Another shirt and links!

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more of the same shirts

I opened up another store at printfection.com. Just testing it out and see if its any better than cafepress. It seems they do have more options and more colors.
Here's my link for the turtle shirts

UPS customer service awesome

This is one of the few times where someone is going to say something good about a company:
I sent in a friends Xbox to Microsoft. I was supposed to get it back on Thursday, but I was at work. So they left a note and everything and was going to try and deliver it on Friday. Well I called and tried to make pickup arrangements but the driver wouldn't be back to the pickup office before they close or I got off of work. So they ended up giving me the driver's name (Travis) and cell phone number so I could meet up with him after I got off of work. Everyone on the phone was really nice and helpful and they were very personal (as in they called me back a few times after trying to setup different arrangements). Needless to say I met up with Travis at a gas station on my way home (after going to the wrong gas station) and picked up the package. Everyone was REALLY nice and helpful and I just wish I would have thought at the time to offer to buy him lunch or something.

Fall 2009 Dashboard Update

I went to play COD4 tonight and low and behold it started to download an update. Apparently I was selected to participate in the beta test of the new dashboard update. Overall it looks pretty much the same. Most of the changes are minor. I have a new "channel" called Xbox Preview. In there lists the new features which are:

• Party Reconnections
• Streamline Party Invites
• Gold Member veterans-your gamer card shows how long you've been a gold member
• Subscription notification
• fixing invalid windows live ids
• better account recovery
• avatar props-it seams you unlock these from games
• avatar marketplace-you can buy clothes for you're avatar. some look pretty cool, they're 80mp for say a pair of steampunk glasses. which I HAD to buy, but thats IT, damnit.
  
• Avatar awards- it seems you'll be able to unlock clothing and the props from getting certain achievements in games. Which seems a lot better than having to buy the damn clothes.
  
• watch netflix in a party
• browse netflix content faster based on previously watched
• better playback
• shows what you are watching in the Friends channel
• ability to override display formats for dvi and hdmi
• user ratings for all game content
• Games on Demand-xbox originals, and it sounds like they may have xbox360 games to download. also game manuals for games on demand on xbox.com
• DRM stuff- seems you still can take your profile to someone else's xbox, buy a game, then recover your profile on your account and redownload the game and you both can play.
  
• community games are now called indie games
• launch a game from the achievement browser
• achievement tracking- an all games view which shows a summary of achievements from all games played
• better achievement browser
• more "links" for common items such as, downloads, redeem code, auto sign-in, create profile and recover gamertag
• warning if no audio when sending a voice message-small feature but definitely will keep me from looking like a dumbass.
• time stamps on memory area-such as for saved games
• friends list sorting by activity, gamertag, or online status

So far nothing too big. So don't expect some grand like the jump going to NXE; this is a mild update. I would really just like to see more free stuff, or a way to see all the free stuff.

Downloaded episodes not playing correctly on Xbox360

For episodes you download from groups DOT or XII, re-encode them with GotSent so they play correctly on the Xbox360.
For about a month now, some groups have been releasing tv episodes that were encoded differently and they do not play correctly on the Xbox360. When playing one of these videos it will play about 2 mins then the video stops but the audio continues. The only way to fix this problem is to either wait for another group to release the episode, which usually doesn't happen, or re-encode it. I've FINALLY found a REALLY easy solution for Xbox re-encodes. GotSent
You can use other methods for better control over quality and all that, but this is SUPER fast and really easy. Handbrake was taking 30 minutes for a 45 minutes show, and it still didn't work or looked horrible. GotSent took less than 3 mins and looks like the original and plays fine.

New Shirt

Just a quick little shirt:

If you can't tell, this is a SkiFree shirt; the old Microsoft game. Got the idea from joking around with Chey and thought I would actually make it.
Game can be downloaded here.

And I still need someone to fix my layout ;)
And a way to hack an IBM thinkpad 760xl bios password without an eeprom or sending it away, preferably for free.
Mame roms
Nifty Psx to Parallel converter
TrackerChecker-Checks to see if private trackers are having public registrations.
Just awesome-and my current project...sort of.

Hooray for Raffstar!

So, Raffstar isn't a sham after all. I actually did receive my $25 Victoria Secret e-giftcard, which has to be used online. But either way, my girlfriend is very happy.

Updated Raffstar bot

Every once in a while you need to go and delete the old giveaways and add the new ones as they end and put new ones up. Just edit the giveaways.txt with the urls.

Dammit

Well scratch the call out for a Futurama Soundtrack cover. I'm working on finally installing Vista and ended up partitioning my other hard drive without thinking. And of course the Futurama Soundtrack was on there, along with about 40gb of other downloaded stuff. But the soundtrack is the only thing I really cared about. So, hooray for blind ambition and stupidity.

*UPDATE*
I tried and tried to recover the files, but no go. I did recover SOME music, but they were the tracks from the second soundtrack (from seasons 3 and 4). So it looks like there won't be a Futurama Soundtrack (at least from me) unless I get enough response to redo it. It consisted of 34 tracks containing music from the series and actual songs used in the series. Such as the Grunka Lunka song, and MMM Bop by Hanson (Anthology of Interest I, where Bender jumps on their concert).
:(

IE Sucks/I suck and other randomness

Well it seems my blog is broken in IE8 and probably others I suck and I have somehow killed my layout. I can't remember enough html/css , and am too lazy, to properly fix it. If anyone out there in internets land could help, I could provide a private tracker invite in return, or an e-hug, or possibly money, most likely $1. Or maybe something else if I can think of it.

random links:
Dreamspark - Now offering free certification in certain Microsoft courses for students. (or former students ;))
Free Mothers Day Card
Demonoid- is still have open registrations.
Rush Discography - torrent
Watchmen Motion Comic - torrent

*SUBMISSIONS*
I also need album art for a Futurama Soundtrack. If anyone would like to create one and send it in, I will include it in my Futurama Soundtrack. (that I've slowly been working on for years). Just submit it to tweaq2.0@gmail.com. The best one (or only one) will be included in the torrent.

Think Geek now has Squeez Bacon!

Think Geek has just put up some new products including: the TaunTaun Sleeping Bag, Unicorn Chaser, Squeez Bacon and MORE!

read more | digg story

Newer, New Avatar Shirts

So I'm finally getting around to creating some more Avatar: The Last Airbender shirts. I've finished and posted the Water Tribe Emblem shirt and I'm working on the water bender shirt. I should have it up soon. You can find it/them at my cafepress shop. And don't forget to check out the Fire Nation shop and my other random shop

Please post a comment with any questions, suggestions, or your vote for the next nation.

*UPDATE*
So I actually did put the new shirts up. I just added the Water Bender shirts. If anyone would like a different emblem on a different style/color just let me know and I can switch it around. Or if anyone would like any stickers or anything else, just post a comment or something and I'll put those up, too.

ps. thanks to Distant Horizon, Avatar Spirit, and Icy_Ashford of Avatar Spirit for most of the translations.

Cowabunga! Playmates brings back original TMNT toys

Playmates are re-releasing the Ninja Turtle action figures using the original molds from the 90s. The original four and shredder are available NOW at K-Mart and Target. Digg it

read more | digg story

Hooray, new post!

Yay, I'm posting again. I've made another bot, this time for the site Raffstar.com. I heard about the site on Diggnation. You sign up and go to each of the prizes and click to get a ticket, every hour or day. By going to the pages, ads are displayed and they make money, which is donated to the charity of the prize givers choice. Helps out everyone ;)

So I made a bot that goes to each of the prize links and clicks to get a ticket. I have mine setup with a Windows Scheduled Task. Setup a new Scheduled Task and view the Advanced properties on the Schedule tab. There you can set it to repeat the task every hour (or 61 minutes to be sure).

Unfortunately I have not won or even been in the top 10 of any prizes, but if you are, please post in the comments.

raffbot
*UPDATE*
I realized I probably should have put some info with it, but oh well. You first need to open IE and login and have it remember your login. Then just run the bot and it will read the URLs in the giveaways.txt file and go to each one and get you a ticket. You need to open IE and login and have it remember your login. You can use ctrl+alt+right arrow to skip a URL cycle. If it happens to crap out and open a million IEs, I've included close ie.exe which will close all IEs (just make sure you close it before running the bot again). Occasionaly it does screw up and either click too early or it won't close IE or something. I have some error checking, so it should get around it and continue on. Any problems just post a comment or email me.

Link to my MediaFire folder. (had to move because I couldn't remember my rapidshare password)
Also listed is my woot script and wmpnetworksvc script. The woot script just opens woot.com, used with scheduled tasks to open at 1:00am so you don't miss a woot. The wmpnetworksvc script restarts the service so it refreshes the shared files using Windows Media Player. This works if you have recently added a shared file and a computer of xbox360 doesn't see it yet.

Firefox!

Yay, Firefox 3 has been released. This post is, of course, late for the Guinness record, but you still need to download it, if you haven't already. Also you can get a nifty certificate for participating.

iTunes podcast updater macro

I am lazy. I don't like having to remember to open iTunes and refresh my podcasts to make sure it downloads them. So I created a little macro that will do that for me. I have it set to run everyday at 5:30 (to make sure TRS is up), using Windows Task Scheduler. It opens iTunes, refreshes the podcasts and if there is any it waits until they finish, then it syncs the iPod and closes iTunes. I made the macro using AutoHotKey so you can use exe2ahk to decompile it and edit it, if you want.
Download Link

*Info*
The macro does take control of the mouse so it will work best if you run it when you are away from the computer.

*UPDATED* AGAIN
I made it so it searches if an iPod is connected; if not, it will just close iTunes, and it should work better now.

Stuffs in the mail!

Hurray for free stuffs. A few days ago I received my stuff from Playstation's RLS; which was a PS3 beanie, a Sony shirt and Sony belt. Shipping only took about 2 weeks.
I also got a $25 gift card for Best Buy from Boomertowne. Shipping took about a month or so. There ARE bots for boomertowne which make it slightly easier to get points, although it takes longer to get enough points because there is a <1000 point daily limit.

Boomertowne Bots:
Seatbelt99'sboombitches
WsRpKs and Slow958's Boomertowne Joke Bot 4.0
These bots were originally created for the cheatingnetwork.net but they have since taken down the boomertowne forums (and club live) so I cannot link to the original creators.

My rapidshare folder which I will upload and update various bots.

Tweaq's Super Awesome Flexibot Pro

Ok, so I started from scratch and made my own Flexicon bot: Tweaq's Super Awesome Flexibot Pro.
This is another bot for Microsoft's Live Search Club. It is MUCH more reliably than my/Precise's modded version. It auto plays the games and pauses itself on the captchas. Check the readme for more info.
Hopefully this can tide everyone over until the big daddies finish up their bots.

semi *UPDATED*

Download Link

*SUB-POST*
Check out Playstation's Retail Loyalty Site. You're "supposed" to be an employee of some store that sells games and consoles, but you can use Best Buy's Store Locator and find your local Best Buy's store number.
Search for your Best Buy then mouseover or copy and paste the Map & Directions link. It will say something like javascript:mapanddirection('STORE NUMBER','SOMETHING ELSE'). Use the store number to sign up for RLS, or any other store's store number you want.
Then you can do the quizes and accumulate points to buy stuff on the site. The quizes are really easy and you can take them multiple times. There is a 15 quiz a day limit, but that isn't THAT big of a deal (1500 points a day isn't bad, consider the PS3 games are 3450 points). I got a nifty mouse pad in the mail today (don't even remember ordering it) and I ordered a beanie.

Modded Flexicon Pro Revenge bot

I've used Precise's flexicon bot and made it semi automated. Semi as in it will pause and you enter the captcha. My version "seems" more reliable and user friendly (no offense Precise). You SHOULD be able to setup your window and icons and let it go, but things do happen.
Download Link

If anyone wants the source you can aim/email me or disassemble the program with exe2ahk

Xbox360 iTunes media hack/workaround

So you've downloaded the Xbox360 December update and you're excited you can play divx and xvid (as am I), but as you may have noticed you still cannot play some iTunes files, specifically m4v (as in The Totally Rad Show and Diggnation). So I've made a little workaround, aka hack, to fix this problem. You have to make sure you have the codec on your computer (supposedly), so you can play the files. I use the k-lite codec pack, so I can play anything. And I use Windows Media Player 11 to share my media to my Xbox360 (the Zune software wouldn't share the .avi's). Anyway, you can rename the .m4v files to .avi and they will play fine on the Xbox360. I've made a simple batch script that will automatically rename all the files to .avi:

@ECHO OFF
cd C:\Documents and Settings\Tweaq\My Documents\My Music\Podcasts\The Totally Rad Show \
rename *.* *.avi

Just create a .bat file and put the four lines above in there, changing to your folder where your .m4v files are. You can have it rename as many folders as you need, just copy the bottom 2 lines and change it to the folder you need.
The only downside is that iTunes can no longer find the files and you have to delete them manually. This is acceptable to me, as I'm behind on all my shows and they are stockpiled.

*Bonus*
Use Windows Scheduled Tasks (Control Panel>Scheduled Tasks>Add Scheduled Tasks) and have Windows automatically run the .bat file and rename your files for you every day or every week.

*EDIT*
It seems iTunes is now using one folder for mp3 and m4v, so just edit the location and take out Large Quicktime, and edit the filename from *.* to *.m4v

Queries Clicker, Search Queries Bot autoclicker.

I've made another auto clicker; this time for gunitsneakaz's Search Queries Bot.
You will need to download his bot separately but you can get it from here.
My macro can be downloaded here.

For more info on what I'm talking about visit Live Search Club to play games and get stuff. It DOES work as I've gotten a wireless 360 controller, movie tickets, a t-shirt, 2 360 games (PGR3), and 2 Vista Home (returned and bought a 360 Premium, with Gears of War).


*Side Note*
As I now have a 360 I could use some XBL friends, so be my friend. I'm tweaq0.