I have started with a few friends but I am hoping to expand to getting into full on development, making it a point to start looking into Silverlight 3 and WPF. I am sure it will be a while before I can start to incorporate those types of things into my page, but until then I will have a world of creative bliss to play with.

So, just so everyone out there knows, I will be able back in action with all of the wonderful technical lust that I started this site for.

Keep rolling through, it will all be for a good reason.

In my opinion, we should force everyone to speak at city council meetings. That way we can find out were "these" people are and send them all to their own state. I would give this one a bench position. Maybe Wyoming?

Make sure to pay special attention to the year this was filmed (2008) OMFG...

Check it out:

This is most likely one of those people, I am just glad I am not his parents, we are talking a remodel after this guy moves out…Enjoy. The end is epic, "Look I put my head through the wall." I feel sorry for the monitor, he blames it all on the monitor.

Once, again I am changing the site address to http://tekpr0n.com finding that it would be nice to have a top level domain. It will offer a bit more flexibility moving forward as well as making it easier to remember and get to.

TekPr0n huh?

Well, I have to admit that I spent several hours looking for a domain that was available, I had a few in mind and did everything I could think of to get exactly what I wanted in a name, although, I think there are a lot of others out there that know how to use dictionary.com and thesaurus.com to find the same alternates  was looking for.

TekPr0n, the definition…

Tek is a revision to Tech, or technology, duh. I chose this because that is my interest and my goal as far as content on this site. I live, breathe, and will end up most likely dying by technology, so rightfully, it has a stake in the name of the site.

Pr0n is a revision to the word Porn. Obviously this is not going to be a pornographic site, although I hear they bring in the bucks. Rather I have included pr0n in the title due to the new definition is has evolved to, over time.

From Dictionary.com: // [Usenet, IRC] Pornography. Originally this referred only to Internet porn but since then it has expanded to refer to just about anything. The term comes from the warez kiddies tendency to replace letters with numbers. At some point on IRC someone mistyped, swapped the middle two letters, and the name stuck, then propagated over into mainstream hacker usage. Compare filk,grilf, hing and newsfroup.

The way I see pr0n and the way it has come to be accepted, is that is is something good, or something you lust for. Some incessantly look at porn on the internet, well, I incessantly look at gadgets, technology, games, and the like, to the point where I consider it my “type” of porn, or Pr0n.

Anyhow, enough of the explaining.

Same place, same content, actually more now that I have the domain search done, and the same good ol’ techie geek. Welcome to TekPr0n.com, I hope you enjoy.

Best Final Fantasy game? 2 or 3?

Do you think they killed Metroid by making it an FPS?

I'll bet you beat Blaster Master using the Bomb-Pause trick huh you cheater?

And who can't recite the Contra code?

Now as I was saying, Halo, Call of Duty, and a few other franchises will more than likely still have thier followings down the road, however, can they really be spoken of in the same breath as the Mario's, Sonic's, and Mega Man's (Mega Men's?) let alone Castlevania, Zelda, or even the single titles such as Kid Icarus or even Excite Bike? They are so worried about creating epic games that they lose the qualities that make them epic. Zelda was not a gorgeous game but it was completely enthralling. It wasn't easy, it wasn't hard, and you couldn't change the difficulty. You couldn't play your friends but you all watched each other play and talked the next day about how far you each got and how the heck to find level 7!?!?! If you said the words Justin Bailey to a gamer years ago they would know exactly what you were talking about. Games didn't come out every week just to have new games out. Time was put into them and not just to hold them back so they wouldn't be competing with another release.

Now there is talk that stores such as GameStop and Electronics Boutique which both sell used games are killing the video game industry. When one can go into the store and buy a week old game for $10 less than the brand new copy sitting right next to it the software company doesn't see the profits and are now threatening to only release games in downloadable form. This makes borrowing games from friends a little tricky. Not to mention if you experience issues such as RROD you will have to re-download all of your content yet again once you or the concole manufacturer finally gets around to replacing your new paperweight.

There was something poetic about everyone having thier own routine for "fixing" thier NES games that would just end up looking like a bad vertical hold job. I was a blow in the cartridge/insert as little as possible to still push down/all the way to right kinda guy. We had connections to our games and our machines. I had just about every upgrade for my original GameBoy available. The light, the extra battery, the magnifier, the speakers, you name it! I remember when they tried to market the Virtual Boy. I remember Robbie the Robot and what games you could use him with, the Power Glove and its role in "The Wizard". Video games are a hobby now, they were a way of life. These kids today just don't know...

In short, I just started a new job that has been taking up all of my time lately but I'm getting into the groove now which lends more time to being able to post on things of a more tech savvy nature. So expect some posts on things such as Chrome OS, and Office 2010 (if I can get into the stupid beta...), as well as games, gadgets, and thingamabobs (I have twenty, but who cares, I want more (damn ex-girlfriends and their Disney movies!)). So hopefully you will all cut me more slack than Atom has and I'll be posting shortly and giving all the geek that's fit to print.

-GimpyGomer

Well, there is only one answer. When you are a geek, you are never happy with what you have. You always need it to be faster, more powerful, elegant, you even want it to make you breakfast and call you daddy. We change things just to say we can and we flaunt our successes to others that don't quite get how it works, but would love the enhancements it if they did.

So, I took the plunge, I figured yesterday was a good time to “hack” it. Last time I had to search for just the right tool to get the job done,  I was always being thrown back errors about the IPSW file I was using. This is the file that makes up the operating system on the iPhone, changing version numbers for each upgrade, but I typically have some off shoot of the file the known file the programs out there like, which makes this a huge pain.

This time with the 3.0 bits on the 3GS, it wasn't any different from the times before, I attempted to use QuickPwn and again the IPSW file I was trying to se always came up with a “IPSW file not compatible.” Ugh, back to the grinder. I looked at redsn0w, yellowsn0w, every color of snow, not for me, nothing worked. So I took a further look, luckily for me my options are not limited to the OS X side, since I am running Windows 7 on my macbook as well. Program after program turned out to deal me a crap hand.

Finally, I did a Google search on 3GS jailbreak and found a site: http://purplera1n.com/ apparently this guy has unlocked the iPhone and doesn't have the blessing of the iPhone Dev-Team. I typically go with their tools because they are sound, but everything on their page this go round, was just not ready yet.. But I went to them first and found nothing that worked properly, so, why not try a new thing aye? Its the amazing exploration of possibly destroying my iPhone that drives me forward.

The site has two icons, if you are using Windows, you choose the Windows logo and vice versa. It appeared that all that was ran was a single file so, I figured, I wouldn't mind blowing away my hard drive or the iPhone so i ran it…wow, very pleased.

Instructions:

1. Plug in your iPhone and make sure to sync the baby with a full back up. This should be done before you try anything that could be catastrophic to your device. Duh.
2. Go to the website: http://purplera1n.com/ 
3. Click on the image that is associated to the OS you are running.
4. Run the file and allow it through your mesh of safety nets and virus scanners, I can attest that I did not blow my machine up ;)
5. It will roll your iPhone into recovery, or DFU mode, and will install an app on the phone called “Freeze.'”
6. Once this is done, your finished with the computer…wow, quick aye?
7. Disconnect the iPhone from the computer and run Freeze.
8. The only option you will have here is to install Cyndia, do it, that is were all of the 3rd party applications for the iPhone come from.
9. After this is done, call it a day, sit back and download new ringtones, themes, utilities, anything you can think of. If you have the 32 GB iPhone 3GS, you can pretty much install everything from Cyndia, lol, but who wants all that right?

My take on this:

I am an impatient person, so by nature anything that is right in front of me I will find a way to get or I will find a way around the block to get something just as good. This time I took the winding path because the iPhone Dev-Team is not releasing their tools until 3.1 is released by Apple. **That being said, I would like to clarify that purplera1n did not release software that was not ready, it works great for me.** As for the ease of which I was able to get what I wanted finished with as little grief as possible, I couldn't have asked for a better way of breaking the iPhone. I ran a single file, downloaded another from the phone itself and called it a day, it has by far been the best breaking experience I have ever done.

Also, as I stated above, I had AT&T by the nuts when I was able to work out getting MMS to work on my phone without them knowing and I was hesitant to break the phone while this was working because I thought I would lose that functionality. Guess what, I still have it. Because the method that is used in this breaking doesn't make you re-package or re-load a new IPSW, but only modifies the existing one, it didn't change any of those awesome settings that I had in place, allowing me to continue using MMS. Another +1 for this unobtrusive method. All in all, I am happy with the way things turned out.

Disclaimer:

I am in now way affiliated with purplera1n or iPhone Dev-Team. My words are from personal experience and unless you come grab my iPhone out of my hands you cant prove I have done any of this. Thanks ;)

The site has been changed to TekNation, a name symbolizing the goals of the group. In hopes that we can provide knowledgeable feedback, reviews, as well as nonsense and whatever else crosses the mind.

Please stay tuned, as the site will be changing over the next couple weeks, but my hope is that it will be better than ever once it is in full stride.

~Atom6.

So, this brings me to Boxee.

Boxee is free, open-source software that allows your laptop to connect to your HDTV and provides a rich system to view your local media, streaming media from the net, even photos from Flickr. Boxeee allows you to navigate through all of your personal media using the network that the laptop or desktop is connected to via wireless. This will work over the network if you have a mapped network drive as well.

The part that I enjoy about this is that the interface is very nice looking, it is easy to read from a distance and it is very intuitive in finding your content, or pulling content from the internet because of how well done the interface is.

Boxee is currently in Alpha and I think it has the makings of a great media experience application, hopefully RTM will come soon. As far as I have seen it has exceeded the built in applications of the major operating systems, such as iTunes in OS X or Windows Media Player found in Windows systems. The difference between this application and those ‘other guys’ is that Boxee acts as another social networking integrator as well. You can add service aspects to your Boxee usage to your different social networks just settings a few items in your profile.

Twitter Integration:

• Tweet media you recommend – so if you like something you can recommend it to any of your Boxee friends and it will automagically send though recommendations to you Twitter followers as well.
• Tweet what your watching – You start watching something a Twitter is sent, this I fell could get a bit spam-like considering how fast I jump around on media.
• Tweet what your listening to- applies to music you are currently listening to. It would be useful if you were a club, or other venue.
• Tweet what you rate- It will show something you have watched, rated, and what that rating was.

You have the same options for Friend Feed and Tumblr as well, keeping your people up to date on the media you are experiencing, right from the Boxee application. All of this is done in the background so you don't have to compose the extra posts to your friends when you find out that the new movie trailer you just watched for (blank) is really cool looking.

Netflix Integration:

• You can authorize your Netflix account through Boxee as well, giving you the ability to stream the media from your Netflix account directly to the video player.

My Boxee Experience:

Initially I signed up for the application by filling out an email request form. Easy enough plus I want to know the latest when Boxeee changes, this is a great piece of software. After the download I was able to run into my account and add the above integration to my social networks. I chose to only Tweet right now, and only send out a Tweet when I recommend something. Even though Boxee has way more social network options, I don't like to spam my peeps.

After this I added my profile picture to my account and changed up my privacy settings. This changes who you get recommendations from, who I share mine with, as well as receiving notifications when someone follows you or if Boxee wants to talk.

So, now that I am done with the backend it was time to download the application and get it moving. Boxee is unique in that it is supported on all major platforms. It offers an application for Windows, OS X, and Ubuntu Linux. That's a change ;) I am currently running the lastest build of Windows 7, build 7201, and it runs like a champ.

During installation I found that Boxee also has an application for the iPhone, boy aren't you glad you have an iPhone ;) So I followed the link provided, it automatically opened my iTunes installation and gave me the prompt to add it to my iPhone on next sync, FREE of charge. This is used as the remote for the Boxee app if you wish to use it. Opening up the application for the first time was brilliant. The colors, which remind me of my page scheme, were nice on the eyes and made all of the content really pop out at you. The amount of content all wrapped up into this wonderful UI, make Boxee a really fun and interesting place to be.

As for the addition of your content and pulling content from the net, it is very easy. Anything from checking your Twitter Feed to watching internet TV from Revision 3, it is simple to find and once you find what you want, it is streamlined to play. Some of the feeds are still a on the alpha side however, larger streams are sometimes caught in loading limbo forever, and this could be looked at a bit further.

iPhone Remote:

The iPhone remote for the Boxee application is extremely will done, the accuracy and responsiveness of the remote is the best I have seen and it is easy to put your iPhone to sleep and bring it back up once you are done watching your movie or listening to you music, to continue controlling it with the phone. The remote has two options when using Boxee, either gesture or buttons.

Gesture StyleGesture: This consists of a Boxee logo in the middle of the screen. As you put your finger down and drag the logo around on the iPhone it emulates the movement of the on-screen mouse of the laptop or computer. This was very erratic and didn't give the user a very smooth experience. There is a way to change the sensitivity on this control, but I found it to be too frustrating to use.

Button StyleButtons: This offers you a simple D-Pad style layout and is way easier to use. I found this method to be quick and efficient and like I stated above very responsive, even though the system is running via the local wifi network it feels like an RF remote.

One thing I would like to see however is a small version of Boxee being emulated on the phone itself. I know it would probably hinder the performance though and this is probably why it hasn't been done. Though if you have a smaller TV than I do you might find it more challenging to read the TV itself from across the room and without a reference on the phone of what you looking at it might be a pain.

Finally, it comes down to how best to utilize this in your home or workplace. I am thinking about dedicating a machine specifically to this, which made me think. Would I use a set-top box if it was offered? For sure. For now though, I will do what I have done in the past and set up a cable to the TV and have it at the ready for the laptop I am running. I will also be adding a Seagate 500GB drive to this setup as well so I can easily upload media to the hard drive from my primary desktop and have those available in the Boxee world.

I would highly recommend taking a look at this application and its related technologies, it is very nice to have around and since you can be running any major operating system and still gain from this media experience everyone is prepared to start up.