Here we go... a major change in direction. We are moving away from tech gadgets and frivolous stuff that people rave about one day and throw away the next.

XGATech is no more.

With a new name and rising from the ashes of an abandoned tech blog, XGAWeb also has a new purpose: discussing the World Wide Web. From social networking sites like Digg, to blogs like Blorge, XGAWeb will have a say. Don't worry about forgetting the new name though! Heck, you don't even need to update your bookmarks to continue visiting us.

Over the next few weeks the site will be transitioning from its old blue colors to a new silvery design.

Next stop, the Information Superhighway!

XGA Tech has finally moved over to my new server. Everything seems to be running okay, and activity will pick up again as I post new article. The site will be going through a bit of a redesign... and the old news articles will be archived when I set up the new system for posting articles here.

Jonathan is no longer around to work on this site, so I will be doing the work, and also looking for others willing to do some writing.

Oh yeah, and we'll be focusing on more interesting things from now on. No more rants here at XGA!

XGA Tech has been quiet lately as Jonathan has moved on to work at BLORGE.com. I'm still here, just pondering what to do with this sleeping giant.

One change that is coming is a move back to my own hosting. This will probably take place in the next week or so. It should be transparent to anyone visiting. This is to save money and give better control over keeping everything up to date.

If you're bored, and waiting for us to bring new and exciting content, check out my "Scratch Pad" at MK Web. I keep it fairly up to date with ridiculous and amusing posts from Digg. If you want some laughs, check it out.

Stay tuned for frequent updates, coming after the move!

Yes, there is Survive Digg hosting. Digg survival is guaranteed when your story makes the front page of Digg, your site will be up, it will not slow down, in fact the host is so confident it will not go down during a Digg storm that they promise 100% uptime while your story is featured on the front page of Digg. Okay. I can't test this for myself and these are claims from a webhost that want your business but I have no reason to doubt them.

The service is really called Survive Digg Hosting (a Division of Brius Hosting), the Survive Digg package features one of 30 dedicated server spots which feature:

Dual Core Xeon 2.6GHz processors
2GB of RAM
10GB of protected storage (whatever "protected" means)
20mbps transfers unmetered per month

All for the low low price of $35 per month. Hmmm, sure you could have better storage but with all that power behind it being on a dedicated server and all, it couldn't possibly go down if you had a top story on Digg. Could it? We'll see.

This is in fact in response to a comment on a post that you will find right here. But basically it boils down to this:

My Comment, "Microsoft will only loose to the PS3 if they continue to make the XBOX 360 without WiFi or the HD-DVD drive. Being a XBOX 360 owner, I don?t want that many standalone accessories sitting around my 360. If the Elite had WiFi and HD-DVD built-in for the same $480, I?d be sure to buy it.

I won?t buy the PS3 unless the price comes under $600 or until they start including the HDMI cable with it. I won?t buy the Wii because it offers no high-def output and the graphics are mediocre at best, slightly better than the N64 but only just.

Even die hard Nintendo fans can?t deny the limited 480p output of the Wii is rather limiting compared to 720p and 1080i or 1080p games."

Response, " ?I won?t buy the Wii because it offers no high-def output and the graphics are mediocre at best, slightly better than the N64 but only just.?

Have you actually even played a Wii? They look at least 2x better than a gamecube, and if you play a Wii and a PS3 or 360 on two 480p TVs, it can be hard to tell the difference.

Don?t comment on stuff you haven?t tried."

My Comment, "Oh yeah, on two 480p TVs, how could you possible tell the difference. No kidding. I was talking about comparing them on high-def TVs, the ones capable of at least 1080i, now try and tell me you can?t tell a difference on those. What would be the point of playing either the 360 or PS3 on a TV capable of only 480p. If you don?t have a high-def TV, I?d question your decision to buy a 360 and I would really question your sanity if you bought a PS3 and plugged it into a standard def TV. And also, don?t comment on stuff if you haven?t actually seen them in action on high-def TVs?"

Now then, people are either not that intelligent or just really enjoy annoying me. No kidding Sherlock, you can't tell the difference between 480p outputs on any standard-def TV, wow, what a revelation, let me call the NY Times. Why in the world, why in the universe would ANYONE bother connection a XBOX 360 or PS3 to a standard-def TV. If you do, don't talk to me, no, don't even bother talking to me. It's crazy to do so. If you don't have a high-def TV then don't buy a XBOX 360 or PS3. If you have a standard-def TV then go ahead and buy the Wii, it can't do ANY better than 480p, silly, useless Wii. Microsoft is right, it's a toy, live with it Nintendo fans, I hope you are happy with mediocrity.

Though it would be harder to make fun of the Wii if it weren't called the "Wii", Revolution was a much better name but it's hardly a revolution, maybe of game play but who actually wants to get up and move around to play a game (fine if you need exercise but I'm more or less physically healthy). I don't, give me a controller or keyboard and mouse and let me play plus I don't want to be jumping around like, well, like something that jumps around.

I think 480p pretty much defines the graphical quality of the Wii and the lack of a majority of real time effects, shadows, particle effects, fog, clouds, real time climates, where's the immersion that I can get in Alan Wake or Crysis, where? Here's a hint, not on the Wii but everything else has it (XBOX 360, PC and even the PS3).

Yeah, let's go with not. Yes, you can install Windows under Ubuntu in a VM, the bad news is the hoops you have to jump through to do so, the command line, cryptic lame commands are required. How about no. How about I'd rather have a root canal without anesthesia...

They've just handed me on a silver platter another reason to absolutely detest the way things are done in Linux. Note to the Linux community, this is not 1980, no one wants to stare at a command line all day and Damn Small Linux is almost useless. I don't think anyone ever wanted to stare at command lines... but we have GUIs now, command lines = useless.

Well, here's the Linux way to run Qemu. The closest I can come to a comparison is the Mac OSX way so let's take a look at the parallels way. I'm not even bothering with Qemu here because of the lame command line and commands it requires.

Parallels has a pretty GUI, so here's how to install Windows XP under OSX using Parallels...

Step One: Purchase Parallels (or download the trial) for Mac
Step Two: Install Parallels (follow on screen prompts, yeah, hard, I know)
Step Three: Create a New VM (Click the button labeled thusly)
Step Four: The Wizard Starts, Click Next
Step Five: Select Typical VM
Step Six: Specify the OS from the drop down list and click Next
Step Seven: Click Finish, then Yes
Step Eight: Insert Windows CD
Step Nine: Start Parallels, click Play button
Step Ten: Install Windows, follow the prompts

I know, I know, all that button pushing has you all worn out now, at least you aren't bleeding from the ears, eyes and nose from all those silly inane Linux commands.

Period, end of story, DOES NOT WORK. Of course the Digg community is going apes over this story but you know what, it's true. Linux users either refuse to see the light or are just delusional about what Linux can and can't do.

It all comes back to Dell asking users what type of Linux distro they want installed and what features they want. Boo hoo, they can't support every single distro, big deal, there are hundreds of them and I think it would be unreasonable for them to do so. So they are sticking with one or two well known distros and supporting that.

Then they had to go and say this "Linux isn't compatible with most existing systems", a very true statement. The Linux community is trying to fight this off and I hope it ends up being in vain because I have not heard a truer statement uttered in my entire life.

Just because it runs on every system doesn't mean it is compatible. Who wants to spend hours downloading and configuring drivers through the command line, who wants to spend hours writing scripts to get the operating system to do what you want, who wants to have to use a command line to extract a zip file. Who wants to install almost all programs through a command line. I don't.

Perhaps that statement it isn't compatible with most systems was in error, maybe it should have been something like "most users won't want to put up with it". Besides most people ordering through Dell aren't going to mod the system in any way shape or form, they want an OS that works out of the box, they probably have no idea what a "terminal" is and if asked to do anything involving the command line would look at you like you had lobsters crawling out of your ears.

I hate the command line, if I can do something by using a GUI, even if it takes longer, I will do it that way. I detest command lines. Linux requires you to use them on an almost regular basis, that is why it isn't ready for the desktop, not to mention the poor hardware support.

This is what I expect nay DEMAND of my operating system. All (or most) of the hardware is working right after it is installed. That's not the case for any version of Linux I've had the (dis)pleasure of using. Ubuntu refused to enable native resolution on my monitor because it wanted the ATi drivers, oh wait, those are proprietary, manual install (no I did not bother, command line use required), never mind. Then it would sometimes see my wireless card, sometimes not but ABSOLUTELY refused to connect to a WPA and WPA2 secure WiFi network, changing back to WEP is not an option. Sure, there are workarounds for that but again, require use of scripts, command lines and extracting files and repositories (which is just the dumbest idea ever).

Don't even get started on those so-called "package" managers, they are useless for the drivers and programs I need. Maybe you could argue I have faulty hardware, you COULD, but all of my hardware functions flawlessly under Vista.

Still want to use Linux, didn't think so. Go ahead, try to defend it, you will fail, we are Vista, Resistance is futile.

I don't know what to tell you folks, I'm on the edge of a semi-professional to professional career here and I'm going to nurture that as much as I can. There may not be anything new here for a while, at least until the end of the week, maybe even longer but I figured you would like to know that I am still alive and breathing.

In the meantime check out the latest happenings on Vista.Blorge.com and Tech.Blorge.com. I will see you there.

I have said in the past that the Vista Firewall is no better than the one found in XP. The reason is that it only offers inbound protection by default but no outbound protection, this still allows any malware that may be present on your system to "phone home". Most other third party firewalls will scan for this type of behavior and block it until you explicitly allow or deny network access. The Vista Firewall does not do this and there are no rules to set so it does so, almost everything about it must be set manually, you can do so but I recommend the use of a third party firewall which can scan for behavior rather than relying on a specific list of rules.

Still, you can tweak the Vista firewall to provide more protection. In the Start Menu type wf.msc in the search box and hit Enter. Here you will be able to set outbound filtering rules. It's not exactly straight forward but any program that is on that list will be blocked from sending outbound information. It will most likely not block Trojans, Spyware or other types of malware because those are usually hidden from the system.

I recommend the use of the PC Tools Firewall Plus (freeware) which not only offers inbound and outbound protection for Vista but also listens for suspicious activity and blocks it (the Vista Firewall does not). You have not protected Vista fully just with the addition of a firewall or additional rules so why not read Free Security Software for Vista (go on, you know you want to).

I am now doing posts for Tech.Blorge.com under Vista.Blorge.com so if you want, drop by and see what's going on in the great wide world of Vista. All posts related to Vista will most likely be posted there and only there though links to them may appear on the homepage here. I'm still working out where links will be appropiate so stick with me on this.

I know, our little email logo over there doesn't link to our email address or open your email client. Well, there's a reason for that. About a year ago, we had a huge problem with spam, even with the filters turned on and configured, it was a problem. I don't want to go through that again and I know it's just a pain for everyone out there to actually enter an email address manually (oh! heaven forbid) (<-sarcasm) so I'm not sure what to do about it. If you really had something important to say, I think you would take the time to enter it manually. Well, I'm considering enabling the mail-to link but not until I hear back from a friend of mine. It's a wait and see game and then it just really depends on my mood, will I feel like changing the code, until then, don't be your lazy, normal selves, work for you? It better, because that wasn't a question.

Not only will those not fortunate enough to have a XBOX 360 be able to play Gears of War on their PC "soon" but there is going to be a Gears of War 2 sequel which will probably release on the XBOX 360 first. Which reminds me, I really need to go finish the first one and there is no better time like the present.

Vista users, now is your time to gloat. That is, if you have a DirectX 10 capable graphics card. The screenshots you see below showcase the very same games running under XP with DirectX 9 and under Vista with DirectX 10. Can you tell which is which? If you can't then you are very close to going blind and should seek out an optometrist for an exam.

If the RIAA and CRB have their way there will be no more internet and streaming radio for anyone to listen to. So let's not let them have their way. Remember, these are the same organizations that have sued children, grandparents and people that didn't even own a computer for copyright infringement. It got even worse when those people refused to turn over a computer, well, it's hard to turn something over when you don't even own it. The RIAA and CRB have made it clear that they are going to behave like school yard bullies but working together we can put an end to their tyranny once and for all, Save Net Radio, sign the petition and contact your representatives, we can, we WILL save Net Radio.