USB Loader GX Black Screen on All Games

I had recently did my first virgin softmod on Wii. I might blog about that in details later, but one thing I came across which I think is worth sharing is the problem of black screen on loading games from HDD using USB Loader GX.

I had checked many forums and also nothing really work. But I managed to solve it. So here it is. Before you go further, ensure the following:

1. Your Wii is properly softmodded. All steps works according to whichever guide you followed.
2. Your HDD is using WBFS file system.

I know many will disagree with point 2. But that exactly what happened to me. I was told NTFS works. So I copied a few games onto my NTFS drive using Wii Manager. Black screen. What I eventually did was to format it as WBFS. Load games using the WBFS Manager 3.01. Tada! Works like a charm.

I hope this is useful for you.

A Dangerous Bus Ride

I notice this will never occurs to anyone when they step up the bus: This could very well be your last ride!
Well, I am not trapped on the Philippines bus, but it was a close call anyway. This was what happened:

I was on a typical bus ride on 5xx which passes through many freeway to reach my destination. It was suppose to be a fast ride since its the bus usually travels quickly on the freeway. However, I failed to realized this because I was reading. The bus was, in fact, travelling quite slowly and was doing zig-zag movement like a snake. I suddenly realized this and I took a look at the driver through the back-view mirror. It was a sight of horror! The lady driver's eyes was a thin slit of white. I could even see her purple! It was as if she was a zombie who just step out of some horror movie!

Now, we all know what actually happens. Hot afternoon. Cool air conditioning. Riding fast on the freeway. Its a good time to doze off. And that's precisely what I thought I saw. My mind raced quickly. OK, I grab my phone and SMS J. I was just worried that this will be my last SMS, so I better make it count. After the SMS, and realized I am still alive. I move myself to the "safest" seat I could get to, just in case of a crash. I do not want to be near the side windows or being throw out of the bus.

Now its time to act. I could wake up the driver and give her a good scolding, but knowing how people in this city acts, I pretty much am sure that she will deny everything. Of course, I also did not want to wait until the buss crash and maybe flip a few turns to prove her wrong. I look around to see if there was anyone else who might help me. No luck. Opposite me was a mother and his son sleeping on her lap. And behind us, almost everyone else was asleep. So, I guess its me. If I did not have to risk walking to the bus driver, which if an accident does occurs before I reach her, I am sure my fatality rates shoots up be a few hundred percent.

The buzzer. That could work. Even when I look stupid to press the bell on the highway (And I did not want to alight anyway). Actually this was quite a good idea. But instead, I thought of a better one. I just flip my phone out and blasted it with some MP3. That should be enough to wake her up. Of course, I do realized that I cannot do it so suddenly that it give her a shock and swing the bus 180 degree around.

In any case, I was lucky. She regain control and exited the bus from the freeway. Because it will be all slow and traffic lights, she had to kinda wake up. I sweat I almost felt as if I survived a plane crash or something. The rest of it is nothing special. But I just wonder how many people actually realized how close they were to the final gate in that journey. But I remind myself that I should watch the driver before I decide to sleep on these journey.

Hacked my HDB Lift

For most lift out there, there should be some way to cancel a command (floor button). Some of them uses double press, other just hold and it will cancel that button. But the current HDB Lift I have from EM (I think) took me a while to figure out. Basically, in the end, it is just a simple press and hold any 3 buttons and all commands are cancelled.

Well, some of you will tell me to go RTFM. IF only the manual is that easy to find. :)
Anyway, if your HDB Lift is the new generation one, this may also work for you. Don't need to endure those empty floors if you make a mistake and press the wrong one or some bloody kid press all the buttons.

Triceratops is actually baby Torosaurus!

Rather sad that one of my favorite dinosaur never really exist ( as a distinct species ). Triceratops was in fact the baby version of another dinosaur called Torosaurus. Well don't be too disappointed yet, Torosaurus actually looked pretty much like Triceratops.

Read more about it:
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=6950

Alisan Express is finally fucked!

Its not that I have no faith in the old man up there, but divine retribution is simply taking far too long...
If you recalled, Alisan had really pissed me off in a previous holiday when I blogged in:

http://nemesisv.blogspot.com/2010/02/xmas-getaway-09-epilode-really.html

Now it is about fucking time they close shop, but not in a good way. Apparently, the boss had ran back to Malaysia with all the customer's money leaving them with no coach, no money and a wreaked holiday. Totall sucks, man.

Details:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1074007/1/.html

I hope they get the bastard for it. See, thats why I do not believe in divine retribution.

CVE 2010-2568 is finally patched

This is the LNK vulnerability or aka MS10-046. Full information:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS10-046.mspx

Basically, the vulnerability only requires the user to render the icon of a specially created LNK file. This file will point to a DLL on local / remote or possibly over internet via WebDAV. As far as exploitation is concerned, I find that the follow is possible:

• Embedded in Real-media files. This opens up possibility that it can be done in Quicktime, AVI as well if they uses the same vulnerable routine.
• Embedded in Microsoft Office documents of a certain variants.
• Deployed on USB device. Well, unless the user do not open USB device using Explorer, but let's say, DOS prompt.
• Transmitted over email in certain email clients. This has not been tested. Just a theory. If this is possible, it will be disastrous.
• I tried 7zip and WinRAR. Not possible. Likely they uses the standard Load Resource instead of the vulnerable routine. However, there are hundreds of unpacker out there. Who knows, maybe one of them gets it.
• Any other way you can think of to get the user to render the icon.

Of course, I will not reveal how it will be done for security reasons.

Well, what are you waiting for, go activate your Windows Update and get it patched. BTW, if I do not recall wrongly, WinXP SP2 will not get this patch. If this is the case, ALL the Windows XP SP2 and below are sitting ducks out there, just askinig to be hacked times after times.