying to de-throne Apple’s iPad. Japanese company Redstar are taking pre-orders on their Linux powered tablet.

The 10″ tablet is multi-touch friendly, comes with 1024×600 resolution and is powered by a Freescale iMX-37. It will also include 4GB of internal memory, 256MB of RAM, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G and a SDHC memory card slot.

No pricing information or shipping date has been set yet, but I know as a happy hacker I can’t wait to get my hands on one, especially since it will run Linux. Imagine all the possibilities. If you know Japanese, then you can hit their website to get more info, otherwise, check the video below of the unit in action.

Shogo Linux Powered Tablet originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/08/30. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

WiFi Door Opener

Frank — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:41:26 +0000

We have seen our fair share of door opening hacks. Remember the secret knock door lock? That was pretty awesome, but what if I tell you that you can unlock your door from any wifi device?

The guys over at Sunlight Labs have done just that. By using a WRT54GL and some creative hacking that have wired up their wireless router to buzz open their front door.

So how does this all work? Well, let’s start with the router. It’s a Linksys WRT54GL, a still-Linux-friendly descendant of the WRT54G, the router which jump-started the custom firmware scene. There are a lot of custom router firmwares available — DD-WRT, Tomato, Gargoyle — and they can all make your consumer-grade router do some professional-grade things. For this project I used OpenWRT, the system on which many of those other projects are based. It’s got a much steeper learning curve than those other distros — you definitely need to be comfortable with the command line — but it lets you build a custom firmware with exactly the components you want. With some tweaking I was able to create a firmware that included a stripped-down version of Python, but which still fit into the WRT54GL’s meager 2MB flash memory. (Like the Arduino, Python turned out to be overkill, but at the time I expected to need it — and it’s always nice to have it handy.)

Link to Door Opener Science Project

WiFi Door Opener originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/24. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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Quickdev16: SNES Developers Cart

Frank — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:25:43 +0000

If you are a true hardcore 16bit gaming geek and have always wanted to whip up your own homebrew games then you might be interested in the Quickdev 16. The unit is a cartridge for the Super Nintendo system that comes with everything you will need to develop for the platform, including the Atmel AVR Atmega644 with boot loader, USB connection for putting your code on the cart, 16 megs of SRAM, and an RS232 converter for a debug terminal. It’s available for Windows, Linux and the Mac.

Homebrew for the SNES was quite rare back in the hay day of the system so if you think that spending all your time coding for the same system 20 years later will bring you anything more than some geek cred then you are sadly mistaken. On the other hand, if your a hardcore emulator playing monkey, then whipping up your own game for the SNES platform might be fun!. For $120 I’m not sure if the cost justifies all that fun.

[Link to Quickdev16]

Quickdev16: SNES Developers Cart originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/27. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

More Linux Distros That Don’t Suck

Frank — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 23:56:37 +0000

Following Linux Distros That Don’t Suck from earlier this year here is a comprehensive list of, you guessed it, more Linux Distros that don’t suck. Some of these are more obscure lesser known distros that are quite powerful and very useful. Some of these come from personal use some of them came from the great comments you readers posted the first time I did this.

Remember that this is just a personal list, nothing more, nothing less. I’m not trying to start a holy war since that’s what usually happens when you open something like this up. With that being said, let’s us know in the forums what your list of Linux Distros That Don’t Suck would be.

SLAMPP – A Slackware based Live DVD that can only be described as a one-stop server system. Right off the DVD your up and running with pre-configured services including an HTTP server, FTP server, DHCP server, DNS server and a whole lot more. This is the perfect Distro for those “I really don’t know when I will need a fully functional small network server” times. Best of all, you can run it all without ever having to install anything on the host machine.

Pardus – Pardus, which is the scientific name for the the Anatolian Leopard (watch out Apple), is a Turkish Linux distro which is extremely underrated. It’s wonderfully crafted and has a lot of polish to it. You can tell that the developers have really put a lot of time and energy making this not only run really well but also make it really sexy. I would easily recommend this distro to novices and experts alike.

CrunchBang – Think of CrunchBang as Ubuntu for the advanced. It offers speed and style as well at the bleeding edge of packages. It’s highly customizable and comes with the nimble openbox window manager. No bloated Gnome or KDE here. This is the perfect distro if you really like Ubuntu but don’t like how it’s geared towards linux n00bs.

Sabayon – Sabayon promises to transform your computer into a powerful Gentoo Linux system in under 5 minutes. It’s a livecd (with the option to install) of the uber geek popular Gentoo. It’s very powerful and very polished like you would expect from any Gentoo system, but best of all it still acts like an other Gentoo system allowing you to use portage to pull from the Gentoo repositories.

PC-BSD – Alright, I know it’s technically not Linux, it’s BSD based, but it tries really really hard to be Linux. If you are more of a BSD fan but like the Desktop functionality that a standard linux distro offers then PC-BSD is perfect for you. Much like any out of the box distro you can listen to music, watch some video, work with office documents and you can even install applications with a gui. Best of all, it’s a rock solid BSD core that powers everything.

CentOS – Based on the rock solid RHEL, CentOS is one of the most reliable distros you will every find. It offers quick errata, package management that offers stable applications and has a very strong community behind it. They even get upstream fixes from RHEL. If you want a solid server based OS you can’t do much better than CentOS.

Slackware – The oldest of the bunch. Created in 1992, Slackware is the oldest surviving distro. It orginally came on 24 floppy disks as was built on top of kernel 0.99 and it was one of the hardest things to install. Thank God that things have changed. It’s now a highly technical and clean distro. No fancy tools for settings, you have to do everything by editing text files. You know what they say, if you learn Ubuntu you know Ubuntu. If you learn Slackware you know Linux.

There you go, another list of distros that don’t suck (according to me). You millage may vary. I really don’t want to start a holy war so I open it up to you to add to the list by visiting our forums and letting us know what you like.

More Linux Distros That Don’t Suck originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/06. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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Ubuntu 9.10 Beta

Frank — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 06:31:40 +0000

The world’s most popular Linux Distro just got a bit older. Ubuntu 9.10 code named Karmic Koala is quickly reaching it’s maturity date of October 29th when a full stable release will go out.

If you have never used Linux Ubuntu is one of the easiest distro’s to use. It’s quick and easy to install plus it’s probably the most Windows like experience you will get if your coming from a machine running a Microsoft OS. If you are a Linux n00b then you might want to wait till it comes out of beta before you dive in.

Link to Ubuntu 9.10 beta

Ubuntu 9.10 Beta originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/04. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Linux Distros That Don’t Suck

Frank — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:44:43 +0000

I, much like every other hardcore geek on the face of the earth, have multiple linux based distro iso’s laying around. Some of them are for testing and some of them contain tools that I use on a daily basis. I have had many people email me about the best distro out there. The only answer I have for them is “depends on what you want to do”. I have spent sometime working on a list of Linux distros and what they are good for.

Now, before I start. Discussion distro’s with people is like discussion religion. Everyone has one and everyone feels something different towards other people who aren’t of the same faith. I just want to remind everyone that this list is just what I see, and how I feel about each distro. It’s definitely not a “what’s right and what’s wrong” type of list. Enjoy.

Knoppix – The one that started it all. Knoppix was the first major LiveCD based distro to hot the scene and open up a whole new world of bootable operating systems. This is probably the best known and most complete LiveCD distro out there. It contains everything you need to act as a full production replacement system. Word Processing, graphics editors, media players, browers, mail clients. You name is, Knoppix has it.

SystemRescueCD – This one I keep with me all the time. SystemRescueCD is a massive collection of tools to help you get out of a bind. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk. It contains a lot of system tools (parted, partimage, fstools, …) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It is very easy to use. Plus, it can also be booted via a USB flash drive. A must for anyone’s collection.

Dynabolic – Billed as a complete media distro, dyne:bolic is shaped on the needs of media activists, artists and creatives as a practical tool for multimedia production: you can manipulate and broadcast both sound and video with tools to record, edit, encode and stream, having automatically recognized most device and peripherals: audio, video, TV, network cards, firewire, usb and more; all using only free software!. Just boot off the CD and your ready to go.

BackTrack – The king of all penetration testing and security distros. If you’re worried about security or exploits then this is the one for you. With more than 300 different up-to-date tools which are logically structured according to the work flow of security professionals. This structure allows even newcomers to find the related tools to a certain task to be accomplished. New technologies and testing techniques are merged into BackTrack as soon as possible to keep it up-to-date.

NimbleX – This is one of my favorite all around LiveCD based distros. It’s full featured but a lot smaller than something like Knoppix. With everything you need to act as a Desktop replacement in a 200 MB CD image, what more can you ask for.

Gentoo – The hardcore Linux distro. What makes Gentoo unique compared to other distros is the need to manually compile every part of the OS. I know that their are gui installers now and pre built packages for the mindless, but having the ability to tweak and optimize every aspect of the OS will not only give you a stable system, but one hell of a quick one too. Mind you, all of this compilation could easily take you days before you have a base system, especially when you make Xorg and a windows manager like KDE or gnome.

Debian – My day to day OS. Debian is one of the oldest and most stable distros around. The core to a bunch of other distros like Knoppix and Ubuntu. If your looking for something that will give you no headaches and carries a very stable branch of applications, Debian is the distro for you.

Ubuntu – Ubuntu is Debian to the next level. It’s a fork of Debian that has quickly become the most popular Linux distro in the world. It’s easy to install, easy to use, and is probably the best Windows replacement OS that is Linux based. Ubuntu’s software repository contains applications that are more recent than say Debian, but the down side to that is the fine edge you walk on when it comes to stability.

Fedora – The big boy on the block, and by big boy I don’t mean popularity, I mean in size. Fedora comes chalked with what seems like every application ever made. Although to some this might be nothing more than bloat, to others it’s a full and complete experience. Install Fedora and you pretty much have every open source application that is useful at your finger tips. If you have never experienced Linux before this is a great distro to get your feet wet with.

I know there are other great distro’s like Slackware, DSL, and OpenSUSE, this list is just a collection of distro’s that I find useful or that I have had experience with. Feel free to add your recommendations in the comments.

Linux Distros That Don’t Suck originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/05/15. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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Evo “Smart Colsole” Is Linux Based

Frank — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:08:55 +0000

When was the last time you say a gaming console released that didn’t come from one of the big three? A while a bet. So you might be happy to know that Envizions Computer Entertainment will be releasing the Evo “Smart Console”. The interesting spin on this new console is that it’s nothing more than a Linux-based computer. It’s not a new concept, Linux has been powering many desktop products from your WiFi router to your Tivo, but gaming?

The unit includes an overclocked Athlon 64×2 5600 processor and an ATI Radeon 3200 graphics card. Development will be geared specifically to the Evo unit so no built in MAME emulator or anything of that nature, but this does open up the world of Linux gaming development.

The new console is set to ship on November 20th with a hefty price tag of $600

Evo “Smart Colsole” Is Linux Based originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/10/23. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Mobile Firefox Alpha

Frank — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 03:09:20 +0000

The first Mobile Firefox Alpha codenamed fennec is up for download on Mozilla’s site. Currently, the only mobile device that it actually runs on is Nokia’s N810 tablet, but you can play with it on Windows, OS X and Linux. I’m sure it will only be a short amount of time before we start to see this thing complied to run on everything from an iPhone (I hope) to a Blackberry (I REALLY Hope).

If you download and play with the alpha let us know how you made out in the forums

Mobile Firefox Alpha originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/10/17. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Sync Files Across Platforms With Synkron

Frank — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:55:56 +0000

Looking for a simple way to synchronize files or folder across multiple platforms, if so then Synkron is for you. Synkron is a power file-syncing app that synchs files and folders across Windows/Mac/Linux platforms. You can sync multiple folders, schedule automatic synchs, and even has restore capabilities incase a file has been accidentally overwritten during a sync.

Synkron is a local sync tool, so your files never pass through any third party server. It also supports filtering by extension and also has a file and folder blacklist system. Best of all it’s free.

[Link to Synkron]

Sync Files Across Platforms With Synkron originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/10/10. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Rockbox 3.0 Sneaks In

Frank — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 03:21:06 +0000

Rockbox, the open source replacement firmware for many mp3 players (see all supported players here) quietly release it’s first major update in over 3 years. Included in the update is support and stability for more mp3 player, playback support of more file types, last.fm support, album art, games, and tons more.

With this new release comes a streamlined installation tool called RockboxUtility that works on Mac, Windows, and Linux. It makes installation simple. So if you have an old mp3 player laying around that you want to breath new life into, Rockbox is for you.

[Link to Rockbox]

Rockbox 3.0 Sneaks In originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/09/24. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

OS X On A MSI Wind

Frank — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 05:31:54 +0000

Seems that install Linux on computers is so yesterday. Now everyone wants to put OS X on their machine (I still run Linux on my MacBook Pro, go figure). The latest computer to fall into the hackintosh realm is the MSI Wind. A crafty hacker on this forum has laid out everything you need to do in order to get OS X running on your Wind.

I wish someone would get OS X running on my Hp 2133 mini-note. No luck as of yet with it.

OS X On A MSI Wind originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/09/20. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

XBMC ‘Atlantis’ Beta 1 Released

Frank — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:01:27 +0000

The uber cool open source media center application Xbox Media Center (XBMC) has just release the first beta of XBMC Atlantis for all platforms (Windows, OS X, Linux, Xbox, and even on a live cd or thumb drive). Don’t let the beta status scare you, these guys are really close to brining this to production. Mac OS X users get a pretty benefit out of their release, integrated iTunes and iPhoto support. This could easily replace Front Row on every Mac, even replace your AppleTV if you have a Mac Mini laying around.

XBMC is free as in beer and works on all platforms. It’s still in beta so if you experience a bug here or there report it, but it’s been running real smooth on my machine.

[Link to XBMC]

XBMC ‘Atlantis’ Beta 1 Released originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/09/19. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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OS X On An Eee PC

Frank — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:10:35 +0000

We have covered installing OS X on an Eee PC 701 in the past, but this great guide compiled by the guys over a Wired makes running OS X on the 701′s bigger brother, the 901 and 1000, a breeze. Why would you want to install OS X on an Eee PC? The question your should be asking is “why not”!

While many would question why you’d want to go to the trouble of installing OS X when there are many Windows and Linux distributions available out of the box? Maybe you’re looking for a challenge. Installing OS X on non-Apple hardware provides plenty of chances to flex those (very metaphorical) geek muscles.

[Link to Installing OS X on your Eee PC]

OS X On An Eee PC originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/09/18. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

CrossOver Chromium Brings Chrome To OS X And Linux

Frank — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:48:57 +0000

The crafty open source developers at Codeweavers have beaten Google to the punch and release Mac OS X and Linux native versions of Google’s Chrome browser.

Before you start to jump for joy, this is more a proof of concept that and actual production run browser. The developers don’t recommend that you run their port of Chrome as your main browser. In my testing with the Mac port of the browser I quickly noticed that it was missing that smooth look and shine that you get with the Windows version. This might be okay if you just want to test drive Chrome and don’t have a Windows machine, but not something you might want to use day to day.

Maybe this will light a fire under Google’s butt and speed up development of Chrome for other OSes. Then again, maybe not.

[Link to CrossOver Chromium]

CrossOver Chromium Brings Chrome To OS X And Linux originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/09/16. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Change Can Be Good

Frank — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 04:10:15 +0000

Someone somewhere once said that change can be both scary and good, well we have undergone some small changes that have instilled both those feeling in us here at tech.nocr.at.

Syndication

Some of you might have already noticed the new syndication images off to the right sidebar.

Since I have received many emails asking if we have an RSS feed for the site, I thought I might as well layout the fact that we do prominently in the sidebar. For those of you heavy twitter addicts we also have an automatic tweet system that will notify you every time we have a new post on the site. Click on either of them to join the fun.

Comments

It’s hard to build a good community without an active user base, and there is no better way to build an active user base than through commenting. Every month we will be offering “dofollow” links to the sites of the top commentators on our home page. Please don’t just post for the sake of getting listed. This like “first post” or “up” don’t count. Be engaging and we will be rewarding.

Forums

I have been asked by many readers why I don’t setup a forum on the site so people can interact and ask questions about hardware hacking and the such. Forums are great and plentiful but we like to do things differently here at tech.nocr.at. Why not get a BBS going for interaction?

What’s a BBS you ask? Wikipedia defines a BBS as:

A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and login to the system using a terminal program. Originally BBSes were accessed only over a phone line using a modem, but by the early 1990s some BBSes allowed access via a Telnet or packet radio connection.

BBSes were where the entire hacker scene started in the early 80′s, and many years ago I too ran run (and still run it today). The Diskshop BBS still has some of the great hacker networks that started it all like zeronet and fidonet, plus we have some of them old time great BBS door games like LORD and Tradewars.

To access The Diskshop BBS you will need an ANSI telnet client. SynchTerm is one of the best and it works on Windows, OS X and Linux. Download it and install it. Once you have that done just telnet over to bbs.diskshop.ca and you will be on your way. For those of you who might be afraid to use an old school telnet interface you can always use the http interface at http://bbs.diskshop.ca

Enjoy.

Change Can Be Good originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/09/01. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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DVD::RIP – Rippin Linux Style

Frank — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:23:17 +0000

There is a ton of software available for both Windows and OS X that allow you to rip and encode DVD’s, but what about Linux? A few months back I did a segment on the Lab with Leo Laporte TV show on just that, DVD rippers for Linux. (Video after the break)

DVD::RIP is a full featured DVD backup program written in perl. It’s very intuiative and eay to use but also provides a feature rich control of almost all aspects of the ripping and transcoding process. Some of the key features are:

Runs on Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD
Rip to harddisk, on the fly or from an existent DVD image
Select audio track(s), viewing angle(s), multitple titles
Rip as much audio tracks as you like into one AVI/OGG/SVCD file
Supports nearly all of transcode’s video codecs, e.g: divx4, divx5, xvid, xvidcvs, ffmpeg, fame, opendivx and mpeg2enc
DivX/Xvid multipass encoding
(S)VCD modes, with multiple audio tracks for SVCD
Integrated video bitrate calculator based on target size resp. number of discs
Automatic splitting of the target files for best fit on the specified number of discs

Probably the strongest feature of DVD::RIP is it’s cluster mode which let’s you use any Linux machine you might have in your network for parallel encoding. Your rips come out much faster if you use say 2, 3, or 4 machines. Let me see Windows do that.

[Link to DVD::RIP]

DVD::RIP – Rippin Linux Style originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/08/31. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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Unetbootin – Bootable USB Linux

Frank — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:30:43 +0000

Bootable image creator UNetbootin automates the installation of Linux distributions onto USB thumb drives from download to run. Kids, we are talking about a persistent, boot-anywhere desktop, and this software does everything for you. Pick the distro you want and put in your USB key, it’s that easy.

The software is available for Windows and Linux and can be grabbed from their sourceforge page.

Unetbootin – Bootable USB Linux originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/08/28. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Billix – Linux Swiss Army Knife

Frank — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 02:03:39 +0000

Billix is a multi-boot Linux based distribution that is more-or-less a swiss army knife for system administrators.

You copy Billix onto a CDROM or USB stick and voila, a multitude of bootable/installable Linux distributions. You boot your CDROM or USB key and Billix boots to a boot menu that allows you to book or install the following distros:

Damn Small Linux
Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn)
Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft)
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake)
Debian 4.0
Debian 3.1
Centos 5
Centos 4.4
memtest
DBAN

You can download a copy of Billix from their project page.

Billix – Linux Swiss Army Knife originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/08/27. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Rebooting Linux Magically

Frank — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:23:46 +0000

If you have ever had a filesystem fail on you in Linux then you are quite aware of that “bottom of the pit” feeling you get in your stomach, especially if you are remote to the server and have no physical access to it. What to do if the system can’t load the reboot or shutdown binaries to reboot your system and have fsck save your butt.

magic SysRq key is a feature built in to the kernel that lets you preform a number of interesting operations inculding rebooting a system. You can issue keystrokes to the magic SysRq device in /proc so you can send a hard reboot directly to the kernel with no disk access required.

[Link to Linux Journal article on rebooting via SysRq]

Rebooting Linux Magically originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/08/26. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Sleek New Archos PMP

Frank — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:46:40 +0000

Archos is getting ready to release their next series of PMP devices, and this time they are coming packaged with some 3G love. The new lineup will include an ARM Cortex processor, and 3G/3.5 HSDPA connectivity.

The units look slick too, but where this series of PMP’s rocks is in it’s storage; the majority of the units will start with a 160 GB of storage and go up from there. It’s more than likely not going to a SSD packed in there so you might want to be careful with it and not throw it around.

Since there are no official specs released yet we a speculating, but in the past the Archos line of PMP’s have supported a massive range of codecs; FLAC, OGG, xVid, and DivX to name a few. They have also been pretty platform agnostic, so you can run the unit on Windows, OSX, or Linux.

Expect to see these babies hitting store shelves over the next few months.

Sleek New Archos PMP originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/08/21. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Beagle Board – 2-Watts Of Linux Power

Frank — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:35:19 +0000

If you are looking for a Linux powered machine that has an extremely small footprint and only drains 2 watts of power look no further. The Beagle Board is an embedded platform perfect for all things hackable. It’s based on the TI OMAP3 processor and comes with 128MB of DDR RAM and 256MB of NAND Flash all on a single chip.

In order to maintain both it’s small footprint and it’s low power consumption the board does away with thinks like an ethernet connection or wireless on board. It only comes with the bare essentials: DVI for video, SD/MMC for storage, audio in/out, and USB for any expansion like adding wireless or an ethernet connection.

All for about $150

[Link to Beagle Board]

Beagle Board – 2-Watts Of Linux Power originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/08/20. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Neuros OSD – Take 2

Frank — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:00:48 +0000

We talked about the Neuros OSD earlier this year, well it now looks like the company has decided to mature the project and bring it into the HD age. The OSD2.0, which will be aimed at Linux PVR coders, will have an impressive list of specs.

D1(720×480) H.264 or SVGA (1024×768) MPEG4 + AAC/AC3/MP3 encoding
720P playback, up to 1080i with certain content
Support H.264, MPEG2, MPEG4, WMV codec
Composite/Component Input: 2 composite input, 1 component input, all with dedicated stereo audio
Composite/Component/HDMI Video Output
RCA Audio I/O
2 USB ports in rear, 1 in front, and 1 internal to housing

The unit will be retailing for $249.99 and should be available by the end of the month.

Neuros OSD – Take 2 originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/08/19. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

XBMC Goes Cross Platform

Frank — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:15:25 +0000

Just because I purchased a 360 doesn’t mean my original Xbox sits in the closet. No, no, no, the entire family uses it as a powerful media center thanks to the homebrew app XBMC (Xbox Media Center), and now the XBMC is going cross platform. You can go and grab early alpha releases right now off their website for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The funny thing is that they can’t put the Xbox version up on their site for legal reasons (go figure).

XBMC is a robust and powerful media player that is skinnable, supports plugins like TV guides, and access to nearly 1750 movie trailers via Apple’s movie trailer site. It will play pretty much anything you throw at it and also supports all know audio formats as well a picture viewer.

This is just another great reason why the homebrew community can create and deliver such robust and effective applications.

[XBMC]

XBMC Goes Cross Platform originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/08/15. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Howto: Improve Skype Quality

Frank — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:24:32 +0000

Ever run into bad sound quality while using Skype? Well, you might want to try the following if other reasons like blocked ports or p2p background processes aren’t to blame. Delete the shared.xml file which contains host cache information which is nothing more than a list of Skype super-nodes and host pairs that are needed for Skype to run.

It can be that the info stored in the shared.xml file is not optimal for the connection you have which can have a direct impact on sound quality. Look at it like this, why would you want to be routed half way across the world to call a friend who lives up the street?

Don’t worry about deleting the file, Skype just rebuilds that list during the next startup.

Windows users can find the shared.xml file in Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Skype, Mac Users can find it in ~/Library/Application Support/Skype/shared.xml, and Linux gurus can find it in /home/Username/.Skype/shared.xml

This is still no guarantee that this will clear up your sound issues, but it does offer a pretty good chance.

Howto: Improve Skype Quality originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/08/04. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Run Linux Apps In Windows

Frank — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:05:29 +0000

If your a Linux geek but are stuck using Windows for your day to day job this might just be the perfect compromise.

While you can run Linux within Windows using a number of virtualization products, andLinux takes it one step further and installs Linux on top of Windows, allowing the two to exist with one and other. Essentially allowing you to run Windows and Linux apps at the same time.

andLinux comes in two flavours; One comes with a full KDE system and the other with an XFCE based system.

Since andLinux installs a full operating system, you’ll need to make sure you’ve got quite a bit of free space on your hard drive. The KDE version eats up more than 4GB of space while the XFCE version takes about 2GB

andLInux

Run Linux Apps In Windows originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/02/22. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Xbox Media Center Coming For The Mac?

Frank — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:01:09 +0000

For those of you who never toyed in the original Xbox hombrew sense Xbox Media Center was the end-all be-all of homebrew applications. It was originally created in 2002 and required either a hardware modchip or a software exploit on the Xbox to run.

XBMC was the ultimate media center application on the Xbox and I still run it on 2 Xboxâ€™s in my house, it offer a rich video experience and can play virtually any media file either off the internal hard drive or by way of a network share. This is why I’m ecstatic to possibly seeing it arrive for the Mac OS.

The Mac version looks to be very promising. With a Linux version also under development we may just see a common UI for a rich media center application across any platform.

The Mac end of the project is being headed up by Elan Feingold, who was just interviewed by 9 to 5 Mac which can be read here.

Xbox Media Center Coming For The Mac? originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/02/08. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Ubuntu Tweaks

Frank — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 02:57:11 +0000

HowtoForge has a great guide on installing and using the Ubuntu Tweak utility.

â€œUbuntu Tweak is a tool that lets you change hidden Ubuntu settings, for example: hide or change the splash screen, show or hide the Computer, Home, Trash, and Network icons, change Metacity, Nautilus, power management, and security settings, etcâ€

It only works on Gnome desktops, but its a really easy way to customize your splash screen, desktop, and hibernation settings. The tweaks are virtually endless.

Link to tweaking hidden Ubuntu settings.

Ubuntu Tweaks originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/02/06. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Add Some Shine To Your Linux Bootup

Frank — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:03:25 +0000

Linux is a fabulous thing. Itâ€™s free and well supported, but it usually doesnâ€™t look itâ€™s best when compared to say OS X or even Windows. So why not add a bit of shine to your system?

If your not all that interested with what hardware was detected, or if a module loaded or not, why not get rid of that text jungle that displays when your start up linux and lay some eye candy down instead?

PC World in New Zealand has a great write up on adding some custom boot screens to your linux install. Youâ€™ll get all the girls with this, I promise.

Add Some Shine To Your Linux Bootup originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/02/01. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Make Thunderbird Look Like Mail.app

Frank — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:12:51 +0000

Iâ€™ve been a user of mail.app for many years now, and have been quite happy with itâ€™s layout and usability. The only problem I have is that I canâ€™t run mail.app on any of my linux machine or Windows (yes, yes, I have a windows machine at home I admit it). Whatâ€™s the next best thing? Thunderbird of course since it will run on all three platforms, but it just doesn’t look quite the same.

Deviant Art user ~Rio~2007 has posted a very convincing skin for Thunderbird that will get it looking just like mail.app. All you need is to apply the skin to Thunderbird (Thunderbird 2.0 is required) and youâ€™ll be good to go.

Link to the skin

Make Thunderbird Look Like Mail.app originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/01/24. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Leopard On The EEEPC

Frank — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:41:54 +0000

I have written a lot about the Asus EEEPC. We even covered that crazy dude who put every possible hardware mod into the thing. Iâ€™ve had various flavours of Linux running, Windows, and yes ever Leopard (with a little hackintosh love).

When I decided to give Leopard a whirl on my tiny machine I followed Dan from Uneasy Silenceâ€™s guide on slapping Leopard on it. If you arenâ€™t a Mac lover he also has a guide on running Vista (although I can never figure out why you would want to) on your tiny device.

â€œSo, ever since I got the eeePC I’ve loved how easy it is to tinker with. Since I’m not a Linux guy, I dumped the Xandros preload and opted for Windows XP so I could you my EVDO USB datacard and blogging software easier, but I wondered could I install OSX on it? And, after trial and error – you can!â€

Link to loading Leopard
Link to loading Vista

Leopard On The EEEPC originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/01/22. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Stream PC Games To Your PS3

Frank — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:05:02 +0000

A new interesting piece of software just cropped up called StreamMyGame which essentially does just that, streams Windows games over a LAN to other Windows or Linux boxes. The interesting part is the Linux aspect since you can install Linux on your PS3 then you can stream the games to it as well. It looks like a very optimized version of VNC and any game is currently supported.

I’m not sure how well a super graphics intensive game would be over ethernet, but it’s a neat concept.

[Via Engadget]

Stream PC Games To Your PS3 originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/01/16. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Entertainer – New Linux Based Media Center

Frank — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:00:07 +0000

It looks like the Media Center space just got a bit more crowded. With already tons of Windows based Media Center software available and only a handful of decent Linux based ones floating around, Entertainer plans to change all of that.

Unlike software like MythTV or Freevo, Entertainer is strictly a Media Center based application that has no DVR or PVR like functionality, essentially you can not record or pause live TV. What Entertainer has going for it is it’s slick UI and what seems to be incredible ease of use.

Features so far:

Video Playback: You can easily play a multitude of video formats right from your harddrive. Entertainer also crawls the internet for metadata on your video.

Music: Standard music play back functionality with playlists, search be genre, artists, etc. It will also go out and get the cover art and lyrics for you (I smell some Karaoke fun!)

Pictures: Look at the 100′s of thousands of pictures in your library (Oh Joy)

RSS: Read your RSS feeds (like tech.nocr.at) right from the couch.

Over all it seems like a nice clean packaging of what most computers can do already. What they should start doing is adding some PVR features so that they can give Freevo and MythTV a run for their money.

Entertainer – New Linux Based Media Center originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/01/10. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

© tech.nocr.at 2008 | Permalink | Comments | Read more in Tech News | Explore more in: ac, bra, cat, computer, crowd, dfu, drive, ds, dvr, ea, entertainer, evo, freevo, id, ir, linux, live, loa, media center, music, mythtv, nda, nes, os, picture, playlist, pvr, rc, rss, space, tech.nocr.at, ui, video, wind, windows | Add to del.icio.us | Stumble it | Reddit

Parallels Server Beta Begins

Frank — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:57:20 +0000

This is going to give the Mac IT admins the largest collective wood since the release of the XServe. The virtulization company Parallels has announced that they have moved their server product into beta. This is the first virtulization solution to run on Apple hardware that will allow admins to run multiple versions of Leopard as well as Windows and Linux (who need those anyways?).

It’s still a closed beta at this time, but you can sign up and hope that you get that magic email to join the beta team. The guys at Parallels usually work quite fast so don’t be surprised if you see and open beta in the next few weeks.

Parallels Server Beta Begins originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/01/10. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Neuros OSD – Hack Away

Frank — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:11:46 +0000

The Chicago based company Neuros Technology International has created a very unique product. The Neuros OSD (for open source device) is a versatile media recorder that, by using a memory card or a USB drive can record video from multiple sources that is then stored in MPEG-4 format.

The OSD has not only open hardware, but also open software: it is based on the Linux operating system. Neuros Technology encourages hacking of the device; it has contests with cash rewards for new applications for the OSD. One winner, for instance, designed a program that lets people use it to watch YouTube on their televisions.

A company that will sell me a product that I can hack without them being upset? Where do I sign up!

It’s what the AppleTV should have been. I hope that Apple and Sony are listening.

Neuros OSD – Hack Away originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/01/06. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

© tech.nocr.at 2008 | Permalink | One Comment | Read more in Gadgets | Explore more in: ac, apple, appletv, car, cash, cat, contest, design, drive, ds, dvr, ea, hack, hacking, id, ir, linux, memory card, neuros, open, open source, os, osd, pen, rc, rod, sony, technology, tor, tube, usb, video, watch, youtube | Add to del.icio.us | Stumble it | Reddit

XBMC Coming To The Mac

Frank — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:20:01 +0000

Everyone’s favorite media center software for the Xbox, Xbox Media Center (or XBMC), is coming for Leopard. XBMC is designed to run on the original Microsoft Xbox console and it’s got one of the best media center interfaces around (I have 2 original Xbox’s at home to do just that, run XBMC).

The guys over at XBMC have been working to get the software ported over to Linux, and if it can work on Linux it should be able to work in Leopard. Elan over on the XBMC forums thought so, so he hacked together a close-to-working version on XBMC on Leopard. No final releases have ben built yet but I can smell me some XBMC on my mac any day now.

XBMC Coming To The Mac originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/01/04. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Archos SSH Access

Frank — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 05:51:40 +0000

UPDATE: My bad on the whole touch screen issue, what I was thinking was keyboard, but it came out as touch screen Â

Seems like some crafty hackers have found an exploit on the Archos 605. GFT, which stands for Go Fighting Tabby, will gain you root access on your Archos 605, 705, or 604. By using the GFT technique you can install ARCwelder which will allow you to ssh into the Archos and run unix commands from a shell.

So far the exploit only work with the 1.7.13 firmware, but I’m sure now that root access has been achieved on the unit, and since it’s Linux based, it will only be a matter of time before homebrew apps are running on this nifty unit. If only it had a touchscreen

Archos SSH Access originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2008/01/01. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Best of the week – Sept 17 – 23

Frank — Unknown, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mac Errors (Frank)
Unofficial Linux Support For New iPods (Frank)
Make it all portable: Thinstall it (Rob)
VMware goes flash with 3i (Rob)
Wii to get Turbografx Titles (Frank)
USB 3.0 to promise 5 Gbps (Frank)
6V Battery hack (Frank)
NES Clone – Good cheap memories (Frank)

Best of the week – Sept 17 – 23 originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2007/09/23. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Zune Price To Drop To $199

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Seems that Microsoft thinks that the Zune’s success has been so well received that it’s chopping prices on it’s Zune, either that or they have one hell of a lot of units they need to move. Starting today you can pick up a shinny new Zune (and from what I hear they have a whole hell of a lot of these units in stock) for $199. In order for me to even consider purchasing one they had to drop the price to a nice and sweet $39 bucks, or someone has to figure out how to put Linux on it. Just image running a cool Linux PMP distro on your Zune, you’d be the hippest kid in town.

Zune Price To Drop To $199 originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Yoggie Pico Firewall

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

We all know how necessary it is to have some form of virus or spyware protection on our computers, we also know how great a hit they can be to processor performance when we are stuck using a slow laptop. The Yoggie Pico offloads those security requirements to a small USB dongle that serves as a mini firewall. Powered by Linux and a dedicated processor, the Pico uses 12 built in security applications including anti-virus and anti-spyware and only requires a tiny thin client installed on the actual computer.

By using a low level driver to re-direct all the network traffic to the Pico, before Windows and the TCP/IP stack see it, means that any attacks on your computer will hit the Pico before it has a chance to affect your computer. This actually provides a physical separation between your machine and the internet (or network your connecting to, think free internet hotspot).

It’s $179 plus $30/year for updates, it isn’t exactly cheap but if you prefer paying for anti-virus and anti-spyware rather than using free versions, this might be great for you.

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New iPhone Killer? Motorola ROKR E8 and E7 Leaked

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I must say, this phone does look quite slick. The picture above is the new Motorola ROKR E8, it’s basically a thin bar shaped handset with a JAVA/Linux based interface. It is rumoured to have 2GB of integrated memory and a microSD memory card slot for expandability. With a 2-megapixel camera, touch sensitive keys, mini USB port and a standard 3.5 mm audio jack for music it’s set to be a slick unit.

Now the above might just be the one cell phone that will give the iPhone a run for it’s money. The E7 is expected to have a touch-screen TFT display with VGA resolution, a 5 megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom and xenon flash, GoForce 5500 graphics accelerator, GPS, Wi-Fi, and 2 GB of internal memory. Plus it’s only 14 mm thick. This might just be the perfect iPhone alternative.

New iPhone Killer? Motorola ROKR E8 and E7 Leaked originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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Blackjack! Save $840 a year.

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Blackjack! The Samsung Blackjack is an awesome phone but when I tried to connect it to my computer on the road like I did with my old Razr, I hit a brick wall. So, what was wrong? After 45 minutes of hold time, you’d be surprised what I was told. Cingular “The new AT&T”, we’ll get into their name switching at a later date, told me that it would cost me an extra 70 dollars a month for their “Tethering” service. Tethering? You mean the thing I used to do for free? Well I am here to tell you how you can save $840 a year by using Internet Connection Sharing instead of the paid service.

Open up File Explorer (Start->Applications->File Explorer)
Press UP until you you get to root ( / )
Scroll down and select Windows
Now start scrolling, it’s alphabetical and you are looking for “Internet Sharing” (Use the down arrow, better on the joints, your joints)
Click on it and you are greeted by a simple application with only a couple options.
Select by pressing right or left Bluetooth PAN (Personal Area Network) or USB. USB is easier and powers at the same time, Bluetooth is a bit more difficult but it’s one less wire you have to worry about loosing

Now, I am not going to go into how to set up each, you have been shown the door, it’s your job to get it working how you want it to. Also, if you don’t want to keep scrolling every time you want to use it, hook up to ActiveSync, explore over to it, create a shortcut and plop it in your Start Menu. Easy simple access on the go.

And I can’t leave this last tidbit out: It works in Linux!

Blackjack! Save $840 a year. originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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New iPod won’t work with Linux

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Seems like the kids at Infinite Loop have decided to stomp out any third party applications messing with the iPod, including Linux. The iTunes DB now contains a couple of encrypted hashes that validate the information in the music list; this essentially fingerprints the iPod/iTunes pairing and prevents apps from modifying the DB without access to the hash key, any software that attempts access will now show up with 0 songs.

This is truly unfortunate for the people out there that prefer to manage their music collections with something like Winamp on a PC or with libgpod on Linux. Maybe it’s time to hold back on any upgrades until the software catches up!

New iPod won’t work with Linux originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Consolidate your Linux Boxes with Virtualization

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve become the latest fanboy to the amazing world of Virtualization. Here at home I have many old computers that are powering up all I do. Most of these work puppies are old P II’s and P III’s, a serious drain on my wallet in the Electricity department if you know what I mean.

I stumbled on this article on how to take physical Linux boxes and move them to a Virtualized world using something like VMWare server. I immediately went out and bought one big and powerful machine and consolidated all of these machines into one tiny machine that does a hell of a lot.

Excellent project if you’ve been meaning to upgrade those old machines you have lying around.

Consolidate your Linux Boxes with Virtualization originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

NES controller for your iPod

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve wanted to do something like this for quite a while. I found this one during a visit to one of my favorite hardware hacking website, instructables.com. By embedding a PIC microcontroller into an old NES controller you can convert it into a replacement for Apple’s iPod remote.

Imagine loading up Linux for the iPod and playing Doom with this bad boy. You’ll be the talk of the entire airplane. Either that or they will think you’re a terrorist and hold you back to ask you a few questions.

Link to project

NES controller for your iPod originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Learn to Hack

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Every blog about security needs to post an article like this, as sort of a RTFM reference. Without further ado:

First and foremost, hacking is knowing how something operates inside and out, and then making it do something that it wasn’t intended on doing. Now, that could be anything from exploiting DCOM on an unpatched machine, to adding LEDs to your DefCon 15 badge. And if you are like most hackers, you have already stopped reading so here are some videos to get you started:

Virtual Training Enviroment at Cert.org
Learn Security Online’s Videos
Youtube entries by SANS

Also you have podcasts such as Hak.5, Pauldotcom Security Weekly and many others, that publish new content on a monthly or weekly basis.

Today also marks the day of the newest release of Hak.5. In this release I do a guest segment on anonymous enumeration or information gathering. The following are links to all of the sites that I cover in this segment, plus a few more that I don’t:

The main portion of the segment is over Evolution by Paterva. Downloadable at MegaUpload: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=11LK7HH3 The windows version at least. If the Linux version creeps up, I’ll let you know.

Domain Dossier w/ Service (Banner) scan
http://www.centralops.net/

Submit a file to be virus scanned by 17+ different scanners to help identify the virus, and to see which pick up the virus
http://www.virustotal.com/

Submit a file to be analyzed by the CWSandbox software. It even can give DNS lookup information and network connectivity requests
http://research.sunbelt-software.com/Submit.aspx

Using known transforms, this site give you a great bit of detail about any particular site, based on the details gleaned from the source
http://www.builtwith.com/

Great site that has a lot of tools. My favorite being “File-Info” in which the serversniff servers download and hash dump a file of your choice with the option to attempt a string dump. (Couple this with Virustotal.com, and the CWSandbox link, you will know everything there is to know about a file, without ever having to have it on your box.
http://www.serversniff.net/

An online front end for NMAP. It is restrictive so that you can only scan the IP you are coming from. However, this is form information that is being passed.
http://www.nmap-online.com/

Probably the best whois site on the planet.
http://www.whois.sc/

The default site that everyone know for looking up information on anything with a host name or IP
http://www.dnsstuff.com/

A good amount of tools that the other sites have, but centrally located
http://www.network-tools.com/

Network Query Tool
http://www.windowspms.com/

Can’t go anywhere without Sam Spade
http://www.samspade.org/

Learn to Hack originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

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How To: Add RAW support to low end Canon camera

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

This is a great how-to on making a cheap Canon digital camera with a firmware mod much more powerful.

If you have a point-and-click digital camera made by Canon, you may be able to turn on all sorts of features usually reserved for more expensive SLRs. That includes live histograms, depth-of-field calculation, under and overexposure highlighting, and — best of all — shooting your pictures in RAW. The secret is CHDK, an enhanced, free software replacement firmware.

How To article.

How To: Add RAW support to low end Canon camera originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Unofficial Linux Support For New iPods

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

We reported earlier that Apple had cramped the open source style of synching your new iPod with Linux, but now some crafty kids, 36 hours after the story made the rounds online, have got some code to get everything working. Details can be found here.

Unofficial Linux Support For New iPods originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

One big storage unit

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I’m all about big storage. You know how the old saying goes, you can never have enough money and you can never have enough disk space.

The Lanner NS04-3100 is a 4-Bay Media Storage server. The box allows you to share media files such as music, pictures, and video. The unit has 4 internal SATA drive bays and supports RAID 0, 1, 5 and JBOD across all drives. User’s can select their required level of data integrity for their personal requirements.

Some of the features include â€¦

DHCP and FTP Server: Easy network integration
UPnP AV and iTunes Server: Stream music directly to iTunes or network media device
OS Support: Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Linux and Mac OS X
System backup and restore: Optional software package for business orientated clients

Although the unit hasn’t started shipping yet Lanner says that it should be on shelves by next quarter.

One big storage unit originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

Apple Now Thirds Biggest Laptop Vendor

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I was at the local Apple store in Yorkdale mall here in Toronto yesterday to pickup a replacement power supply for my Mac Book Pro when I noticed that almost everyone walking around in the mall was caring a box with a shinny new MacBook or MacBoook Pro. This came to me thinking about the rise in popularity of the Mac.

Today I find out that market researcher NPD release notebook sales figures and put Apple in third place overall, HP and Toshiba take number 1 and 2. The numbers are for brick-and-mortar store sales only, not taking into account online sales.

One of the serious possibilities for the increase in sales is that the Mac is the only machine that will run all major operating systems: OS X, Unix, Linux, and Windows. Even if you’re not a big OS X fan, the Mac is the perfect machine for running Vista.

Apple Now Thirds Biggest Laptop Vendor originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

iPhone Unlocking: What will Apple do?

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Now you can break the iPhone away from AT&T. There are a few unlocking methods flowing around on the internet on how so unlock your iPhone and use it with another providers SIM card. Some are as easy as purchasing a special SIM card and moving right along, while others are a bit more complicated and require you to take the thing apart and do some serious hardware hacking. The main question that everyone should be asking is: What will Apple do about it?

Apple has generally maintained a very laid back attitude when it comes to hacking their products. When the â€œLinux for your iPodâ€ hack came about years ago many people were worried that if they installed Linux on their iPods Apple would cream them with a software update. What ended up happening? Nothing. Let’s also take the AppleTV for a Spin, hell, I hacked my unit the minute I got it (even did it on National TV) and again many feared that an Apple update would kill their units. Nothing happened.

The iPhone might just be another story. Let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture here. AT&T’s bread and butter is their service, I’m not sure what type of deal was struck between Apple and AT&T with regards to the subsidy of the hardware, but you can bet that Apple is making most if not all the cash when it comes to the actual unit sales. Where does this put AT&T if phones start to work on other carriers? Up a creek to say the least.

Although Apple has been fairly good to hackers with their hardware (Unlike other companies like Sony and the PSP) this might be the straw that breaks the camels back. You can be damn well sure that AT&T will be barking at Apple engineers to issue a software update that will see all unlocked iPhone either go brick or force people back to AT&T. You can count on it.

iPhone Unlocking: What will Apple do? originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.

© tech.nocr.at 1999 | Permalink | Comments | Read more in Mac | Explore more in: ac, air, amp, apple, appletv, brick, car, cash, cat, ds, ea, hack, hacked, hackers, hacking, id, iphone, ipod, ir, led, linux, lock, Mac, nes, os, pda, pen, phone, picture, psp, rc, rod, service, skin, sony, tor, ui, unlock, update | Add to del.icio.us | Stumble it | Reddit

Apple’s market share hits 17.6 percent

Frank — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

With all of the iPhone hype over shadowing Apple’s primary financial source, their notebooks and desktops, consumers are clearly still interested in the company’s bread and butter. Data from one market research firm shows Apple’s notebook business broke 17 percent while another research firm says that Apple is now in third place among computer manufactures.

Dell comes out on top with HP coming in a close second of total unit sales. Apple takes number three; Gateway and Acer round out the top five.

Only 10.6% of tech.nocr.at users use a Mac (including me), while 82.9% use Windows and 5.7% of you use Linux. Amazingly 0.02% of you use an Amiga (okay come out and show yourselves). Where are the other 7 percent of the Mac users? Maybe they are running BootCamp or VMWare Fusion.

Apple’s market share hits 17.6 percent originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 1999/11/29. Reproduction of content not allowed without consent.