DoubleTwist is a desktop media manager which enables you to sync with a variety of phones and gadgets. That’s old news, but what is particularly exciting is the release of a media player application for phones running Google’s Android OS. What this means for Android users is a similar media management experience that current iPhone users enjoy. Not only is the functionality there, but it also looks to be quite a sleek looking program. This only makes the Android look like an even more attractive option for the next phone I get around to purchasing. Really, just setup doubleTwist to sync to your Android OS compatible phone, and for your media playback on the desktop have Songbird take care of that for you.

Free for a limited time. [doubleTwist via Gizmodo]

Now then, I don’t intend to write up a walk through on what you need and how to get yourself started on using Usenet. That’s been pretty well documented over at http://mantup.com/ and that is where I got my start from. They’ve explained it so well that anything I might want to add would only confuse you, which is no fun (well, maybe for me).

There is a vast amount of data to browse through in Usenet. These days a lot of it seems to be pirated material. Usenet’s popularity also comes from the fact that it is 100% anonymous. You don’t need to wait for seeders and can basically leech all you want, at speeds any user familiar with bittorent would envy. On the flip side ISPs have caught onto the popularity of Usenet and so you will need to subscribe to a paid service to access it. Not only that, but these service can have bandwidth usage limits, speed throttles, and various durations of retention, all of which are affected by how much cash you are willing to part with. Then you need to find a decent NZB (that’s the Usenet equivelent of torrent files) index site, and often these will also cost you either a monthly subscription or a once off ‘donation’ of some sort.

I happened to get my hands on an unmetered bandwidth Usenet plan which had 380 days of retention. Which I thought was fantastic, for a moment. You see, with the plan I had you can’t download anything that’s been posted to Usenet after the 380 day mark. And often, the data that I’m looking for, the good old stuff is beyond the scope of what was accessible. Bittorent still wins in the respect of variety and availability of files. In fact, with Usenet you’ll struggle to find anything that hasn’t just been released by The Scene (the people who put out the stuff we want and risk their jobs, lives, etc) within a year. Which means that the main reason you would want to subscribe to Usenet is for the high speeds and anonymity correct?

Wrong! Why do that when you could for the same prices subscribe to a VPN or SSH service and tunnel your bittorent traffic through that? There’s a guide for that over at http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-over-ssh-071014/ with easy to follow explanations. And that is what I intend to do. Following that method ensures your traffic is encrypted satisfying the need for anonymity, and seeing as encrypted data is given priority bandwidth it results in faster transfer speeds. Sure, play around with Usenet, but since the Scene releases in more formats to the bittorent indexes than the usenet indexes, usenet now seems to be just a major waste of time dabbling in antiquated technology.

How did I spend free time earlier in life?

And so I pondered the question whilst iTunes ran through old playlists of tracks more or less the same as the ones I listened to years ago. Video games first came to mind. I recall having my early teenhood consumed by the once popular korean produced Ragnarok Online, arguably the best online gaming experience prior to the release of World of Warcraft. What was so fascinating about the game that captured years of my childhood? I could not reproduce any memories of myself actually having played and experienced the game. No, most of my experience with that game was on the server side aspect. Completing tasks such as running a forum community, developing and maintaining server patches whilst ironing out bugs and other behind the scenes things. I guess video games or at least my own experience with that particular one gave me an outlet to create and express anything and share it with others.

Now I’m the guy playing the game. The player. Rather than creating I’m playing the story set out for me. This is how I escape the real world for a better one, or at least that is the delusion. I’m still more or less following a script laid out for me, just like with study and work for the next few years. For my own sanity perhaps its time I revisit the world of experimentation and creation before my soul gets swallowed up by the lifelong career dream. I see myself becoming an passionless robot before long should I continue functioning like now.

PS. Reading over this again I realize this makes little sense, but I feel a little less stuck in a rut than before typing all this out.

During this last ten years Australia has been fortunate enough to host the Sydney Olympics, Melbourne Commonwealth Games and now partaking in a bid to host the World Cup. Humanity and our comfortable understanding of national security was shaken through the tragedy of 9/11 which sparked in some sense a renewed ‘holy war’. There has been natural phenomena potentially caused through our actions (misactions) to our home planet through Climate change, Hurrican Katrina, the Tsunami and more that I cannot recall as I type this. America now is under the leadership of someone not of caucasian descent, something unimaginable only so few decades or even years ago. Yes, this decade despite being projected as a decade of great trial to our species by the mass media, has also been one of education, reform and growth.

It has also been a decade of immense growth for me. Obviously depicted through my age now and then, however I have been able to experience so much. Entering and graduating secondary education and being able to enter tertiary study has been a blessing many on the other side of the timezone are not so fortunate to experience. There has been a time for my faith to be realised, studied and challenged. I also encountered the workforce and got my first (and sadly my current) job and even climbed up the ladder a little so to speak. In these past years I am so very greatful to have been able to make and share friendships with so many fantastic people, influencing me and my persona much more than they will ever realise. And for all of you, thank you.

I’d like to reduce the timescale as ten years is perhaps too grand a timespan for me to continuing thinking in. This year alone has been incredible, being able to engage in work and study and continuing forming strong cherished relationships. Its been a year of conquering body and mind to overcome obstacles that were too great in the past. Proudly I can share having been able to achieve the majority of ‘resolutions’ set out for 2009.  Now I look forward to not only a new year but a new decade of moving further forward and enjoying what fate, destiny, God or whatever throws at me in life.

Goodbye to the awesome 2000s and hello 2010s!

Very very many thanks from the bottom of my heart to all who have helped shape me.

I was particularly looking forward to this weekend. It was going to be a welcome break from the intensity of preparing for university examinations. While I did get up to many hours of Star Ocean on the 360 I also did some work on my laptop.

Earlier this month my friend Daniel lent me his copy of Windows 7 when we hung out at Sidetracked and had a wild night. Well, this weekend was the perfect opportunity to let the new operating system loose on my trusty laptop. It took me a couple hours to backup my data to my new portable harddrive due to the sheer volume of data I had stored on the machine, but after the task was done it was time to reformat and install Windows.

The installation procedure in its entirety was done very quickly. I’ve have assumed it was done within half an hour but I did it while playing Star Ocean so I didn’t really gauge time accurately at all (I didn’t check on the machine till about 5 hours had passed haha). Then did the usual thing of installing all my usual applications plugins etc and got Windows doing its work.

There’s been a big fuss over the new system being more resource efficient. Well from what I’ve experienced so far Windows 7 does appear to be less processor intensive than Vista but it seems it uses just as much RAM as its predecessor. However, what really brings home the “wow factor” is the user interface overhaul, particularly the new taskbar. The interface changes at first seem minor but they feel so natural and one can quickly become accustomed to them. Using Windows becomes more pleasurable than it ever has been.

Finally, a lot of people like to kick up a storm over Windows being inferior to other operating systems in terms of susceptibility to hackers, trojans and viruses. Its all a load of rubbish with people getting overexcited and buying in to the hype. Really, if you’re diligent enough to install an antivirus and run regular scans you’ll rarely face any virus problems at all. Windows’ inbuilt firewall and anti-spyware does a fairly decent job too. It’s just the naive and stupid that fall prey to malicious software and people.

Somehow the game had arrived on my desk in my bedroom by Wednesday morning. This happened ridiculously quickly, though I was tempted to ravage the seal and start gaming away I managed to maintain enough composure to take a photo of it before I raped it with the 360. For a game which was completely sold out all over town, it was a pleasant surprise to have the game in my hands so quickly after purchase.

That was good and all however I needed to prepare for the upcoming Quantitative Methods examination. I’d failed this particular exam once in the past and so with great anxiety it was time to challenge it once again. Making an effort to arrive at the exam destination 3 hours early I crammed whatever I could to ensure at bare minimum a pass mark. After taking the exam I feel that I’ve done enough, I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Today was another exam to be faced, the subject being Organisational Behaviour. This was another exam I was nervous about, not because of its difficulty but rather because I had dedicated so much time to the QM exam I had in a way neglected this subject. The sample exam ended up being slightly misleading and had given me quite a fright however walking into the exam room at reading time I realised that this exam would be a cinch. Probably the easiest exam I have ever sat, I am looking forward to a very pleasing mark.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to collect The Sims 3 today like I had hoped as a result of burning software failing on my friend. Hopefully I’ll have the game in my hands by the end of the month. Oh well, I have Star Ocean to entertain till then and I think Tales of Vesperia will arrive in Australia around that time too! I’ve become over-excited and slightly restless now so that’s it for today.

Over the weekend I had mentioned in my previous post that I’d gone out shopping with the family for clothing and what-not. Forgot to mention mybrowsing of the EBGames store in Waverley Gardens. There was a 1/2 price sale going on so it was unavoidable that I’d end up checking out what bargains were there to be taken advantage of.

Unfortunately there was nothing of any interest to me. Sure half price is a big savings but spending money on shitty games is still wasting money regardless. So I ended up just marching forward to the counter to make a couple enquiries. My good friend Daniel mentioned that Star Ocean had come out earlier in the week. So I wanted to know if they had the game in stock. The store was sold out of the game as all the copies were gone at pre-order. It seemed that there were only 3 other copies of the game in the area. I rang the stores which had them and it became clear that the game was now unattainable – or so I thought.

Fast forward time to today. About 4 hours ago from the time of this entry I found a brand new sealed copy of Star Ocean: The Last Hope with the winning bid going at $74au. The game was in Ballarat and there was 10 minutes left in the auction to go. I put in my maximum bid at $150 (the game is worth about $130 to me but the extra $20 is to make sure I get it no matter what). Minutes passed and I won the auction at $102.50 which isn’t a bad deal since other New Release games typically start out at $110RRP. Promptly sent my payment using paypal and the seller sent me a message saying he’ll post it to me tomorrow. Should be in my hands by early next week.

Other than that today was spent procrastinating on facebook/twitter along with minor study progress in the effort to revise for my upcoming Quantitative Methods and Organisational Behaviour exams. A little anxious about sitting the QM exam since I’ve failed it once but this time I attended every class and I had more time to prepare so things should go a lot more smoothly this semester.

Finally, a birthday shoutout to my good friend Andy who maintains and runs the Easton Royce blog! I hope you had an awesome day I wish you many good things to come to your life the future.