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.

Quite a few people are posting about this article at the moment. But it’s so good I thought I’d post it too. It answers that all important question:
How many megapixels equivalent does the eye have?

Skip to the end… 576 megapixels..

Not bad by any means.

I spent around 5 hours over the weekend installing Fedora Core 5 Linux on my PlayStation 3.

After getting myself a 120gb Fujitsu HDD from OverClockers.co.uk, I made a 10Gb partition for the ‘second OS’, and set about the installation process. It would’ve been quicker if I hadn’t downloaded the wrong 3.4Gb file first, oops. But once I had the v5 torrent it took 2 hours to download and about 2 and a half hours to install.

For a free operating system, it’s great. Looks a bit too bit on my 42” Sharp 1080p LCD but still. Fedora Core 5 and the PlayStation 3 add on disk that it comes with give you a desktop operating system that has everything you need out of the box, including: full Open Office applications, A few web browsers including FireFox 1.5 (upgradeable to 2.0), Mail clients, IRC clients, Graphics applications, Photo Applications, DVD/CD players plus a multitude of server and database applications and a whole load more. Basically, everything you’d need.

I mostly installed it out of curiosity but now curiosity is driving me to investigate upgrading to Fedora Core 6 and installing Beryl. Which is very pretty indeed.

Update: Ok. So I upgraded to Fedora Core 6 before learning that Beryl won’t run on it. Doh. That was a waste of time…

My Sony Ericsson k800i started playing up recently. A known bug with the Firmware, when trying to use applications it would simply say ‘Unavailable’ or something like that. Anyway, rather than send it to Orange for repair I thought I’d investigate fixing it myself. And well, I did. I was so pleased I thought it worth sharing with fellow owners of the phone:

1. Go to www.wotanserver.com and buy some account credit
2. Download the Wotan Client
3. Follow these instructions, they’re fairly simple

Once you’ve done that, your phone will have the original firmware it was meant to have. It’ll even have a software update option to upgrade the firmware directly from Sony Ericsson, as and when updates become available.

Oh, and download MyPhone Explorer from the MyPhone site. I can honestly say it is the most awesome software I’ve had for a phone. It lets you back up your text messages! (for me, this is a novelty having never investigated before).
Thoroughly recommended anyway.

Also recommended are the following applications: Google Mail Mobile (go to: www.gmail.com/app on your phone), Google Maps Mobile (go to www.google.com/gmm on your phone) and Opera Mini (go to: operamini.com on your phone).