Binary Inspirations is a blog devoted to the latest and greatest tech items in the form of computers, gadgets, and hacks. Also featured are miscellaneous programs I've written, tips, informal hardware/software reviews, rants, tutorials, and more.
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This is the F9 release BIOS. Tested successfully on a revision 1.0 board.
Disclaimer: BIOS flashing is, of course, a potentially risky operation. All the mods below have been flashed and tested successfully, but I am not responsible for anything that happens due to the use of these mods.
Board model: Gigabyte H55M-UD2H
BIOS type: Award
BIOS version: F9
SLIC OEM: Acer[ACRSYSACRPRDCT-ANNI]2.1.BIN
Mod method: SSV3
Download: http://www.box.net/shared/fbq5xcrg7t
Let’s say you have a string of letters that needs to be alphabetized – a string of nucleotide bases, for example.
Original string: “TA”
New alphabetized string: “AT”
Code: newString = ‘’.join(sorted(myString))
Enjoy!
If you’re a Windows user like me but do a lot of editing/development work on Linux, chances are you rely on the Cygwin environment and its host of software. One of the staples of Linux is the editor vim. Cygwin’s vim, however, is configured by default to run in old-school vi mode. That means no nice colors, no statusbar messages, and bad arrow-key/cursor support. A far cry from how vim works in modern Linux distros, that’s for sure.
The solution? Easy.
Create an blank .vimrc file in your Cygwin home directory. Better yet, enable autoindent by adding these four lines:
set smartindent
set tabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4
set expandtab
set pastetoggle=<F2>
If you’re a heavy user of vim on Cygwin, I’m sure you will find this to be a godsend.
This is a Cygwin-compiled build of the *nix rdesktop RDP client for Windows machines.
Sound support is included.
Depending on your needs, you may find this to be a useful alternative
to the standard built-in Windows client.
Requirements:
X server for Windows (e.g. Xming or Cygwin X11)
You must have the X server running prior to using rdesktop.
Additionally, the DISPLAY environment variable must be set.
See the included batch script (RDstart.cmd) for an example
of how to set this variable and start rdesktop.
rdesktop is a command-line program: for more information, please
see the original rdesktop website.
College students are a population that can reliably be characterized as “poor” and “constantly in need of money”; I am no exception. While this is unfortunate enough in itself, even worse are the existence of scams designed to prey off this demographic. I got an email today from a “James Scott” (very likely a fake name) from UniversitySurvey.org, claiming to offer summer part-time work for college students:
Our market research program offers competitive payment for participants in
simple on-line surveys and evaluations. Our Internet-based program is designed
as a part-time job with a flexible schedule.
Sounds innocuous enough in itself. But if you actually go to the website, you’ll find that the direction of money flow isn’t as expected: first you have to sign up for their program and pay a $29.99 fee. This should send up a red flag for any individual with half a brain. Indeed, a quick inspection of the email headers reveals some questionable tidbits.
Received: from 85-130-2-78.2073232469.ddns.cablebg.net ([85.130.2.78] helo=ee)
by luna.superhosting.bg with esmtpa (Exim 4.69)
(envelope-from <j.scott@universitysurvey.org>)
id 1OSdhB-0000Mh-42
The email was sent from some Bulgarian cable ISP. If you do an nslookup on the UniversitySurvey.org domain, you’ll find that its address (91.196.124.22) is registered to a Bulgarian webhost.
If you plug that IP address into whois, you’ll find that this domain is registered in Bulgaria. Maybe this James Scott guy is some clever American entrepreneur who’s decided to set up shop in southeastern Europe. More likely, it’s just a lowlife, unemployed Slavic scumbag looking to get rich (like that will ever happen).
If I didn’t have better things to do (and if I could actually speak Bulgarian), I’d be giving that ISP (and the scam’s payment processing company) a nice long call. Ah well…just don’t fall for it!
P.S.: On the website they list a US contact address: “10685-B Hazelhurst Dr., Houston, Texas 77043 US”. In any case, this is still highly suspect…
P.S. 2: They also claim to have 24/7 customer support. Wouldn’t hurt to shoot ‘em a message and see just how fake they are.
