During today’s season 3.1 patch update, I decided to try a trick that allows getting the update files while EU-west is still down. Somebody on reddit mentioned setting the SERVER to  EU-NE would get the game updated while EUW is down. I tried this and the game happily downloaded like 80MBs of files. A while later i restart the LOL client and set the server back to EUW. All of a sudden I get an error that there’s something wrong with the game files (without any further information). Considering how shitty the League of Legends Adobe Air client is, I was not surprised.

I ran the repair function to fix the files but after 30 mins of ‘repair’ nothing happened. Here’s how an old backup saved me. I realized I had a month old RAR archive of my league of legends folder (i used that rar file to copy league of legends from my desktop to laptop). I just deleted the old league folder and extracted the month old RAR files. Launched the game and voila! it started updating the patch again (hey! its still better than spending hours staring at the repair files screen of the client).

The game just updated and it’s about time to get my daily fix

P.S. Kinda sad that I finished work in a hurry to save some extra time for my weekend league of legends session and most of the time got spent trying to fix/update the game but at least I get to play now . League is such an addictive game D:

It’s a pain to transfer contacts from a Nokia phone to an Android or non-nokia phone – After a lot of tinkering with my Nokia’s Ovi contact’s site, I was able to transfer my contacts with a little bit of simple hacking/text-manipulation. These steps are pretty easy and you’ll have no problem following this tutorial – regardless of your computer usage skill.

Nokia makes it very easy to transfer phone contacts to another Nokia phone. But it’s a nightmare to transfer contacts from Nokia to android phone or any other phone for that matter.

Onto the tutorial now.

1- First of all, you need to register at Nokia’s Ovi site (if you haven’t registered already). The Ovi site’s contacts section will let you upload/synchronise contacts from your phone to their server. Go to http://www.ovi.com/ and follow the registration process.

2- After registration, and verifying your phone number ,  Download the Nokia Ovi suite application and install it on your PC.

3- Now connect your nokia phone with your PC and launch the Ovi suite application and sign in with the ovi account that you registered in step 2.

4- From the top menu in the ovi application, go to sync and choose the option to sync your contacts. This will upload your phone’s contacts to nokia’s servers.

5- Unfortunately, there is no easy or direct way of importing these contacts to a file so now – once again go to http://www.ovi.com/ and login with your account.

6- Go to the contacts section and you should see all phone’s contacts listed there as they were uploaded from the Ovi Suite application in step 4.

7- Make sure you set the contacts to show in ‘list’ format by clicking on the ‘list’ button at the bottom of the contacts page on OVI website’s contact page. As shown in image below

8- Now click in the very first cell at the very top – so as to select the first contact in the list (as shown in image)

9- Now press and hold the ‘Shift’ key and at the very bottom most contact in the list, click again. This way you will select all the contacts displayed on that page in the list.

10- Press ctrl+C to copy the selected contacts and open Notepad or any text editor where you’ll paste the copied contacts in raw form. In the text editor/notepad, Press ctrl+v and you’ll see all the contacts copied in the format as shown in screenshot below.

11- Copy all the contacts from the rest of the list’s pages on Ovi site. Now save this list from the text editor/notepad and name it something like ‘myContacts.txt’. Make sure that each individual contact is separated like shown in the screenshot above. Every contact must have ONLY ONE phone number (sorry but in the next steps, the import won’t work if any contact has more than one phone number listed below them – delete any secondary phone numbers from the ‘myContacts.txt’)

12- Now we just need to style and format this list in proper CSV (comma separated format) so that we can upload the CSV formatted contacts to Google Contacts (and ultimately to your android phone). We need a slightly advanced text editor for formatting the contacts in myContacts.txt into CSV format.

13- Download notepad++ from the download page on http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ and install it. Now open the ‘myContacts.txt’ file in notepad++.

14- In notepad++ , once the myContacts.txt file is opened.  Go to ‘View’ (from top menu) and from the drop down menu, click ‘Show Symbol’ and from the subsequent menu check ‘Show end of line’. (This option will now make the editor show the ‘end of line’ characters in the text , that are normally invisible). You should see the contacts like as shown in the image below.

15 – With the new-line special characters visible, we’ll now start formatting this list to CSV format. the ‘CR LF’ characters just show that the line ends here and new line begins after it, it’s only relevant for the styling we are going to do in the next step.

16 – Now for CSV format, what we want to do is to make all the contact names and numbers wrapped quotations like “Friend Johin”,”03451234567″. For this, we use some intelligent find-and-replace to replace the CRLF like symbols with quotation marks, this way, if you have hundreds of contacts in your myContacts.txt, you can format all those hundreds of records in 3,4 steps like we are going to do in the following steps

17- In notepad++, press ctrl+H to get the find-and-replace window. In that window,  ‘in FIND WHAT: write ‘/r/n/r/n’ and in the replace field, write ‘ “/r/n’ , as shown below – and press REPLACE ALL .  Now to for double assurance, in FIND WHAT field, write ‘/r/n /r/n’ (notice there is a space between the first /r/n and the the second /r/n and press REPLACE ALL again.

18- You should get something like this now, notice the ” quotations at the end of the telephone numbers for each contact.

19- Since we have to achieve formatting like “Lara Shyalot”,”03441256882″ .. i.e. both the name and number separated by a comma and each of the name and number blocks wrapped in quoation marks, we continue our find-and-replace work. Press ctrl+h again to get the find and replace screen and then in FIND WHAT field type ‘\r\n’ and in Replace WITH field, type ‘\r\n” ‘ and press replace all. – You should get something like tis, notice the new quotation marks added in front of contact names now

20- Now we want to insert a comma b/w the name and number of each contact, so we replace the CR LF (/r/n) symbols with a comma. press ctrl+h again and in FIND WHAT field, type ‘”\r\n’(notice the quotation mark right before \r\n, its important) and replace with ‘xyzxyz’. press replace-all button and you’ll get something like

20(b)- now to insert the comma b/w a name and number of each contact, replace ‘/r/n’ with a quotation mark, followed by a comma i.e. ‘ “, ‘  as shown below

21- We still have to put ending quotation mark at the end of each phone number, so now we replace the xyzxyz string with a quotation mark followed by /r/n , as shown below – and you should get something like below.

22- Notice how there is a missing quotation mark at the very start of the file and there is an extra quotation mark at the very bottom of file. (if we have such extra/missing symbols), our CSV file won’t be accepted by google, so lets fix that and also at the very top add the title of each of these two columns. The end result should look like as below

22(b)- Now open a blank sheet inside MS Excel (spreadsheet) and import this myContacts.txt -  (by clicking on Data > From TEXT ) and choosing the myContacts.txt file. Import this file (choose to use the quotation mark ” and comma , as the delimeter. once imported. If  you did all steps fine, you should see two columns in the spreadsheet (Name, Phone) – and all your contacts will be listed here.

23(c)- Now save this excel spreadsheet as .csv file (comma separated values), Name it something like myContacts.csv

23- That’s it!   Now lets save this file and then go to Google Contacts  http://www.google.com/contacts (login with your gmail account there) – We will now import the CSV formatted file (myContacts.csv) of our nokia contacts into Google Contacts.

24- Inside the Google Contact main-page, click the ‘import’ button on the top-right. Select the newly created csv file and click upload. – Don’t forget to add a userfriendly name for this group of contacts in your google-contacts.

25- Voila, thats it, so now you know how to import nokia contacts into android and google contacts.

Part two of this tutorial will show how you can directly download your google contacts directly into your android phone.

The whole argument by hackers is the fact that when they paid for their PS3, they got complete ownership and sony has no right to dictate what the users can and cannot run on their machines. Now Sony can monitor and administer access to PSN whereas hackers will be able to run homebrew on their machines freely.

Over the last few hours, users have received two types of emails. One email is just a warning where sony detected homebrew and piracy applications on the PS3s that didn’t try to access PSN in the last 15 days, whereas the second email is sent to offenders who got on PSN with hacks and different circumvention methods, in which case the PS3 is banned from PSN.

After some thinking I purchased the 500 gb hard drive and spent some time trying copy the windows installation partition from the old hard drive to the new one via different partition image making applications. Majority of the these partition making applications work from within the operating system and you cannot make a copy of the current Window’s partition from within the operation system so you need to boot the PC with a bootable media and run the partition cloning application from there. Anyway I never got to that stage and I was tired enough to let go the idea of making copy of the operating systems partion.

The next plan was to install a fresh copy of Windows into the new hard disk. Up til this point, I was running the new hdd externally from a USB enclosure. Near the end of the partition copying plan, I started hearing a strange clicking sound and I thought it might be the old toshiba HDD. To my surprise, the sound was coming from the new hdd and that was kind of shocking because I was in no mood of taking back the new hard drive for a replacement back to the store. I decided to keep using the HDD because the click sound wasn’t very frequent. So I proceed and installed the new hdd into my laptop.

For the next few days, I kept hearing frequent abnormal clicks from the hdd. Usually, I’d hear a click once an hour or every two hours. It was annoying and I wasn’t happy because the Idea of a new hdd crashing AFTER you’ve reinstalled a ton of applications and drivers and have started making the new disk your new home. Well, with time, over the last few weeks, the clicking sound frequency went down and now the clicks occurs barely 2 to 3 times a day. A friend of mine mentioned it might be the reading head of the disk striking the cover of the hdd and might be nothing dangerous because the only thing that’d be worrying is if your hdd head is touching the surface of the spindle.

I’m still wondering what might be the real cause of the strange noise and have searched around and read different reviews on the types of sounds that failing hdds make but haven’t heard about a scenario that is similar to mine. Guess only time will tell if these sounds were the warning of dying disk or not. So far I haven’t had any problems with file transfer speeds and basic operations on my PC.

Following are some easy steps about how to jailbreak your ps3.

First of all you need a device that can run the jailbreak code on your ps3. It can be one of the many supported USB devices like an iPhone, Android Phones, or the most convenient of all, a dedicated PS3 modchip or jailbreak dongle.

You can buy a PS3 modchip to jailbreak your ps3 for as low as $25-$35. Google around for modchips like ps3key, ps3break etc. They all work and all are in the $30 range.

After you’ve purchased a modchip, just follow the following easy steps to setup your PS3 for the first time.

1. Download BackupManager (This application needs to be installed on your PS3 from a usb flash drive). So just copy this file to a USB flash drive. Make sure the backupManager is in the root of the USB flash drive. (Do  not use it yet)
2. Make sure the power cable to your ps3 is disconnected, and plug in the PS3 modchip via the USB port (make sure no other usb device is connected to the ps3 yet)
3. Press the power button on the front of the ps3, immediately followed by pressing the eject button. You should hear multiple beeps, that’d mean the modchip has worked successfully.
4. Now let the ps3 boot, after you see the XMB menu, insert the USB flash drive on the 2nd USB port of the ps3. Go to the games submenu and you will see a new Icon saying “Install Package”, select it and you will see the backupManager.pkg file.
5. Install the backupManager, after the installation is over, now you can see the new BackupManager application icon on your ps3 xmb menu. This backup Manager will now be used to copy and play downloaded ps3 games on your ps3 now. The ps3 is now jailbreak

Now, you might ask how to copy PS3 games to my ps3 now?

Well you’ve two options,

• Either download PS3 games from the internet, from torrent websites as well as sites like rapidshare. I can’t link those here as it’ll be illegal.
• Or Rent games from gameshops and make copies of those games via the BackupManager. You can return the orignal game discs after copying them and play the copied files from ps3 hard disk.

Here are some steps about how to copy ps3 game into the ps3 hard disk:

1. Plug-in the ps3 jailbreak modchip into one of the usb ports of PS3 (make sure the power cable of ps3 is disconnected).
2. Connect the PS3 power cable, and now press the power key on the front of the PS3, immediately followed by the Eject key. (you should hear multiple beeps which mean the ps3 has been successfuly jailbroken)
3. Now once the ps3 is booted, on the menu go to Games and select and launch the Backup Manager application that we installed in start of the tutorial.
4. Now insert the game disc into the ps3 that you want to copy into the ps3 hdd.
5. Press the [copy] button as show on the backup manager bottom. (the ps3 will copy the entire game from the blu-ray disc to the ps3 (it can take upto 30-60 minutes depending on game size). You can copy as many games as you want this way.
6. After the game(s) has been copied, Now you can play all these games from the ps3 hard disc, just by   inserting any (random) PS3 game disc (it has to be original game). For example, i use my Tekken 6 original disc inside my ps3, with that disc i boot all the copied games from my ps3.

I will later on add steps how to copy games from PC to PS3 so you can play downloaded ps3 games that you got from internet.

Hope this helps. Enjoy your ps3 hacks and homebrew now.

I even reset the router settings and set it up again in the hopes of fixing the problem, but every once in a while my browsing would stop working whilst everything else would work.

Today i noticed my other PC that is connected to the same router, had internet and browsing working just fine whereas browsing stopped working on my main PC. In the hopes to fix the problem, i experimentally noticed there was Hamachi 2′s virtual network device in the same network connections window. As soon as i disabled the Hamachi network, my browsing was back to normal. So browsing issues with WRT54G2 were due to Hamachi 2 (I remember having Hamachi 1.0 on vista earlier, never had this issue)

It’s such a relief having my browsing back and to have solved the problem. Posting it in the hopes it fixes someone else’s headache if they’re experiencing the same.

HD200 / HD800 drivers can be installed in Windows 7, but there's a small problem

I’ve used 2,3 HD800 headphones from A4Tech. The sound and bass is really awesome and its the best bang for the buck in a gaming grade head phone gear market. The Problem with HD800 was its delicate design, nearly all of my HD800 headphones got cracked from the sides and finally went useless.

So on a friend’s suggestion, I went to buy a HD200, The design is pretty slick and it feels rock solid. The bass is also nearly as good as the HD800′s. Well its more durable than HD800 so i like it anyway. I’ve been enjoying it for over 2,3 months now.

But the issue i’ve faced recently is when i upgraded to Windows 7. The Dedicated sound control application for the A4Tech HD200 (Which is the same for HD800 headphones also) isn’t compatible with Windows 7, and you’re warned about this issue when you try to install the drivers/app for the headphone.

I installed the same setup with Vista Compatibility in Windows 7, and after a reboot, i was surprised to see the nice bass and sound again. Without it, the Sound is unbearable with generic Windows 7 drivers for the HD200/HD800.

The issue arises when you try to click and run the HD200/HD800′s Sound Configuration App (The application you get after you install the drivers from A4Tech) from the system tray. The OS hangs up for a while, then, you can move the mouse cursor only, but nothing else responds. Even alt+ctrl+del doesn’t work.

I hope A4Tech release a Windows 7 version of their HD200/HD800 drivers/sound configuration control.

If anybody knows a fix for this PC hanging Problem, please share.

PTCL broadband on the go

Most of our Pakistani readers might know that PTCL had announced a launch date of Dec 1st 2008 for their EVDO wireless broadband internet service. Looking at PTCL’s past track record, we expected PTCL to miss the launch date of this “Broadband on the go” service and they did!. Anyway word on the interwebz is PTCL has launched its EVDO internet service in Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore regions.
From what can be understood from the rumors is that currently only 3.1Mbps data rates is provided for a fixed 2500 Rs/month if you dont pay for the CPE. You’ll end up paying 2000 Rs/month after a year of that. On the other hand, you can lower the monthly fee to 2000 Rs/month if you pay a one time fee of 4000 Rs for the CPE.

The speeds are said to hover around 160 kBytes/sec for now. PTCL is still mum on details and their official webpage for “Broadband on the go” is still unchanged since last 2 months. Better take this with a grain of salt, or two.

Read

First of all, select the YouTube video that you want to download. In this guide, I’ll be using a video from a quick search. Lets say you want to download one of Britney Spear’s latest videos, here are the easy steps to get that or any other video:

1. Open YouTube.com, and in the search box type whatever video you want to download. I’m going to type Britney so that we can proceed with downloading one of her videos in this tutorial.
2. Once you get the results, the next step is to get the address of that specific video. 
   Select any video from the list and right click on its title and then choose “Copy Link Location” or “Copy Link Address”.
3. The video address should be copied to the clipboard now.  Now we’ll use this address to get the direct link of the video. Click HERE , and a you should see KeepVid’s frontpage in a new tab/window.




4. Simply paste in the textbox the video url that we copied from youtube earlier and then click the Download button, as show n below
5. On the next page you should see two links as shown below. the first green download link lets you download the default quality video and the second download link gets you a high quality mp4 video of that YouTube video of your choice.
   
6. Right click on any of the two download links (whether you want the high-quality video or the regular quality one), and select “Save Target As”. Simply select the folder on you computer where you want the video to be stored and downloaded and the video should start downloading now.
7. After the video is downloaded, you should be able to play the video. If your media player doesn’t play the video correctly, download THIS codec pack, it should install all the required plugins and a nice small media player called Media Player Classic that’ll play all your mobile/YouTube etc vidoes.

I hope this guide helped you in some way. Happy surfing!