r4ndom h4x

Telstra can’t seem to work out how to cancel my phone service. Foxtel can’t seem to work out how to cancel my pay-tv service.

I’ve had Foxtel (Australian pay-TV service) for about two years and decided to cancel it about two months ago.

To cancel is easy. Just phone Foxtel, tell them you want to disconnect then argue with the call centre operator while they try and convince you that you should stay – perhaps offering a month free or something else as a sweetener. Once they finally give in, they’ll organise a courier to pick up the equipment on a certain date. The courier arrives, grabs the equipment, scans the barcode label on the SIM from inside the set top box, give you a receipt and away he goes. Simple.

Then, proceed to ignore all the bills that continue to arrive. Yes. They still send me bills for a service I cannot get any more. I did try to phone them to alert them to this fact, but I sat on hold for so long I gave up.

At about the same time, I also installed a new phone line and had it activated as a “Naked” DSL service. I use VoIP exclusively in the home now. I phoned Telstra and asked them to disconnect the phone. This was a simple process and only slightly less painful than cancelling Foxtel. You still have to dance with the operator while they tell you why you should stay. In the end, they give up and cancel the service.

Then, proceed to ignore the bills that continue to arrive. Yes, Telstra still bill me for a service that I don’t use.

I am fucking sick of this shit. The catch with Telstra, of course, is that if I don’t dance for them and jump through all their stupid hoops then there is a chance that all telephony services to my premises will be cancelled. (Actually, not sure if the naked DSL service would get cancelled, but then I don’t want to find out either).

So I try to phone, but they call centre has gone home for the evening. I email a complaint, but I did this more to relieve my annoyance – I don’t expect it to actually achieve anything positive. I log onto their crappy online web site, but I can’t cancel the service there. Naturally I email a complaint about that, too.

The only way to resolve this is to phone the company, jump through their hoops, wait in line, finally get to speak to someone and hope that they actually do what I ask them to do. I’ve already done this once, so what hope is there that they’ll get it right the second time?

Is it co-incidence that Telstra own 50% of Foxtel, and both of their accounts departments seem to be just as incompetent as each other? I have the same problem with both of them.

The Australian Government were fuckwits to sell Telstra in the first place (Thanks Johnny, you little shit monkey!).

I’ve been busy building a media PC over the last couple of weeks. (yes.. weeks..) After much trial and error, I’d eventually settled on MythTV on Ubuntu as the best software for digital tv broadcasts. But the one thing left that I couldn’t ever get right was the video.

Basically, switching between SD and HD channels would corrupt the screen. I’m using an AMD motherboard with integrated ATI HD3200 graphics.

Well, the new ATI 9.2 catalyst driver have solved this issue! I can now unblock my HD channels! This is fantastic news because I know many people have exactly the same issue.

I don’t like the default Ubuntu boot splash screen. It’s boring and impersonal. Thankfully, it’s fairly simple to change.

Out of the box Ubuntu uses a package called Usplash to control the graphical boot screen. The simplest way to change it is to look for a replacement usplash image that someone else has made. If you don’t want to compile it yourself then you will need to get one that is pre-compiled and suitable for your particular machine’s architecture (32bit vs 64bit etc).

Take a peek here and see if anything floats your boat : ubuntu-art.org and gnome-look.org but make sure you only look for usplash screens.

1. To install a usplash screen that has already been compiled, check to see if you have “Startup Manager” installed. (System menu -> Administration -> StartUp-Manager) If you don’t have it installed (it’s not by default) open a Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type:

sudo apt-get install startupmanager

2. Download a usplash screen you like. It’s probably compressed via gzip or bzip2. Either let Firefox automatically open it up in the archive manager, or save it and double-click on the file to open archive manager.

3. The archive should contain a file that ends in .so.   For example, here’s a Dell one I grabbed from the above site:

Just Extract the file somewhere – I’d chuck it in /tmp because we only need it for a short time.
You only need the .so file – if there’s anything else there you don’t need it- it might be the source code or a Readme file.

4. Now, open up Startup Manager. It should look something like this:

Click on the Appearance tab and select the “Manage uspash themes” button. Now just click “Add” and browse to where you saved the .so file (/tmp perhaps?). Now the file will become available as a choice in the usplash themes drop-box.

5. Click Close to all the windows. Let the startup-manager finish! It will probably take it a little while. (All your initrd files are being regenerated with the new theme included.)

Done! But what do you do if you can’t find a theme you like? Well, you’ll need to compile one. That’s a subject for another day though.

Afro Samurai. Gimme a break. Manga, Anime, and now PS3 video game. Mugen would kick his ass, and he’d do it wearing Geta (a feat in itself – or is it feet? sorry..).

Mugen is an obvious match though – who else would kick Afro’s ass? Vash the Stampede (with massive damage to the surrounding area), Spike (although he’d get severely beaten up while doing it), and probably Pikachu.  Okay, maybe not Pikachu.

Afro is just a pussy with a headband fixation.

I work in the IT department for a large national company. We use a fairly typical mix of vendors I guess – HP, VMWare, Citrix, EMC, Cisco, Microsoft.

So, more than 18 months ago I scored myself a new laptop. It came with Windows Vista Business. It took me six months or so before I finally couldn’t handle it any longer. And so it was settled. I would run Linux as my primary OS on my work machine.

(continue reading…)

I’ve chucked up a page with a couple of videos – basically a little Tamiya nitro RC car with a wireless camera strapped on top. I haven’t been able to find the source video but I do have a higher quality video on a USB stick.. somewhere..  I will upload better quality versions when I get a chance!

My video page is here, but to save the trouble here are the videos it contains :

The first video was made in a shopping centre. I was driving. I hit the shopping cart.

I’m not allowed to drive any more.

This next clip was made around the same time as the one above. We were really just messing around with a few ideas.

I just had a need to convert an audio file from Monkey’s audio to something else on my Ubuntu 8.10 box. I tried Audacity, but it doesn’t seem to read Monkey’s audio. Then I came across soundconverter. Brilliant. It’s a simple to use and effective converter of audio formats.

I converted Monkey’s to MP3 with no probs at all. I would have used ogg but I’m encoding it for my PS3 so choice is limited

soundconverter main window

“The average motion picture cost the MPAA member companies $96.2 million to make and market in 2005. Six out of ten movies never recoup their original investment. Fewer movies will be made and fewer creative risks will be taken if piracy continues to rob those who invest in movies.”

This is a quote that I lifted from the Motion Picture Association of America’s web page on piracy.

Almost $100 million US dollars? On a movie? And  there is a better chance than not that it won’t make it back? This is easy to fix, folks. Don’t spend so much money on this stupid trash! The world doesn’t really need “legally blonde 2″!

Seriously, the business model needs to change. If it is no longer profitable to do what you’ve always done, then do something else. Stop bitchin’.

Apple iphone.

Ooh, apple made a phone! Who gives a shit?

I agree that the interface is good. I like it. But the rest of it – you know, the bits that make it into a phone – is shit. Wait for version 3 I think.

The surprise isn’t that apple could make a decent interface for a gadget. The surprise is that Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola couldn’t.

iphone headline generator:

10 if ( NewIPhone == True ) then print “Apple releases new iphone that sucks less”
20 print “Apple releases new firmware, blocks jailbroken ipones”
30 print “Hackers release new iphone hack”
40 goto 10

Windows 7.

Ooh, microsoft is making a new operating system! I really don’t give a flying rats arse.

Here’s the thing. Microsoft’s operating systems all eventually kick you in the nuts. Some do it sooner than others. (Vista, Win ME). Why should I celebrate a potential delay to being kicked in the balls? It’s like waking to the realisation that someone is going to bash your head in with a cricket bat but you’re not sure when it’s going to happen.

Future Windows 7 headlines:

“Windows 7 boots [faster|slower] than [XP|linux|Vista|OSX] and uses [less|more] memory”
“Microsoft issues free upgrade to windows 7 for all new PC’s purchased with Vista as of June”
“Windows7 revalidates license every time PC has internet connectivity in name of security”
“Hackers bypass WGA checks.”
“Corporations waiting for SP1 before deploying windows 7″
“Microsoft releases SP1 for Windows 7 early”
“Security vulnerability found in latest service pack. Microsoft knew about it.”
“New poll discovers people would still use Windows98 if it could run latest games”

There. I’m hoping that I can now go through a couple of weeks without having to read any windows or iphone stories. Hopefully the tech news sites can find something else to write about.

I’m 37. When I was in primary school here in Australia, everyone had a Commodore-64. (Well, everyone that mattered)

By the time I made it to high school, the schoolyard arguments had evolved to Amiga vs Atari ST.

I’ll conveniently ignore NES vs Sega Master System. Sega Saturn vs Playstation. Gameboy vs Atari Lynx…

Now.. PS3 vs 360.

I like the PS3 and it’s my favourite console. There are plenty of good games, the media centre feature is.. okay but needs a bit more work. The PSP remote play feature gets used most weekends to control the media player which is pretty cool. Plus the blu-ray player is a plus, the web browser is good for those “check out this thing I saw on youtube” moments.

A workmate of mine just bought a 360. His reasons? Microsoft have apparently worked out most of the hardware problems with it, a new hack was released to make it easier to run pirated games (sorry, can’t find a link) and all his mates have one.

I wonder how many 360’s are sold for exactly the same reasons?