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Mr Robot – Episode 5 (of 10)

Mr. Robot TV Series

Mr. Robot TV Series

Watch Mr Robot TV Series

Young, anti-social computer programmer Elliot works as a cybersecurity engineer during the day, but at night he is a vigilante hacker. He is recruited by the mysterious leader of an underground group of hackers to join their organization. Elliot’s task? Help bring down corporate America, including the company he is paid to protect, which presents him with a moral dilemma. Although he works for a corporation, his personal beliefs make it hard to resist the urge to take down the heads of multinational companies that he believes are running — and ruining — the world.

August 2015 Update :
Latest episodes will be uploaded on Wednesday or Thursdays normally when they are released

Mr Robot – Episode 4 (of 10)

Mr. Robot TV Series

Mr. Robot TV Series

Watch Mr Robot TV Series

Young, anti-social computer programmer Elliot works as a cybersecurity engineer during the day, but at night he is a vigilante hacker. He is recruited by the mysterious leader of an underground group of hackers to join their organization. Elliot’s task? Help bring down corporate America, including the company he is paid to protect, which presents him with a moral dilemma. Although he works for a corporation, his personal beliefs make it hard to resist the urge to take down the heads of multinational companies that he believes are running — and ruining — the world.

August 2015 Update :
Latest episodes will be uploaded on Wednesday or Thursdays normally when they are released

Mr Robot – Episode 3 (of 10)

Mr. Robot TV Series

Mr. Robot TV Series

Watch Mr Robot TV Series

Young, anti-social computer programmer Elliot works as a cybersecurity engineer during the day, but at night he is a vigilante hacker. He is recruited by the mysterious leader of an underground group of hackers to join their organization. Elliot’s task? Help bring down corporate America, including the company he is paid to protect, which presents him with a moral dilemma. Although he works for a corporation, his personal beliefs make it hard to resist the urge to take down the heads of multinational companies that he believes are running — and ruining — the world.

August 2015 Update :
Latest episodes will be uploaded on Wednesday or Thursdays normally when they are released

Mr Robot – Episode 2 (of 10)

Mr. Robot TV Series

Mr. Robot TV Series

Watch Mr Robot TV Series

Young, anti-social computer programmer Elliot works as a cybersecurity engineer during the day, but at night he is a vigilante hacker. He is recruited by the mysterious leader of an underground group of hackers to join their organization. Elliot’s task? Help bring down corporate America, including the company he is paid to protect, which presents him with a moral dilemma. Although he works for a corporation, his personal beliefs make it hard to resist the urge to take down the heads of multinational companies that he believes are running — and ruining — the world.

August 2015 Update :
Latest episodes will be uploaded on Wednesday or Thursdays normally when they are released

Mr Robot – Episode 1 (of 10)

Mr. Robot TV Series

Mr. Robot TV Series

Watch Mr Robot TV Series

Young, anti-social computer programmer Elliot works as a cybersecurity engineer during the day, but at night he is a vigilante hacker. He is recruited by the mysterious leader of an underground group of hackers to join their organization. Elliot’s task? Help bring down corporate America, including the company he is paid to protect, which presents him with a moral dilemma. Although he works for a corporation, his personal beliefs make it hard to resist the urge to take down the heads of multinational companies that he believes are running — and ruining — the world.

August 2015 Update :
Latest episodes will be uploaded on Wednesday or Thursdays normally when they are released

Best Android Apps – Game Review – Dead Trigger 2

Game Review - Dead Trigger 2

Game Review – Dead Trigger 2

Shop Amazon – Gift Ideas in Video Games

Best Android Apps – Game Review – Dead Trigger 2

One of my aims when purchasing my Minix X8-H Plus was to see if Android had really achieved enough to compare it with other regular game consoles. The first thing I had to get used to was getting out of my head that ‘if it is attached with a cable it will be faster and more reliable’, so after getting 2 cheap wired gamepads and struggling for ages to try and get them working (and failing), I got an Ipega 9028 bluetooth gamepad.

Ipega 9028 Bluetooth Gamepad

ipega 9028 Bluetooth Gamepad

ipega 9028 Bluetooth Gamepad

So first a quick review of the gamepad. It is made with an attachment you can see in the pic above to attach your smartphone into it which is pretty cool if you want to use it like that!

Size and construction-wise it is perfect, feels strong, and has handled everything I threw at it. It has a usb connector to enable you to charge it (2 hours approx) and that charge lasts a few hours of constant playing. You can also play while it is plugged in and charging as well if you want.

Setting it up was easy (after learning the hard way). Do not bother with any of the Ipega drivers, sites, apps etc. Just activate bluetooth on your android device and pair it. The full steps I do are this :

1) set the controller to pair by pressing A and then the red Start button on the controller. The light will start to flash fast meaning it is looking for a connection.
2) on my Minix box I turned on Bluetooth and it finds the Ipega 9028 on the list.
3) click on it and it will pair in seconds.

You can buy the wireless Ipega 9028 controller from amazon same as I did here :

Then it is just down to which game you want to play and if it supports controllers/gamepads.

Ok, now for the game which is the real point of this post.

Shop Amazon – Gift Ideas in Video Games

Android Game Review – Dead Trigger 2 – Gameloft

Before talking too much about the game, it should be noted that until I started playing this game I have NEVER been a gamer, never played a FPS (first person shooter) game, and never really been interested to do so either. This was a whole new experience for me, but as it says it is Free to Play then I thought I would give it a try.

As Ive picked up from other apps on Android the ‘Free to play’ usually means : you can, but your progress will be slower compared to someone who makes some in-app purchases.

Graphics

For me slower was fine as I wanted to understand and learn the game anyway! As I said I had no real background in gaming in the last 10 years, but my interest first was from a graphical side. Dead Trigger 2 does not let you down there. In the settings on my Minix TV Box it gave me options of Low and Medium Graphics. Both are damn good, and work perfectly on the box. Clearly there is much more detail on Medium mode so I have left it there.

Features

The aim of the game is to complete missions. For missions you complete you get money, for money you buy weapons, painkillers, and chickens (random I know, but suicide chickens are a zombie hunters best friend).

You are based in a Hideout with a Smuggler, Chicken Engineer, Technician, Weapons Guy and a Medic. They each make you something thats useful in the game. With the money you collect in missions you can upgrade each of these to new levels which activates better weapons, better chickens, better painkillers etc etc.

1 feature I like in the game is the ability to record and share your gameplay. This recording is set on Low Graphics, but even there you can see it is perfectly playable and fast:

And here is another from a different mission :

How free is free?

So now that I have been playing this game for 2-3 weeks where am I at?

Well Im on Level 36, I have Rocket Chickens, Twin Uzi, Rocket Launcher and various other weapons which is pretty cool I think!! BUT it has taken me a lot of playing to achieve this.

The missions can become VERY TEDIOUS, based in the same warehouse or street. I have completed I think 400 Missions and there has been maybe 30 different scenes so you get the idea. My way to get around this was to set myself small targets per day, focus on using weapons XXXX to get YYYY mission completed which earned me ZZZZ etc. Im still playing so its working!! There are constant (constant is the wrong word, regular is better) reminders that you can buy Special Pack 1,2,3,4 etc for XX$ but its really not that intrusive. And as the Zombies get stronger ive been able to keep up on weapons upgrades to be able to survive.

So my view is Yes it is free to play, and you can have a lot of fun with it.

Multiplayer??

I think originally when I found this game one of my other intentions (as a non-gamer previously) was to see how games consoles etc handled multiplayer fnctionality.

Well to be honest Dead Trigger (so far at least) does not do that. Sure there is a chat room where you can speak to people, but there is no real need to for the purpose of the game. You can even add friends to your friends list, but I have not seen any missions where that actually has any use. Maybe it will happen on future levels when I get there. I have seen there are competitions / tournaments on the map, but I have had nowhere near enough Gold to be able to play in those yet (the only way to get 1000+ Gold seems to be to buy it with real money).

So for me at least there is no REAL multiplayer elements to the game that ive seen so far. I will update this post if that changes on future levels.

Summary

To end this Android Game Review here is my summary. Overall this game is pretty damn good. The graphics for an Android device are good (better than anything I have seen before), the gameplay can become a bit repetitive however, but there is enough variety in different ways you can kill a zombie and see the blood splash in different ways to keep me amused.

RATING : 8/10

Run cron job every 90 mins (minutes) – Linux Scheduling, Batch Automation, Scheduled Jobs

Run a cron job every 90 mins (minutes)

Run a cron job every 90 mins (minutes)

Run cron job every 90 mins

Running a cron job is normally easy enough when you do not try and get over-complicated. Every hour or minute, or even every Monday is a simple task using the standard columns included in cron.

Just to refresh you here are the first columns of a standard crontab for reference :

field allowed values
—– ————–
minute 0-59
hour 0-23
day of month 1-31
month 1-12 (or names, see below)
day of week 0-7 (0 or 7 is Sun, or use names)

But to run cron job every 90 mins (minutes) needs just a little bit of thought. Firstly, you might be thinking WHY would you ever want to run a cron task every 90mins?? Well every persons use of cron is different, but one example could be a football game that lasts 90minutes. How you put that to some use depends on the workings of your system!

I worked this out simply by writing the times I wanted the task to run down like this :

00:00
01:30
03:00
04:30
06:00
07:30

From that you can see a pattern forming. Of course you could list individual times for a whole day, but thats HORRIBLE, therefore the shortest way is across 2 lines like this :


# Run cron job every 90 mins
# 1st line will run at 00:00, 03:00, 06:00 hours etc. 2nd line will run at 01:30, 04:30, 07:30 etc
00 0-21/3 * * * /home/task1.bash > /dev/null 2>&1
30 1-22/3 * * * /home/task1.bash > /dev/null 2>&1

So as you can see from the explanation line, the control is in the pattern, and working out the gaps between the hours for each run.

Hope that saves you some minutes instead of working it out yourself!

Cron definition and description (see full man page HERE) :

A crontab file contains instructions to the cron daemon of the general form: “run this command at this time on this date”. Each user has their own crontab, and commands in any given crontab will be executed as the user who owns the crontab.

Blank lines and leading spaces and tabs are ignored. Lines whose first non-space character is a pound-sign (#) are comments, and are ignored. Note that comments are not allowed on the same line as cron commands, since they will be taken to be part of the command. Similarly, com-ments are not allowed on the same line as environment variable settings.

Best Android Apps – Check some more of my favourite apps for Android – Part 2

XBMC / Kodi / Free TV / Free Sports / Best android apps

XBMC / Kodi / Free TV / Free Sports / Best android apps

Finding the best Android apps is not a particularly difficult task, with Google Play, Amazon, and a host of other app stores at your fingertips, the thing that annoys me sometimes is knowing WHAT it is you are looking for!!

In my first article HERE, I noted down some of the immediate apps I needed that got me going on my Minix X8-H Plus TV Box. This time Im going to mention some other apps I use regularly, some maybe obvious (its only obvious if you know about it!!), and others maybe less so.

Best Android Apps – Entertainment Apps

Kodi / XBMC

Most people still know this app as XBMC after having stormed the world with a multimedia experience that has seen it installed on pretty much every Android TV Box on the planet. It is also available for PC (and mac I believe – not sure on that one).

The latest version of XBMC has been renamed to Kodi.

Kodi is basically an environment which makes it easy for the user to view video (or audio) content. In order to watch specific content like Live TV Streams, sports events, movies etc etc there are a hundred different addons (maybe I will write an article about some of those later).

But for now the guys at Kodi have released a pre-configured version of Kodi with the most popular addons included. It is called TVMC, you can download it for Android here :

(2017-07-07) – Unfortunately tvmc is offline but find here the link to other useful alternatives you can use with XBMC / Kodi –

http://comparitech.net/tvaddons

It should be pretty quick to install and then you can look around and find live streams, catchup (on demand) tv, sports events, movies and more.

Skype – Video and Message calling for Android

When I first installed this my analytical head took over, and I over complicated things thinking what would be needed to get a webcam to work with it on Android. Forget about all that as it was nothing to worry about.

On the recommendation of others I purchased a Logitech C310 HD Webcam from Amazon. Here is the one I got :

Logitech C310 HD Webcam

So when you have your webcam (get the webcam FIRST as you need it plugged in BEFORE you install) you can then install Skype from this link :

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.skype.raider&hl=en_GB

The key to that is having your webcam plugged into the USB so Skype recognises you have a webcam and therefore makes it install the drivers for it.

Then you should be good to go ahead and call your friends !

All Goals – The Livescore App

In my view this is the ultimate app for viewing football (soccer if you are american) schedules, scores, goal video replays for your favourite team. It has a comprehensive list of EVERY game in the world, updated every minute as goals are scored, and has alerts/notification options for you to favourite your team to know when a game starts, when a goal is scored, the half time and full time scores etc etc. They even have a for fun betting system, chat room for individual games so you can speak to other fans from around the world.

There are no obtrusive ads and it just WORKS !!! You can download it here :

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.firstrowria.android.soccerlivescores

AppGratis – A free app every day

Not an essential app that I use that much, but if you are looking for some inspiration for something new on your Android device, then this may do it for you.

It boasts a free (or 90% off regular price) app every single day. Sure most off them wont interest you, but the one day you check it and do find something useful then the app has done its job.

Is not much more to say about this really apart from you can download it here :

http://appgratis.com/android

Shop Amazon – Gift Ideas in Video Games

Thats it for part 2 of my Best Android Apps, join me again sometime soon with more!

Also Check out my review of the Ipega 9028 gamepad HERE

Radio Station Online – Cheap Shoutcast Hosting

Radio Station - Shoutcast Server Hosting

Radio Station – Shoutcast Server Hosting

Radio Station Online – Cheap Shoutcast Hosting

Online Radio was something I started working with around 2005. Drum and Basslines as my music site has been hosting and utilising Shoutcast during most of that time. With customers in the UK and USA we have the experience and infrastructure required to host your Shoutcast Servers.

We also provide custom solutions including Shoutcast Transcoding (different bitrates to cater for a wider audience), Advanced Scheduling to enable you as the Station Manager to automate triggered shows when you want, as well as Auto-Promo tools to enable you to connect with your listeners via Twitter. Get in contact with us on contact@drumandbasslines.com or place your order below.

Option 1 Shoutcast Server :
50 Max Listeners

Max 128k stream
European Server with maximum bandwidth to ensure a smooth and reliable stream

 Option 2 Shoutcast Server :
200 Max Listeners

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 Option 2 Shoutcast Server :
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European Server with maximum bandwidth to ensure a smooth and reliable stream
Monthly cost : 7 GBP


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Android Apps – My favourite and most used Android Applications

MINIX Neo X8-H Plus - Best Android Apps

MINIX Neo X8-H Plus – Best Android Apps

Android Apps are clearly at the core of the Android system. The last few years I have tried to embrace Android as much as I can. The first step was getting my Samsung Galaxy S2 which (apart from the terrible battery life) has been a really good buy.

Then a couple of months ago I was realising my laptop was seriously underpowered and struggling, so started evaluating whether an Android TV box could give me enough functionality to replace my laptop.

After reviewing many different TV boxes I purchased a Minix X8-H Plus. My reasons were based on reviews I had read, the activity in the Minix Forum, the specs of the device were also impressive featuring quad core, 1Gb ethernet, and a host of ports to do everything I could need.

Samsung Galaxy S2 - Best Android Apps

Samsung Galaxy S2 – Best Android Apps

I needed connectivity to my Centos servers, vpn access for work and location detection for watching TV, ability to read mail, ability to take quick notes (notepad on windows is always open on my laptop), and functionality for news, weather, games, and movies.

Android Apps – My Favourites so far :

My first difficulty is that I live in Georgia (in the Caucasus mountains), and getting even free apps from Google Play is very limited, therefore first task was to get a USA vpn. So my first app :

Private Internet Access VPN App

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/

The app itself was not available on Google Play, however their site has the APK which was pretty simple to get working

Then the second task was to get my music and movies from my laptop available on the TV box. No need really for another app as was able to share the drive on my laptop and then read it over the network using ESP File Manager (preinstalled on the Minix). Also made things easier to copy content between my laptop and Android.

Then a responsive and appealing Launcher was needed that I could use with either a mouse or the remote controls. From the Minix forum there was only really 1 choice so my next app is this :

SquareHome.Tablet Launcher

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ss.squarehome&hl=en_GB

Takes a little while to get used to positioning the icons and working out the styles to make it look really good (ive still not finished it properly yet), but once youve got the hang of it then its pretty simple.

Ok, so now how to watch TV…. It was very important for me to be able to find live football streams. Not being a ‘big club’ supporter this was always going to be harder than if I was a Manchester United fan, but preinstalled on the Minix is their own customised version of XBMC. With the SPORTSDEVIL app I have been able to find most sports channels and live streams. I also then found another cool app which seems to have better quality sports streams from UK and USA, so here it is my next app is this :

Mobdro TV

https://mobdro.com/

With a ton of channels I was able to find all of the Sky Sports channels, as well as a load of USA Sports networks as well so is plenty of choice.

Unable to find apps you want on your device?? Well there is a second easy option to try to find what you are looking for :

Amazon Appstore

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/mas/get/androidapp/ref=mas_rw_gts

Took me quite a while to find the correct app but the above link will do it for you. Basically you want the Amazon Appstore not just the regular Amazon app. Once youve got it installed then your away. It does seem similar to Google Play in that there are location differences in whats available so personally I use a USA vpn using Private Internet Access link above (you may have to clear cache and data on your device so it forgets where you were before) and then you get the whole list of apps available.

Shop Amazon – Gift Ideas in Video Games

Is a few other app stores available for regular and cracked games etc. if you either dont want to pay for some apps, or your device wont let you pay… these 2 seem to work fine for me as ive used them for some games I simply could not find anywhere on Google Play or Amazon

http://play.mob.org/

http://www.mobogenie.com/apps

Back to more work related stuff. As you know I am a Unix System Administrator, I write lots of Bash scripts, and administer a large number of servers. I needed a good SSH client where I could add as many servers as I wanted to a list to make it easy to log in to each, to enable my SSH private key on it to keep my connections secure. Ive always previously used ConnectBot (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.connectbot&hl=en_GB) but is always good to have a dig around from time to time to see what else is out there, so I found this :

JuiceSSH

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sonelli.juicessh&hl=en_GB

It has absolutely everything I need, is simple to use, can configure as many connections as you want, run multiple sessions at once, and it looks good too!


So there you go, thats a quick (or maybe not so quick) rundown of some of the FREE core apps I currently use on Android. I might add another article later with any updates to the above list, or new apps I find in the future. If you have seen any other useful apps then please let me know so I can check them out!