Intel SSD Gen.2, continued

So, I got 2 80GB units from cartft.com (via ebay). Price was fair (194 EUR/piece) and shipping was only 16 EUR for UPS ground (4 days) delivery. I have to say that these babies delivered on all the hype that surrounds them, and that’s why their price still exceeds MSRP without any signs of decline.

Boot time in laptop (Windows 7, Core 2 Duo, 2.1GHz) went down from 40 seconds to 15. Desktop (Core 2 Quad 4GHz) boots in mere 6 seconds (without motherboard POST time, which begins to look too long at 5 sec). Overall, system responsiveness is butter smooth. Level loading (MW2, L4D) are a breeze at around 4-5 seconds. I am satisfied. Very satisfied.

Upgrades

Ordered Intel X-25M (80GB, 2nd generation) in Lithuania. Price is 180 EUR, which is better than in Latvia (205 EUR), and have to wait around 1 month for delivery.

Also, purchased the latest and the greatest from ATI. XFX HD5870. Had to upgrade PSU too.

Now, all my games have very friendly framerates (Core 2 Duo E7300 overclocked to 3.2GHz, 4GB RAM, XFX HD5870), and it became much easier to make headshots in 3d shooters (Left4Dead, TF2, Bioshock). Another strange, but pleasing side effect appeared in a racing game (GRID). It was very difficult to keep a car on the road while racing, but now motion is very smooth, and controlling the car is much easier. Probably, has something to do with the fact, that previously, with lower frame-rate, by the time when I saw car loosing traction, it was too late to react. Nice.

(Virus-) Free gaming under Wine in Linux

In Windows world, you can play any game for free, but it usually comes with some payload from virus writers. Having realized that, I made it a rule to only play games that I purchased legally. Then, yesterday, I found some of those old Windows games archives. Don’t know why I have not deleted those virus-ridden wares long time ago.

I have already seen that many games work in Linux under Wine, and then I thought, why not try these ones, because they can not infect my Ubuntu anyway. And, voila! Both franchises of Bejeweled (2 and Twist) work in HD/3D accelerated, and they are “free”. True, they try to propagate on the game exit, and (moment of glory) simply error out in wine. Seems, that I will never ever have to pay for Windows games that do not use intensive 3D graphics or online authorization.

Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade in Latvia

So, Windows 7 is here. Since trying W7 beta in the beginning of 2009, I knew that this was the first OS that I’ll upgrade my home computers to and will be willing to pay for it. I will need several copies for my home:

1. gaming/multimedia PC – currently runs W7 RC. It absolutely needs a Windows license, because I use it to for playing games, and Linux just can’t compete here. Will update it to Windows 7 Home Premium (which has all I need, including Windows Media Center).

2. home server- has Ubuntu and W7 trials at the moment. I can use it in this mode for another 100 days. It is now fully configured to provide the functionality I need – filesharing, utorrent, orb, wuala, https web server, webdav and vpn. In the upcoming 3 months I will try get same functionality (except orb) under Ubuntu. If that works, fine. Otherwise, will upgrade to W7 too. Home Premium does not support Remote Desktop server, but I can manage with VNC I think.

3. 2 laptops – running W7 trials atm, need to upgrade.

So, I am going to buy 3-4 upgrade licenses. Today, I checked pricing and availability of Windows 7 here in Riga, Latvia. Unfortunately, there is no Family Pack available (some people say it might appear after Oct, 31st, when Latvian language Windows is promised). But, price for Home Premium OEM upgrade is quite good ($70 or 50 EUR). Buying Family pack of 3 licenses at amazon UK, would cost the same after shipment. I think I will rather buy HP OEM upgrades here.

I do not have that many Vista or XP licenses (basically all my PC were self made, and laptops came with Linux), but will try to find some old/written-off licenses from sysadmin friends. I know that OEM will work only with one machine, but Retail copy is almost 4 times more expensive (180 EUR) and for that money, I can buy new OEM upgrades later if needed.

I checked to computer shops today and in both, was asked to prove that I have a copy of Windows to upgrade from. Windows label on the bottom of laptop is enough of the proof they said. Interesting, can I show the same laptop in various shops to buy 3-4 upgrade licenses? I think I can.

Playing Steam games on Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)

Installation of Wine 1.31 amd64 went ok, but Steam client failed after installation and self update. Had to switch to 1.3 amd64 deb and also make sure that Windows version=XP in wine configuration tool. Now Steam works and I am downloading my games. Quickly tried Ricochet Infinity and it work well, in full screen, in windowed mode and downloading extension packs from internet works too.

Boost GMA950 speed in netbooks

If you have one of popular netbooks like Asus eeePC, or Acer One or MSI Wind with Intel GMA950 built-in graphics, chances are you can improve its performance. Turns out Intel has decreased GMA950 frequency from 400MHz to 133MHz for netbooks, to cripple video performance, and separate them further from the expensive notebooks using the same GMA950. Now, there is a program called GMA950boost. It is discussed in MSI Wind forums, with users reporting some 20-30% boost in the framerates. Which means, that if a game wasn’t playable before (say 10 fps), it will not get much better (at 13 fps). Still it maybe a nice boost for someone struggling to get their favorite game to more playable fps and 720p video to play smoother. Unfortunately, this program is not free yet. So it is up to you to decide if you want to pay some 10$ for it.

Mirror’s Edge

More HD Trailers here

N-Gage 2 protection broken

I normally do not care to write about warez, but this is a new milestone in S60 world of gaming. N Gage 2 game protection have been compromised. More info in Russian is here with Asphalt 3D as an example. I did not have time to try it myself yet, but users report that it is working. Not clear if online and multiplayer features work, but I guess they should be, since crack only affect game itself, and works under unmodified N-Gage2 platform.

My silent PC solution

My PC have never been silent enough,  but since installing 4 SCSI disks it became too loud. Luckily, there was storage room behind my hometheater screen, so, after some thinking and studying prices of SSD drives (the best one at the moment are from Mtron, 800 EUR gives you 16GB of lightning fast (120 Read, 100 Write MB/s)), I decided that it is cheaper and easier to go the low tech way, i.e. drill a hole in a wall for power, HDMI and some USB cables and move PC to a room where it will not be heard, no matter how loud it is.

First, power cable went through the wall.

Then, all the rest -video connection, ethernet, printer and 2 USB extenders for wireless Logitech mouse and keyboard.

After connecting all cables, turning PC on, booting Vista and testing that everything works, it is time to put my bike where it used to be in the storage room.

Now, back to enjoying a totally silent and wireless setup of my home-theater / gaming rig.

   

And last thing, now I do not use "shut down" option when I want to switch off my computer. I use "sleep" only. To Microsoft's credit, there is an option, to wake up the system with USB mouse or keyboard. And it works flawlessly even with wireless keyboard. Voila! No need to go to the server room to push that button.

Fake PSP Phone

Too bad if it is fake, it looks like a PSP phone should. Nice try. I would love to see it become a product.

My best mobile experiences :)

To begin with, there are many good experiences, that I would not rate one above other

 

On Nokia 6120 smartphone

- Unlimited data plan. A musthave for all the goodies that follow below.

- Fring keeps me signed into skype, gtalk, msn and icq.

- Opera Mobile keeps me connected to my multiple gmail accounts, google reader mobile and internet bank

- Updating my life blog with pictures and video by simply sending email to my blogger account with a picture or video attached

- TomTom navigation for driving and hiking while abroad

- Throwing it to my kids for a quick cartoon session (I always keep couple of hours of cartoons re-encoded for QVGA). Playing it with the best player for Windows Mobile and Symbian, the CorePlayer.

 

On Raon Everun UMPC

- This is my mobile office that mirrors my data and programs from a desktop (well, everything except torrent library :). This means 100% compatibe browser and office applications. On the go. Weighing a massive 500g. 8-10 hour battery life.

- And yes, I keep there yet more cartoons for the kids.

 

On iPAQ hx4700

- TomTom navigation

- Skype over WiFi, now replaced by Fring over WiFi and Fring over 3g on my handset

- Gaming - Solitaire, Bejeweled2, Skyforce 1/2, K-Rally, etc.

- Cartoons as in all categories above, watching movies over WiFi from my home torrent storage

- It can do PIM and email, as well as open all office documents, but I do not use it anymore...

METAPLACE the future of online RPG ?

... every Metaplace world process is also a web server.  It can issue both outgoing web requests of arbitrary type, and handle incoming web requests as well.
This means that any Metaplace world is capable of creating a web request from script, and then issuing that request to an arbitrary outside web service.  The game server provides useful API methods to easily parse the responses from these web service, including REST-like XML parsing and RSS.  You can also pull entire web pages and regex parse (string match) the response manually for more granular control if you wish.  Examples of this include issuing queries to outside SQL databases from an object in-game, pulling external real-time stock quotes into your world, getting the latest RSS news from CNN and feeding it to a town crier NPC chat bot, slurping real-time sports scores into your in-game sports bar, pulling YouTube videos into a wall in your apartment, etc.  This also means that objects and scripts in your world can transmit outgoing data such as badges, in-game events, or game scores to an external database or web service.  This allows for a nearly limitless extension of game functionality out across the internet.
Additionally, because every Metaplace world is also an embedded web server, external services can make requests of the game process through a simple CGI-like interface.  This means that an external webpage could call into the server process and access real-time data on individual objects currently in the world.  It is also possible to issue events through the game simulation using this interface, meaning that you could spawn a monster in-game when someone clicks on a webpage link, for example...