PROHACK - 5 new articles

In This Issue... Motherboard woes - Help me folks Tekken 6 – An honest review Google Spanner – A better Google Microsoft addon blocked by Firefox Diwali Celebrations and Home coming More Recent Articles Search PROHACK

Hi Folks..Sorry for a late post but I m very sorry to inform that My Motherboard (an Intel original D945GNT) has gone kaput and I m unable to post any articles any further until I get a new one.As usual I m on a hunt for a budget board (as cheap as possible,which will be able to give full bang for my buck) cuz I m low on moolah this month,I will be posting a full review on the board which I will select.
Also,You too can help me hunt for a new motherboard.

What I want is (or in formal language the specifications are :P ) -

• Must be compatible with Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz HT pinless processor 530/630 (I have this processor now..and I m not willing to sell it :] )
  
• Must support atleast Core2Duo processor (who knows I might need to upgrade :P).
  
• Must contain Onboard graphics support (Nvidia/ATI preferred).
• Must be in this range Rs /- 2700-3800 (4000 INR if exceptionally good).

You can comment or mail me at my email id - luckyelites@gmail.com

Thanks a lot friends.

Stay gold

-XERO

Tekken has maintained its popularity since its advent without the need to reinvent itself.Its a game that speaks for itself.Well..The wait is over..Tekken 6 was released yesterday with all pomp and show and soon all the gaming press will flock on to review it.In the mean time I got my hands on a PS3 import and I decided to get my hands dirty and write an honest review about it...

Graphics - 8/10
If Tekken has one thing,its style which gives the game a distinct look and feel that forces the series to move to its roots without the need of reinventing itself.The game efficiently makes us gawk at the motion comic recaps in the story mode and  impressively rendered CGI sequences in the opening and ending movies..Tekken sports next-gen graphics engine under its hood and the game ran smoothly with no frame drops at all.

The visuals are amazing and aesthetic,however I felt cheated when I felt that the character animations are recycled a bit which nevertheless are animated very well..The scenario campaign mode looks dated and I felt if I was duking out Godhand with a bit of updated graphics. Also some background sported stupid background scrolling which made me think if the stage was really moving..Overall its a huge upgrade of Tekken 5 on graphics front but there are some things which need to be reconsidered.Perhaps an expansion might sort it out.

Sound – 9/10

The music in Tekken 6 sets the overall mood for the fighting.The middle eastern,western,jazz and electronic;all are mingled very well to produce an awesome aural experience. the opening track and the CGI music is very well done.There is a certain series staple ‘thump’ sound associated with the hits which gives hitting someone in face an experience worthwhile.The tunes are catchy and I was forced to stop the match and to listen to the background music at times.Over all its well done.

Design - 8.5/10

Tekken 6 sets fan expectations quite high with the long development time and all the hype its associated with.The sequel boasts 40 characters to choose from and the ability to play online,the series has done its bit to remain competitive.In the standard offline mode,the game offers staple Practice Mode,the Story Mode in which you will battle and overtly powerful final boss Azazel,the ghost mashups that lets you battle AI opponents which simulate real world characters quite well and provide you a decent competition,the Time Attack and the Survival which will test your efficiency and record your personal best.With a second human player on side (as it happened with me) you can get into some serious vs battles.

The Online play at the time of launch was quite poor with serious lag affecting the gameplay,as the strict timing needed for competitive gameplay is severely compromised and in some cases lag makes the game completely unplayable.The online mode also lets you download ghost data for your personal use and for your ranked and unranked matches.

The game includes a scenario campaign mode that's an entirely a different game altogether,like the Tekken Force mode in the original Tekken 3 but the incompetent camera and the bad implementation of moveset in the campaign can make your experience sour.

Gameplay – 9/10

Tekken embraces both the newcomers and the series veterans with open arms and you will have plenty of fun all together as long as you will be matching up against opponents of your level.The 4 button fighting scheme may seem deceptively intuitive to the players,but it needs skill and the right timing to keep the attacks flowing and be in the groove.Mixing up the throws,the high and low attacks,sidestepping all gives you a tactical advantage against the opponent,but simply mashing up buttons and hoping for the best is fun too. The game heavily emphasizes combos for massive damage and puts emphasis on bounding moves,which means to slam opponents on the ground and then attack using appropriate moves at specific time to keep the low juggle going on.

The matches move on too quickly and the game features a rage system which means the game gives player a last boost of attack power when his health is low to change the face of match.The game has a 3d fighting experience of its own and overall its just another Tekken at heart.

 

Last word

Like MGS4,Tekken 6 is a love it or hate it type of game.When you will fire it up,you will probably already know how it

will strike you and the series has already maintained a good following for good reasons.In the end,even if the extras provided are not worth in gold,they still add a good value to the overall package.Tekken 6 is just Tekken 6 nothing more,nothing less.

Final Score – 34.5/40

 

 

POSTED BY XERO . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

A recent presentation confirmed the existence of the proprietary distributed technology that will automatically move and replicate the load between Google’s mega data centers when traffic and hardware issues arise. Perhaps this was  done to counter the issues of lagtime when Gmail was down..who knows? The platform is known as Spanner.

Google fellow Jeff Dean hinted about Spanner in the classic Google manner during a conference this summer and has now confirmed its existence in a presentation (PDF) delivered at a symposium earlier this month. .Dean’s presentation calls it a “storage and computation system that spans all our data centers [and that] automatically moves and adds replicas of data and computation based on constraints and usage patterns.” This includes issues and constraints related to bandwidth, packet loss, power, resources, and “failure modes”.

Google is intent on scaling Spanner to between one million and 10 million servers, encompassing 10 trillion (1013) directories and a quintillion (1018) bytes of storage. And all this would be spread across “100s to 1000s” of locations around the world.

Thats a hell lot of data and power granted to a single corporation which will be housing an exabyte of the world's data across thousands of custom-built data centers.

Lets see how this unfolds..

 

POSTED BY XERO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.Source

Last Friday Mozilla blocked one of Microsoft’s sneaky addons that put end user security at stake.The addon,dubbed as ".NET Framework Assistant" and a plug-in named "Windows Presentation Foundation" -- have been blocked by Mozilla  as a precautionary measure, said Mike Shaver, the company's head of engineering.These addons installed without any permission and may be manipulated by malicious users to code their way into the browser and infiltrate the system(Who knows a botnet may be well under a way..anyway?),even their Internet Explorer 8 had the same built in flaw.The addon was notable for its annoying removal and had been infiltrating firefox since Microsoft pushed them out with the .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1) update in February this year.Until or unless some registry hacking was employed,this addon was impossible to remove entirely.As the folks at Mozilla cant fix the software,the safest way they can go on with was to block it,which they already did on Friday.

Later Microsoft released a patch which will counter the vulnerability,you can download it here.

Mozilla have been aggressive for the security for their users and have been making sure that 3rd party addons are secure and will enforce it more effectively with the release of Firefox 3.6 (Beta slated to be released on wednesday) which will actively notify user when they will visit a site which relies on vulnerable and outdated addons.

 

POSTED BY XERO . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Friends..The festival of light is knocking as usual and its time for some grand celebrations at home.I will be leaving today for Ambala, leaving my room and my beloved mean machine and all of techs to have some peace and to light some crackers :P . Diwali holds some of the most special moments for me in my life,and symbolises the victory of Good over Evil as in mythology,and some old grand reunions of friends at our favorite hangouts.Its been some time when since I have had a vacation..I will be getting back into old streets of Ambala,decorate my home till it shines the most (literally),light diya’s, feast on sweets and play pranks on my friends..
May this Diwali bring endless pleasure,happiness and peace to all of you and may it rejuvenate all of us to live life like it is meant to be.
A very Happy Diwali once again.
I will be back on Monday and will resume to my daily caricature of technology.

I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do..
Cheers

Rishabh Dangwal

POSTED BY XERO . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.