Well, if you are a regular to the website, you would have noticed a nice little message about hardware failure yesterday.  Well, it's true, it seems that the website managed to kill my old server.  Luckily I have lots of PC components hanging around my garage, so I was able to build and redeploy the server, all within about 2 hours, which I thought was quite speedy.  Because I have a brand new server, running a brand new OS, this site will be very slow tonight (Tuesday) as it will be performing maintenance for the first time, and updating the machine.  As you can see, everything has been preserved with the  website, as I had been making hourly backups, which was quite helpful.

You can tell me how amazing games are like Gears of War, and Halo, etc.  But games these days are nowhere near as good as this one.  In fact, there is no such game as good as this one (sorry Final Fantasy 7 fanboys, but this was so much more advanced in every way).  I got Zelda the Ocarina of Time the Christmas it came out (back in those days, it was one game at Christmas, and that was it until next Christmas).  Some of my favourite memories are in this game, and I can remember how upset I was when I finished it.  I just wanted the story and the adventure to continue, and I also didn't want to wait another year for another game.

I have decided to relive those memories (mainly thanks to the redone Zelda album) and play through Zelda again (unless newer games have made me a pussie and I can't do it anymore).  I will track my progress through the Media Gallery, and have already added some photos there if you want to keep track of my progress.  I will add screenshots to the Zelda Ocarina gallery as I go through the game, so check back often, or subscribe to the galleries RSS feed.

Wish me luck!  It will take a while, especially because of Uni now taking most of my time, but I will conquer this game again!

http://ttgale.com/mediagallery/album.php?aid=2&page=1  - This is the Gallery

Woot, I managed, after many hours of hacking, to get Mac OS X on my HP DV2040tx.  Everything seems to be working nicely, except for the wireless, but that seems to be a particular problem with the Intel 3945 wireless card.  The main problem I had was that nobody else seemed to have managed to get OS X working on the DV2040tx, so everything was trial and error.  Here is what I managed to do to get things working in the end:

I used Iatkos v7.1 (I do actually own a retail copy of leopard and snow leopard).
- My kernel I used was the 9.5.0 (the 9.7.0 seemed to give me kernel panics)
- Because of the Nvidia Geforce Go 7200, I used the NVInjectGo 0.2.0 Default (gives me hardware accelerated Quartz extreme, etc)
- I selected the Intel Pro 100 VE Wired Ethernet driver (have to use the -f flag everytime you boot though).  Made it a little easier and modified my Boot.plist to include the "-f" every time the machine boots, so I don't have to.
- I did not choose any Wireless drivers, as they haven't ever worked, going to look for a usb wireless now.
- I left the sound blank too, as after I finished the install I used the AzaliaAudio.pkg which did the install and the sound now works.
- I used the Intel SATA/IDE chipset drivers.

Everything seems to be working quite well, so I am now happy I have a Hackintosh.  Check out my screenhot below:

 I am the tech support for my family, so I do a lot of installing of Windows on pc's.  Here is a nice little list of must have freeware programs for your new Windows install!

Mozilla Firefox:
Need I say more, simply the best browser out there.  It may not be the fastest, but it certainly has the goods when it comes to extensions, and website support.  Mozilla made alternative browsers popular.
Alternative: Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Opera
Link: http://mozilla.com

Avast Free Anti-Virus:
You simply are stupid if you don't install anti-virus on a Windows system.  Simply put, Avast will give you decent protection against those millions of Windows viruses, and best of all, it does it for free!  I like Avast because it is light on system resources, and doesn't have that nasty link scanner that AVG has (it really is a server killer that technology).
Alternatives: AVG Free, Panda Cloud, Avira, ClamWin
Link:http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download

OpenOffice.org:
I still don't understand why people even bother using Microsoft Office.  MS Office always seems to release new versions that alienate it's older versions of document formats.  What does that mean for the average user?  Well, it means if you write something now in MS Office, there is no guarantee that it will work in a few years.  We have already seen it happen a few times before.  OpenOffice will open and modify those MS Office files, as well as save documents in the Open Document Format that guarantees future compatibility.  OpenOffice also opens older MS Office documents better than current versions of MS Office.
Alternatives: AbiWord
Link: http://openoffice.org

Izarc:
Izarc is a nice Winrar clone, and it's free.  I use Izarc over 7zip because I feel that it has better dialogues in Windows, and has an easier to use interface.  It pretty much opens every type of compressed file out there, even ISO's.  Best yet, it's a small unobtrusive program.
Alternatives: 7zip
Link: http://izarc.org

The Gimp:
The Gimp certainly isn't the easiest to use program, but it has the goods when it comes to power and features.  Gimp is basically a photoshop replacement, and will allow you to edit photos, and even make other digital imaging stuff.  It is a little resource hog, but the feature set alone will ensure that whatever you need, the Gimp can do it.
Alternatives: Paint.net
Link: http://gimp.org

Pidgin:
A nice Windows messenger replacement.  It supports other formats too, such as Yahoo chat, Facebook, and other popular chat protocols such as Jabber.  It doesn't present any ads, such as Windows Messenger, and is not susceptible to MSN viruses (which is a very common thing).  
Alternatives: Digsby, Miranda IM, Trillian
Link: http://pidgin.im

VLC:
If you want to play pretty much ANY movie/music format out there, VLC seems to do the trick.  You don't have to worry about codec installations, VLC just works out of the box.  It has a fairly complicated interface for newbies, but double click any file, and VLC will play it.
Alternatives: no such thing
Link: http://videolan.org/vlc/

Songbird:
A great Windows Media Player/I-Tunes replacement.  Built on Mozilla technology, Songbird is the next step in the evolution of media players.  It now supports CD-Ripping, so there is almost no excuse not to use this program.
Alternatives: I-Tunes, Winamp, Foobar2000
Link: http://getsongbird.com

The title is basically geek talk for: "I am looking to buy a sound card for my PC".  I am looking to replace my onboard audio (RealteK HD 7.1 Audio) with something a little beefier (such as an Asus Xonar).  Here is what I need:
- Card needs to use PCI-Express 1x slot
- Card must not be X-Fi, because I am running an Nforce Mobo, and they are too buggy on these.
- I am looking at spending anywhere between AUD $100-$200
- I love to game!

If anyone has any suggestions, please send them through to me!