Hooked on anything related to computers? If your like me you can't learn enough about the history behind one of the greatest inventions of all time. Want to know how it all got started? Check out the "History of Hacking" on YouTube. This five part video is very well done and tells the story of the people who helped bring computers out of the server room and into our homes. If your interested in actual hacking I would recommend Irongeek's Hacking Illustrated Videos as well as the short articles on Hackaday. There are also some great movies either related to or depicting hacking. See my complete list after the break.

Ever wanted to access your favorite movies on your PC from your XBOX 360 or PS3? Well nows the time because MediaTomb makes it so easy that you don't have an excuse anymore. If you've already got Ubuntu installed on your PC your half way there. Just type sudo apt-get install mediatomb in the terminal and let the package manager do the rest. Once its finished launch your web browser either and go to http://localhost:49152 to get to MediaTomb's Web GUI. Click Filesystem and Browse to the Directory where you keep all your media. Finally click the little + symbol next to a video or the + next to a directory to add the whole directory to Media Tomb's database. Once your done click Database to make sure its there. Now jump on your favorite UPnP compatible device. For me it would be my Modified XBOX with XBOX Media Center or my XBOX360. If your device is on the same network as your PC with MediaTomb it should be auto-detected and added to the Video or UPnP section of the device. Simple as that. Another nice feature is HTTP streaming via their Web GUI. Simply browse for a video in the Database tab, right-click it and copy the URL, then open a network video steamer like VCL and paste it into the Network Video section. Viola your video should start streaming. This technique seems to support all the functionality of a VOD setup which is a real plus. Now get out there and enjoy your content in a whole new way!

Hey Everyone! I'm sorry that the site was done for so long. Aparently ATBHost was getting a new server and something went wrong in the process. I feared that all my blog posts and content were lost for good, but Adam the admin was kind enough to bring the Old Server back online long enough for us to retrieve our precious files and database. Also we and the other sites that are hosted with ATBHost should not get those annoying 500 Server Error's anymore because of this upgrade to over 8GB of RAM. The server also has 4 CPU's with 2 cores each so its the juggernaut we've all been waiting for. Thanks again Adam for helping making the transition as painless as possible even if there were a couple bumps along the way.

In High School my friends and I often found ourselves playing flash games or messing around in a computer lab or the library. Occationally someone would bring in a Starcraft CD or a USB Drive with Counter-Strike, but for the most part multiplayer games were out of the question either because of hardware limitations and restrictions or the schools firewall. Todays students don't have to worry about such obstactles because of the rise of Adobe Flash-Based multiplayer games. These games which run within the browser window don't require any software installation or configuration. This means that unless the network tech blocks or refuses to install adobe flash Students can play a large variety of games.

Here are just a few that I enjoy from time to time:

• OMGPOP (Blockles, Ball Racer, etc)
• Instant Action (Fallen Empire, Marble Blast, etc)

My friend Louis pointed me to this old game project about a month ago. It's pretty amazing. A complete 3D game that fits into a 96kb zip file. It was never finished, but is still quite enjoyable to play through. The game uses no map files. All the game data is generated and stored in a cache before you start playing. If you don't have a fast CPU it will probably take a while to load. After playing you'll see why I consider it to be a work of art. I mean heck the screenshot to the left is almost 40kb.

Download it here and let me know what you think.

I recently reformatted my EeePC 900 and installed the latest Ubuntu Netbook Remix. I must say I'm quite impressed. Almost everything works out of the box and the additional configurations are pretty trivial. Canonical was nice enough to write a program to copy the UNR image directly to a flash drive which makes installation a breeze. Ubuntu runs VERY well compared to Windows XP where I had to move many things to a RAM Disk just to get them to run properly. There are a couple things I'd recommend if you plan to install UNR on your netbook. First, after you install be sure to grab Array's linux kernel for the EeePC. The performance boost is amazing. Just grab the .DEB file and double-click it. Ubuntu will install the optimized kernel for you. Reboot and everything will be a lot smoother. Second I'd recommend moving your content folders (Documents, Music, Videos, etc) to an SDHC or USB drive. To do this I created symbolic links between my Home Directory and my 16GB SDHC Card. Simply open the terminal and type ln -s /directory/to/sdhc/card/Videos ~/Videos. This will link your Videos folder in your home directory to a Videos directory in your SDHC card. You may have to remove the Videos directory in your home directory first before creating the link. If you've got Videos in it already just move them somewhere else temporarily. Do the same thing for the other directories just change the command accordingly. Third grab the open source Intel Linux graphics driver and the GMABooster application if you plan to run 3D applications or Games. Haven't tested this much but the overclocking to the integrated Graphics couldn't hurt.

If you have ever played a game made by VALVE then you've probably had to use their content delivery system. Steam for what its worth, does a fairly good job. It manages the downloading and installation of games making it fairly easy to purchase and setup your favorite video games on your PC. There are, however, a few things I dislike about Steam. For one VALVE pretty much forces you to use it. Most of their games have become so integrated with it that trying to write a crack to make a game run without it is almost impossible. Second all the files are wrapped into their proprietary encrypted file structure which makes it difficult to copy and distribute via the normal channels. On the other hand the Steam client is fairly open to manipulation. Some fellow hackers over at CS.RIN.RU have managed to crack the steam client which tricks it into thinking that you "own" ever game in their library. (Check out SteamUP or the Undead Patch if you want to try this out for yourself) This allows you to download and install a variety of games from VALVE's content servers at very high speeds. VALVE has noticed this and instead of fixing the problem they just created a new authentication mechanism for new games they add to the system so many games will still download. For those games that you can't download you can find their .GCF or .NCF files via other means (CS.RIN.RU, Rapidshare, MegaUpload, Torrent, etc) and copy them into your SteamApps folder. Restart Steam and if all goes well you can launch the game. Most game servers out there will not allow you to connect unless Steam's Master Servers verify that you own the game, but there are plenty of cracked servers out there as well. Check out the SETTI server lists if you want to find a cracked server to play on.

Its been in the works for a while, but we are finally going to have our first public LAN Party! Everyone that can make the drive is welcome to join us for some fragging fun. We've got a list of scheduled games, but if you bring it you can play it. We didn't give the corps enough notice to get sponsored, but we're working on getting local sponsors. Even if we don't get exciting prizes its all about the games and fun anyways.

Yesterday my curiosity got the better of me. I was about to play one of my favorite mods, Zombie Panic: Source, when I stumbled upon Braid. I'd heard great things about it, but never gotten around to seeing what all the buzz was about. The trailers don't do the game justice. Probably one of the reasons why I didn't get it until now. I have never played a game quite like Braid. Its story is immersive, graphics are great, and the musical score is amazing. On top of all that the gameplay is insane. This game will make you think. At first you'll want to look for a walk through, but don't! Theres a point where you start to understand the logic behind the game and its after that point that the fun really begins. I would highly recommend you download and play this game if you haven't already. Its Mario for the 21st century.

In the crazy world we live in keeping in touch can be difficult. Email just doesn't cut it anymore and blogging is just too time consuming to do on a daily basis. Twitter attempts to fill the gap between blogging and email and I think if used correctly it does a damn good job. Put simply its passive communication. Send out short global broadcasts to let your family and friends see what your up to. These broadcasts or Tweets are limited to 140 characters which cuts out all the small talk. Staying up to date with Twitter is refreshingly streamlined. The formality has been taken out of the equation. In addition there are tons of third party apps which make it even easier. My favorite by far is Twitterfox which allows you to tweet from within your browser as well as see recent tweets of those you are following. If you haven't signed up already do it now! You won't regret it.