Brand New Site ( www.wulf-pack.tv )

Here is the new site, after a total take over of www.wulf-pack.net , the new site is up at www.wulf-pack.tv

The new site is done in Flash and we are going to build some live streaming in the gallery section of the site, for our video pod-casts, demo client sites, and completely commented source code in C#, JAVA, PHP and ASP.

I want the user to experience wulf-pack.tv as a fluid and highly GUI experience.

Of course, one can get away with this in Flash, eventually we will put up a splash screen and give the user a choice between a HTML/Javascript page (for the old schoolers, you know who you are) or a full Flash page. Personally I like Flash allot, but I am wary to depend too much on it. While most browsers are fully flash functional I am noticing that many Linux .ISO images don't come with these pre-installed.

Since my new projects are iPhone and gPhone related we are building tutorials for building a iPhone/gPhone SDK and Eclipse image for a linux development .ISO image.

High Expectations For Android

The great battle of the cellphones.   iPhone vs./ Android (gPhone).   This is a big deal for both companies both Apple and Google.   Each company has advantages and disadvantages attached to them.   Slashdot has a great link on the story.

Apple, well, put their iPhone on the market.   Its a slick phone, with touch screen capabilities and a sweet GUI interface.   Actually a nice phone.   But it has some serious fatal flaws attached.

First off, Apple mandates AT&T as the sole service provider, yes the same AT&T that has a monitoring station in San Francisco for the Government ease dropping program.   AT&T mandated the need for social security numbers just to activate one.   In addition to the insane initial price of the phone itself $600, a 2 year minimum contract was required, figure at least $100 a month for 24 months...$2,400 + $600 = $3,000 total.   I call bullshit on that.

Also, initially there was no SDK (Software Development Kit) for the iPhone.   Well, now there is but the insanity of the Non-Disclosure agreement prohibits any other developer from advising or helping further the development of this platform.   Are they serious?!?

The iPhone has been hacked only to be patched to turn the hacked iPhone into a bricked $600 paper weight.

Apple, did some very bone-headed maneuvers with the iPhone, but they have a real phone on the market.   A phone that I have absolutely no desire to have.

Don't get me wrong, I love Apple's products.   I have a PowerBook G4 (PPC) that I have had virtually zero downtime with and a MacBook (Intel) that, aside from a Battery Bug with Leopard that does not charge my battery.   Works very well.

But, even with their newer systems like the Mac Air, altho beautiful, lacks an optical drive and has only one USB port!?!   But I digress, back to the showdown between Apple and Google.

What does Google have to bring to the table?   Well, nothing, but virtually something...the Android platform.   Yeah, they don't have a phone, they have many phones that only need to be Linux compatible.   Google, is smart, they have a actual open OS available to any and all that care enough to develop for it, literally any way they choose.  Hell they even put prize money out to sway developers.

Now, I will be the first to say that Google is not just being altruistic, they are in business to make more money, just like Apple, but the main difference is this they are smarter about how they approach business.  They know enough to give a little to get a little.

Resurrection of the Black Beauty

My Mac is back, and with a full install of Leopard.   I have been laying the foundation of this Uber unit over the weekend and so far, it is working like a charm.

Parallels, was one of the first programs I installed on this beauty, nothing says pie in your face to the Microsoft crowd like having Windows running on a Apple.   I have XP pro corporate running in a Virtual Machine, I gave it 1GIG of virtual ram and about 30GIGs of expanding "virtual" space.

Ubuntu, is a Linux install I wanted to do next.  But I ran into some issues with it, stalling and unable to capture screen resolution correctly.

I discovered this was not a unique problem.   I had to install Ubuntu 7.04 (installing 7.10 has complications).   Its always stupid little things, but thankfully Google saved the day.

Linux is just an OS!

Skills with the Operating System, and how-to with Linux is what is at stake. The penguin certainly has a hold of the hacker community and for all the right reasons. I would say that all things being equal I would think of Lenovo from IBM. Just to be on the safe side for utility. (http://www.lenovo.com/us/en/)

Mac is nice, no doubt, I would certainly love to have their solid-state Mac Air. I am "disappointed" that their is no optical drive, no RJ-45 wired port and no non-proprietary battery.

I am already boycotting Apple's stupid iPhone because of the AT&T arrangement. gPhone is the winner in my book, hands down. A cell phone device, would be the only computer one would need for specialty operations, it runs Linux...nuff said.

Knoppix on a USB

Check this link out. Knoppix on USB thumb-drives are fully bootable and operational computer systems that kick arse. This makes analyzing a new machine easier and less prone to mss-analysis when analyzing code from a compromised operating system on the machine.

Since thumb-drives are nicer than bootable CDs, less cumbersome and re-writable and now have insane memory capacity. I would put this on a 8 gig thumb-drive, 2 gigs for the Operating System (more than what it needs) and 6 gigs for "everything else". I guess I will always carry a CD-R just in case.

We are going to build Android development USBs on Knoppix memory-sticks, with full encryption.

PS3 Price Drop, Cell Hits 45nm

IBM announced that the Cell CPU (used in the PlayStation 3) will soon make the transition to IBM's next-gen 45nm high-k process. 'The 45nm Cell will use about 40 percent less power than its 65nm predecessor, its die area will be reduced by 34 percent.

A practical up shot of this is the greatly reduced power budget that will minimize the amount of active cooling required for the PS/3 console, which in turn will make it cheaper to produce and even more reliable.

Sony's per-unit cost is the reduction in overall die size. A smaller die means a smaller, cheaper package; it also means that yields will be better and that each chip will cost less overall.

I would like this more if they allow PS3/Linux users to access 7 of 8 SPUs instead of only 6.


A price drop would be nice (though when compared to the Xbox360, the PS3 is very competitive), When is the PS3 slim appears, all the pieces will be in place for a slim.

Since Sony has been aggressively shrinking the motherboard in the PS3, and the chip size has dropped from 90nm, to 65nm and now 45nm. All that means less power (smaller PSU) and less heat (less fans & heat-sinks). Smarter design means a better product than its prototypes.

Dan Morrill builds a simple application on Android platform

I just saw Dan Morrill's video on Youtube. He does a fairly good job explaining how-to program a simple application on the gPhone emulator.

Of course, the possibilities are endless, and the portability of J2ME devices would be seamless. Java is the, more intelligent, weapon of choice for this platform and Google has its own classes designed for the gPhone.

I am looking forward to more videos like this, specifically in relation to the OpenGL capabilities with this platform. I am sure some very wicked interfaces can be designed and enhanced upon to give it all the glitz and glamour of the iPhone with the full scale raw power of a Linux based smart phone.

Our Black Beauty, (intel) Mac-Book will be repaired and installed with Leopard ready to commit to some full scale Eclipse development. I would love to explore this for networked gaming possibilities, with the built-in capabilities of the device's GPS (global positioning system).

Google's Andriod

We are going to go into Google's Android development in developing games. It's a very powerful system which includes its own Operating System, middle ware and surface applications. By our understanding this wins hands down over Symbian and Windows CE for the very fact that it is a open-sourced software platform that is capable of being placed on any linux based handset phone and is capable of incorporating the hardware features within the chip set of the phone devices.

This is very cool.

The fact that it is capable of utilizing hardware on the handset it is installed upon gives it great flexibility and capability limited only by the hardware it is on.

The official language is Java, using the Sun compiler, but it can also be developed at the lowest levels in C/C++ giving it added granular flexibility to modify the lowest levels of the Android Operating System.

I would like Python to be used as one of the primary languages to develop this in. With direct access to the graphics acceleration and even low levels of the device (bluetooth, WiFi, etc.) This will make for a power.
One of the more inreging features is the fact that it is capable of OpenGL and

Linux Specific Development

Linux has the highest learning curb, with the biggest level of control over the device. Slackware Linux, Fedora Linux (Redhat), Yellowdog Linux all work off the same kernel, and can offer a plethora of intresting setups for the development enviorment.

Linux does come with all the tools you need, but they are not initially a very user friendly GUI (Graphical User Interface) and IDE (Intergrated Development Enviorment) solution out the gate. Everything is configured through simple text files creating a complex level of simplicity, which unfortunatly to many is still quite complex. If you are comming from windows you may be expecting dropdown menus, checkable boxes, etc. with Linux instead of these easy identifiable menus, one has to memorize a vast array of command-lines and be savvy to the location of configuration files to get things done.

We have Linux Yellowdog installed on our PS/3 unit, but it leaves much to be desired. Without access to the GameOS, we are restricted to the framebuffer to do any thing with graphics.

Sony does not want linux developers writing games for the linux side of the PS/3 and some could argue not even for the GameOS side without a very heavy licensing agreement that can cost thousands of dollars.

Ubuntu Linux

For a change of pace we are exploring Ubuntu, a Linux distribution that has a Mac like quality. Since it has raised such a ruckus we want to see for ourselves.

Ubuntu is, at the time of this writing at version 7. The first time I personally installed it on my friends mini laptop it actually was pretty decent. Audio fired up without a hitch...Video, well was a bit more involved and complicated and required additional downloading and installing of the necessary CODECs because of the DMCA/MPAA bullshit.

Necessary evil, I suppose :/

....not

Linux will be a more influential Operating System without the encumbrance of any "commercial ties" that you have with Windows or even the Mac. With Vista being closed and still security "weak" by our standards and Mac, while still officially closed is close enough to an open-source model of the old standard UNIX/BSD to reference from.

It has more freedoms to do anything you want with it. One of our crew, is doing wonders with X. For a person who hates Graphical User Interfaces, being a line-command junkie its the best Graphical User Interface I have ever seen.

Stay tuned to our reports.