Month: September 2012

USSD Hack that Reset Samsung Touchwiz Devices

Yugatech:

The web hack is actually a malicious code that is hiding inside a web page and gets triggered when visited using the stock browser (except Google Chrome) of a TouchWiz-based phone. The malicious code then spawns the dialer and enters a bad USSD code with the sole purpose of nuking your device back to its factory default.

Now, if you fell victim to this hack, how you’d probably wish you had iTunes that have your data and media files intact, in this case that you have to restore your phone.

And don’t even get me started with Samsung Kies — one word, UNRELIABLE. In my experience, Samsung Kies did not work half of the time because of drivers not found. This happened to me both in Mac and PC.

A FIDE Master Title for Elite GM’s

William of OnlineChessLessons.net offered a strong argument why FIDE should introduce an official Super-GM title for 2700+ rated chess players.

In 1972 there were 88 GMs and in 2012 there are now over 1200 GMs! However the vast majority (around 95%) of Grandmasters are rated between 2400 and 2699 FIDE. After the recent Chess Olympiad 2012 in Istanbul, there are now a total of 50 Super-GMs rated over 2700 FIDE.

Read more about Should FIDE have a Super-GM title for 2700+ GMs?

Personally, I’m in favor of his proposal of an official distinct FIDE title awarded to “elite” GM’s in order to separate them from, well, the not-so-elite ones. FIDE may not necessarily use a 2700 ELO rating cut-off, but they could devise certain criteria for eligibility.

However, I advise against the use of the “Super-GM” name. Continue reading

Liveblogging with the Liveblog Plugin for WordPress

I thought I’ve missed it when I was scrounging for a liveblog plugin when the Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad was about to start.

It appears I didn’t, because Automattic’s Liveblog plugin was released sometime last weekend only. Check out this video that explains what this plugin is all about:

[wpvideo tWpw6nCt w=480 h=269]

This Liveblog plugin could be a great blog extension if you’re covering live events, or just simply want to post one sentence updates to an event like the Chess Olympiad (which is a 2-week event).

I haven’t tested the plugin extensively yet, but, nevertheless, I just would like to point out some of my issues/concerns about it: Continue reading

Running Fritz 12 on a Mac via Crossover

Fritz 12 is a great chess product that unfortunately has no Mac version. I’ve installed it on a Bootcamp partition, and it works great. But I hate rebooting to Windows everytime I need it. Besides, all my files are in the OS X partition.

I also tried running Fritz 12 in a Parallels Desktop. It works fine as well, but then I have to boot Windows on top of OS X, which in the process they’re sharing the same computer’s resources, which proves to be an inefficient environment to run a resource hungry application like Fritz 12. I was only able to assign 3GB of RAM out of the total installed 8GB, and the application can only utilize 1 CPU out of the total 4.

So what about Codeweaver’s Crossover? Well, this is how it looks like: Continue reading

Chess is a game sufficiently rich in meaning that it is easily capable of containing elements of both tragedy and comedy.

— Luke McShane

Updates from Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad

Liveblogging has been discontinued from this page since the end of Round 7 of [event]Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad[/event]. To check out the latest about team Philippines in the said event, check out the link below:

Philippines in Istanbul 2012

The score card of the match between the 35th seed Philippines vs. the 4th seed Hungary follows:

Bo.
Philippines
Score
Hungary
1 Wesley So
1/2-1/2
Peter Leko
2 Oliver Barbosa
0-1
Zoltan Almasi
3 Eugene Torre
1-0
Ferenc Berkes
4 Mark Paragua
1/2-1/2
Csaba Balogh

Below are the links for the Live Games Round 7 Istanbul 2012 World Chess Olympiad:

Continue reading