Excuse the bad language but the utter, utter a***holes over at “they’re not even worthy of being linked to” 123-reg have done it for the final time.
Them and their lame arse excuse of a website for managing domains and DNS records seemed fine a few years ago when I started using them. But since then, frequent email forwarding issues were just about forgivable but this year has seen some major balls ups in their web services. Premium rate helpline numbers?! DNS changes that just get saved but not implemented, just so they can spam your domain with their own holding page for 24 hours when they do?!

A few searches on the internet reveal many, many similar ‘customers’ from 123-reg who’ve experienced the 123-rage.

Actually, at this point I might blame James Cridland. I am sure it was him who recommended them to me about 6 years ago (I’m sure he wouldn’t now though, he’s quite sensible really).

Anyway, if you got domains from 123-reg then get them out of there! 123-reg will come crashing down on you one day. Start dancing with your domains over to the lovely, helpful, polite and downright decent people at: www.domainmonsters.com.

Oh, and one last thing whilst on this rant - also avoid 1and1.com. Any website service provider who has over *8 pages* of advertising in Computer Arts magazine alone is obviously spending far too much money on advertising and not enough on things like customer service, or “knowing what the f*ck you’re talking about“. They are truly useless and should be avoided at all costs.

There is a really annoying problem with Quicktime H.264 encoded movie playback on some Windows PC’s and the latest Quicktime player.

Whilst enjoying the latest trailer for Batman: The Dark Knight, it finally did my head in and I had to find a fix. So, follow the steps below and you’ll have those crisp blacks with deep colours, instead of that horrible washed out grey.

• Go to Edit/Preferences/Quicktime preferences
• Advanced tab
• Uncheck both:
  • Enable DirectDraw acceleration
  • Enable Direct3D video acceleration
• Restart and enjoy

You could just buy a Mac. Or not use Quicktime.

The time has come to clear out a few things. And one of those things is the Linux Kit for PlayStation 2 which I bought for, what, £200 in 2003?
It was awesome when I first got it - well, at least to look at. A shiny new PS2 with a keyboard and mouse, hooked up to a monitor running Linux. Wow - those were the days, eh? When the PS2 was a mighty new machine capable of anything…? (Heh. Infact, it ran a bit slow and I only ever used the keyboard and mouse).

Not quite. But the Linux Kit has survived 4 years with just a few scratches. So I’ve whacked it on eBay, along with it’s 40Gb HDD, Official PlayStation 2 keyboard and mouse - plus all the other bits that come with it.

If you fancy picking up a little piece of collectable PlayStation history, go for it…

You can find out more about Linux for PlayStation 2 at the official website.

The Optimus Maximus. A keyboard to end all keyboards. It’s already legendary among internet geeks worldwide, many thought it would never be released, many thought it was simply too good to be true. The pant wettingly good original concept was sent around from geek to geek and didn’t take long for it to go viral.

Well - the waiting is almost over (or about to begin, depending on how you look at it). The Optimus Maximus keyboard, with 114 113 fully customisable OLED keys, each capable of displaying images or animations at 96×96 48×48 pixels wide - is available to preorder in just 3 days, 23 hours and 35 minutes and 48 seconds, at the time of posting.
Ok, then: May 20, 2007 at 3 p. m. Moscow time.
It’s going to retail for a hefty $1564 but promises to be, well - the best keyboard in the world.

The included Optimus Configurator software runs on Windows and Mac and allows users to place whatever images they want on whichever keys they like. The current software version is for the Optimus mini. So first up you could change the font very easily, on every key. Or set up profiles for different software, so when you’re making pretty things in Photoshop keys could be individually labelled for shortcuts, all your shortcuts are labelled. The possibilities, are awesome.

If you do place a preorder, don’t expect to receive it too soon though as the first production run is not scheduled until December. Keep an eye on the Optimus Maximus project blog for more details and insight in to the development of the product.

If your budget doesn’t quite stretch to the price of an Optimus Maximus then perhaps head over to the Art. Lebedev Studio Worldwide Store, paybe pick yourself up a decent quality, 5 year lasting eraser.

I’m not normally a fan of even the word ‘DivX’. It’s like some arogant codec that people have to go on and on about when ranting about which codecs some new techy device supports.
But this next titbit bit of news is a definate plus point on the DivX sheet of things done good.

DivX Stage 6 BETA is essentially another YouTube site, only it promises much more than the smelly old YouTube. Offering hugely superior compression technology than Flash, and the ability to upload videos of up to 1080p resolution, it actually has something special to shout about. It also allows you to download videos, which is never a bad thing.
The only minus point is that you have to install the ‘DivX web player’, which isn’t particuarly great considering the Flash Player penetration for video playback is something like 99%. But at least the plugin installs within the browser, and no need for downloading an .exe file with lots of extra software you don’t need. It’s fairly inoffensive.

After checking a few videos, I’m very impressed with the quality, even at full screen most videos remain clear and crisp. If DivX start talking around to get their web player pre installed in various browser versions, the DivX web player could be a contender for Flash video.
So, yes. DivX Stage 6 BETA ftw.

It looks like Ubuntu is now available for PlayStation 3.
Ubuntu is regarded by many as one of the most user-friendly Linux installations, dubbing itself ‘Linux for human beings’. The version available is v7.04, aka Feisty Fawn.
Linux on PlayStation 3 isn’t for everyone, but then if you’ve shelled out £425 for a PlayStation 3, having the ability to use it as a full desktop operating system is a definate bonus.

Previously, I installed Fedora Core 5 on to my PlayStation 3 and was very impressed with the results. I’ll probably be poking around with this latest Ubuntu release at some stage to see how it competes with Fedora.