Monthly Archives: June 2008

[PS3] Playstation 3 für 190€

Man soll es kaum glauben, aber man kann die meistbegehrte Spielkonsole dieser Welt für unter 200€ bekommen. Es handelt sich hierbei um kein illegales Angebot und auch nicht um ein Angebot, bei dem man selbst von irgendwoher importieren muss. die PS3 steht hier in Deutschland und wird binnen einer Woche versandt. Wir selbst bieten dies nicht an, aber wir haben es auf Empfehlung ausprobiert und es funktioniert hervorragend.

Wie’s abläuft

Der Trick ist, dass durch Quersubventionen für neue Mobiltelefontarife rechnerisch am Ende die Playstation 3 für 180€ übrig bleibt. Faktisch schließt man zwei Mobiltelefontarife ab und bekommt dafür sogar noch zwei Handys dazu. Die sind nicht besonders umwerfend, aber es geht ja ohnehin nicht um die Handys, sondern um die PS3. Folgende Konstruktion kommt hier zum Tragen. Wir haben das Ganze der Einfachheit einmal beispielhaft tabellarisch dargestellt:

Grundgebühr pro Vertrag
Laufzeit in Monaten
Anzahl der Verträge
Gesamte Kosten
15,00€
24
2
720,00€
Gesamte Subventionierung
./. 11,00€
24
2
./. 528,00€
effektive Kosten
4,00€
24
2
1 9 2 , 0 0 €

Die Zahlen sind nicht ganz genau und demonstrieren nur die Funktionsweise der Subventionierung. In Wahrheit ist die Erstattung sogar noch ein wenig höher und die Grundgebühr ein wenig niedriger. Übrigens gibt es neben diesem Angebot auch die Möglichkeit eine XBox 360 über eine solche Vertragskonstruktion zu beziehen.

Wie kommen Sie in den Genuss dieses Angebots?

Sehr einfach. Klicken Sie einfach einmal hier :-).

Update 01.07.2008: das Angebot gibt es leider derzeit nicht mehr.

[Linux] WINE 1.0 and Crossover 7 released

“WINE Is Not An Emulator” has been released in version 1.0. Since the first release of a 16bit version in 1993 it only took 15 years to eventually bring version 1.0 to the world. Since 1993 the development was an ongoing process with the help of a large community of volontarily testers.

In a Linux environment WINE basically hooks Microsoft’s Win32 APIs and translates them to Linux APIs – as good as possible, because Microsoft does not provide documentation for all of their APIs. Getting a program like Adobe’s Photoshop to work seemed not to be a hard issue. This is because Adobe uses an own API for many things like windows and their well known tool boxes. The main problem are programs like Microsoft’s Office. Microsoft makes heavy use of implementing undocumented APIs into their own products. Anyway this is a large milestone into a world that allows to choose which operating system fits your needs best, but without the disadvantage of having not all the standard software available.

While WINE is intended for Linux users, Crossover – a commercial version of WINE developed by Codeweavers -is available aswell for Linux as for MacOS X. Crossover allows user friendly GUI based installation of many Win32 programs and has been released at the same time in version 7.

Moreover we will see the impact of WINE 1.0 also in our beloved ReactOS project – which is a free and open source implementation of a Microsoft Windows 32 bit operating system that aims at complete binary compatibility.

Congratulations to the WINE team. Keep up your great work.

[MacOS] MacOS X as Guest OS on Parallels Server

Today Parallels released the server version of their virtualization software. The MacOS X version supports MacOS X server as guest operating system. The Linux and Windows versions will be released within the next six weeks, but they will not virtualize MacOS X – as Apple demanded. The price is currently set to 860€.


[iPhone] T-Mobile to sell iPhone 3G for 1Euro

T-Mobile will subsidize the iPhone 3G. They just announced to sell the new UMTS 3G iPhone for just 1€, if bought with a two year lasting contract for 89€. With a contract for 29€/month the price for the iPhone will be 169€.

As a loyalty bonus to clients who bought the “old” iPhone, the new iPhone will be offered at a special discount. Exact prices are being worked on currently, said T-Mobile. Moreover the iPhone will be sold not only in T-Com shops or via T-Mobile’s online shop, but thru reseller channels aswell.

[MacOS] VMWare Fusion to virtualize MacOS X

VMWare has announced to support virtualisation of MacOS X Server. Although technically possible also for white box PCs this feature will only be included in the VMWare Fusion 2.0. The amount of virtual machines will only be limited by size of memory. The current beta version of VMWare Fusion 2.0 does not support virtualization of MacOS X yet.

[MacOS] Boot native MacOS X with EFI-X USB Dongle

Update 26.06.2008: Read latest news about EFI-X here
Update 22.06.2008: Read latest news about EFI-X here

The newest on the market is announced to be released on 23. June. It is called EFI-X and seems to be quite a revolution. Technically it is a small USB dongle that contains a bootloader. That bootloader allows booting of native MacOS X installer DVDs or yet installed MacOS X installations…

Are you yet shackling your heads? Well, we are. It is said it will support any PC hardware to run OS X. At that point we are skeptical, since even Apple themselves are not able to support any hardware… We expect this to allow seamless installation on close-to-original-mac hardware. Which means: Intel Core2Duo on MoBo’s with Intel chipset and typical ATI or NVidia graphic adapters. But anyway: the installation will become simple and easy. No more BrazilMac workarounds or illegal downloading thru torrents from darkest places on the net. More features – as far as known yet – to be found in the updates section below the video.

We are quite curious about more details but currently the project’s website doesn’t contain anything more than we just told you. Netkas provides a video that shows the bootscreen. Sadly it is of poor quality and light, but see here:

Update (14.08.08):
Rumors on forums are telling about the specifications of your PC required to allow EFiX to run MacOS X

  • Intel Core 2 Duo (not likely to support AMD)
  • Intel chipsets on MoBo’s req
  • ALC889A or ALC885 audio chipset on MoBo to work out of the box
  • USB stick needs to plugged all the time (well who cares?)

Update II (15.06.08):
Althought not finished, the website of EFI-X.com has been updated during the last few hours. It seems, the following product versions of EFi-X will be sold:

  • EFiX for desktop computers
  • EFiX for notebooks
  • EFiX PCI version
  • EFiX complete systems

That looks promising. More to come at latest on 23rd…
Update III (16.06.08)
An FAQ has been published by the EFi-X Team. It clearly states, AMD CPUs are not supported, yet – as expected…

[MacOS] PGP with Whole Disk Encryption for MacOS X

For Microsoft Windows users encryptions tools that support whole disk encryption and integrate pre boot authentication are widely available (see our sponsors below). Mac users just weren’t so lucky to have such a tool available. But… solution to this problem now comes from the PGP corporation. But there is a little limitation: it is for Intel-Macs only.

It’s been announced that PGP 9.9 will support encryption of entire Mac drives, no matter if this includes system files or private files. Just everything gets encrypted and you need to authenticate before the system can boot (Pre-Boot-Authentication). Clearly this means without knowing the password the system will not start. The features as announced:

  • Full-disk encryption (including temp and swap files)
  • Pre-boot authentication to protect devices if lost or stolen
  • support of encryption for USB flash drives and external USB and FireWire drives
  • Compatible with Apple FileVault
  • Compatible with PGP Universal Server (providing consistent data protection for Apple Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows systems)
  • Apple Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 (Intel only)

As of yet we cannot tell if this solution might be compatible to Darwin-EFI emulated hackintoshs aswell, since release of PGP is expected in july.


[Virus] Turkojan Trojan Creator Malware

Eventually it has become true. The criminal world has developed their own business models: Malware as a service. Newly appeared on the black market is Turkojan. It offers:

  • Videostreaming via webcam
  • Audiostreaming via microphone
  • real-time screen viewing
  • keylogger abilities

Turkojan offers even more. They offer three different versions of that malware construction kit. For interested criminals the gold edition contains 24/7 support for 6 months including updates if virusscanners detect that specific malware.

We feel this is really an ugly step in a completely wrong direction. We recommend having a premium virus scanner installed. See our sponsors for solutions.


Kaspersky