What Happened To Down Time?
So PSN is down for maintenance today between, get this, 8am and 10pm. For those with a time telling deficiency thats slightly more than half a day through the middle of the day time and in to the evening.
Now I’ve been doing IT work for approx 14 years and never have I heard any one make the statement that it’s “ok” to take a network down during business hours or during peak times. NEVER. In this case I wager during the middle of the day probably isn’t peak but I’d guess 5pm-11pm when every one is off work and home from school is probably peak. I guess I give them credit for doing it closer to the middle of the week but wouldn’t 3am-5pm have been a better time?
Yet lately both in this instance, and where I work, it seems to be increasingly more acceptable to take something down when ever you darn well feel like it. Did I miss something? Are we becoming so reliant on our network 24×7 that it no longer matters when it becomes unavailable because it has to happen some time eventually any way? Or is it that we’re increasingly bowing to what management wants? The symptom is obvious but what do you think the cause is?
The Full Tutorial: How To Upgrade The PS3′s Hard Drive
When I bought my Playstation 3 one of the most enticing things about the system was the ability to upgrade the hard drive with a standard laptop drive. Having previously maxed out the hard drive on my Xbox and my refusal to pay though the nose Microsoft’s exorbitant prices, for commodity hardware wrapped in plastic, this is a key feature. While I did pay up front to get a 120GB version which has lasted me the better part of a year I was with in 20GB or so of maxing it out. Thanks due, in no small part, to the Playstation Plus program that keeps pumping my drive full of new games. If I weren’t able to offload my video on to my home server I’d have been making this upgrade far sooner. Despite the ease with which you can swap the hardware the software end wasn’t quite as straight forward which is why I decided to write this. So lets get down to business.
- Backup your data! Use a second usb drive to make a backup through the backup utility. Move important saves to the cloud saves storage. You lose your data it’s your own fault!
- Remove the old drive and install the new one. Unfortunately the person who made the video disabled embedding. Who know why but the link to the video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sRkj89axOU
- When you start up the system for the first time with the new hard drive installed, you’ll get a message saying “The system software cannot be run correctly”. Don’t panic.
- Format a usb flash drive with a FAT32 file system.
- On the usb flash drive create a folder called PS3 and inside the PS3 folder create a folder called UPDATE.
- Download the latest version of PS3 firmware from here http://us.playstation.com/support/systemupdates/ps3/pc_update/index.htm
- What you will download is a file called PS3UPDAT.PUP. Put this file in the UPDATE folder on the usb flash drive.
- Take your usb flash drive from your PC and plug it in to your PS3.
- Press and hold the ‘start’ and ‘select’ buttons at the same time briefly and you should launch in to the formatting and re-install process.
- Follow the prompts.
PSP a GO GO. Or, how to GOify your standard PSP.
Whats a PSP love’n gamer to do these days? The Vita looks fantastic but is still several months out. The PSP GO is just kind of awkward but the standard PSP isn’t quite cloud ready. The cost of Memory Stick is kind of cost prohibitive and carting those UMDs around is a pain. If you are a Playstation Plus member you also have access to a pretty decent collection of free Mini’s that run on your PSP and quite a few discounted price full PSP games in digital form. So how do you throw out the UMDs and bolster your storage capacity with out breaking the bank? (more…)
Epsilon & PlayStation Network Security Recommendations
Image via WikipediaI amongst the 70 million have been effected by the PlayStation Network hack that took place between April 17th and April 19th. While there isn’t much we can do right now there are some steps you may want to consider taking to protect your own security and financial well being. I’m sure some would like to think they are extreme but after the security breach with Epsilon recently and now this there is no good reason to take chances.
I will state clearly I am not an information security professional. I have however been working in the Information Technology industry for 13(going on 14) years. I’ve suffered similar security breaches before and I’ve heard of them happening many times before. I am also a member of the US Military who under goes security briefings anually on protection of data and while deployed served my section as the Information Management Officer. While my primary role is not information security I have enough experience to know that the bottom line is that information security is every ones problem. What follows are some recommendations. Some vital, some, may be only if you are paranoid.
First and fore most purchases online can only be made if all the pieces of information line up. Your online account information(username & password), your card/account number, your PII or Personally Identifiable Information, and typically a physical marker for your card(that 3 digit number on the back). So your first line of defense against security breaches that have all ready taken place is to change as much of this information as possible.
The easiest of course is your username and password on sites that contain financial information. That’s Amazon, Ebay, Newegg and any other online retailers. Thats service sites like playstation, xbox, netflix, redbox etc. If you can change both your username and password then go for it. The absolute “must change” is your password.
While you can’t change where you live you can change your card number and the three digit code on the back. In other words go to your bank, talk to them, cancel your card and get a new one issued. While it isn’t a comfortable process it is a fairly easy one. Some banks will even let you do this process online. I mentioned briefly your address which you may be able to change through the post office box service at your local post office. Be sure to do some research before going this route because some services will not let you use P.O. Boxes as your personal address. Lastly, and most drematicly is to change your PII or personally identifiable information. This includes your name, social security number and other bits of information like your drivers license number. These are much harder to change. Changing your name will involve both the state and fedral government. Like wise changing your social security number(this is especially hard to do). I don’t recommend going to this length but if you are really that paranoid it can be done. I can’t outline here how to do it as the process will differ from state to state.
These changes should be more than enough to safe guard your security. When changing username and password ensure you use good security practices like long complicated passwords. If you can come up with something you can remember and don’t write it down. Change your passwords frequently, every couple of months at minimum. Last, keep an eye on your accounts. Know whats going on with them. If anything looks suspicious report it to your financial institution immediately.
Sony Poised To Take Mobile Gaming By Storm
Just wanted a quick note about this. The PSP NGP from Sony is a hot little item coming out apparently soon. Most of the time another version of the PSP wouldn’t be noteable but there are some very interesting things about it that came to light. It’s less about the PSP NGP it’s self and more about Sony’s strategy. If they really leverage what they have, I’m not holding my breath, they could come out of no where to dominate the mobile gaming market. Here’s why.
The PSP NGP is being designed on a quad core Arm 9 processor. The same type(not necessarily number of cores) of processor that is in every smart phone out there. This is important because it means with little to no modification all the games and software Sony creates from this point on can potentially run on that device in your pocket or on your desk right now. They’ve all ready demoed the PSN client/store running on the Android powered Sony Ericsson phone so it’s a short leap to installing it on your Motorola or Samsung.
The second thing of note is the touch screen and 3G capabilities being offered on the PSP NGP. Sound like other devices all ready in your pocket? While I’m sure many bigger titles that are first gen on the PSP NGP are not going to provide much in the way of touch screen support. In the not to distant future I think we are going to see top tier Playstation titles coming to smart phones every where. It’s Sony’s chance to take the mobile gaming market by storm.
First 48hrs with the Playstation 3 GJ Sony
Ok so up front I have to let you know I owned an original Xbox and have had an Xbox 360 for the past year and a half. Being an original PC gamer I’ve never much liked the idea of paying a monthly charge to play a video game. It just kind of blows my mind. I suppose the advent of DLC might have made it worth while but then why am I paying a third party plus paying the developer for that DLC. Regardless I’ve done it and it was good. Definitely a solid experience from Microsoft. But…with the exception of the money from my wallet I really didn’t know what I was missing.
First what you need to know is that we’re about half way through this generations life cycle. Both Microsoft and Sony have stated they plan to keep this generation of consoles for 10 years plus. That means 5 more years of the 360 at $50 a year. That’s $250, give or take 5 games worth of cash. May be some of you make enough money that it is inconsequential but I think for most of us thats a tidy bit of money. An while we’re on the subject of money Microsoft points are designed to generate that non-round amount that leaves you just short of the amount you need to buy that next game or avatar item. The PlayStation charges real money at set amounts. No need to worry about left over cash on your account that you can’t use. Score 1 for the PlayStation. The other effect this has is the ability for any one who uses the system to create a free login/profile on playstation.com and log in to the system to maintain their own Trophy record, use their own financial information to buy games and avatar items and to maintain their own friend list. The girl friend is much happier getting in to the online action and I can barely tear her away from Fat Princess.
Second is in the social aspect. While PlayStation Home is definitely a unique and fun way to interact with people and view certain types of content its just worth mentioning as a unique point of interest. My actual point is that I had the Xbox 360 for a year and a half and I’ve met precisely zero people online that I play games with. Every one I play 360 with were either met online but not on the Microsoft service or were people I know in real life. Day two with the system and I’ve all ready added one friend, who is some one I’ve never met in real life, just from sharing a squad in a game of Battlefield Bad Company 2. It’s not clear yet if that says something about the nature of gamers who choose a PlayStation 3 or if it says something about the folks on the Xbox 360 or may be its just happy coincidence. No matter how you look at it I’m up one friend and team mate over a year and a half with the Xbox. We’ll see what the future holds.
The system uses Bluetooth. If you’ve used a cell phone then you probably know what that is. It’s a standard wireless technology for connecting things in close proximity. Controllers, keyboards, and headsets are the most common things connected to a console via this technology. I saw bluetooth headsets at Walmart for $13. How much is a 360 wireless headset now? The PS3 also supports other standards and functionality like USB ports front and back with the ability to plug in standard FAT formatted hard drives for things like video content, music and even full system backups. While the Xbox 360 can do the first two it doesn’t do the last one. Throw in user replaceable internal hard drives for easy upgrades in the future using standard cheap SATA based hard drives. I can drop $100 for 1TB for my PS3 or I can drop…oh wait the only option is a 250GB for the same price for the Xbox 360.
Many of the games on the PlayStation 3 are more unique and more fun than those on the Xbox 360(I do realize thats subjective) and the majority of big title games are cross platform and thus available on the PlayStation 3. The Blueray player is great when the compressed HD from netflix just won’t do it justice or if you have to have a physical medium in your possession(*cough*avatar*cough*). It’s far more quite than the Xbox 360 and consumes less space. I could go on but alas a geeks gotta sleep. I look forward to more posts about the awesomeness of the PlayStationo 3 and all the new possibilities it provides over the Xbox 360.
P.S. While I was shopping around for my Playstation 3 I found a few places selling the 250GB for only $50 more than the 120GB version. Hard to beat a deal like that.
