The Buzz Media » guide

How to Unlock an AMD Radeon HD 6950 to an 6970 Easily

Riyad Kalla — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 17:23:53 +0000

I purchased an XFX Radeon HD 6950 (2GB) video card a few months ago in preparation for all the triple-a titles that have come out in the last year; while I miss the PhysX support for the occasional game that supports it, I’ve been mostly happy. Shortly after the dual-launch of both the 6950 and [...]

Designing a Secure REST (Web) API without OAuth

Riyad Kalla — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 01:32:31 +0000

Situation You want to develop a RESTful web API for developers that is secure to use, but doesn’t require the complexity of OAuth and takes a simple “pass the credentials in the query” approach… or something equally-as-easy for people to use, but it needs to be secure. You are a smart guy, so you start [...]

How to Easily Resize Images in Mac OS X

Riyad Kalla — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 18:08:59 +0000

Just to be clear, I feel super lame typing this tip up because it has had me stumped for a while and I never spent much time trying to figure it out. Ultimately I found myself typing “How to easily resize images on Mac” into Google more times than I am proud of. Well, I [...]

iPhone Jailbreakers & Unlockers: How to Backup your “SHSH Blobs” with TinyUmbrella

Chris Hunkele — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 19:33:00 +0000

What is an SHSH blob? SHSH blobs or ECID SHSH is a unique identifier from Apple for a device. When you attempt a restore, iTunes authenticates the device to Apples server, and cross references the firmware you are trying to install to the recommended version. If the firmware you are attempting to install is not [...]

How to Add Page-Link Tag (Multiple Page Post / nextpage) Support to WordPress

Riyad Kalla — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 05:42:47 +0000

If you have been trying to figure out how to add support for multi-page posts in WordPress that have pagination buttons at the end of each page that look like this: then look no further than this post! The screenshot you see above is actually the exact pagination style we use for long posts that [...]

How to Stop Windows HTPC From Powering off While Media Center Extender is Streaming

Riyad Kalla — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 02:53:42 +0000

Do you have a Windows 7 Media Center HTPC that you are streaming content from to additional Media Center Extender devices (e.g. Xbox 360 somewhere else in the house) and want to find out a way to have the HTPC not turn itself off when you hit the power button if it’s still in-use by [...]

How to Become Mayor for Any Place in Foursquare in 9 Perl Statements

Riyad Kalla — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:45:09 +0000

Update #1: We have created a easy-to-use FourSquare checkin hack program you can run to checkin anywhere you like. You can download it for free here. Foursquare is getting beat down today; hot on the heals of the breaking news that Foursquare is sending your passwords in plaintext (something they are fixing very soon) Mayank [...]

How to Fix and Replace a KitchenAid Blender Coupling

Riyad Kalla — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:42:24 +0000

What you see there is the plastic coupling that sits on the base of a KitchenAid blender that turns the blade inside the blender. Did I mention it is made out of plastic? My wife was making a smoothy this morning and apparently the frozen fruit was too much for our KitchenAid Blender (Model #KSB50B3) [...]

Cooking Times are Past Their Prime!

Tim Pollard — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:12:14 +0000

When I was younger, I was always fascinated with cooking. In particular, baking. Being from South Carolina, originally, I was surrounded by tons of women who just KNEW how to cook, if you follow me. Hands down, they were Paula Deen before she was even a concept. One of these great cooks was my grandmother. [...]

Windows XP, Vista and Mac OS X Centralized Backup Guide

John Hirt — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:07:37 +0000

GUEST POST: Occasionally we post stories contributed from readers, and today’s contribution is from reader John Hirt. Thanks John! My home office setup uses a networked hard drive to save scheduled backups for multiple computers with different operating systems. The setup uses pretty much standard residential components for home networking and is a combination of [...]

How to Enable MMS on 2G iPhone with 3.1.2 Firmware and Native MMS

Riyad Kalla — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:45:16 +0000

If you have the original “2G” iPhone (EDGE-only) and have the 3.1.2 firmware installed on it and want to get MMS working, this is the guide for you. Alternatively, if you have the original 2G iPhone and don’t have the iPhone 3.1.2 firmware on it yet, but want to know how to get it on [...]

Sunsceen Performance and Safety Testing Guide

Chris Hunkele — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:39:54 +0000

The results were recently published of an independent study done by the EWG. They took over 500 store bought sunscreens and put them to the test. And the results were pretty shocking. The worst offender being “Banana Boat Beach Baby Max” with an advertised SPF rating of 100, but after performing an industry standard test, [...]

MongoDB (Single-Server) Data Durability Guide

Riyad Kalla — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:33:18 +0000

If you are a MongoDB user or just interested in NoSQL databases in general, you may have seen the excellent “MongoDB has poor data durability by default!” (I am paraphrasing) conversation started by Mikeal Rogers. It is an excellent topic to bring up and regardless of Mikeal’s association (he’s a CouchDB developer) I never once [...]

How to Update iPhone 2G with Firmware 3.1.2, Jailbreak and Carrier Unlock Guide

Riyad Kalla — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 23:28:00 +0000

REMINDER: This guide is for folks with the original “2G” or EDGE-only iPhone (pictured above). If you have an iPhone 3G, try our iOS 4 guide to get updated to the latest iPhone OS! Introduction If you are like me and own an original 2G/EDGE iPhone and feel sad that you can’t install iOS 4 [...]

iPhone 3G iOS 4 Jailbreak and Carrier Unlock Guide

Chris Hunkele — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 05:49:00 +0000

IMPORTANT: Due to changes in iTunes 9.2+ iOS verification model, you have to backup your “SHSH blob” first before continuing. Fortunately we have a dead-easy step-by-step guide for you guys. Once you are done, come back and continue. Welcome to the world’s first iPhone iOS 4 Jailbreak and Carrier unlock guide. Let’s just dig right [...]

Increase WordPress Performance on Apache with Worker MPM, PHP and mod_fcgid

Riyad Kalla — Sun, 23 May 2010 13:41:41 +0000

This is a continuation of two previous posts about Apache performance running PHP-apps like WordPress. One was on running PHP via CGI and the other was on running Apache with the thread-based “Worker” MPM instead of the default “Prefork” MPM. As mentioned in the other posts (incase you don’t want to read them… I don’t [...]

How to Install iPhone 3.0 Firmware on Jailbroken and Unlocked T-Mobile iPhone

Chris Hunkele — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:06:27 +0000

NOTE: This is an update to our Firmware 2.2.1 Guide, which was an update to our Firmware 2.1 Guide, which was an update to our Firmware 2.0 Guide. Update #1: For 3G iPhone users, you have to turn off 3G before enabling WiFi right before unlocking in last section. Instructions updated. Update #2: For quick [...]

Explanations of Common Java Exceptions

Riyad Kalla — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:50:23 +0000

Huge thanks to Marc Chung for sending along this great reference. It’s a breakdown of all the JDK exceptions and textual descriptions of what they represent — so if you are designing your own API or just working on your own app and want to make sure your use of particular exceptions (e.g. IllegalArgumentException) is [...]

How to Install iPhone 2.2.1 Firmware on Jailbroken and Unlocked T-Mobile iPhone

Riyad Kalla — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:56:15 +0000

Update #1: There is now a guide for installing, jailbreak and unlocking the iPhone 3.0 Firmware. NOTE: This is an update to our Firmware 2.1 Guide, which was an update to our Firmware 2.0 Guide. Outline Introduction Who is this Guide For Details You Should Know Getting Started Applying the Firmware Update Unlocking the iPhone [...]

Screenshot Tour of Windows 7: Libraries, Taskbar, IE8 and the New Paint Application!

Riyad Kalla — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:23:50 +0000

Introduction When the public beta of Windows 7 was announced, we did like everyone else and ran over to the Windows 7 site to download it (ISO Download Links: 32-bit, 64-bit). After getting it installed and spending some time with it, our overall take away so far are the following things: Windows 7 is a [...]

Develop using the Play! Framework

Ray Gomez — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:15:45 +0000

Not too long ago I posted an article on the Play! framework. The framework has some promising features that really helps develop web applications in Java. To show how easy it is to use, I wanted to demonstrate with an example. Update #1: Since the article posting there have been a couple of suggestions for [...]

The Play! Framework

Ray Gomez — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:14:45 +0000

In an endless search for efficiently building Web applications, one might stumble upon a new framework called Play! Using enterprise backed Java with a Rails-esque feel, the Play! framework seems to offer quite a bit over traditional web development tools with its straightforward development environment and ease of deploying. Taken from the website: The Play! [...]

Xbox 360 Game Install Sizes for the New Xbox Experience

Riyad Kalla — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:57:18 +0000

One of the new features that came with the “New Xbox Experience” update that went live recently is the ability to install games directly off their source DVDs onto the Xbox 360′s hard drive; for faster load times (in most cases). Unlike the PS3, the Xbox 360 uses a proprietary hard drive that is roughly [...]

How to Use T-Mobile $20 BlackBerry EDGE Data Plan with Android G1 Phone

Riyad Kalla — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 22:30:41 +0000

Update #2:As a heads up to anyone wanting to try this out, please read this post first before continuing. As you may know the new T-Mobile G1 Android phone is out, and requires some potentially expensive-ass data plans to function fully ($24.99 for unlimited “data”, but 400 messages including “SMS, IM and email” or $34.99 [...]