Shifty Ninja Blog
Random bits of open source and gaming goodness

Square Enix announces first iPhone title
2 November 2008 in Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Famitsu has reported the announcement from Square Enix that they will be releasing an iPhone game for the first time. Called Crystal Defenders, Final Fantasy addicts will recognise the game as already making an appearance in Crystal Guardians W, a series of tower defense games released for phones and updated periodically. The games take place within the Final Fantasy Tactics A2 timeline, and fans will be pleased to hear that Crystal Defenders will contain all of the Crystal Guardians W releases in one app.

Currently, the game is only scheduled for release in Japan. Following the iPhone’s lukewarm reception in Japan, a North American and European release to boost sales is not unlikely.

Source: Famitsu

Xubuntu 8.10
31 October 2008 in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Next, the release of Xubuntu 8.10, a desktop distribution designed for users and fans of the Xfce desktop: “The Xubuntu team is happy to bring you the latest and greatest software the open source community has to offer. This is their latest result: Xubuntu 8.10, which brings a host of excellent improvements built on the rock solid Xfce 4.4.2 desktop environment. New Features since Xubuntu 8.04: newest Abiword 2.6.4 word processor with tons of bug-fixes and new features; improved multimedia experience by including the Listen multimedia player; light-weight search front-end called Catfish; Seahorse - a GTK+ front-end for GnuPG; X.Org 7.4; Linux kernel 2.6.27; encrypted private directory; Network Manager 0.7; DKMS; Samba 3.2; PAM authentication framework; Totem BBC plugin….” Read the complete release announcement for further information.

Source: Distro Watch

Kubuntu 8.10
31 October 2008 in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Kubuntu 8.10, an Ubuntu variant featuring the latest KDE desktop version 4.1.2, has been released: “Today sees the release of Kubuntu 8.10 featuring the KDE 4 desktop. The Kubuntu developers have been hard at work, bringing you the latest and greatest software the open source community has to offer. KDE 4 reworks your system with a major new revision of the desktop. This Intrepid release lives up to its name by including many changes, but there are some features that are not yet available in KDE 4. If you would rather stay with what you know then remember that Kubuntu 8.04 is still fully supported, see KDE3-KDE4Migration and Is KDE 4.1 for you? for more information on deciding. You can try it first with the Kubuntu Intrepid Live CD to see for yourself whether or not it really is ‘for you’.” Read the detailed release announcement for additional details, list of features and known issues.

Source: Distro Watch

Ubuntu 8.10
31 October 2008 in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Welcome to the big Ubuntu release day! The long-awaited stable release of Ubuntu 8.10, code name “Intrepid Ibex”, is now out: “The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop and Server, continuing Ubuntu’s tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. New Features since Ubuntu 8.04 LTS: GNOME 2.24; X.Org 7.4; Linux kernel 2.6.27; encrypted private directory; guest session; Network Manager 0.7; Samba 3.2; PAM authentication framework; Totem BBC plugin; server virtualization; Ubuntu as a Xen guest; JeOS is now an option in the server installer; notable inclusion in the main repository - Sun’s Java OpenJDK 1.6, Apache’s Tomcat 6, ClamAV, SpamAssassin; boot degraded RAID setting….” See the release announcement and release notes and features overview for further information.

Source: Distro Watch

WordPress 2.6.3
24 October 2008 in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

A vulnerability in the Snoopy library was announced today. WordPress uses Snoopy to fetch the feeds shown in the Dashboard.  Although this seems to be a low risk vulnerability for WordPress users, we wanted to get an update out immediately. 2.6.3 is available for download right now. If you don’t want to download the whole release to get the security fix, you can download the following two files and copy them over your 2.6.2 installation.

Source: WordPress blog

Vista SP2 Build 16489 released to testers
24 October 2008 in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Microsoft has released an early beta build of Vista SP2 to testers according to those familiar with the beta program.

In a posting to The Hotfix forums, members have claimed that Microsoft have released a batch file which enables the SP2 download from Windows Update. The download weighs in at over 290MB and references the support article placeholder put online 2 weeks ago.

Microsoft recently wrote to potential testers to offer them the SP2 build within 4 weeks and it appears the company may have released this earlier than expected.

It’s expected that SP2 will include Windows Search 4, along with Bluetooth wireless support (including latest BT 2.1 fixes), support for the new VIA 64-bit CPU and additional application compatibility updates.

Early feedback from testers noted “Vista feels faster now!” and “it feels good so far…stable and all”.

Update: This build is not currently released broadly to all testers and may have leaked out from a small set of testers or internally from Microsoft.

Update 2: According to a Microsoft source, the package on Windows Update today are pre-beta bits, not the actual beta that has undergone more testing. It was added to ensure the windows update process was setup correctly.

Windows 7 pre-beta build is 6801
24 October 2008 in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Microsoft announced the availability of a critical security patch yesterday affecting a variety of Windows operating systems.

Interestingly, the Windows 7 pre-beta build, which will be available to developers next Tuesday, also contains the bug. Microsoft stated “Customers running Windows 7 Pre-Beta are encouraged to download and apply the update to their systems. On Windows 7 Pre-Beta systems, the vulnerable code path is only accessible to authenticated users. This vulnerability is not liable to be triggered if the attacker is not authenticated, and therefore would be rated Important.”

In a support article Microsoft details some Windows 7 Pre-Beta file information notes. The build string on the notes is 6.1.6801.4106, the same build string that has been screenshotted recently.

It is believed that the 6801 build is a milestone 3 (M3) build released to select customers and partners over the last few months.

Microsoft will be releasing the build to attendees at their professional developers conference next Tuesday.

Ubuntu 8.10 RC
24 October 2008 in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

The release candidate for Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex” is out: “The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the Release Candidate for Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop and Server. We consider this release candidate to be complete, stable, and suitable for testing by any user. Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop edition delivers the features you need for an increasingly mobile digital life, including 3G wireless support and guest sessions that lets users temporarily share computers without compromising security. Ubuntu 8.10 Server edition consolidates its support for virtualization with an integrated Virtual Machine builder, and brings with it a fully-supported Java stack and support for per-user directory encryption.” Read the release announcement and release notes for more information.

Source: Distro Watch

Sony PSP Custom Firmware 5.00 M33-3
23 October 2008 in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Homebrew developer Dark_AleX has released 5.00 M33-3. This minor update fixes a bug that prevented certain homebrew applications and games from running properly. Additionally, the PlayStation Store version check is now automatically bypassed.

* A bug was introduced in 5.00 M33-2 that made some games and homebrew to not work.
* PSN version check is now automatically bypassed without the need of touching any settings.

Source: eXophase

PSP Custom Firmware 5.00 M33-2
22 October 2008 in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Following the recent 5.00 M33 custom firmware release, homebrew developer Dark_AleX has released 5.00 M33-2. This maintenance release includes several bug fixes and uses a new method for activating Memory Stick plugins. Additionally, users can now change the firmware version at will by modifying the version.txt file. The complete changelog can be found below.

* Popcorn bug fixes
* Fixed bug that caused some games with certain icons not to work, and caused document.dat not to work.
* Fixed critical bug that caused continous corruption of psx games in RAM.
* Core bugfix: Fixed sctrlKernelSetInit* functions not working.
* M33 network update doesn’t work in 5.00 M33, fixed.
* Added the possibility of loading version information from the file flash0:/vsh/etc/version.txt

Source: eXophase