GeekwithEnvy

Richard Vincenti Jr

GoDaddy Deals with Major Outage

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GoDaddy, a domain registrar and Web Hosting group, had a major outage today that started earlier this morning. The outages actually impacted this website (geekwithenvy.com) along with millions of others for nearly 7 + hours leaving visitors unable to access any content. Internal email with Godaddy was also severely impacted. Even as recently as 8:16PM PST GoDaddy is still trying to correct major issues.

A member of the hacktivist group Anonymous claimed responsibility of outage. While there is speculation the attack was due to GoDaddy’s stance on (“SOPA”) Stop Online Piracy Act, a Twitter user claiming to be a part of the Anonymous collective, AnonymousOwn3r said: “I’m not anti go daddy, you guys will [understand] because i did this attack .”

“I’m taking GoDaddy down [because] well i’d like to test how the cyber-security is safe and for more reasons that i can not talk now.”

This impacted businesses around the globe including our site (GWE). This has us any many others strongly considering going with other hosting and domain registrar service firms as it points to a major oversight in security. Among other controversial issues with GoDaddy this may be the biggest impact to the company yet.

GoDaddy has since stated that they were not hacked but rather, suffered an major internal issue. I understand that many web hosting services have their issues, but GoDaddy seems to more than most including the inability to fix ongoing server issues. I hope that GoDaddy can refocus and tighten up their company practices and correct major internal issues.

If we do decide to change our hosting platform it will not be an overnight transition, it could become a lengthy process. We will keep you informed on everything that unfolds over the next few weeks. Those of you who support our  growing site are GREATLY appreciated, your comments,contributions,emails,likes, and tweets are what drive us forward.

Thank  You.

 

 

Steam Gets Ready for Big Picture Beta

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SteamLogoWebValve will soon begin public testing this week of “Big Picture”, a new mode that will optimize Steam for you HDTV.  Big Picture mode will offer support for controllers making feel more like your PC is in console mode, which will be nice when playing on your television.

This is something that Steam customers have been asking for for quite some time and I can understand why. It’s not impossible to get things up and running on your HDTV now, but it can be a bit time consuming getting everything to work the way you want, especially the first time you set everything up.

Making sure your audio system is hooked up right and ensuring your surround sound is actually working properly, checking refresh rates and changing screen resolutions, and having to work with different input devices to navigate, swap, and play games can get a bit tedious. Big Picture mode should smooth all of this out and make it easier to bring your power house gaming rig to your HDTV with ease. At least we hope so, as this is only going to be a beta release. I would gladly try it out and provide feedback as I think this is actually a really cool idea.

The crew at Valve are constantly hard at work trying to improve their existing products as well as looking into the future and trying to capture and create the next big ideas for gaming. This is one of my favorite companies to watch just for those reasons alone.

 

Kindle Fire HD

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Amazon has recently shown off their new kindle fire HD which will be available in three different models. There is a 8.9″ model with 4G capabilities, an 8.9″ model with out 4G, and a new 7″ model. The new lineup features faster processors and higher resolution screens. The 8.9″ model has a 1920×1200 HD display and a 1.5Ghz dual core CPU. The 7″ model offers up a max resolution of 1280×800 and a 1.2 GHz dual core CPU.  All models utilize anti-glare technology and dual-band Wi-Fi antennas. Amazon notes that dual-band antennas are not being used in other tablets and that it increases download speed by 40%.

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The Kindle Fire HD will also feature a PowerVR 3D graphics core that promises to keep HD games looking great and running smooth. The 7″ and the 8.9″ Wi-Fi only model will be available with two different storage sizes, 16GB and 32GB. The 8.9″ 4G model will be available in 32GB and 64GB.

Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ 4G owners will be able to get 250MB per month for 12 months for a one time payment of $49.99. This will also include 20GB of Cloud Drive storage. Here is the price line up for Amazon’s new hardware:

Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ 4G LTE Wireless 32GB $499 64GB $599.
Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ Wi-Fi only 16GB $299 32GB $369.
Kindle Fire HD 7″ 16GB $199 32GB $249.

I think that overall this is a really nice tablet but what really makes this stand out from the crowd is the Amazon brand it self. Amazon is a brand that people trust and with the added benefits of an Amazon Prime membership, going with Kindle seems smart. It is also important to note that Amazon remains very dedicated to the Kindle as it is really Amazons primary focus and hardware counter part of it’s successful online business.

Here is the Amazon press conference about the new product line up from Amazon.

Hints That Steam May Soon Be On Linux

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Earlier today, PCGamesN was looking around in the Steam Content Description Record Database and found an entry for a Linux based beta of the Steam client. Entries in this database usually become live projects shortly after being posted. This is creating a lot of buzz in the gaming community and would be a big step forward for Linux gaming.Tux from Linux

This would be pretty amazing and it gets me thinking about Linux, and I have to say that I personally use Linux from time to time but it is not my preferred OS. I have a pretty good understanding of the environment and can manipulate pretty much anything I want or need to. I have used Kdevelop to write applications have spent hours tweaking things and playing around but I can’t seem to move completely over to a Linux based OS no matter what distro I try out.

There it is, the problem is exactly what I just mentioned, I personally believe that there needs to be a greater unification of Linux distributions in order to really streamline and push the platform into the main stream . I am by no means saying that we should just demolish all the current flavors of Linux, just offer one version that’s massively supported and I think it will improve the Linux environment in it’s entirety. The bottom line is greater Linux support needs to happen, we need another strong competitor in the OS market and I think it’s time to push Linux harder than we ever have before.

With touch support and solid performance numbers, there is really no reason why Linux can’t have a greater presence in today’s mobile and gaming world. Android has been very successful and it’s a Linux based OS. In a world where Apple seems unshakable, Android is a pretty good measurement  of success and shows the possibilities of Linux. Video game developers have done some testing on Linux and have actually found that there are some pretty strong performance gains when running on Linux based machines. Even hardcore Linux users must admit that having more support would be nice and that no matter what happens on the front lines, there could always be a smaller niche distro that they could stick to if they don’t like the direction of the newly unified OS.

I have to stop and ask myself there are any possible negative impacts that could arise from an unification effort and mainly I see issues with an open platform becoming less open and seeing what makes Linux unique start to become a bit watered down. With any rise in popularity you can also see a rise in malware to go with it, as malware developers target operating systems that are likely to affect a larger audience.

Either way I am excited to see where this goes and will be keeping an eye on this projects progress.

The official entry in the Content Record Database can be found here.

 

Mount Fuji May Erupt Soon

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Japanese scientists caution that the magma chamber of Mount Fuji has already surpassed the the pressure that caused caused the massive volcano to erupt over 300 years ago in 1707. The pressure needed to trigger an eruption is only 0.1 megapascals and the current pressure has been around 1.6 mega-pascals. The earthquake that caused the recent tsunami is said to have increased the pressure on the magma chamber of mount Fuji quite a bit and any tectonic shifts will continue to increase the likelihood of a massive eruption.Mt Fuji

Mount Fuji is sitting on a fault line that if an earthquake were to occur, would surely bring about an eruption.If mount Fuji were to erupt, it would be catastrophic and result in the loss of many lives and an economic cost of up to $31 billion.

Scientists will be keeping a close eye on the volcano by monitoring seismic data and looking for visual cues like stream and gas emitting from the volcano. Mount Fuji is over 12,000 feet high and is known as an active stratovolcano which sits about 60 miles south west of Tokyo.

It has been long speculated that the volcano would soon erupt but even with the best of technology, it’s just too hard to predict. With hundreds of thousands at risk, it brings to light the importance of research in this field. Let us not forget the super volcanoes that lay quietly among us. These super volcanoes will have a massive global impact, so understanding Earth’s geological processes is extremely important.  It is also crucial to exercise evacuation plans and prepare the public in case of an major eruption to reduce the loss of life.