TechGeek on The Run

Samsung Galaxy S2: My First Android Experience

2011-10-26T17:22:00.002+08:00

Nope guys, this is not another Samsung Galaxy S2 (hereinafter referred to as SGS2) review. But I'm writing this post to share the experience of me migrating to another smartphone platform, an open yet fragmented platform known as Android (the cute, little green robot)

My journey into the smartphone has always been a simple but an interesting one. It started off with me having a feature phone that only support text messaging and call. Then in December 2008, there was a huge leap in which I was given an iPhone 3GS. The cultural shock was so great; from a feature phone to one of the most powerful (at that time) and robust smartphone OS in the world. For weeks, I learnt from scratch to utilize all the features that 3GS offered, and at the end of my transitional period, 3GS actually replaced my netbook and pc as my main device to connect to the internet.

The iPhone 3GS was my best buddy, trying its best to fulfill my quest hunting for perfection in every sense, and to my surprise it has succeeded in every way I could remember as a little smartphone device, where even men fail to even think about their duty of care.

Armed with a 600Mhz ARM Cortex A8 processor, accompanied by PowerVR SGX 535 and 256MB of RAM, it was fast, the user interface was smooth and the experience surpassed even that of a full fledged PC. But its heyday has long ended, so I planned for its replacement and drafted the requirement for the next smartphone, which are as follows;

1) Must be more capable than what 3GS has to offer

2) Latest hardware that can stand for another 2 years

3) Open and customizable

4) Future proof

There you have it, i was given the SGS2 as a replacement for 3GS. The first day i began using Android could be described as awkward. I was trying my best to adapt the feeling of openness where I could decide how Android and SGS2 would behave. Its very different from the straightforward, limited iOS on the 3GS (albeit not being inferior). The 1st week of using SGS2 was more towards porting all features of iOS into Android, which pretty much a headache and the steep learning curve slowed me down.

The second week was more towards adapting to Android. I've picked up on how to customize my homescreen, apps folders, widgets and some core options in Android. I've began to install several apps from the market either straight from SGS2 or through the PC (cool feature). SGS2 performed galantly particularly due to its muscular 1.2Ghz dual core ARM Cortex A9, coupled with PowerVR SGX 540 and humongous 1GB of RAM. The UI is silky smooth due to full hardware acceleration that Samsung has provided in its TouchWiz UI, something that is absent on many Android devices.

Week 3 which is the week I'm writing this post, I can say that I've mastered the BASIC things in Android. There are more to come actually, as SGS2 has not been stressed tested yet. All I can say up until now SGS2 is a worthy replacement. A little advice from me is that, don't treat an Android device like you treat an iOS device. They are both good in their own way so you have to accept the weaknesses of the platform of your choice, which I'm applying in my real life as well.

WHAT I LIKE...

The open, plenty of customization, and lots of options and settings
Silky smooth hardware accelerated Samsung's Touchwiz UI
1.2Ghz dual core prowess with lots of RAM
Live wallpapers (although i dont use them)
Large Super AMOLED Plus screen, vibrant and detail
The camera with flash!!

WHAT I DON'T LIKE

Flimsy, slow and laggy Android market
Some crapwares that come together with Touchwiz and cannot be removed
Samsung Kies (iTunes like software)
el cheapo home button
The sound quality of SGS2 is inferior compared to my iPod Nano and 3GS (I can tell the difference)

Cracking MAC Address Filtering Protected WiFi

2011-09-14T17:58:00.002+08:00

This is a continuance of WiFi hacking guide, for the first guide which involved cracking WEP protected WiFi can be viewed here

MAC Address

MAC stands for Media Access Control, in which Wikipedia defines it as "a unique identifier assigned to network interfaces for communications on the physical network segment." Further read on MAC Address topic shows that each networking device has a unique MAC Address, hard-coded in the device's hardware possibly during chip assembly.

MAC Address Filtering

Most modern WiFi routers support MAC filtering function, and can be used in collaboration with packet encryption ie. WEP & WPA cipher for added security (presumably). The underlying idea of MAC address filteration is that, if the packet encryption has been breached and deciphered, MAC address filter will kick in and block connection to 'rogue' wireless adapter. It is some sort of Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) in radar concept. The WiFi router will be registered with a list of MAC address of 'friendly' WiFi adapters and only connection from this registered adapters will be accepted even if you have the password for the WiFi connection. Sounds unbreakable isn't it? Well not really.

Cracking the MAC Address Filtering

The problem with MAC address is that it is broadcasted freely over the air when 'friendly' WiFi adapters is connected with the router. Anyone with compatible hardware and packet capturing software (airodump) can obtain the MAC address of connected device

Supposedly, MAC address should be unique to every networking device, however the software to change the MAC address is freely available and can be done in mere seconds. In other words, you can change your WiFi adapter's MAC address similar to that of the registered device's MAC address

MAC Address Filtering attack works around the 2 flaws as discussed above, (1) sniffing the connected "friendly" MAC address and (2) applying the MAC address to 'rogue' adapter and is detected as registered device.

Disclaimer: The author does not condone hacking or similar act in anyway whatsoever. This post is intended for educational purpose and to create awareness for a better and stronger wireless security. The practice done by the author was made on the author's own network infrastructure

Tools Needed:
1) Backtrack OS 5 (guide)
2) Compatible wifi adapter with airodump (I use Atheros AR5007EG)
3) MAC changer software, some adapters support MAC Address change in Windows, which will be discussed later
4) Patience, of course
(I strongly recommend you to read the WEP cracking guide posted earlier for detailed tutorial on how to enter monitor mode for your wifi etc..)

1) Preparing the Wifi Adapter in monitor mode using airmon-ng - airmon-ng start wlan0

2) Start capturing packets of available access points airodump-ng
- airodump-ng mon0

The access point in the red box is the simulated target

3) Capturing packets of target WiFi access points
- airodump-ng -w wep(if any) -c (channel number) --bssid (bssid number) mon0

If you notice, I didnt use -w wep command as my wifi router has been setup only to use MAC address filtering to speedup the process

4) Copying registered MAC Address

The red box contains the MAC address of registered device. Just copy any one

5) Applying registered MAC Address

the Windows 7 driver for atheros AR5007EG fully supports MAC address change, known as network address. If you happen to have the same function, just type the MAC address without the ":". Look for the setting in device manager.

After that, just click ok and try to connect to the access point. Fill in the password for WEP/WPA if there's any.

Troubleshoot

If the access point is encrypted with wep/wpa, you need to crack that first before changing the MAC address
If you cannot change MAC address within the device manager setting, try 3rd party software. Google is your best friend

How To: Improve your 3G Broadband Connection (Maxis, Celcom, etc.)

2011-08-18T03:11:00.000+08:00

Expensive, poor coverage, low usage quota, erratic performance etc etc are some of the problems that broadband users in Malaysia are currently experiencing. The inception of 3G broadband connection does bring some hope (albeit a false one), allowing mobility factor to be driven into broadband service in Malaysia.

However, many 3G broadband users voiced out their dissatisfaction (including myself) in which the premium price they pay does not reflect the quality they expect from a supposedly 3G connection. Coupled with the fact that their connection seems to max out at the meager EDGE signal, though they are still paying at 3G rate, well something needs to be done.

Among the many problems faced by 3G broadband is the lack of 3G signal in certain area (apparently majority of the area lacked 3G coverage), consequently leading to slow speed, frequent disconnection, and high latency to servers. So what do we need to do?? Yup BOOST THE BLOODY SIGNAL!!!

INSTALLING OMNI-DIRECTIONAL ANTENNA
Most broadband users do not know that they can actually install an external gain antenna to improve signal reception. So check now whether you can add in an external antenna. My Maxis Huawei E1762 does have it (CRC9 connector)

See that tiny hole, that's where the antenna slots in.

I bought the Panorama TCLIP 2 2dBi 3G external antenna awhile ago as the coverage in Section 7 Shah Alam is pretty bad. I bought it from Lowyat Garage Sales for RM68 and so far it does its job pretty well I think. It came together with a mounting clip for your laptop's lcd and a desk stand. Here's the product page from the manufacturer. http://www.panorama.co.uk/uk/products/mobile_broadband_clip&desk.html

There you have it, ready to power up.


TCLIP2 antenna mounted on top of the screen.

TESTBED

Acer Aspire One D250

Intel Atom N280 processor 1.66 GHz 512KB L2 Cache 667 MHz FSB

2GB DDR2 667MHz SDRAM, 160GB harddrive

Maxis Broadband 3.6Mbps (Max) Huawei E1762 3G modem with TCLIP2 3G Antenna

Location: Somewhere in Ipoh. 3G Coverage: Pretty good

TEST 1: SIGNAL STRENGTH

With Antenna

A full bar HSPA connection achieved with TCLIP2 antenna in place

Without Antenna

The Huawei E1762 alone can have a good coverage with full bar HSPA connection

TEST 2: SPEEDTEST AND LATENCY TEST (SPEEDTEST.NET)

With Antenna

Huawei E1762 with TCLIP2 blasts through with download speed at 2.52Mbps and upload speed at 1.58Mbps. Latency is very low at 105ms. Pretty damn low for a wireless connection

Without Antenna

Eventhough E1762 alone has the same signal coverage as with the E1762 + TCLIP2, the speed and latency tests do not fare the same. Download speed appeares to be halved of that with antenna at 1.30Mbps and upload speed is nowhere near the TCLIP2 can achieve, averaging at 0;64Mbps. The latency also shows some regression when the antenna is removed, peaking at 127ms

To sum all up, the TCLIP2 3G Antenna can really improve speed and performance of your 3G broadband connection. Even if your area has good 3G reception, by adding the antenna can allow your connection to achieve better speed and lower latency. With the price at reasonable RM 68, it really is worth every penny you spent.

Wireless Hacking: Cracking WEP Password Protected Wifi

2011-08-12T15:46:00.004+08:00

Hello guys, nice to see you all again. It has been a week for me to prepare this post, not to mention the many years I took to master the how-to in this post. What how-to? Yep you guest it right. WEP Wifi Hacking!!

As I said above, it took me ages to master the skill of hacking WEP Wifi password, but once you successfully crack 2 or 3 times (poor victims lol), this wicked practice will be at your fingertips.

Why i needed a century to learn? Apparently most guides available out there seem to cater the seasoned and experienced hacker, I'm no hacker thus I could hardly understand the instructions laid in the guide. In addition of not being very, what can I say, bonded to Linux (command line anyone?), I am also subjected to limited hardware compatibility (more on this later) during the inception of wireless hacking/ WEP cracking. I think things have improved lately, well at least not as bad as what I've experienced. So not to waste anymore your precious time, let's start shall we....

If you are interested in gaining additional info, kindly read the articles as follow;

What is WiFi (Wireless Fidelity)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi

Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wired_Equivalent_Privacy

Aircrack-ng (the software used to crack WEP)

http://www.aircrack-ng.org/

Disclaimer: The author does not condone hacking or similar act in anyway whatsoever. This post is intended for educational purpose and to create awareness that WEP protection is not safe any longer. The practice done by the author was made on the author's own network infrastructure.

1) PREPARATION OF INGREDIENTS

What do you need

Linux Backtrack 5 OS. Can be downloaded here http://www.backtrack-linux.org/downloads/
Compatible wireless dongle/ adapter (more on this later)
USB flash drive or DVD, or any storage medium to boot linux from, and of course with ample spaces.
Unetbootin, the software to put Linux Backtrack to USB drive (or anything) and boot linux from there http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Some patience

2) PREPARE LINUX

After you have downloaded Linux Backtrack 5 (the latest at the time of writing), you need to extract the Linux to the USB drive.

BackTrack Live USB Install

This method of getting a live install to a USB drive is the simplest available using Unetbootin. Note that we will format the USB drive and erase its contents.

Plug in your USB Drive (Minimum USB Drive capacity 2 GB)
Format the USB drive to FAT32
Download Unetbootin from http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Start Unetbootin and select diskimage (use the backtrack-final ISO)
Select your USB drive and click “OK” for creating a bootable BackTrack USB drive
Log into BackTrack with the default username and password root / toor.

Source: backtrack-linux.org

After putting Backtrack Linux into the USB flashdrive, restart your pc and boot from the flashdrive containing Backtrack Linux. You can either set boot priority in the BIOS or just choose boot option by pressing F12 (may vary depending on your pc). When Backtrack is booting, it will ask to choose display mode, just press "spacebar" to continue. After that, it will stop at one point, stating type startx to start Backtrack in X window system. Just type in "startx" and press "enter".

3. PREPARING WIFI DONGLE/ADAPTER INTO MONITORING MODE

Launch Terminal by clicking the icon as shown below

In the terminal, type airmon-ng and press Enter. This part is very important to determine whether your wifi dongle/adapter support monitoring mode. If yours does support, it will show like the pic below

It shows that my adapter is Atheros AR2425 (AR 5007EG) and the driver version. Yours might be different depending on the model of the adapter. As long as it shows similar like this, then you can proceed. The interface is marked as wlan0, if you have 2 compatible adapters, it may be marked as wlan0 and wlan1. You can choose either one.

In the same terminal, type airmon-ng start wlan0. The command will enable monitor mode on your adapter - as you can see with mon0 shown in the pic below

4. CHOOSING ACCESS POINT AND PACKET CAPTURING

In the same terminal, type airmon-ng mon0 and press Enter. This will list down all available access point within the area. Example shown below

So as you can see above is the list of available access points. I'm going to launch a simulated attack on my own access point, XtremeWifi (partly visible). The most important thing to consider here is the BSSID and channel number (CH). BSSID is the unique identity number of the access point (regardless of the access point name) and the access point transmit signal through specified channel (CH). From the pic above, we can also determine that my access point use WEP security.

Next, COPY the BSSID NUMBER (highlight all the 12 digits, right click and copy) and REMEMBER THE CHANNEL (CH). In this simulated attack, my channel number is 2. After that, PRESS CTRL+C to stop the console.

Open a NEW terminal and type airodump-ng -w wep -c [channel number] --bssid [paste your bssid number (right click and select paste) mon0
Press ENTER. See pic below for guide

You can see that your adapter began capturing data (marked #Data in pic below) from the specified access point. This data will be used to crack the WEP password later.

Next open a new terminal (third) and type aireplay-ng -1 0 [paste bssid number] mon0 and press Enter. See pic below;

After you have completed the above, open a new terminal (fourth) and type aireplay-ng -3 -b [paste bssid number here] mon0 and press Enter. This process accelerate packets capturing thus allowing more #Data to be obtained.
Go back to the terminal containing the #Data (second terminal) and observe the #Data. Typically a 64bit WEP encryption requires 10,000 to 30,000 #Data to decipher the encryption. In my case, I set my router to 128bit WEP and it requires 140,000 #Data. Quite a lot if you ask me.
The only way to increase #Data is to make sure that the access point is busy transferring packet/data. So to accelerate the capturing, I downloaded a file from the internet to simulate access point ---> client pc transfers. If you happen to attack someone else's access point, then it may take some time (or you can call that person and ask him to use his internet, that should work).

5. CRACKING THE WEP PASSWORD

Let the fun begins. Fire up a new terminal and type aircrack-ng wep-01.cap and press Enter.

From the pic you can see that I started cracking at 2156 #Data (a long way to go I know). Aircrack called #Data as IV (Initialisation Vector), dont worry its the same.

And the result................................(that's not my access point, poor victim lol heheheh)

Note: if aircrack-ng fails to crack at certain #Data/IVs, dont close anything because aircrack-ng will try to crack again once you have captured 5000 IVs and it will do that until... well if you got 1 million IVs and still fail, please redo the whole process for the sake of sanity.

Look, even I failed sometimes, but you are a failure if you give up trying :)

See ya guys later.. Babai!!

Installous: iOS apps for free

2011-08-09T06:12:00.001+08:00

Hello. Nice to see you guys again. Today's new post will give a guide on how to try paid or free iOS apps. (so said the app). You dont actually have to read this guide if you want to try the already free apps in the Appstore (do i really need to explain this??).

Disclaimer
The author does not condone piracy or even support piracy in anyway whatsoever. This guide is strictly for educational purpose only. The author is in the view that users should pay the respective developer for any application they intend to use

Today, we are going to install Installous

First thing first, you need to jailbreak your idevice. Im not going to go into how to jailbreak your idevice as there are plenty of guides available. Google is our best buddy afterall isnt it :8))

Then, fire up Cydia and tap on Manage, choose Source and tap on Edit. On your upper left, tap on Add.

There's an URL box appears when you click edit. Inside the box, add this repo source;

http://cydia.hackulo.us/

Cydia will download and update itself with new file lists from the new repo. Wait until all the process to finish.

Back to Cydia, tap on search and type INSTALLOUS Install and voila!!

Now you can try some favourite iOS app that you have been craving since the very first day you start to own an idevice. The user interface is quite similar to iOS Appstore, so i dont think its going to pose any problem.

Happy trying and see you guys later

- Mobile Blogging on the Run

Location:On my bed

Return from Exile

2011-08-07T14:36:00.001+08:00

It was a self exile for 19 months without any apparent reason. Now im back online with no new news whatsoever. So, what's up with this new post? NOTHING!! well not that i dont have anything to write at all.

Well people ive cleaned up my blog, tweaked here and there, u'll notice the improved loading speed. Needless to say, all the craps are gone. Its a freshly baked html codes under the hood.

Good news for readers with smartphones or mobile users, this blog is 100% mobile friendly. Low profile layout and fast page rendering, no bandwidth sapping items, it could hardly be any better.

If u guys are interested what had happened to me during my self exile, yep there are some highs and lows during those period. The good news is i'm ALIVE!! so wait for incoming interesting posts (if no self exile taking place lol)

- Mobile Blogging on the Run

Location:Nowhere

Duel of the Fates: Intel Atom vs Pentium 4

2010-01-17T14:02:00.000+08:00

The Contenders;

Intel Pentium 4 (Prescott) 3.2ghz @ 1.6ghz 800Mhz FSB 1MB L2 Cache

Intel Atom N280 (Diamondville) 1.66ghz @ 1.67ghz 533Mhz FSB 512KB L2 Cache

ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW

Pentium 4 utilizes the Netburst architecture which emphasizes on deep instruction pipelining (20 stages on Northwood core and 31 stages on Prescott core) thus achieving a very high clock frequency to curtain the latency of the rather long pipes, while Intel Atom is a Core architecture on a serious diet regime, paying attention on efficient instruction execution and high performance per watt. Below are some comparison of the 2 processors;

Instruction Issuing

Basically, Pentium 4 can fetch, decode, execute and retire up to 3 instructions per cycle if certain rules are followed while the Atom can issue 2 instruction towards the execution unit at any given time. Prima facie, Pentium 4 has 50% wider instruction width compared to Atom, which will give the Pentium a clear win in any benchmark. However, there are certains speed hacks that Atom utilizes to mask the narrow width, which it inherited from the ultra-fast Core processors

Battle of the pipes: 31 stage vs 14 stage pipe

Instruction pipeline refers to the series of units that an instruction has to go through in order to be completely executed. Pentium 4 has 31 stage pipe, the longest in microprocessor history. The advantage of long pipes is that more instructions can be fed into the pipes and processor can achieve high frequency. However, long stage pipe are slower; its like riding a bus which has to stop in 31 bus stops vs 14 bus stops. So, Intel Atom pipes is more favourable as it is more efficient pipelining

Execution Gone Wild: Out of Order vs In Order

Intel Atom execute instruction in an in-order fashion, compared to P4 with more brute design, Out of Order. In simple terms, its like if you had to switch of the lights and start up yr motorcar. If u apply out of order, u will switch off the lights first before starting up the engine as you hv to take the keys before u can start the engine. Out of order principle is to execute 2nd row data that is readily available in the cache while waiting the 1st row data to be fetched, although the 1st row data should be executed first. In performance term, P4's OoO is favourable as it removes execution latency.

Fusion Tricks: Macro Fusion & Micro Fusion

Atom inherits a novel design from Core architecture, which combines certain instruction into one and executed as one instruction. Micro fusion is introduced in the Pentium M architecture which fuses certain operations(micro ops) into one ops and calculated in the same cycle. Macro Fusion approach is utilized at a bigger level; combining certain instructions as one instruction and executed in the same cycle. This is an advantage for the dual issue Atom as macro fusion allows Atom to at least execute 3 instructions at a given time, comparable to Pentium 4 instruction width.

Benchmarks

*Both processors are running at ~1.6Ghz as to compare the architectural efficiency of both processors.

Processor Arithmetic

Dhrystone ALU (Giga Instruction per Sec. (GiPS))

Whetstone FPU (Gigaflops GFLOPS)

Processor Multimedia (Megapixels/sec.)

Memory Bandwidth (GB/s)

Super PI 1M (shorter time = better)

CONCLUSION

Based on the benchmark results above, Intel Atom wins majority of the tests, thus having a more efficient architecture. Although Atom is an in-order dual issue processor, it can held on its own with a more sophicticated 3 issue wide out of order processor. Having all the novelty design of Core Microarchitecture, Intel Atom is a fast processor in its class without sacrificing on power consumption

Video Transcoding War : CPU vs GPU

2009-06-18T02:04:00.000+08:00

Video transcoding refers to converting a previously compressed video signal into another one with different format,such as different bit rate, frame rate, frame size, or even compression standard. Until today, video transcoding is one of the most compute intensive operations running on our PC.

The conventional way of transcoding is done through the brain of our PCs, that is the central processing unit(CPU) i.e Pentium 4, Athlon, Core 2, Phenom and others. Our CPUs can handle the transcoding job without any problem. The main problem of transcoding on the CPU is that it takes ages to complete and while the process is running, it eats up all the processing prowess of your cpu rendering your PC useless until the process is completed. Nowadays, most transcoding software is tuned to take advantage of multicore and multithreaded CPU i.e Pentium D, Athlon X2, Core 2/Q/i7, Phenom and others, which somehow manage to reduce the transcoding time than their single cpu counterpart which is expected.

The new way of transcoding is by elevating the processing requirement to your PC's Graphic Processing Unit (GPU). In simple terms, GPU is a subsystem in your pc which renders images and then output it to your screen. However, today's GPU can do much more than just drawing images and 3Ds, it can handle brute force arithmetic operations that have never seen before on a CPU and software developer can tap this ultimate power to increase the overall performance.

Why GPU is faster than CPU?
CPU is more to a general processor for everday use such as email, web browsing, chatting, word processing, and others. In other words, the CPU can handle any job given to them but they do not specialize in doing their job. GPU on the other hand is a specialize processor which is designed to carry out their specialize job. So, GPU is fast in doing their work but their scope of work is not as wide as CPU.

GPU is fast because it contains multiple cores(in this case it is called stream processor) which handles multiple work at the same time. Although the each GPU's core is not as complex as a CPU core, but the more the merrier. On a budget GPU, it contains 32 stream processors vs the fastest CPU with 4 processors.

What type of GPUs is supported?
For Nvidia GPUs - Geforce 8 series, 9 series and GT1xx/GT2xx
For ATi GPUs - Radeon HD2000 series, HD3000 series and HD4000 series

Is the performance difference is noticeable?

Lets find out!!

The contenders

Central Processing Unit
AMD Athlon X2 5600 @ 3.2Ghz
256KB L1 Cache, 2MB L2 Cache @ 3.2Ghz
2GHz Hypertransport system bus, 2GB Dual DDR667Mhz Memory

Graphic Processing Unit
Nvidia Geforce 9600gt 64 stream processors
Core @ 700Mhz Shader Domain @ 1.75Ghz
512MB GDDR3 @ 1.9Ghz

Software:
GPU Transcoding: Badaboom 1.1

CPU Transcoding: Xilisoft Video Ultimate COnverter 5

Benchmark 1: Transcoding a 01h 28m 46sec .avi video to Ipod Nano Highest Quality Preset

Benchmark 2: Transcoding a 01h 38m 14sec .avi video to 1920x1080HD Highest Quality

Bencmark 3: Transcoding a 24m 32sec video to 720x576 Highest Quality

GTA IV Unlucky Escape : By Acab89

2009-06-15T00:50:00.000+08:00

This is a short GTA 4 video made by my friend using the built in video editor. Hope u guys like it.

The original video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhzNOXmCQ9Q

PS3 High Definition vs Standard Definition

2009-03-28T03:02:00.000+08:00

System setup

High Definition
Samsung 2233SW 22inch FullHD LCD display
Connected using HDMI cable via DVI to HDMI adaptor
Maximum resolution: 1920 x 1080 (1080p)

Standard Definition

Sony Trinitron ?? inch
Connected using composite audio/video cable (yellow,white,red)
Maximum resolution: 720 x 576 (576i)

Image captured using Canon Powershot A530 5MP

*THIS COMPARISON IS INTENDED TO SHOW THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HD AND SD. REAL LIFE SITUATION MAY VARY.

XROSS MEDIA BAR

STANDARD DEFINITION

HIGH DEFINITION

GTA 4

STANDARD DEFINITION

HIGH DEFINITION

STANDARD DEFINITION

HIGH DEFINITION

STANDARD DEFINITION

HIGH DEFINITION

MADDEN

STANDARD DEFINITION

HIGH DEFINTION

RESISTANCE: FALL OF MAN (external source)

STANDARD DEFINITION

HIGH DEFINITION

Feature: How to download PS3 Games patch lightning fast

2008-11-28T20:14:00.000+08:00

I've been experiencing crawling PS3 games patches update speed since one month ago which render me unable to play online. I don't think the TMNut Snailmyx is the culprit because downloading demos, trailers and DLC from Playstation Network works like charm. However, I manage to overcome this problem after reading several forum posts and getting assistance from other PS3 Gurus. Now, I am compiling all the techniques to overcome the problem as stated above. This method can also be used to update Playstation Home and Life with Playstation

There are several things that you must prepare before commencing;
1)Playstation 3(of course)
2)PC with windows(no mac or penguin)
3)PS3 Proxy Server GUI (you can download here: http://www.ps3-hacks.com/file/16 )
4)PS3 and PC is connected on the same router
5)Patience

Step 1: Configuring your PC
You need to install the PS3 Proxy Server GUI using the link provided above. Take note that the software needs Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1 installed in your pc. You can find that in Microsoft website. After finish installing, execute the software. There is no start menu link so u need to find it in program files directory(file name: CF3B5)

After you have open the window as shown above, tick the PS3 mode. Fill your ip address with your pc ip address. Example is as follows

After you have included the ip address, then press start. That's all finish on the pc side

Step 2: Configuring Your Playstation
In this step, you must configure your playstation so that it will see your pc as the proxy server. Go to connection setting, set connection manually whether your connection is wireless or wired. All settings is set on based on your preference. Once you reach the proxy server, choose enable and set the proxy server ip address based on step 1; which is your pc ip address. Based on the image above, my proxy server ip is 192.168.0.101. Save the setting and you are done.

Step 3. Downloading patch using PC
As you all know, downloading patch using your PS3 is extremely slow. I've once updated my BF:Bad Company, it took me almost 7 damn hours to complete. However, downloading the patch using PC enable me to sustain speed minimum @ 65KB/s using download manager. But I manage to gain almost 160KB/s which is million times faster than download using ps3

This is the most important part
1) Insert your Blu ray games, and then u will be prompt to download patch. Continue as usual until the download process started
2)Once the download process started about 5 seconds, cancel the download
3)Now head to your pc, and then to the PS3 Proxy Server. Click logs tab on top of the proxy server. See the image below

The red square is the log tab. And in the logs tab, there is a blue rectangular where that is the FTP server of the patch that you were trying to download using PS3 earlier.
4)Right click on the links and select copy link location
5)Paste on your favourite download manager and you will get lightning fast download(assuming that TMNut Snailmyx is in good mood)

Step 4: Installing game patch on PS3
1)After you have finished download(at last), remember where you save the file because you need the directory to the file.
2)Back to PS3 Proxy Server window, select the replace files tab and click the "ADD" button

3)Based on the image above, first we start with the red rectangular. In this box, you will right click and paste the link to the patch that you have copied in the logs tab.
4)The green bar is where the location of the file. Click it and guide it to the location of the file that you have downloaded
Back to the PS3
Now you only need to install it on the PS3. Insert the Blu ray game disc and the PS3 will prompt you to download the patch, just proceed normally and during downloading u will see the bar will move faster because now your PS3 is downloading the patch from the PC, and not through server.

THINGS THAT YOU MUST GIVE ATTENTION
1)The ip address on the PS3 proxy server setting and PS3 Proxy Server Software must be the same with your pc ip address
2)The PS3 must be connected on the same router with your PC ie. in the same network
3)The PC must be switched on through the entire process
4)Make sure that you download the correct patch using correct links, you can notice the size, as it must be the same when you download using PS3

*You can also download patch for Playstation Home and Life with Playstation using the the same method.

Resistance 2 review.

2008-11-28T00:00:00.000+08:00

I just bought the Resistance 2 on the November 26th 2008 and spent 2 days playing it before writing this review. There are 4 factors that will be taken into consideration, gameplay, graphics, sound, and online playing.This game involved the main character Nathan Hale fighting the Chimera in US after victory in England(I never played the first Resistance)

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay for Resistance 2 is pretty straight forward. You will be given mission to fulfill and objectives to be accomplished, updated as you move on. The game is heavily scripted and linear, so there are no multiple endings, or any in game decision that will alter the storyline. The gameplay is rather dull as it involves shooting enemies, kill bosses and avoid from being killed. There are no health meter, and health is regenerated if you don't sustain excessive bullet hit, or else you will die. Enemies is Resistance 2 is very smart, even with casual difficulty(the easiest one), the enemies still shoot precisely and believe me you will die a lot. That's where the autoload kicks in. There are several checkpoint where your progress will be auto saved, but there is an option where you can manually save your game.
Weapons in Resistance 2 is awesome. There are wide arrays of weapons that can be chosen both the Chimera and the human.

GRAPHIC

Visuals of Resistance 2 is quite pretty with the improvement on the lighting. But the environment is rather static with the foliage made with low resolution texture. The scale and overall visual of the game is phenomenon. You can see the Chimera battleship cruising on top of you. The battleship is not a picture glued on the sky, but it is rendered in real time, and if you zoom in with your weapon, you can actually see the detail. There is one mission where your convoy is ambushed in a forest setting. The dense of the trees are rendered very well as if you are really in a thick forest. Apart from that, the water simulation is excellent. When you move in the water, you can actually see the wake generated from your movement. Not only you but other NPC as well. The detail and texture of the enemy is very high and the skin and weapon surface involved high resolution texture.

SOUND
Sound of the weapon and screaming of the Chimera when they charging towards you is decent. Every weapon fired on the screen can be heard together with explosion that boom all over the place. Overall, there's nothing to comment on the sound as it is flawless.

Online Playing
There were several moments where i cannot connect to the server but lately it is getting better. There are 2 multiplayer mode; cooperative and competitive. Cooperative involves you and other players to team up fighting the Chimera(NPC). The gameplay is limited to 8 people. For the competitive involve humongous 60 people split into 30 vs 30. The online play is excellent as i encounter no lag at all. Both mode is very fun and the battle is fierce. 60 people multiplayer is the largest I've ever seen in console. Unfortunately, the graphic is toned down to compensate the extra player. The immersive multiplayer gameplay wouldnt let you to take your eyes of the enemy so I think it is not a drawback

Final Rating: 8.6/10

ThEsis StAteMent

2008-11-06T11:01:00.000+08:00

Welcome aboard to Everyday Otto. This is my first post and my first experience in blogosphere. Well, I'm a newbie hahaha. There's nothing much I would like to say rite now. Bout myself, I'm a 19 years old boy who likes to play game and surf the internet. Malaysia is my beloved country and Ipoh City of Bouganvilea (not any longer) is my hometown. FYI, i'm still studying and still living with my parents (nothing wrong with that). I love my room, I love my PC, I love my console, I love enjoying my free time. Hope you have a very wonderful day today and bubui