Fury Of The Furries...

2011's Nostalgia to me is that the game called Fury Of The Furries.

In "Fury Of The Furries", player assumes the control of a furry bouncy small ball creatures (LOL ?!). There were 4 types of this creatures, one with hadooken, one with the ability to swim (actually dive I think), one is like Spider-Man, and one can eat rocks. The game design consisted of puzzle oriented levels that we lose one ability and get another to do some tasks in order to reach the next level.

It was a brilliant puzzle platformer. "Why did I remember this game out of all others?" is a good question. Because I think, it would be an awesome port to smartphones such as Windows Phone or Android and stuff... Many games which are puzzle platformers on those appmarkets are so repetitive after some levels. This game was not! Since the developers and publishers port whatever they find these days, In my opinion this would be a really nice choice.

From Wikipedia I found out that the publisher and the developer is Kallisto Entertainment. Maybe some publisher can do this port, I hope?

Anyways Happy New Year!

Viruses In 90s...

Let me first tell you the very first pc of mine...

Back in, if I remember correctly, 1991 my parents bought me 80x286. My journey into computing so began.

But this post is about anti-virus programs (what? They are called "programs" in the past). In 1991 and following 4 years I used F-Prot. It was so simple and clean. After exposing myself to Windows 95 in late 1995. I tried several anti-virus programs however never settled on any single one of them and this went on at least for a year. At some point I noticed I was so careful and never caught a virus since '94 (MS-DOS 6.21). Then again I used several programs till Windows 98 came out. With that upgrade I abandoned virus protection altogether. If I really needed a virus check in those early unprotected years (98-00), I emailed the file in question to myself and let yahoo or hotmail does the dirty work for me. Anyways this also went for at least 2 years till Windows 2000 came out. After then everything changed over a night.

Found this on the WEB, thanks to one who captured it =)

First of all; trojans came back. To me it was the only way to catch on harmful code. Other than that NT based OS was pretty clean and neat. In order to save myself from trojans and etc... I never run an executable file from anywhere except for official sites of well-known commercial sites.

Second, networking got better significantly. Well, we all know XP's 60 second reboot bug/virus (oh boi what a pandemic it was) prior to the time service pack 2, but I never caught that 'cause I always use up-to-date OS.

I still, today, do not use any kind of security application. Either I am lucky or my cautiousness is paying good. By the way, I own a Mac and a Windows 8 Developer Preview. However with a little bit caution I do not think my Mac or Windows 8 are in anyway danger. Of course it is only true for an up-to-date Lion and Windows with MS Security Essentials and default firewall.

What I don't understand is how come viruses were more threat than now back in early 90s without networking. Did we really exchange that much files with people via floppy disks? I don't think so. Even if I remember incorrectly, the ratio that I remember was horrible. Whenever I took some file from someone and scan it, F-Prot was like mad. Every-time. Strange but true. So I came to a conclusion that I remember incorrectly and ask around friends who is from different profiles and owned PCs back in those days. They all said one way or another the same thing, "we were not safe back then". So this my little poll proves that somehow, we were really exchanging that much executable file in the past. However there is still a chance that in fact viruses were so (maybe too) much common, we catch on easily.

I also must state that there are bluetooth viruses, harmful phishing page links etc for our smartphones. It is still dangerous out there but if you be so careful and do not to accept anything from an unknown connection (bluetooth or otherwise) or click on nothing you do not know, it is pretty easy to avoid PDA viruses as far as I concern.

What I really am paranoiac about is that phishing pages. If I click on something bad and give any kind of login information about any service to any phishing page, it is highly probable that I am going to get hacked sooner than I thought; so I try to be very careful about where I am surfing.

Anyways, what I am trying to say is that back in old days viruses are so easy to catch up but somehow so easy to get rid of and so less harmful. Nowadays is none of these are true sadly.

A little trivia about very very old days; "In February 1953, there was a total of 53 kilobytes of random access memory (RAM) on the planet."

Windows 8 (M3) On 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V!

This may look like a complex title but it is so. I am just trying out Windows 8 leaked build on a Hyper-V VM of a 180 days trial version of MS Windows 2008 R2 SP1 Enterprise Server.

Let me just show you some pictures...

This one is the moments away from finishing the installation.

This is when I'm done with user and first use settings.

I changed that wallpaper ("shh let's not leak our hard work" thingie) so you can read that text (build 7989 winmain thing and the disciplinary note), and my trial 2008 Server.

So, now I am gonna try to install Internet Explorer 10 Developer Preview. Strangely Windows 8 (Build 7989 Milestone 3) came with IE version 9. I understand that there is "Windows 7 Ultimate" text everywhere on this very early preview version, but why IE9? IE10 will most certainly be completed (and already released in some form) and bundled with Windows 8. So why not include the IE10 beta even now in this leak? May it be 'cause they want it (this Windows 8 version) as stable as possible, therefore avoid unnecessary beta utilities? It can't, because it is not supposed to leak?! or maybe... hmm.

A little surprise, by the way, came with Windows 8, IIS 8! There it is;

Click on it for full size image.

Internet Information Services version 8, in other saying IIS 8, is or will be ready with Windows 8 Family (server and desktop editions) and armed with something they called Smooth Streaming.


UPDATE: I tried IE 10 Platform Preview 2. It works very smooth and fast, I am impressed. Really, It was good.

Also, last time when I write this post, I forgot to take the picture of Microsoft Beta Fish so here it goes ^ .

8.5 Billion! WOW!

8.5 Billion! WOW! Microsoft bought Skype for that amount. Dollars! Cash!

That's actually great, in my opinion. I mean now MS has a control of (select amount of) communication in nearly every handheld and all computers. Whether you use PSP or iPad, Android or Symbian, MacOSX or Linux you use a Microsoft Service. That's, however, ok for me. I like Microsoft products. I mean I have Mac Mini and iPhone but my only console is X Box 360 for instance and I use MS Office on Mac. What I am saying is, a widely used comm service such as Skype now belongs to Microsoft and that's too much power for a company like Microsoft but I am ok with it, and reading that people are also ok with it. No big deal? Right? Right. BUT 8.5 BILLION!? WOW I MEAN C'MON!!! 8.5!!! Eight point five! Billionzz!?

Anyways, very congratulations for MS and Skype...

Whoever Watches This Movie...

Thor the Movie has finally arrived. I watched it twice. It was awesome both 2D and 3D. I can say, for me, it is the best comic movie so far. It is the best, by far, comic adaptation. Period.

It is almost impossible not to get goosebumps when Anthony Hopkins says “Whoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.” Epic!

EPIC!

Renault Turkey...

Renault Turkey has one of the Turkey's leading automotive factories. Not only that as in automative it is also one of the biggest production giant factories. Approximately, it has a capacity to make a single car from zero on the assembly line every single minute. That's a quite impressive amount if you think it yearly... 60x24x365 cars...

Whether you know this little info or not, it is previously acknowledged that their annual endorsement is 2.2 billion Euro in 2007 (excuse me for having outdated info) and it is only rising from that point. Also, in the past ten years; they exported cars worth 6.7 billion Euro.

With those numbers kept in mind, one can clearly see the real value of the brand and of the factory itself. Turkey's fragile economy depends on such great establishments.

Browsers...

We are always going to be in need of, I think so at least, two different browsers... While working on windows, my primary choice is Internet Explorer of course; my secondary is Safari. While I am working or spending time on my home PC, which is a Mac, I use Safari as my primary and Opera as my secondary.

For Windows I use Safari for secondary because of I believe I must have same browsers on different platforms to accept something as, you know, baseline some-kind.

Ok, but why am I not using Opera as my second on the home PC so I still can have a baseline? Then again users who has and utilizes two browsers at the same time of course use their primaries more often. And if I use opera as baseline and the secondary at both environments, my usage will be small portioned (for Opera) and I will be missing the, you know, best of both worlds. Don't take me wrong, Opera is a great browser, but for mobiles you know.

Only if MS Internet Explorer was on Mac too that would change everything...

They Are In Lead...

I am only guessing here, but I think Proximity's client base is very happy with them. They make organizations/events that makes people from various social communities very happy, so they talk and create contents about the client. I mean I guess they do what they do best and make possible for a brand on social networks to exist happily, to be well known.

Proximity Istanbul's expertises are:

Consumer Engagement Strategy & Planning

Social CRM & Social Media

Event Marketing

Digital Advertising

They call themselves "experiential marketing agency specializing in word-of-mouth generating campaigns". That's a very long description, but I must agree with this definition completely. Their events are so good every-time I sacrifice a weekend for them, I ended up very happy and feel worth-whiled. I find myself talking about the event itself to my friends, how fun it was and stuff. If it is not an event, then it is a very personalized gift, which again makes me smile for good amount of time. That is a success for its own-right if nothing-else...

I do not know about the measurable consumer return and other marketing data gathering, but I can easily tell the clients they are working with are happy to engage with consumers in such experimental events over and over again. That alone gives the hint.

Lastly, as far as I can gather from the www they are a part of very big global network actually, over 2000 employees all over the world. I don't know if this information anyhow relevant, but that also gives the hint for it. They are big. They are in lead.

Eisenhorn, by Dan Abnett...

Hello all, nowadays my fulltime job is a bit crazy. I don't have much time for anything, except I am reading some Sci-Fi genre novels. Warhammer 40000, Halo, Star Wars are, of course, my favourites as always.

The thing is as soon as I got some more time I am going to begin painting some Warhammer Miniatures. I am craving for it but don't have time. This is mostly because this omnibus I read recently. The Omnibus they call because it includes 3 books and 2 short stories. Anyways; it was about this Character from Warhammer 40000-verse. Eisenhorn is a well read, well constructed, well backgrounded trilogy. Dan Abnett, indeed it is not my place to say, had done an awesome job. I liked it so much i am seriously considering reading it again in the near future. The book is about this inquisitor, Gregor Eisenhorn, who brings justice to the enemies of the Imperium. I know many of you, Warhammer Fans, are sick of Imperium and anything about Imperium (stories, games etc...). But believe me when I say this; this omnibus is something! I recommend it thoroughly. I am going to cut short this post as usual and will finish it with a quote from the book...

"In my lifetime, I have brought down nine marked Extremis Diabolus Hereticus. None went quietly." -Gregor Eisenhorn of the Holy Inquisition.

MSN on iPhone...

Quick post, this will be. Microsoft has just released official MSN App for the iPhone. That's quite awesome, no really, it is a very good thing for MS to do.

BUT WHY IS MSN 8 FOR MAC STILL BETA?!?!?! and broken...?

We have tons of different solutions to use Live Accounts on iPhone. On Mac I cannot say it is true, at least for me. I was waiting for a decent version of MSN for Mac over 2 years now. MS only releases more and more irrelevant(*) apps on iPhone! That I do not understand, please Microsoft; first fix the main platform(**) which is Mac OS X not iOS...

(*): Bing, Seadragon, Tag (however I see a bright future for Tag, still; on iPhone, it is irrelevant in my humble opinion).

(**): Here is the link to the borked version of MSN for MAC 8, which is still in beta and has a lot of known issues... (if somehow it becomes released and gets completely fixed, I am probably not going to bother to edit this post. So I state that this is on 12/07/10.)