scattered technology news

Firefox Tip: Set Multiple HomePages - Thursday, September 29, 2005

Firefox has the ability to create multiple homepages, becuase of its tabbed browsing ability. If you choose to use this feature, each time you open up Firefox or hit the home button it will load two homepages. One of them in the foreground and one in the background. To do this just go Tools -> Options -> Location(s). In this field enter as many URLs as you wish seperated by a space and a ” | ” in between. (EX: http://google.com | http://yahoo.com so on…). This is a great feature if you have multiple homepages that you like to visit often. Also remeber that choosing too many pages at once will cause the Firefox to take much longer to start up.

Update: Another “easier” method to set multiple homepages is to open up multiple tabs that you would like to use as your homepages. After doing so go to Tools -> Options -> HomePage -> Use Current Pages. This will automatically set all of currently opened tabs as your homepages.

Link: Mozilla Firefox
Related: Mozilla Thunderbird

Recent Posts: Free iPod Nanos | Downgrade PSP v2.0 to v1.5

Downgrade PSP v2.0 to v1.5 - Tuesday, September 27, 2005

After a long awaited time, the a PSP downgrader is finally available! This will allow all PSP owners who have upgraded their PSP to v2.0 to downgrade all the way back to v1.5. (this version will allow using homebrew applications) Also if you have v1.51 or v1.52, you will need to upgrade up to v2.0 and then you will be able to downgrade. If you do downgrade from v2.0 you will always be able to bring back v2.0 by doing the standard update procedure once again.

To downgrade do the following: (read entire post first! notes @ bottom)

• Create the X://PSP/GAME/UPDATE directory if it doesn’t exisit.
• Copy EBOOT.PBP (v1.50) into X://PSP/GAME/UPDATE folder.
• Unzip the PSPdowngrade.zip package and open the folder.
• Copy overflow.tif into X://PSP/PHOTO/ folder.
• Then copy h.bin into the root folder. (X://h.bin)
• Finally copy index.dat into root folder as well (X://index.dat)
• Make sure your AC adaptor is connected.
• In your PSP enter the Photos section, which will launch a little app.
• You will need to wait ~30 seconds and then restart your PSP.
• Then finally Game Menu and launch the v1.5 updater (downgrade).
• Follow instructions and then at 99% an error should popup.
• Thats normal so just restart the PSP and it should show an error.
• Now restart the unit one more time and the PSP should be ready.

Notes: Make sure there are no other Photos other than the overflow image present in the photos folder during this “downgrade” procedure. To restart hold the power button for about 10 seconds once it is off wait 10 seconds and turn it back on. All credit goes to MPH for creating this hack to downgrade PSPs. Please do not use this for illegal purposes (piracy), but use it to use legal homebrew apps and opensource type games. The PSPdowngrade.zip will inculde all of the files required to downgrade your PSP.
Warning: Skatter Tech is only providing information on how to downgrade the PSP. If you PSP does by chance get damaged due to something you tried on this site, we are not going to be responsible so do these at your own risk.

Download: PSPdowngrade.zip
Links: PSP Updates | Toc2rta Wiki
Affilate: HackMyPSP (Plenty of great PSP Hacks!)

UPDATE: RUN HOMEBREW ON PSP v2.60

Upcoming PSP Games for October - Saturday, September 24, 2005

Here is a the offical list of all the games that will be released in October 2005 for the Playstation Portable (PSP). (Note: this is only a list for offical USA games, which has been provided by PlayStation)

• FIFA 06 - Electronic Arts
• Frogger Helmet Chaos - Konami
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Bandai
• Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories - Rockstar
• Gretzky NHL ‘06 - SCEA
• NBA 06 - SCEA
• NBA Live 06 - Electronic Arts
• PoPoLoCrois - Agetec
• SSX on Tour - Electronic Arts
• Star Wars: Battlefront II - LucasArts
• The Con - SCEA
• The Hustle: Detroit Streets - Activision Value
• The Legend of Heroes - Bandai
• Virtual Tennis: World Tour - Sega
• X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse - Activision

The most popular game is expected to be Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stores (10/24/05). Other highly anticipated games are SSX on Tour and StarWars: Battlefront II. Sony has already started to make a list for November 05 and the biggest games will be SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Metal Gear Acid 2, and the Sims 2. Also check back in a few weeks because Skatter Tech is getting access to the BETA edition SOCOM one month earlier than the game is released. So check back for for reviews, pictures, and maybe videos.

NeWs Up^2-DaTe (25) - Friday, September 16, 2005

1) Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 has been released. Some of the changes are proxy crash prevention, hostname hyphen buffer fix, external URL fix, and a few other security fixes. This update mainly fixes minor bugs, which shouldn’t be a major problem for too many users. Firefox v1.5 should be released some time soon and is expected to include some great new features.
Link: Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 | ChangeLog
Related: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6

2) Google WiFi VPN - This new BETA service is meant to help secure browsing data for those who are browsing the web in public areas. This “Secure Access” program will encrypt and push all requested traffic through Google’s servers and send it back. This will keep it safe from others, who may be trying to steal information, but is always going to be logged by Google! This is a great method to protect yourself even though the browsing speeds will be drastically slower.
Link: Google WiFi Secure Access Installer | FAQs
Related: Google Desktop | Google Earth | Google Talk

3) iTunes 5.0.1 has been released only a few days after 5.0 was launched. There were apparently many minor bugs in the program that could cause some users problems. Most people probably didn’t experience any problems, but everyone should update to prevent facing problems in the future. You may update directly from the iTunes program (Help -> Check 4 Update…), or follow the link below.
Link: Apple iTunes v5.0.1
Related: Apple QuickTime 7

4) Dell DJ Ditty launched to compete with the Apple iPod Shuffle. This unit is available in 512MB, but will also be avaliable in 1GB later. The “Ditty” is Microsoft Play4Sure DRM enabled, which will allow transfering music between any Windows subscribtion services. This Mp3 player also has a small monochrome screen for viewing song name, artist, album, and other details. Another feature the Ditty has that the iPod Shuffle doesn’t is a FM tuner. (The Ditty is currently priced at $99, which is same as the 512MB shuffle)
Link: BetaNews | Dell.com
Related: iPod Shuffle | (Free iPod Shuffle)

5) LG VX8900 to hit Verizon Wireless stores soon! - This phone is a smart-phone style, which flips open. The internal LCD is 320×256 pixels and the external LCD is 160×128 pixels. The phone also has EV-DO, Bluetooth, Stereo Speakers, Speakerphone, 1.3 megapixel camera w/ Flash, and a miniSD card slot. The phone will also work as an Mp3 player and includes vCast, which will allowing watching news, weather reports, sport clips, trailers and more. The phone will go on sale September 26th, 2005 for about $299.99 without any contracts. This is probably going to be one of Verizon’s best phone yet!
Link: PhoneScoop | Engadget (more photos)

More:
iPod Cemetary - all previous iPods [Engadget]
Steve Jobs says NO to iTunes price increase - Yahoo!
High Resolution Satellite Image of Hurricane Rita - MODIS
3 New Apple Stores Opened - TUAW
USA 2 go 2 Moon in 1018 for $100 Billion - MSNBC

->Media>>
CommandN #15
DiggNation #12
subSystm #1 (iPod Nano)
Systm #4 - Podcasting (soon…)
TWiT #23
FromTheShadows #6 (soon…)

eBay buys Skype for $2.6 Billion - Monday, September 12, 2005

Today, September 12, 2005, eBay purchased Skype Technologies for about $2.6 billion cash and stock ($1.3 billion cash & 32.4 million eBay shares). Skype currently provides free PC 2 PC VoIP (and paid versions PC 2 Phone or Phone 2 PC). eBay is an online auction website where people can buy and sell anything digitally. Skype had already made a partnership with PayPal (for payments), which is already owned by eBay. eBay’s goal is to use Skype’s services to allow their customers to have the power to sell, buy, pay, and communicate easily. Skype offers features such as digital voicemail, instant messaging, call forwarding and conference calling, which has attracted over 54 million users from over 200 countries (Works on multiple OSs and is available in 27 languages). Skype is currently growing at a rate of 150,000 users a DAY! Skype will allow eBay’s buyers and sellers to communicate quickly and easily.

Link: Skype | eBay
Coverage: BetaNews | DownloadSquad | Engadget | Gizmodo | LifeHacker | Slashdot
Recent Posts: Free iPod Nano | Apple’s Big Announcements
Note: More posts, deals, news, hacks, and tutorials are on their way!

Free iPod Nanos - Thursday, September 8, 2005

The creators of freeipods.com, freeipodshuffle.com, freepsps.com, and free360xbox.com have done it again! The company FreePay, formerly known as Gratis Network, has just launched a Free iPod Nano site. (ipodnanos.freepay.com) After completing your own offer and refering a few others you will recieve a “Free” 4GB iPod Nano in a color of your choice. Available in either Black or White. (P.S. This site is for real and is not some sort of scam, I got a free PSP from them a few months ago. - link)

Specs:

• Holds about 1,000 Songs
• Only 3.5″ x 1.6″ x 0.27″ & 1.5 ounces
• 1.5-inch color LCD
• 14 hours of battery life
• Charge and Sync via USB
• MacOS X & WinXP Compatible
• Click Here for more info…

Please signup to the Free iPod Nano site through the link provided below. Then post a comment with your email, your refferal link, and your name. Please make sure you include all of these. Once each person gets a few refferals then the next link will replace the link at the top. Hope this works! Note: Spamming the comments with multiple links to random “free sites” will not be allows & abusing IPs will be banned. Also trying to use this site without signing up from links provided will not be allowed.

Link: iPod Nano (NEW) | Free iPod Nano Refferal Link
Related: iPod Nano & iTunes Moto ROKR & More…
How It Works: FreePay (aka Gratis Network)

Update: (09.13.05) Skatter Tech is now Google’s #1 result for Free iPod Nano Conga!
Note: If you do not provide your email and refferal link in the comments I will not be able to bring you to the top of the list because I won’t be able to identify you! Also please don’t wait for someone to complete an offer for you first, if you do wait then it will take you a LONG time to make it to the top of the list!
Note: Doing an offer will move you above all others even if they commented before you! Also please post links to this page everywhere you can to help yourself and others get Free iPod Nanos faster.

vishwakasi@gmail.com: http://ipodnanos.freepay.com/?r=27354335
^^^ Please sign up using the highlighted link above. ^^^

iPod Nano & iTunes Moto ROKR & More… - Wednesday, September 7, 2005

Today 09/07/05, Apple released a few new products. The first most important product is the iPod Nano. The Nano is a flash based iPod which comes in both 2GB and 4GB, which are meant to replace the iPod Mini product line. It has about 14hrs of battery life and looks very similar to a regular iPod. It also has a color screen (1.4″) and consists of similar features that the iPod Photo has. The unit is only 1.6w”x3.5h”x.27d”, it has standard iPod controls except that the headphones are on the bottom of the unit, which is available in both black and white. This new iPod also is worn differently that the classic iPods, the headset is plugged into the bottom of the unit, which goes around the back of your neck and then into your ears. Some other new features included in the software are a stopwatch, a new analog and digital clock, alarm and sleep timer, and screen-lock.

The second product the released today was the Motorola iTunes compatible phone (ROKR E1). This phone can be purchased for use on Cingular’s network. The phone it self has enough memory to hold about 100 songs, which are transferred via USB. The phone itself supports taking pictures, videos, and has stereo speakers for playing music out loud. (has regular headphones as well) If you receive a call, the song you are on will automatically pause and allow you to answer the call. It has bluetooth headset support, 9hrs of talk-time, and weighs 3.77 ounces. It includes plenty of other features and can currently be purchased for $249 w/ a 2-year contract.

Apple is also expanding in other markets. They made a deal with Acura, Audi, Honda and Volkswagen to have iPod integration in all 2006 cars. Some of these cars will support using voice commands to control, browse, and search through your music. Apple estimates that over 30% of cars that will be sold in the U.S. by the end of 2006 will have iPod support. Apple has already made deals with other car high-end car companies such as BWM. (BWMs currently support controlling iPods through the steering wheel.)

Apple also released iTunes v5.0 (Mac & Win) and the Windows version of Quicktime v7.0. after three public previews. (Mac version released a few months ago.) Win QuickTime v7.0 now allows playing the H.264 codec, which provides view high quality videos at a high compression rate. iTunes 5 got a new theme, minor layout changes, smart shuffle, outlook sync, playlists, new search tool, and many more features. (P.S. There isn’t going to be a Video iPod coming out anytime soon!)

Link: iPod Nano | Moto ROKR | iTunes 5 | QuickTime 7
Related: iPod | iPod Shuffle |
Coverage: Apple Keynote (Steve Jobs) | iPod Nano VR
-BetaNews: Moto ROKR | iPod Nano | iPods + Cars
-Engadget: iPod Nano | Moto ROKR | ROKR vs. Mini
-Others: DownloadSquad | Slashdot

NeWs Up^2-DaTe (24) - Sunday, September 4, 2005

1) ShrinkTo5 is a new opensource DVD Ripper. It is very similar to DvdShrink and DvdDecrypter, which are both great freeware programs, that have unfortunatley been discontinued due to legal issues. It currently is only supported on Windows, but a Linux version should be released soon. Nero also supports ripping and buring, but only for non-copyright protected DVDs.
Link: ShrinkTo5 | DvdShrink | DvdDecrypter

2) Gizmo Project reaches v1.0 - a free VoIP client that runs on windows, mac, and linux. It is one of Skype’s main compeditors. MSN, Yahoo, and Google (gtalk) all provide free VoIP for PC 2 PC calls in the latest versions of their messenger clients.
Link: Gizmo | Skype | MSN | Yahoo | Gtalk
Software-Updates: Skype v1.3.066 | MSN v7.5 | Yahoo! v7.0 | Gtalk v1.0.0.66
Related: MSN updated v7.0 to v7.5, which is the exactly same client and consists of all the same features, except for the fact that the voice chat feature is actually pure VoIP now!

3) Gmail allows connecting multiple Gmails accounts together - Just go to settings -> accounts -> add another email. By entering another email address into this field, it will allow you to send a message from this email address from the “From:” field in the Compose mode. (Note: if you have multiple accounts just fordward all messages to one account and you will still be able to send messages from multiple emails without needing to log into each one.)
Link: Gmail | Lifehacker | DownloadSquad

4) New Line Home Entertainment (as well as other major producers) is going to start to produce new movies in the UMD format for the PSP. The first six that will be released are: Elf, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Butterfly Effect, Freddy vs. Jason, Blade, and Second Hand Lions. All will released on October 4, 2005 for ~$19.99. Other major producers have already agreed to sell their movies in the PSP format and expect to see as many more PSP movies soon.
Link: Kotaku | PSP411 (Movie List)

5) Google Earth v3.0.0548 Beta has been released as well as Google Talk v1.0.0.66. Both are very minor updates, but if you have free time you may wish to try it out. Google Earth has fixed the overview window, graphics driver crash fix, KMZ/KML association fix, custom icons, balloon size, hyperlink error fix and more. Google Talk has only fixed some minor crash bugs and also some protocol errors that prevent making calls.
Link: Google Earth (digg) | Google Talk

Media Updates:
TWiT: 20 | 21
CommandN: 12 | 13
DiggNation: 9 | 10

(P.S. Thanks HackMyPSP for linking to the PSP Multiplayer Hack Video)

Note: “iPod Nano” information should be released soon! Keep checking back for more info as it is revealed. The current launch date for the iTunes phone and new iPods is 09/07/05!