EquinoX

2006-06-27T14:50:00.000+08:00

test photo

2005-06-20T11:57:00.000+08:00

Wonder if anyone still comes by here. Thing is I have a new site at http://equinox3.zyns.com where i host my own blogs. I'm just keeping this place up for old times sake.

2004-08-06T12:36:00.000+08:00

Wild mood swings(Stock market blues)

It's been a while since I wrote something in here. Most probably due to the amount of stuff I've been up to for the past few months.

Today I'm headed off for PD. Dad invited us for the weekend in one of his company's condos. We've been to the one of the company bungalows in Penang. Nice place. Don't know what to expect this time around.

The stock market has been providing as well as straining. made a day trade of Liqua for a profit of 135.00 today. not much, but for a half day of punting, it was good enough. Wonder if Facbres will ever go up. The Support and resistance on both buy and sell sides are overwhelming, but nobody is brave enough to take a plunge. So the price stays low, even with the high demand for it. I'm no expert but if this goes on throughout the month, might as well cut my losses and put the money elsewhere. I'm going to lose more than 2K, but better than it being static.

With other things, The project i'm working on has it's deadline on the 13th of August. not too far away. Hopefully i can get it done by the middle of next week. It's taking a whole load of my mental stamina. At least the 3 times a week visit to the gym makes it all go away for a while.

2004-04-16T15:59:00.000+08:00

29

The final year of my twenties. Last week(8th of April) I welcomed it's coming. What have I acheived? Not enough. They say ambition is an Arian trait but I think it's really the way you look at things. Anyway, two days after that I became an uncle as well. New born nephew weighing 3.8 Kg. That means four birthdays in a row, one of my aunts was born on the 7th of April, Me on the 8th, my grandfather on the 9th and now my nephew on the 10th. I believe we're the only arians on my side of the family. My father-in-law celebrates his birthday tomorrow(the 17th) and so does my sister-in-law. so that covers my wife's side. But then again my wife's nephew was born on the 27th of March which makes him an arian as well...

My wife begins her masters class today. so I'll be in this office until she finishes at 9 tonight. then I'll go pick her up. I don't really mind. We don't have any kids yet so there's no reason for me to go home so early. Most probably I'll spend some more time doing my own research for my own Masters by research degree. (My housing area is still without a fixed phone connection even after two years of staying there.) So instead of wasting money connecting via mobile line, i might as well do my browsing here.

Findings: I managed to install various codecs into my x-box for video decoding. Solved the problem of not being able to play .mov files and such using XBMP 2.4.

Anime: I'm following .Hack//Sign right now. looks like i'm having some problems with codec again. so I'll have to find some more codecs suitable for the series. Naruto 75-79 is still in queue. best anime I've seen yet.

2004-03-16T10:12:00.000+08:00

Weekend adventure

The best way to learn something is by doing it. Well, if you're brave enough. My first time in singapore was last weekend where we took the plunge and drove in with our trusty Kia Spectra. Initially the plan was to stop in Johor bahru, change currencies and then head to Singapore but instead the highway took us straight to the border. So with no Sing Dollars we had to rely on other road users to change our currencies to get the Autopass(which we didn't even know existed). We managed to get just enough for the autopass and continued driving into the country without a single cent in our pockets. Good thing that we managed to get a map at a gas station before we entered the country.

Plan B was to find a money changer, but instead since we were in Clemente where an old friend lived, we headed there instead. We didn't even know that there was a charge for parking in residential areas. Kindly she supplied us with two 50 cent tickets. each for a half hour park. one we used at her place and the other we kept for parking later when we were going to a money changer or have dinner. To our surprise, by the time we got out the money changers in clemente were closed. So with empty stomachs and no cash(well, we had a lot of cash, but it was useless in this country so practically we were paupers) we hunted for the money changer. We even tried using the ATM machines to withdraw Sing Dollars using our credit cards but that didn't work. Even tried using our PLUS enabled bank cards which also failed.

We resorted to having bread and cheese which we had in the car to subdue our stomachs and headed out without knowledge about the roads and so forth. We couldn't even go back to johor because our autopass was not topped up yet and to do that we needed sing dollars. we took the CTE north and bypassed the city which we were headed for and had to settle for looking for a money changer in woodlands.

We came to a mall which our accompanying friend rushed in to see if any money changers were open while we made circles in front of it because we didn't even have money to park. It was a relief that he managed to get $175. So we parked, had dinner in KFC and then since it was late we headed back to johor(cheaper hotels there. in singapore the price of a "cheap" hotel can get you to stay in a five star hotel in johor) In johor the adventure was looking for the hotel which we have been to but forgot the way. but in the end things turned out okay.

Next morning we headed back to singapore. This time with cash. and took a walk on orchard road, and stared heading home at about 3 in the afternoon. it was fun. But I wouldn't go shopping there, except maybe for books.

2004-03-11T13:09:00.000+08:00

LIPZ4 Softphone

Here's something interesting to try out if you have access to a few machines connected via hub running linux.

LIPZ4

It's a free linux softphone which runs fully on SIP. Planning to use this as an alternative to Intercoms around the house. we'll see how things go.

2004-03-02T16:19:00.000+08:00

Within 24 Hours

It's funny how ideas and life can change within a few hours. Just yesterday, I was sitting down at this terminal learning Hiragana via software when the guy in the next cubicle told me about this new housing area close by. He was up there during the weekend and he was interested in purchasing the double storey semi-D, complete with 20 years club membership(which includes gym, pool, the likes) He was just asking my opinion about it. When I heard it was going up for 207,000, I was pretty interested myself. We decided to take a short visit to the site office this afternoon. Turned out I was the one who bought one of the lots since after calculating my cash flow, it seemed feasable and I liked the area. Now I'm trying to talk my colleage into getting the lot right next to ours.

2004-03-01T17:17:00.000+08:00

When the whole world disappears again...

After a few days of heavy eating activity. Now comes the new month of March. Had a few friends over for dinner last week. All homecooked meals. Rice, Chicken Curry(which i accidently made too spicy), Beef in Soya Sauce, Mixed stir fry veggies plus pasta in minced beef and tomato. We kind of over budgeted since we had plenty of leftovers afterwards to last us until the weekend. Then we went back to the in-laws and my mother-in-law provided us with food to take back... on the saturday the in-laws came over with yet some more food. then we went to a gathering of one of my wife's cousin which also resulted in taking home more food... and to top it of, yesterday we were at my wife's niece's birthday party which also resulted in... yes, you guessed it. more food. No wonder I'm outgrowing my size 32 waistline. And we still have loads of leftovers to last us yet another week. (well, my wife packed some of the pasta for me, so i didn't have to go out and buy lunch. so it's good to have a lot of leftovers provided they don't go bad.)

2004-02-16T11:53:00.000+08:00

Those of you interested in trying out OSes(or those of you fed up with Microsoft Windows) click here..

http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=cd

Personally I like Slax and GeeXboX... Fun to use.

2004-02-16T10:25:00.000+08:00

So another lazy weekend ends. Spent most of the time watching "One Piece" episodes 20-28. That as well as cooking convection oven beef steak. Wasn't much of a task though; took the "korban" beef, flattened it out with the kitchen mallet, marianated it. then baked it at "skewered meat" setting for 17 minutes each side. Then you had your instant mashed potato flakes in butter, salt and hot water and mixed veggies also in salt and butter.

After that kind of meal, you would expect your body temperature to rise... it was a good thing we have air conditioning.

2004-02-13T17:21:00.000+08:00

DyneBolic and Knoppix : Live Linux-On-CD

Here's a great tip. Always have a copy of either one or BOTH CDs at hand. Why? You'll be thankful you did if you suddenly find yourself unable to boot into windows.... What is Dynebolic? It's an operating system. And it even works on the X-Box. All you have to do is stick the CD in and restart your system(xbox or PC) and you're able to access your entire hard drive and other devices in a windowed GUI. Plus, it's free.

2004-02-13T16:19:00.000+08:00

X-Box USB?

For those of you who didn't know. the X-Box Controller is actually connected to the X-Box via USB connector with an extra yellow wire. A very simple way to have any USB connection to the X-Box is by getting a USB cable and an X-Box Controller cable, cut both cables and solder the same colored wires together omitting the yellow wire. tape each wire with rubber tape so the metal connectors don't touch each other and wrap the whole thing up in rubber tape. Viola. you have yourself a USB connector which you can connect to a hub to connect a keyboard, mouse, Digital Camera, USB storage, etc.

a warning though. if you're using USB storage with important data in it... make sure you have a backup. The Microsoft original Dashboard will assume your USB device to be a memory cartridge and format it accordingly, so you lose all data in it. At best, avoid using the MS Dash when using your USB devices.

2004-02-13T11:39:00.000+08:00

Story of the X

Since the day I bought my XeoX modded X-Box, it has been difficult to get away from it. To me it's the best thing to ever come out of microsoft(not to say that I'm much of a Microsoft fan in the first place). Although it was built for gaming, it wasn't the absolute reason for buying it. Why the X-Box? Where I come from in this day and age people prefer the Sony PS2 as a gaming console. Well, I'm not saying that PS2 is no good. It's like comparing the Mac to the PC. Different class of users. If you prefer a tool to be reliable and you don't like the hassle of it crashing on you every now and then, you'd be better off with a Mac or a PS2. But if you're into modifications and hacking, I'd say the X-Box and the PC is for you. (In truth, the X-Box IS a PC anyway as most of you might already know.)

What have I done with my X-Box?

Try doing this on a PS2 -

1. Playing games without having to insert a DVD in your console.
2. Transfer Gigabytes of data.
3. Play Audio and Video in almost any format. (including DivX and MP3)
4. View Photos
5. Install/use a Linux Operating System.
6. connecting USB devices to it (well, a PS2 can do this too, but the fun of it with the X-Box is building your own USB hub/Connector)
7. write your own programs.

X-Box? Such a thing exists?

Of course when I first got my X-Box, all it did was play games which I had to buy. I first heard of the Xbox when I was into playing Oddworld:Abe's Oddysee on the PC. Also played the sequel, Oddworld:Abe's Exodus on the PC and was waiting for the next series when I found out it would no longer be released on the PC platform. So what did I do? Search the web for emulators and found zilch at the time. I bought a copy of Oddworld:Munch's oddysee for the xbox and was trying to get it to run on my PC using all sorts of tricks. including BIOS hacking. I found out later that the DVD was faulty. Funny, isn't it. Why did I do such things? the X-Box was not something easy to obtain at the time. As I mentioned before, people from where I come from prefer the PS2, so no shop sold the X-Box. And even when they did, I couldn't afford one. My only source of information was the internet.

What led to me to getting the X-Box finally.

Only three years after it's release was I able to buy one. And from where I come from, that usually means that the ones sold at the common gaming stalls already had a mod chip in them. Great. I didn't need to install my own mod chip. The story starts with my wife wanting to get a better TV for the bedroom. We were using a 14 inch Fisher TV which the remote control was patched up in masking tape to keep it from falling apart and the ON button was horrendously difficult to press. I didn't want that 14 inch to go to waste so we decided to put it downstairs(and later when we got it downstairs it faulted on us completely). And I told her that if we're getting a TV, I was getting an X-Box once i could afford it. To me a TV was not a necessity. I didn't really watch a lot of TV anyway and I already had my 19 inch monitor on my PC to watch just about anything. even TV, since I had a TV card anyway. But we got ourselves a 29 inch samsung flatscreen which I then connected to one of the PCs we had in the bedroom using a PC to TV Scan translator to watch Anime Fansubs in DivX format. it was good for a while, despite the cables lying around everywhere in the bedroom. But things were going to get better.

Upgrading the master bedroom media electronics

I finally got the X-Box from a gamers stall at Mines shopping complex. So what did I do right after I got it? I got myself used to having it around first. played a few games... actually most of the time it was Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beachvolley. (my wife's favourite at the time as well). I already had ethernet cables around to connect my PCs in the house via switch. So when we got the xbox we were able to get rid of the scan translator and simply connect the xbox to the TV and a network point in the room. with that we had a connection from the PC to the TV without having to use a scan translator.

However, just having that didn't mean we could watch DivX on our 29 inch TV. I had to first install X Media Player. and in order to do that I needed to be able to ftp files to my X-Box.

Hacking the X-Box

- Installing EvolutionX and X Media Player

So I downloaded EvolutionX, edited the evox.ini file to enable ftp and set my X-Box IP Address. I then had it burnt onto CD-RW(It has to be CD-RW, because the X-Box will not be able to boot up from a CD-R). Once I was able to boot up my x-box into EvolutionX, I was able to ftp anything from my PC to the X-Box and right away transfered BoXplorer. Then I copied the entire CD into the X-Box so that it would boot into EvolutionX everytime I start my X-Box.

On the same night I downloaded the X Media player source code, compiled it, and copied the binaries to my xbox. Immediately we were able to watch downloaded fansubbed anime burnt on CD-R on the 29 inch TV from the X-Box.... it worked, but the X-Box DVD rom had a substandard laser. so I found myself ejecting and inserting the CD-R to make sure the X-Box knows of it's existance.

- Overcoming the X-Box laser problem. Use your PC's CD/DVD rom drive.

X Media Player works fantastically with RelaX. All you have to do is install RelaX on your PC, share folders (including your CD/DVD-Rom drive) and enable it. You will also need to change settings in X Media Player's config.xml file to point to ReLax.

2004-02-13T11:31:00.000+08:00

The Entry Point

I'm using this blog space as my way of documenting research, ideas, as well as news and events. Most probably it would contain information about X-Box hacks and reviews of anime and software.