Powerlines Down in Concord, CA

A number of powerline poles have been downed on Monument Blvd in Concord, CA.

Residents in the area are advised to unplug all sensitive electronic equipment in case the power-lines snap.

A PG&E contractor has stated that the powerlines downed around 1300 Monument Blvd are the property of a phone company (did not mention which) and that the cable support was improperly installed.

Here are some pictures and a video:


Bilzzard Battle.net 2 preview

As Starcraft 2 Beta approaches details have been shed on the Battle.net service which is an underlying component for all blizzard games. [Read more...]

Howto: Facebook Chat XMPP settings

Here are XMPP settings to connect to facebook chat with your favorite client. We recommend Pidgin, PSI, or Miranda IM.

Protocol: XMPP

Username: Your Facebook Vanity Name
Domain: chat.facebook.com
Jabber ID: vanityname@chat.facebook.com
Password: <Facebook password>

Connect port: 5222
Connect server: chat.facebook.com
Use SSL/TLS: no
Allow Plaintext Authentication: no

So if you are setting it up for Pidgin, your settings should look something like this:

If you are still having trouble, check out the official support page.

Wordcamp 2010 in San Francisco

WordCamp 2010 in San FranciscoWordCamp is a Wordpress conference being held on May 1st, in SF Mission Bay Conference Center, and on may 2nd a developers’ unconference is held at the same location.

Tickets are avaiable at $50, and $60 walk-in. You can volunteer or buy a ticket.

We’ll be covering the event live, and keeping an extra eye out for anyone trying to sniff our packets. If anyone wants to join us, drop a line below.

First Windows 8 Build Screenshots

Windows 8 ScreenshotsComrades at WZor, as promised, have publicized a number of screenshots from a Windows 7 post RTM build as well as the technical data from build 7700.0.100122-190.

MICROSOFT.WINDOWS.7.POST-RTM.7700.X64.RETAIL.ENGLISH.DVD-WZT

FILE: 7700.0.100122-1900_x64fre_client_en-us-GRMCXFRE_EN_DVD.iso

SIZE: 3,231,166,464 byte

SHA1: C0CB719B781D49B39D8CC93A27F990A366B8E4C7

MD5: EBEB8AEC73339536564D26DB584A9474

CRC: B3F323D6

[Read more...]

The silent death of Technorati

UPDATE 1/30/2010: bayareatechpros.com has finally been approved. I should note that the thumbnail of the website remains unchanged and I am unable to edit site info or do anything with the claim at this point.

UPDATE 1/7/2010: It appears as though Technorati is inching forth, but the backlog which they are developing far outweighs the amount of blogs being approved.

UPDATE 1/7/2010: An employee, Phillip Winn, who is a senior web developer has taken up a PR stance and resumed replying to the thread. It appears as though Technorati is inching forth, but the backlog which they are developing far outweighs the amount of blogs being approved.

Technorati-DeadTechnorati has been an authorative and integral part of the blogosphere, positioning itself as a benchmark and indexed search engine for blogs in the start of the Web 2.0 boom. This was then, however, and how fast things change…

In October to November of 2009 a peculiar problem arose, the real-time search engine of Technorati was no longer indexing new blogs. According to some wizardly mathemagic a new blog is created every second and Technorati, as a search engine, is not indexing any of the 26,000,000+ new blogs which were created in the past 2+ months, according to math. [Read more...]

Operation Chokehold: take down ATT data network

Operation ChokeholdThe iPhone, with its aesthetically pleasing and functional design, beckons users to enjoy internet access, YouTube, and other data services. AT&T as the single exclusive network and reseller of the iPhone, carries a tremendous data burden on its already deficient network. Rather than focusing on the issue at hand, the unreliability and overstress of the network, CEO Ralph de la Vega voices his displeasure with the amount of traffic AT&T customers demand from his network and attempts to redefine the smartphone based upon its keyboard size and potential data use rather than OS capabilities.

I will go ahead and point to the obvious; if you want an unclogged network do not force iPhone users to stick with it. You can’t have two things at once, pick priorities; though it seems AT&T intends to nibble what it cannot eat, and keep it on a 2 year contract of sub-par service and coverage.

[Read more...]

Saboteur ATI Freeze Fix

Saboteur game is suffering a freezing issue which affects most ATI users when opening menus and the quest journal, and transitioning between areas. Some ATI gamers are able to play using Windows XP, but even then there are often problems. Pandemic is investigating the problems in conjunction with ATI. Here’s a intermittently-working workaround:

UPDATE:

  • 12/18/09): Patch Released:

[Read more...]

YouTube phases out old accounts

YouTube

If you signed up for YouTube prior to Google’s acquisition you may be displeased to see that you are no longer allowed to use your YouTube account independent of your email. The change merges your YouTube account with whatever email was associated with it at the time.

The qualifying conditions are as follows:

  • You’ve signed up for their original YouTube account before May 2009.
  • You’ve joined your YouTube and Google Accounts together.
  • You’re still signing in with your original YouTube password.

[Read more...]

Future of Torrents; DHT, PEX and Magnet Links Explained

Bittorrent Explained

This week The Pirate Bay confirmed it would shut down its tracker for good, instead encouraging the use of DHT, PEX and magnet links. This move confounded many BitTorrent enthusiasts, who although wishing to adapt, were confronted with hard to grasp terminology and technology. Time for some explaining. [Read more...]