cryptohash.com

That’s right … Gibibytes (GiB), not Gigabytes (GB).

Back when I was at school a Megabyte (MB) was 1,024 Kilobytes (KB) or 1,048,576 Bytes. Well nowadays hardware manufacturers have a different IEEE take on what a Gigabyte is. For users like you and me, a Gigabyte is 1,073,741,824 (1024^3) bytes but for the manufacturer it’s 1,000,000,000 (1000^3) bytes. This means that the Gibibyte (binary) is the new Gigabyte and the Gigabyte is now … metric?

Needless to say I’ve been caught out a few times as to how much data you can actually burn onto DVD-5 and  DVD-9 media without getting the “Not enough free space” message. Burning TrueCrypt data files and WinRAR archives, I wanted to get the file size right when it came time to archive to DVD.

Pretty much most DVD-5 packaging touts 4.7 GB available, but as we well know this is based on the manufacturer’s Gigabyte definition (Base-10), not a computer science based Gibibyte definitions (Base-2). Your standard DVD+R actually ends up with 4.377 GiB (~2,294,800 sectors) and a DVD-R with 4.382 GiB (~2,297,400 sectors) with each sector having 2,048 bytes.

To be on the safe side, I’ve been creating 4.377 GiB archives which will fit on both DVD+R and DVD-R media. This means when I create my files, I’m limited to:

• 4.377 Gigabytes, or
• 4,482 Megabytes, or
• 4,589,617 Kilobytes, or
• 4,699,767,963 Bytes

Now go and burn your downloaded movie library to DVD you crazy kids! :p

Did I mention how cool Borderlands is? I discovered this Mad Max style console game after watching a [very] cool prime time TV advert for it and I’ve never looked back! Weeks of sleepless nights are a testament to this … And now there is downloadable content!?!

Borderlands is a first-person shoot-em-up developed by Gearbox Software for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and released in Australia last year. This console game has done pretty well in the sales department internationally and has gotten some pretty great, though not super-fantastic, reviews. To keep the game play fresh, Gearbox have released some new downloadable content with new quests, items and enemies: The Zombie Island of Dr Ned and Max Moxxi’s Underdome Riot.

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What does “Crypto State” mean?

1. A cryptographic memory state,
2. A secret or select society/region, or …
3. The search for an unobtainable zen-like state.

“Who bloody knows or cares?” … and that’s why I changed my domain name from cryptostate.net to cryptohash.com. I’ve had cryptohash.com for a while now with the intention of putting it to good use, so in the meantime I’ll put it to use here.

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You may not realise it but your computer system is under constant attack from internet entities, prodding and poking your IP address for slithers of information. Everything from downloading your favorite BitTorrent data to browsing websites draws attention from someone on the internet.

Coming to my rescue is PeerBlock, a powerful application with a small installation signature that actively blocks undesirable internet traffic from specific domains or IP address ranges.

PeerBlock regularly downloads updated IP address lists of advertising, nasty spyware, government and anti-piracy organisations. This means that applications or websites trying to contact addresses on these lists will be automatically blocked, stopping harmful data from being downloaded and any valuable information being uploaded (including being able to track you from website to website).

If you are a regular user of BitTorrent clients then this tool in invaluable in deterring unwanted attention from other malicious peers. PeerBlock plays a very important role for users who download pirated copyright material by blocking out anti-P2P traffic from copyright enforcement agencies.

Download PeerBlock for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 from www.peerblock.com

With UFC 110 coming to Australia in February, and a strict “no photo” policy, I had a hunt around on eBay for some “spy” gadgets so I could at least a sneak a few happy snaps.

One of my eBay gems arrived today – The MD80 Spy Camera … Well at least the fake, cheaper version of it. For AU$15 I wasn’t expecting too much from this unit but I was surprised how good the knock-off quality was, both case construction and video capture.

The tiny 1.5″ unit takes a standard MiniSD card (8GB max) and requires a USB connection for charging and accessing recorded AVI movies (720×480). What’s great is that you don’t need to install any third party software or drivers to access the data on you MiniSD card so it really is a portable plug-n-play device.

I got at least 2 hours out of this unit which records 720×480 video @ 30 fps at the click of a button. Check out the quality of the output in this impromptu video.

All I can say about this “spy” camera is pretty convenient and super portable. Stick it in your pocket or gym bag and you can whip it out for cat fights or if you just want to critique your boxing style. Speaking of critique … I’ve been way too lazy over the past 6 months and really need to work on my right hook!

eBay Store: AROS Digital Store Original Manufacturer: AEE