Porkchop Technology Review's http://porkchopreviews.com A place where Technology is Reviewed Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:00:23 +0000 en hourly 1 New Flash Arcade Site PorkchopGames.com http://porkchopreviews.com/2010/02/23/new-flash-arcade-site-porkchopgames-com/ http://porkchopreviews.com/2010/02/23/new-flash-arcade-site-porkchopgames-com/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:42:14 +0000 porkchop http://porkchopreviews.com/?p=1075 Check out http://porkchopgames.com an arcade site created by me.  All the games are free and load fast, earn points when you sign up and play and new games will be added daily. You can also copy the code and add them to you’re own site, facebook, anywhere.

I created the site because I’m tired of going to arcade sites that are so cluttered and load so slowly and also arcade flash games are fun and a great time waster!

Be sure that if you play the games at work that it doesn’t affect you’re productivity or if you are playing them at school the teacher doesn’t find out!

I’m amazed how much flash games have evolved from the past, the quality in them are improving daily, and also, what I have never seen before multi-player flash games such as this poker game.

Porkchop Games | Play Free Games

Porkchop Games | Play Free Games

*warning some of the games are highly addictive*

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Plugin by TaraganaShare/Bookmark Blog Traffic Exchange Related Posts Related Websites ]]> http://porkchopreviews.com/2010/02/23/new-flash-arcade-site-porkchopgames-com/feed/ 0 SellMyMobile.com Review http://porkchopreviews.com/2010/02/07/sellmymobile-com-review/ http://porkchopreviews.com/2010/02/07/sellmymobile-com-review/#comments Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:24:45 +0000 porkchop http://porkchopreviews.com/?p=1057 Whenever I bought a new cell phone in the past, my old cell phone was laying around collecting dust or I even threw them in the trash.  Cell phones are always changing, newer and improved cell phones come out, with better features, also the incentives that cell phone companies give when you’re contract ends, and they usually give you a newer and up to date phone for free, if you re-sign the contract for a fixed term of length, usually 3 years.

Sell My Mobile is something that I have never heard of, in Canada and it being a UK based site at the moment, the idea of getting money for an old phone, very quickly and without the hassle of having to sell the cell phone yourself, is a great option.  I just recently went to my cell phone carrier website, and they only take the old phone for free, they offer no money for the cell phone.  The interesting thing about this is that cell phones are worth money, even old phones.  When you lose a phone or break one and it’s under warranty most likely, you will be receiving one of these recycled phones refurbished.  Also the old recycled phones are sent to places such as Russia, Asia and Africa where there not many landlines available.  The cell phones that are un-repairable are melted and the metals it contains turns into other products.

Old Cell Phones

Sell your Old Cell Phone for money and help the environment at SellMyMobile.com

Sell My Mobile has a great website that is easy to navigate; it is easy to see why they are the UK’s #1 mobile phone recycling price comparison site.  Their site has a nice big search box, where you enter your phone make and model, which is essential to the site since they list 4000+ mobile phones.  A quick search, in the box instantly pulls up the phone you are looking for with detailed pictures of the phone and they list the best price you can get for your phone at the top of the list ascending to the lowest.  The site seems to be very accurate, looking at various phones on the site and clicking on the top prices, I noticed that the price they were stating you will get was accurate with the actual recyclers page that buy the phone.  The site can save you lots of time, looking for the best price for your phone than on a regular search engine.  Sell my Mobile also has some nice features, such as the widget box on the right of the site that has the following links Most Recent sales, Most popular phones, and Most valuable phones.  They also have a blog, twitter and facebook page which is a bonus, they communicate with their site users.

Sell My Mobile is a great site and I can’t wait for it to be available in North America.  It eliminates all the time and hassle of selling an old phone, and even if the phone is broken the recyclers might possibility take it, for money which makes this a complete service for selling your old mobile phone. In conclusion, their site is professional, easy to navigate, and I think will probably be the #1 comparison site in USA and Canada for selling mobile phones when they get into the market, since recycling is an important issue and almost everyone carries cell phones these days.

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Plugin by TaraganaShare/Bookmark Blog Traffic Exchange Related Posts Related Websites ]]> http://porkchopreviews.com/2010/02/07/sellmymobile-com-review/feed/ 1 How to Stream Video, Music, and Pictures to a Playstation 3 http://porkchopreviews.com/2010/01/23/how-to-stream-video-music-pictures-to-a-playstation-3/ http://porkchopreviews.com/2010/01/23/how-to-stream-video-music-pictures-to-a-playstation-3/#comments Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:50:05 +0000 porkchop http://porkchopreviews.com/?p=968 Hello this is porkchop here, sorry for not writing anything for awhile, I have been  busy, but now I am back!

ps3streaming

Streaming media from a computer to a TV is great and there are many reasons why.  With the ability to stream movies, you can basically say goodbye to bluray discs and DVDs, everything is stored on your computer, discs can easily get damaged by finger prints.  You can organize everything, into folders and sub-folders, make a virtual movie, music, and pictures library that is easy to navigate.  Hard drive’s have gone down in price and are a lot larger, and also its easy to expand hard drive space by just  buying a portable hard drive.  Internet connections are now getting a lot faster, there is now fiber optics which can transmit video across the Internet at better speeds than before.  You can watch movies now without leaving the house and get a better selection than what pay per view is showing.  You can use your TV as a photo album, displaying all your pictures on the TV, no more finger prints, or accidents happen to pictures.  You can access your music and play it from your computer to the TV or surround sound system, no need for Ipod docking stations.

As you can see there are many advantages of streaming data from your computer to a PS3 and it will be the way of the future.  Also streaming is a lot more environmental friendly, you will cut down on disc waste.  There are many services now that let you download, movies and music, such as iTunes http://www.apple.com/itunes

This is the best way of streaming media to  the PS3 in my opinion, remember that this will work for most people, but in some cases it will not depending on how your computer is setup, for example if you do not have file sharing on, it will probably not work, or if the router is blocking it or a firewall, you will have to investigate on how you can get it to work.

  1. Download PS3 Media Server http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/ Make sure to pick the correct one, and Install it.
  2. Once you have installed it open it up and let it run
  3. Connect the Ethernet cable from the router to the Ps3, do not use wireless, it is unreliable for streaming and you might run into problems.  Also you need a router for this to work.
  4. Make sure the PS3 is on and the PS3 Media server is running.  On the PS3 go under settings –> menu —> Network Settings —> Media server connection – Enable (this is important without this enabled it will not work, I think PS3’s come with it enabled on default but I don’t remember)
  5. On the PS3 go to video and search for media servers.  This should take a few moments and if it finds PS3 Media server it will show up on the list.
  6. If it does not appear, double check that PS3 Media server is running and that media server connection is enabled, and if it still does not find it, then you have a problem, something is blocking the computer from the PS3, this can be many things, it can be the router, a port is blocking it, it can be the firewall on the computer which is mostly the case just turn it off when you want to stream, or it can be a setting on the computer, file and printer sharing could be turned off, if you can’t access your files from a secondary PC in your house than most likely file sharing is off on the network, which will stop it from working.  So as you can see there are a couple reasons why it will not work, and you will have to try out all the methods but once you figure it out, it is worth it.
  7. Another thing to note is that when you want to say see a picture, navigate to the pictures menu on the PS3 and if you want to watch a video, navigate to the video section or else it will not appear.  You also will see that you can access your entire hard drive – this is normal

That is in my opinion the best way to stream media to the PS3 from the computer, I noticed from recently upgrading to Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit that Windows 7 media player has appeared automatically on my PS3, which is also another way of doing it, without any software but just codecs you will have to download manually.  To use Windows 7 built in streaming from media player, go to control panel —> Network and Internet —>Network and sharing center—–>on the left below control panel home select change advanced share settings——>select turn on file and printer sharing (this has to be on for PS3 Media server to work) ——->hit the back button arrow—–>under change your network settings, select choose homegroup or sharing options tick anything you want to share, make sure that stream my pictures, music, and videos to all devices on my home network is ticked—–>right below click on Choose media streaming options——>Make sure show devices on drop down menu is selected to all networks, select allow all then OK.

Another option to stream media to the Ps3 is TVersity http://tversity.com/ but I’m not a big fan of it since its application is a little heavy on CPU load, its more fancy looking, but as you know the more fancy the application is the more resources it takes to run and the streaming suffers especially if you are doing this on an older computer.

To stream, depending on what you want to stream, pictures no problem, but if video, and you have a single core PC, the video might skip and be choppy, so this will not work that well on slower PC’s.  The way this works is the video is being played on the computer, and being sent to the PS3 through the ethernet cable, just like TV service, but you could use the copy function on the PS3 to copy the media to the PS3 hard drive and play it from there if it works.

So there you got it, now you can have your own digital library media center, there is no need to buy a media center, use the PS3 as a media server, and I even suggest to people who are in the market for bluray players to go ahead and buy a PS3 instead of a standalone Bluray player, even if you are not going to game, since the PS3 is a computer, and it can do amazing things, remember Web-TV? well the PS3 has a web browser, and pair it with a wireless keyboard and mouse (Ps3 has USB inputs), and you have a second computer to browse the Internet on!

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Plugin by TaraganaShare/Bookmark Blog Traffic Exchange Related Posts Related Websites ]]> http://porkchopreviews.com/2010/01/23/how-to-stream-video-music-pictures-to-a-playstation-3/feed/ 0 Review of INTEL 80gb G2 X25M http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/12/12/review-of-intel-80gb-g2-x25m/ http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/12/12/review-of-intel-80gb-g2-x25m/#comments Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:05:45 +0000 BinaryDemon http://porkchopreviews.com/?p=970 Solid State Drives (SSD) are becoming increasingly popular and recently when I built a new computer I wanted to gain some first hand experience with SSD’s. A SSD is similar to the popular USB flashdrive except it is designed to use the SATA interface used by standard Hard Drives (HD). A SSD has several advantages over conventional HDs:

-Uses less power because there are no moving parts.
-Faster access time.
-More shock/temperature resistant.

The main disadvantage of SSD’s is cost per megabyte. They also have a limited number of read/write cycles but given normal usage they should still last several years. Small SSD’s (~16gb) are becoming popular in netbooks because of their low power consumption. Because SSD’s are much more expensive than conventional hard drives many system builders that are seeking to maximize performance are using a medium sized SSD to store the OS and common applications with a conventional HD for general purpose storage. This is the setup I decided to use.

I purchased an 80gb Intel G2 X25M SSD. I choose the 80gb model so I could comfortably install Windows 7 and frequently used applications with room to grow. Applications or games which require a lot of space, I install to the conventional HD. The first thing I did was upgrade to Intel’s latest firmware. Then I proceeded to install Windows 7. Windows 7 is currently the OS of choice for SSD’s because it supports the TRIM instruction. I won’t attempt to explain how TRIM works checkout this WIKI link, if you would like to know more. But basically what TRIM does is keep your SSD operating at peak performance in real-time. Early SSD’s or operating systems which do not support TRIM must be periodically maintained much like conventional HD’s require periodic defragmentation.

I have found the SSD performance to be excellent. I used a stopwatch to time Win7 boot-up, and I get 26 seconds from the time my computer exits bios until the desktop is completely loaded. Applications open in the blink of an eye. Out of curiosity used a benchmark program called HDTune to compare results one of the fastest HD’s – The Velociraptor. The SLOWEST transfer speeds of the SSD were the same as the FASTEST transfer speeds of the Velociraptor. Average transfer speeds for the SSD were over 2x better.

My Results:

Near 0 access time is a beautiful thing. Hybrid HD’s might bridge the price/performance gap between SSD and conventional HD’s in coming years, but if you want fast I/O right now I highly recommend an Intel G2 SSD.

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Plugin by TaraganaShare/Bookmark Blog Traffic Exchange Related Posts Related Websites ]]> http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/12/12/review-of-intel-80gb-g2-x25m/feed/ 1 ESET Smart Security 4 Review http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/09/11/eset-smart-security-4-review/ http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/09/11/eset-smart-security-4-review/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:49:08 +0000 porkchop http://porkchopreviews.com/?p=960 This review is about ESET Smart Security 4 an all in one security package and ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4, since it is the same as ESET Smart Security 4, except that it is missing the firewall and a few small other things.  I have been using NOD32 for awhile, just the anti-virus part of it, since they had no firewall back then, and it was always considered one of the anti-virus programs that used the less resources on a computer and had the highest detection ratings.  I always had a few doubts of NOD32 though comparing it to Norton, seeing as how would a small little program be such a great anti-virus program and Norton had to use all those resources to actually catch things and run background scans.  Norton’s 2009 product line and 2010 product line now focuses on resource usage, this is a big issue with security products, if it slows down your computer you are more likely to get angry and turn it off leaving you open to attacks. 

ESET Smart Security 4 has been the first time I have tried out NOD32’s firewall and I have to say its pretty good, and a the same time very silent.  I tend to like firewalls that talk to me, I really liked Zone alarm in its early days before being bought out because of this, but this one is a silent firewall, you always wonder if it’s doing its job.  But at the same time I rarely get attacked anymore, most of the time when a firewall detects an attack it is just background Internet noise, nothing specifically sent to your computer just scans done in the wild and what blocks most of these attacks is if you have a router, it automatically will keep your firewall very silent.  That is why I recommend getting a router as I stated before and a firewall as a backup.  I also have to say that AVG is a pretty good anti-virus program and you will likely be safe with it, but the problem with it is you have to pay to get AVG’s complete security suite that includes the firewall and email spam filters, etc, and AVG’s paid security suite isn’t that good.  ESET updates daily its virus definitions.

ESET Anti-virus has one of the best dedication of all in the wild viruses in the VB test sets without any false-alarms from my 1998 to 2009 with 57, Norton 50, Mcafee 40, Trend 16, and Kaspersky 47 from a VirusBulletin.com test an independent virus testing that is done to check the performance of anti-virus software.  The clear winner here is NOD32 Anti-Virus

Missed in the wild viruses in Virus Bulletin Tests between May 1998 and August 2009, Nod32: On-Access 0, On-Demand 0, Norton: On-Access 31, On-Demand 4, Mcafee: On-Access 71, On-Demand 72, Trend: On-Access 73, On-Demand 69, and Kaspersky: On-Access 35 On-Demand 15.  As you can see NOD32 beats all these other anti-viruses in detection of in the wild viruses that are real viruses that have been reported to the wildlist organization by at least two independent reporters.

Fast boot time of the anti-virus does not slow down boot-time has much as other’s for example NOD32 boots up in 12% which is 157 seconds  time and Norton that has really improved its resource usage boots up in 26%  229 seconds of the time.

Full charts, comparisons, and tests can be found at http://www.virusbtn.com/index or http://www.eset.com/products/compare-NOD32-vs-competition.php

Here are a few charts showing the results of NOD32 anti-virus detection against other anti-virus programs:

So as you can see why I would choose ESET Smart Security 4 as my security software, I never get any viruses and If I do they are picked up right away and I am safer on the Internet.  The problem with ESET NOD32 is that lots of people haven’t heard of it, most people know the big  names such as Norton and Mcafee, which you can see on the tests that they are not that great at detecting viruses and also they use lots of resources and slow your computer down, Norton has fixed this problem drastically in its new program.   So if you want to be safe online and want more protection than AVG and want a firewall and spam protection get ESET Smart Security 4 at http://www.eset.com/ and they have a free 30 day trial to test it out at http://www.eset.com/download/free_trial_download_ess.php

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Plugin by TaraganaShare/Bookmark Blog Traffic Exchange Related Posts Related Websites ]]> http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/09/11/eset-smart-security-4-review/feed/ 1 Eliminate Spam on Wordpress Blogs http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/08/26/eliminate-spam-on-wordpress-blogs/ http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/08/26/eliminate-spam-on-wordpress-blogs/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:22:26 +0000 porkchop http://porkchopreviews.com/?p=964 I have been having lots of problem with spam lately with Wordpress and have found a solution that fixes it and is working for me perfectly now, reducing my spam to 0 in Akismet.  Wordpress spam is a serious issue for people who use Wordpress, what happens is someone uses a program or script online and sends massive amount of posts to blogs around the net, the classic one and most popular form of spam is the Nice blog, then tons of viagra links in the bottom.  Spam can damage a Wordpress site easily, what happens is that google and other search engines will detect you have links to site’s that are banned on your blog and you will most likely be taken off google and other search engines for having those links.  So basically your SEO score can go to zero if you have spam on your blog.  Another problem with Wordpress spam is that if someone does hit you with a large amount of spam it can cause your Web Server to crash, and you can have a mini denial of service attack, since comments go directly to your email after one posts one. 

Being new to Wordpress, I started without a spam filter and that was a mistake, then I used Akismet, it was an alright spam prevention but not enough, since you still saw the spam in your spam folder and it allowed these spammers to keep posting, usually filling up the spam folder with tons of spam messages.  The other method I was using was blocking IP’s through .htaccess the spammers who kept spamming non-stop and use the same IP, I would put them on that, that of course sometimes worked since most of those spammers used proxies to hide there IP address.  I even reported a spammer to an ISP company, I recorded their IP and did a WHOIS search and found out what ISP they were on and sent an email to their abuse department and they quickly contacted me to send them server logs of the event, and they dealt with that spammer, but this of course takes lots of time and effort to do on each spammer. 

The next thing I saw, when I looked at my comment box, thinking what could limit the amount of spam from even coming into the Akimest spam folder, then it came to me captcha phrases would do it!  What are captcha phrases? Captcha phrases are the box on forms that are usually random color, lines in text and numbers.  So in order for someone to post something they will have to manually enter in those letters that randomly appear on each refresh of the page.  This will eliminate most of the automatic spam bot software around and also make it a pain for spammers to keep posting new spam messages since they will have to read that box and input the text over and over again.  This is how I eliminated almost all spam from my blog, since Akimest does work great and is community based, the way Akimest works is it picks up current keywords, urls and text and if it misses something your suppose to mark it as spam, so it then gets sent to the Akismet database to block in all future spam posts done the same way.  But Akimest lacks in the department that you still receive this automated spam, and you still have to review it for comments that are actually not spam, this way the  captcha will stop the spam from even coming in, unless there is some determined person sitting there wasting their time filling the captcha form out.  As you can see by looking at the right hand side, Akismet has blocked about 1,000 spam comments, that’s a lot!

The thing that really makes me wonder, is why Wordpress does not include anything to really block spam out of the box.  For example why doesn’t Wordpress right from install have these things already enabled since this is a known and big problem.  They have now recently included Akismet install package in the releases, which is good, but it still is not enough.  I wish Wordpress and other CMS software out there would put more focus on spam, since spam is a serious issue, for example when they created the comment box, why didn’t they think of automatically adding a captcha phrase option to deter spammers, and other features.  Fortunately Wordpress has a huge community with programmers that use the software and create scripts that do this and add them to the website for free to download, but for someone who is new and doesn’t know how to setup plugins this could be a problem.

So these are the plugins I am using and a few that I think are great to use and might try out if spam still keeps coming in, which is not at the moment now:

Akismet very useful needed plugin for Wordpress a must to stop spam – http://akismet.com/

SI CAPTCHA probably the best plugin that Wordpress should have coded in default into their installation, adding captcha random phrases to comment boxes and user register pages eliminating spam bots and deter spam.  The only problem with this is that it is a bit annoying for people who actually want to post since they have to put the letters in each time, but that is worth it for getting rid of spam. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/si-captcha-for-wordpress/

InHuman – Another neat captcha plugin but uses pictures instead of typing in a box, it asks to select say all 3 dogs in the pictures instead of phrases and makes it kind of like a game for users, this is something I might try out soon. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/imhuman-a-humanized-captcha/

WP Captcha-Free another interesting plugin. WP Captcha-Free blocks comment spam by using a combination of time-based hash (a.k.a. Time Based Tokens, TBT) and JavaScript (AJAX). When a comment is posted the plugin validates a hash based on time (and some other parameters). Comments posted via automated means will not have a hash or will have an expired hash and will be rejected. Unlike using a captcha, this does not place any burden on the commenter.  This program I haven’t tried it yet but will probably, the only thing is it requires Javascript which some browsers have turned off. http://wordpresssupplies.com/wordpress-plugins/captcha-free/

There are other plugins available to combat spam on Wordpress and secure Wordpress a lot more, I suggest going to http://wordpress.org/extend/ and look at what they have, but these are the plugins I use to combat spam and my experience using them.

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Plugin by TaraganaShare/Bookmark Blog Traffic Exchange Related Posts Related Websites ]]> http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/08/26/eliminate-spam-on-wordpress-blogs/feed/ 5 Free FPS Games http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/08/22/free-fps-games/ http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/08/22/free-fps-games/#comments Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:36:38 +0000 porkchop http://porkchopreviews.com/?p=945 Free games are getting better and I’m not talking about flash games, but actually games that could be a paid game.  The first free game I played was America’s Army in 2002 and it was a pretty good game for a free game.  Now many game developers are realising that free games can probably actually bring in more profit than paid games in a sense, unless it’s a subscription based game like World of Warcraft.  The reason why I am saying this is because most of these free games have advertising in them and special abilities  and outfits that can be bought, which means more players will play and people could be buying those abilities or spending real money on the game inside.  Free games are also now being made by big game developers such as ID, which means we will be getting great games and support.  Enemy Terrority when it was released had to be my favorite free game I have ever played for a long time, it was made and developed free, and unlike Quake Live it was unique, not just a game that was paid before and now released for free.  I will be mentioning a couple free games that I use to play and am playing now, just recently I began playing the Battlefield Hero’s game and it’s pretty fun.

America’s Army 3


This game is pretty good, it is very tactical and is meant to be like that, when first starting the game before playing, you have to go through a real life like training missions.  You have to shoot targets, run a obstacle coarse, parachute from a plane, take classes, and much more.  The game was developed and funded by the US Government to recruit troops, they saw the gaming industry as a great avenue to recruit more soldiers and they did succeed in making it realistic.  For example the training missions is pretty much exactly what would happen first day in the army.  They even have Join the American Army links all over the place in the game and menu’s, it would be interesting to see the statistics of people actually joining the army from this game.  The game plays well and looks good, and its not that bad for free.  They also update it regularly and improve it.  I suggest you check it out.http://www.americasarmy.com/ America’s Army 3 is probably the best free game out that has the best graphics of any free game released to date.

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory


This game was very fun when it first was out, I haven’t played it in awhile so I don’t know how popular it still is, its been around for awhile (6 years).  The game is real fun, its very fun, its a Allies vs Axis war game (WW2) with teams having to use dynamite to blow up certain objectives and game modes.  I suggest you check it out. http://www.splashdamage.com/content/wolfenstein-enemy-territory-barracks?s=7b3c46e65f8dee06b64c54839ae7b93c

Battlefield Heroes


Battlefield Heroes is the newest free game out now, based off the web browser like Quake Live but a complete new game.  The game plays well, it’s a little weird, and try’s to imitate Team Fortress 2 in its cartoon graphics.  The graphics are low, so most systems can run this game.  The nice thing about this game is it carries the Battlefield name, and if you know from playing Battlefield games you can except to fly things and drive things, which you exactly can do in this game, fly planes and drive tanks.  The only drawback to this game, is that people purchase advances such as unlocks which gives them stronger health better weapons, the hit registry seems off as well, but this is still in beta – check it out here http://www.battlefieldheroes.com/

Quake Live

Browser based game like Battlefield Heroes but came out earlier.  I like this game a lot since I use to play Quake 3, and this pretty much a free Quake 3 remake with a bunch of improvements.  I actually wrote a separte review about this game already, you can find it here.    Get Quake Live here http://www.quakelive.com/

Tribes 2

Tribes 1, the original game was great, this game I haven’t played in ages and is not supported anymore for online play, by its developer, they shut down the master servers, but I found a site which enables the multi-player part of Tribes 2 and it can be found here http://www.tribesnext.com/ I suggest you try Tribes 2 out, if you haven’t already it’s a great classic.

Postal 2


Postal 2 probably had to be one of the funniest and weirdest games I have played, the game has actually been banned from many places for its content.  It’s a funny FPS game and nasty, you can play characters that I can remember, Gary Coleman, and some terrorist, (looks like Bin Laden) it has funny taunts and you have the ability to piss on people, you would have to play it too see how funny/weird this game is.  Only the multi-player part is free and I’m not sure how many people play this anymore. http://www.gamershell.com/download_26434.shtml

Fear Combat


The multi-player is only free not single player.  Fear at the time was one of the best graphical games at the time, and especially the “fear” factor that it had in single player of dark levels and enemies popping out of anywhere.  The multi player was very good and then became free unexpectedly for this good game at the time.  It has that counter-strike feel to it the gameplay some people even considered it better, but I did not.  I’m not sure how many people still play this, since Fear 2 is out already, hopefully they will release the multiplayer for that game free.  Get Fear Combat here – http://projectorigin.warnerbros.com/fearcombat/main

Well this is my list of free FPS games that I think you should check out, if you want to play a free game.  Some of these games are old, and I’m not too sure how popular they still are, you will have to install or look around for yourself.  These games are still worth checking out in my opinion if already don’t have many games already.  The newest games on that list that I still play are, America’s Army 3, Quake Live, and Battlefield Heroes, except lots of people to be playing those games.  I’ll be adding a similar post to this in the future with free MMORPG games that I think are worthily, unfortunately there are tons of free MMORPG games out there, so its difficult finding the good ones.  Also note this list is not extensive there are more free FPS games out there but I have never played them before so I didn’t bother mentioning them the list of free FPS games are here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_first-person_shooters I noticed they missed Fear on that list.

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Hidden files is a security problem in Windows dating back to Windows 95 and even more recently being also included in Windows 7, even though it is a big security flaw.  I remember back then using a program called Sub 7, a hacking program which was fairly easy to use at the time, and a lot of people back then didn’t have firewalls or virus protection as we do today.  I’m talking about Windows 95 days, where we didn’t have free virus scanners as AVG and firewalls built into Windows as we do now, which pretty much eliminates the threat of the program Sub 7, but still is a good example to use why hidden files should be turned off.

What are hidden extension files?  All files have extensions that tells the computer how to open a file and which program to use, Windows on default hides them, for example “FireFox” will show up with hidden file extensions on (default setting in Windows) with hidden file extensions off it will show “FireFox.exe”  You will see the .exe part in the end of the file.  When hidden extension files are turned off in Windows  you will see all file extensions.  Windows has hidden file extensions on because it makes everything neater and more easier for the user to just read the name FireFox instead of FireFox.exe and other various reasons which I don’t know.  The problem with hidden file extensions is that files can be manipulated to show something completely different.  For example a text document can be hidden as an .exe program executable and  you open it up thinking it is a .txt file because the icon looks like a text document.  Fortunately turning hidden file extensions is easy and recommended.

This is from a long time ago, but I tried this hacker program called sub 7 one time, this was during the Windows 95 era.  Sub 7 was a program that created Trojans, what would happen was I would sent the file to someone as something else and they would click it and open it and it would run a DOS prompt and execute code and I could access their computer and control everything in it, like it was my own.  It would even email me when that computer was connected to the Internet with the IP address.  The files being sent to people were renamed and hidden, I could make a .exe program look like a .zip file or a picture, but the extension was still an .exe if the person had hidden file extensions off they could see that the picture had .exe in the end and see that it defiantly wasn’t a picture but a program.  It’s unfortunate to see that Windows 7 is going to have hidden file extensions on default, I recently came across this article from F-Secure http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001675.html

So now you know why hidden file extensions can be a security issue, so now lets turn that setting off in Windows!

Windows Vista
Click Start, click control panel, click appearance and personalization, click folder options, click view tab, then under advanced settings uncheck hide extensions for known file types.

Windows XP
Double click on My Computer on desktop, select tools from top menu, select folder options, click on view tab, scroll down until you see hide extensions for known file types, uncheck box, OK.

Its that easy to turn off and you will be much safer, you will see all file extensions and know exactly what you  are opening up.

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Plugin by TaraganaShare/Bookmark Blog Traffic Exchange Related Posts Related Websites ]]> http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/08/13/hidden-files-extensions-in-windows/feed/ 2 Wireless Security http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/07/16/wireless-security/ http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/07/16/wireless-security/#comments Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:10:01 +0000 porkchop http://porkchopreviews.com/?p=939 Wireless security is important, the convenience of having the ability of using a laptop anywhere around the house and using multiple desktop computers without having to fish wires through walls and make holes and tripping hazards.  I still see wireless security a big problem, doing a local WiFi scan on my PlayStation 3 brings up instantly 5 unsecured wireless networks in the area, or some that are using WEP security which is obsolete.

I want to start off this article by stating that if your wireless router can only offer WEP encryption for security and there is no firmware updates for it for WPA, then toss it.  The reason why I say toss your WEP security router is because WEP is not secure, there are many articles around saying use WEP if its all you got, well I suggest getting rid of the router and replace it with a new updated one that contains WPA, and even better WPA2, routers are cheap, and your security is more important, especially if you do online transactions and have important data on the PC.   Here is an article on how to hack a WiFi router using WEP encryption, you can see how easy it is – http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=2724
 Basically think of it as this, you won’t use a virus scanner from 2000 in 2009 it would be outdated and would need to be replaced.

You think why does it matter to secure my wireless network, there a couple good reasons to secure it from access from outside.  One reason is because someone who is on your network can view your network files if you have networking enabled, meaning that the person can view your entire hard drive.  Another reason is someone using your connection, can use it for illegal activity, such as hacking, visiting illegal material, using your IP address to spam forums and emails, etc.  For example someone goes on your wireless network and decides to use an spam email program and bombards many emails around the world, then those people who get spammed, report your IP to your ISP abuse email address and then you get your Internet shut down, and possibly legal action taken place depending on the damages caused, and it will be very hard to prove it wasn’t you who did it. When someone uses your WiFi they could also be downloading/uploading large torrent files, using your computer as a server, causing your Internet to be real slow as well and you not getting what you paid for.

I will describe below a few ways to secure your WPA – WPA2 wireless router as I stated if you have WEP router throw it out buy a new router.

Change the defualt administrator password
Unfortunately router companies use a default password and log-in for their routers, which can be found anywhere on the Internet basically doing a search in Google – for D-Link default router password can get you it in 5 seconds, so changing the network password is important, and make sure its a good password, letters and numbers and make sure its long.  One problem with not changing the password, is that if someone gets into your router, they will probably search in a search engine the default log-in password and try it, if it works, they will add some changes and even possibility shut down your Internet access or configure it to their settings.  And if you do not know this happened you will probably be calling your ISP about it, thinking that the Internet is not working.

Turn on WPA and WPA2
Routers come with this off on default, they are left wide open when you plug everything in, so I suggest turning this on, and using a strong encryption key, which can be found at https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm if that does not work try going to the main page https://www.grc.com/ and click on Perfect password generator. What this does is it creates ultra high security passwords for the wireless router that are pretty much impossible to crack.

Change default SSID and Disable SSID Broadcast
The SSID is the name that appears when you search for wireless networks, routers come default with names usually using the name of the router which then gives the person ways of getting in.  I recommend changing the SSID to random letters and numbers after setting up all the wireless devices then turning the SSID broadcast off.  Turning the SSID broadcast off makes the wireless router hidden from wireless network searches in the area, which greatly improves security.  Since you cannot be found in the search, you are hidden.

Enable MAC Address Filtering
A MAC address is the address of the device being connected, each device has its own address, and enabling in the router settings to only allow the MAC addresses allowed will mean that only those devices can connect.  The problem with this is that there is spoof MAC address programs around, which can imitate the MAC address device in use, the problem with this is that MAC address filtering is not that secure, but when combined with everything else it can help stop the rookie hacker.

Limit the Attena transmitting power and position the router in a central location
Most routers have settings that can disable the transmitting power of the antenna, on default they are usually set to 100% which means that the signal can be picked up by neighbours across the street and next to you.  The best way to do this is to limit the transmit power and find the setting that would be enough for your home.  Also position the router in a central location not near walls in the center of the house.  You basically don’t want your signal to be accessible from the outside.

Disable Wireless Internet
If you bough a wireless router and you don’t use the wireless portion of it, turn it off, there are settings in the router that can turn of wireless completely, and if you are going on vacation turn it off as well or leaving for extended periods of time.

Use a Firewall on each computer and disable sharing
Use a software firewall for extra security, a software firewall will protect you if someone does get into your network, this is if it’s setup correctly and file sharing is disabled.

Do not use insecure wireless networks
If you are currently using free Internet from the neighbor and using his wireless Internet, that is not secure.  This means that the person that has that wireless network open could be doing it on purpose to hack computers that way.  Once you are on someones network, they can pretty much see your files and hack your computer a lot easier.

Update the Router Firmware
Many companies update the router firmware which increases the security and fixes bugs in the routers internal software.  I recommend checking for updates from the routers manufacture website once in a while, for example when I use to own a wireless router, I one time checked for an update and it gave me a new security feature of WPA2, instead of only WPA I only had before.

These are some security tips to protect your wireless network, but at the same time they are not fool proof, even with all this security you can still be hacked by someone.  I personally do not use a wireless router, I use a wired router for security reasons and I have no need for wireless.  So if you do not need wireless Internet I suggest not getting it, this will make you 100% secure.  When you buy a wireless router do these steps, it sounds like it takes time, but in fact its quick the next time you have to do it, I have setup many wireless networks for friends and family and secured them this way and they have never had any problems.

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Plugin by TaraganaShare/Bookmark Blog Traffic Exchange Related Posts Related Websites ]]> http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/07/16/wireless-security/feed/ 6 Should I buy a Laser or Inkjet printer? http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/07/13/should-i-buy-a-laser-or-inkjet-printer/ http://porkchopreviews.com/2009/07/13/should-i-buy-a-laser-or-inkjet-printer/#comments Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:37:41 +0000 porkchop http://porkchopreviews.com/?p=925 This will depend on what you are printing and what your needs are.  The nice thing about Laser printers are that they are now very affordable, they use to cost a lot and only large office’s had them.  The nicest thing about Laser printers is the Ink lasts a long time, and it’s great for printing text, materials such as lots of Microsoft Office, Excel, and web pages.  It does it quickly and does a good job.  The nice thing about laser printers is that the ink does not smudge after coming out of the printer, even if its wet, so it’s great for school.  I bought a Brother black and white Laser printer for school, since I had to print out a lot of reports and black and white text files, with no need of any color or intensive graphics.  I bought it for a fairly good price around $60 and its still printing today, I have not had to replace any ink cartilages and now I rarely use it and its ready for anytime I need any printing. 

I’ve owned several printers in the past, all of them inkjet printers, and the most annoying them with the inkjet printers, even though they were very cheap, was the ink cartilage.  The ink cartilage was good for a short while, or when printing lots of pages periodically, but if you let it sit to long, it would dry it up, with a laser printer the ink does not dry.  If you are into printing nice color pictures and photographs I would suggest still getting an inkjet, inkjets produce the best picture quality and are still very cheap.  When an Ink cartilage in a Inject printer went, I took it to my local mall, which had ink cartilage jet refill service, I used them twice, and noticed that the ink’s they use is not good, and it drys quickly, they were half the cost of a new cartiliage, but were not good.  What would happen, which was annoying, when you ran out of a printer cartilage and needed a new one for the inkjet, the cost of the inkjet cartilage is just as much and even more than the printer (if you add color) so I use to end up just buying a new inject printer over the years when the ink would run out.

There are some cons to a laser printer.  First of all the laser printer does take awhile to start up, not that long, but longer than a inkjet but does print faster than a injet printer.  The laser printer draws a lot of power, for example I’ve blown the breaker a few times, when its starting up, and it dims lights.  Laser printer ink is expensive as well as inkjet but outlasts it in the sense that it does not dry up.  The drum on laser printers go after awhile and are expensive to replace, usually when the drum go’s its best to buy a new laser printer, unless the laser printer you bought is more expensive than the drum. Laser printers can also emit potentially hazardous indoor pollution – http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291737,00.html

If you want to know the science and how a laser printer works, here is a good article http://computer.howstuffworks.com/laser-printer.htm

I’m very happy with my laser printer, if you use it for school or for printing a lot of text the laser printer is the best choice and money saver.  If you are going to print pictures in high detail color from digital cameras go with a inkjet printer.

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