My Teen Tech Blog

Just an update

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:16:00 +0000

Wow, it has been a very long time since I have looked at this website; nonetheless update it. I've been busy with many other websites and projects and I just don't seem to find the time to update this one anymore. I do however have other websites that you can follow if you are interested!

TechnologyPlusBlog.com

I have been updating TechnologyPlusBlog regularly for the past year with tech news and fun tutorials. You can find me on Twitter and Facebook for Tech+ as well!

blog.TheNetworkAdmin.net

This is my personal blog. I don't update it very often but when I do it usually contains a funny picture or something either related to my servers or Minecraft - XD

You can follow my personal twitter account @vb543

Games365.tk

Although an unfortunately dieing site, this is my flash arcade. I've been working on this for a few years as well but there are just so many flash arcades to compete with that I have a hard time getting any real visitors. But hey, if you like flash games - check it out!

That's about it, or at least all I am willing to share for now. Feel free to check those sites out. I will also *try* to update this one on occasion.

Burger King Twitter Account Hacked - Too Funny!

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 18:02:00 +0000

So someone decided it would be funny to hack into the Burger King Twitter account and have at it! Today someone did just this.

Someone has broken into Burger Kings Twitter account and has started posting about McDonalds. Check out some of these funny tweets!

Everybody follow us! @youranonnews #OpMadCow
— McDonalds (@BurgerKing) February 18, 2013

From the looks of it, someone from Anonymous did this...

For the record, our password was not "whopper" or anything! Just look for yourself! youtube.com/watch?v=FDK9bs… #BURRR #BUSSINJUUUUGS @gucci1017
— McDonalds (@BurgerKing) February 18, 2013

Try our new BK(℠) Bath Salt! 99% Pure MDPV! Buy a Big Mac, get a gram free! @dfnctsc @tshyne @mcdonalds twitter.com/BurgerKing/sta…
— McDonalds (@BurgerKing) February 18, 2013

Head over to Burger King's Twitter page for more!

Testing A New VPS Provider - IPXcore

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 00:15:00 +0000

I was surfing the web today and I found, what I think, was a great deal. It was a VPS with 4 Virtual CPUs and around 300MB of RAM for just 1.75 a month at a host called IPXcore. So I thought, yea sure, why not. I purchased the package to give it a try.

I wish I could tell you more. The interface and management looked nice but I wasn't able to try the server out. The company's data center was having an outage just when I got this new VPS. Now this isn't IPXcore's fault as they don't have too much control over troubles in their data center but it was kind of annoying not being able to start using my new VPS. I had plans to get a debian LAMP server up and maybe a VPN as well.

One thing that was nice was the support. I was able to live chat with a techi about the issue. He was always there and gave quit, ENGLISH HUMAN responses within seconds. Also note that all of this was on a Sunday.

Ohh well, I don't mind too much. Hopefully they will get things fixed and I will be on my way setting up my new VPS. If not, it was just a buck seventy-five.

I'll update if once they come back and let you know what I think of their services.

Want to give them a try? Click this link and use promotion code MTTechBlog to get 15% off every payment you make for their services!

Update 7/31/2012: Sorry I didn't update this earlier, I was too busy playing with my new VPS. First of all they had their problems sorted out at the data center by the end of that very same day and I've been using my VPS every since then. I like the thing so much that I even purchased a second one! I would HIGHLY recommend this company!

Dell Poweredge 1800

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:58:00 +0000

Yes, it may be a little out-dated but it's still my first actual dell server!

Dell Poweredge 1800 Pictures
Dell Poweredge 1800 Specs

G.Skill Ares Review

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 22:05:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I came to realize that I needed some more RAM. 4 GB just wasn't enough to play some Battlefield 3 at the end of the day. So here the easy solution would be to just purchase some extra RAM for my tower and stop complaining. Well the actual solution was a little different. My Thermaltake Frio cooler covered the two DIMMs closest to the processor. I needed to find some RAM that would just fit under it. That is where the new G. Skill Ares came in to play.

I saw these mentioned on a blog somewhere so I hopped onto Newegg and ordered an 8GB orange kit. Installing them was simple, just like any other RAM. I just had to remove one of the fans on the heat sync temporarily while I installed the RAM. Once installed I had about half a centimeter of clearance!

Here are some pictures of the great stuff!

Once installed I had just a narrow gap between the top of the modules and the bottom of the Thermaltake fan.

Below is a screen shot form CPU-Z.

Ohh and this little sticker made the deal all so much better!

Overall this stiff is great and my computer has been running wonderfully. If you want a little more in depth review of this new series of RAM check out the review on Overclock3D!

Fix Insufficient Space Error On Android

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:27:00 +0000

Recently I have been receiving a lot of errors stating that I am out of space on my phone when I clearly have over 50MB free. When I install a small app (~1-2 MBs) I still receive this error but I have now found a solution.

There is this free app in the Android Market called MarketFix. This app requires root access but it works wonder! All I did was install it, granted super user rights, and clicked the button to fix the error. Now I can install apps and I won't receive the insufficient space error!

I think the app works by moving the cache partition for the market app over to the SDCard to make it appear as if there is more space on the phone to download apps to the internal memory.

EA Origin Battlefield 3 Multiplayer Down - February 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:11:00 +0000

Just to let all of you know that your not alone... It would appear that Origin is experiencing an outage today, Feb 18. I tried to play Battlefield 3 multilayer earlier today and I kept getting authentication server errors. After looking around I found some updates on their Twitter feed.

They are aware of the problem.

Origin is currently experiencing an outage and we are investigating the issue. Thanks for your patience.
— Origin (@origin_EA) February 18, 2012

They are still figuring things out... 2PM CST

We are still investigating the outage and are working as quickly as possible to resolve it. Thanks again for your patience.
— Origin (@origin_EA) February 18, 2012

Sounds like everything's back to normal!

The temporary outage earlier is now resolved and we are currently looking into the cause. Apologies for the inconvenience. Thanks everyone.
— Origin (@origin_EA) February 18, 2012

Bookmark this page and come back later for updates. I will continue posting any information I find on this page until this problem is fixed. You can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook for updates. I guess this give you all a chance to finish the campaign if you haven't done so yet...

Thermaltake Frio Instalation - Temps & Review

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:01:00 +0000

For the past year I have been running the stock AMD Phenom x6 cooler and that thing was horrible. It was load under load and wouldn't do a great job keeping my rig cool. I would peak around 50C under full load with that old thing. Recently one of my friends went water cooled and he sold me his frio. Now that I have it installed I was able to overclock and still achieve lower temps on full load than I did with the stock cooler.

Installation
Installing this thing was easy! This was my first time having to follow all of the steps suck as the back plate and thermal paste when installing a new heat sync. The original one had pre-applied thermal paste and all I had to do was snap it into place. With the new frio I had to install the back plate as well as apply new thermal paste.

For starters, never pull your old heat sync straight up... I did that and ended up puling out my CPU along with it. Luckily nothing was damaged. I even ran the computer for an hour before fulling off the old cooler so the thermal paste could loosen. I just gently pulled and next thing you know the processor is on the bottom of the old cooler. I just pried it off and re-inserted it and there were no problems. For future reference I will gently turn it left and right to loosen the seal before I go pulling straight up.

Next I had to apply the new thermal paste to the core. Now this is something that I have NEVER done so I was a little hesitant to do it. I looked online and there were so many different ideas of how to apply the stuff. I ended up just putting down about a pea and a half and spreading it out into a very thin even layer on the processor. This appears to work well.

Getting the back plate in place was fun, the top two screw were just a little too high. (My Antec case has a hole in the back to allow access to the back place without having to remove the motherboard.) What I did was slightly unscrew the motherboard and that gave me enough give to get the old screws out and install the news ones to support the back place and the new cooler.

After all of this, I plugged in the two fans for the cooler, yes it has two fans, and then I noticed, only one would fit. My RAM wouldn't allow the first fan to go on. I tried moving the RAM to the outer slots but my BIOS didn't like that and would refuse to let my computer boot. I ended up leaving one fan on. Everything still worked fine with one fan once under load but I was determined that it could be better with the use of the two fans. I talked with my friend and he recommended that I update the BIOS. Turns out that the update allowed me to move the modules over to the outer slots and install both fans! So now I was getting the temps I wanted!

Temps
This thing is amazing! When I first boot my computer it was able to keep the stock cpu running at around 13C idle - I couldn't believe it! Even on full load I couldn't get the thing to go beyond 25C. Remember that with the old stock cooler it would go all the way to around 50C. I cut my temps in half with this thing!

So I saw the great temps and decided it would be more then safe to overclock my processor. I was able to bring the 2.8 up to a 3.5GHz processor and my temps barely suffered. I now idle at 20C and peak no higher then 30C with my overclock!

Review / Conclusion
Overall this thing is great! I was so happy to finally get rid of that stock cooler and use something more efficient. I was also so happy to finally be able to overclock my processor with out having to worry about the thing over heating.

In conclusion, if you need a new cooler and don't want to go water cooled just yet, the Thermaltake Frio is the cooler for you. It keeps your processor cool, even below room temperature and allows you to overclock your mind out!

If you have some questions about the cooler, let me know in the comments and I would be happy to talk to you even more about it!

OpenVPN Sucks

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:10:00 +0000

I was very interested in OpenVPN. I was looking for a good secure solution to access of home network from outside of it. So I proceeded to attempt to instal OpenVPN... Well that didn't go very well.

I was easily able to set up and get the OpenVPN AS server set up because that was just a VMWare image that I could download and add to VMWare workstation. Installing a client was the hard part.

I initially wanted to be able to access this VPN with my Android phone. So I followed some guide on the Internet, all of which sucked... None of them told me how to configure anything... Most of them simply told me to copy my configuration files form the Windows client to the phone and use those. Well I would have done that be where do I find out how to configure the Windows client now? That was another mess.

So after I failed to configure the Windows client I just gave up. Be what is pissing me off is that I had to install some applications to my rooted Android phone to be able to access the OpenVPN software. We'll these new applications and no way to be installed and apparently take up over 50MB so my little optimums V now has about 2MB of free space on it... So now I have to re-flash it... So annoying...

My recommendation is to just not even think about OpenVPN. It is crap. I will just go back and use the PPTP server built into my dd-wrt router. It may be less secure but it's so much easier to set up. If you have any questions about what I did, please let me know and I would be happy to tell you what now to do, XD.

FedEx Employee Throws Monitor Over Fence

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:47:00 +0000

I saw this video clip on the morning news and couldn't believe what I saw. The FedEx Employee just tossed the poor guys monitor over the fence. I then looked the video up on YouTube and found the one the owner of the screen uploaded. Turns on the man was home and all the FedEx guy had to do was right the door bell and the owner would have been right out. Now he has to return the damaged screen and wait for a replacement all due to this lazy employee. Here, watch the video with over 2 million views yourself.

Battlefield 3 Stat Graphics!

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:49:00 +0000

I found this amazing website that has custom banners and graphics for any Battlefield 3 soldier! I added one to the footer of this blog for my player! Get yours right here: bf3stats.com

The site also lets you manage custom leader boards so that you can compete with your friends! The best part is that this is all free and it's AMAZING!

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Nerd turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 04:00:00 +0000

Here is the Nerd turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/ynug37

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Astronaut Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 03:11:00 +0000

Here is the Astronaut Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/my24pw

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Old Chap Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 02:30:00 +0000

Here is the Old Chap Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/tpk63z

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Pirate Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 01:30:00 +0000

Here is the Pirate Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/7gmtj5

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Surfer Dude Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 01:00:00 +0000

Here is the Surfer Dude Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/nxjnga

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Wizard Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:30:00 +0000

Here is the Wizard Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/y4rs2x

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Disco Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:30:00 +0000

Here is the Disco Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/zskwej

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Skiing Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Here is the Skiing Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/nj8q4p

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - ToFurkey

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 23:30:00 +0000

Here is the ToFurkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/68gtgj

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Football Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Here is the Football Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/gxkgjz

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Princess Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:32:00 +0000

Here is the Princess Turkey Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/eaxjuv

Thanksgiving Google Doodle - Turkey On A Bike

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:29:00 +0000

Here is the turkey on the bike Google Thanksgiving Doodle! - http://g.co/doodle/enz2bt

Making a RAM Disk - Turning RAM into a Hard Drive!

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:42:00 +0000

I was browsing around the Internet, as I spend most of my time, and I discovered the idea of a RAM disk. A RAM disk a section of your computers RAM that, through software, is being accessed as if it were a disk drive. The benefit of this is the increase in speed RAM can provide over a hard drive.

To do this I needed some software and after a few quick Google searches I can across a program called RAMDisk from DataRam.com. Their free version of the program allows for up to 4GB of RAM to be assigned as a drive letter on your computer. Now currently in my computer I only have 4GB of RAM so this program would work for me just find.

The program was very easy to set up. After downloading and installing it I launched it and selected the size of the drive I wanted to create and then I selected why type of formatting I wanted. After that I created my RAM disk and was able to access it in Windows Explorer.

DiskRAM - Making a 1GB RAM Drive

1GB RAM Drive

The speeds of the drive were very impressive. I used a free program called CrystalDiskMark to speed test the sequential read and write speeds of the drive. I was getting speed results of around 2.4GB/s. Which is well over the average of 76MB/s I was getting with my SATA II hard drive.

SATA II Hard Drive Sequential Read/Write Speeds

RAMDisk Drive Sequential Read/Write Speeds

This software also has many neat features like saving the RAM drive to your hard drive when you turn off the computer and loading it back when you turn it on. This is some great software and I am happy to have such a fast RAM Drive! Now to get more RAM, XD.

Test Your Hard Drive Speed

noreply@blogger.com (Andy) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:03:00 +0000

For a few day I thought that my hard drive was under performing. I just didn't that the loading screens on BF3 should have taken that long. In search for an answer I found this great free program that would test the data transfer speeds of your hard drives! CrystalDiskMark

SATA II results from CrystalDiskMark