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This was posted on the Playstation forums, in regard to the PSN outage. It may not be accurate, but it is informative and makes you think. The poster’s name is FKx_.

I have been reading all the responses and claims people have been making about the error all over the internet

What people have managed to establish so far is the following:

The PS3 has two clocks

A system clock

And a OS clock

When you boot your PS3 up, the system clock says (or should say), “Its March 01 2010, set yourself as March 01 2010 mr OS”

The system clock is always running and never stops, even when your PS3 is off, it has a backup battery and recharges when your PS3 is on

Basically, it runs 24/7 counting upwards

The clock can not be altered by software or by hacking it and it only counts upwards

NOW, the system clock thinks theres a Feb 29th, so instead of rolling over to March 1st, it went over to Feb 29th and now when it tries to compare the system clock with the OS clock when you load your PS3 up, the OS clock thinks, “woooooaaahh, **bleep** is going on here” and it sets it to 1999

PS3 models affected:

CECHA01 – affected
CECHE01 – affected
CECHG01 – affected
CECHH01 – affected
CECHK01 – affected
CECHL01 – not affected
CECHP01 – not affected

Now, theres two solutions:

A. Kill the system clock so it restarts (you do this by taking the battery out in your PS3 + void your warranty)

B. Wait till March 2nd and hope that the clock fliks over to March 1st

Now the above is what everyone is talking about on the internet, but from my knowledge, I can tell you we are possibly looking at a mass recall by Sony

Why? Because as I said the system clock only counts UPWARDS and never downwards

And it is fully protected, even if Sony came to your house and done a hypervisor call on your PS3 to reset your clock, it wouldn’t work

The ONLY way to reset the clock is to take out the battery, thus, voiding your warranty

Firmware update would also resolve NOTHING because its not a software issue, the software is perfect, its a hardware issue

Even if Sony worked some miracle and brought out an update, 50% of PS3 users don’t even have internet access, or no internet on their PS3’s, so how will they update? USB? Game disc?

The fact of the matter is Sony is in great trouble, they don’t know where they are going to end up after this

So what WILLSony do?

Easy answer, wait until 12:01AM GMT (the system clock runs in GMT no matter what timezone you are in) and hope that the system clock fliks over to March 1st

But what if it fliks over to February 30th?

Then Sony will have no choice but to do a recall, because as explained before it is unpatchable and there is no working solution unless you void your warranty

So it looks like we will all have PS3 Slims with no backwards compatibility and no linux and we will have no gaming in our living rooms for the next 3 months

All thanks to Sony Computer Entertainment

Brilliant Sony, you really outdid yourselves this time

Not to mention the hundreds of court cases they’ll have to go through

Imagine if you had bought a PS3 on February 28th

And then the next day, BAM, its a useless media player

MacHeist is giving away free copies of the Mac program, Squeeze. Now, normally Squeeze is available for a price of $9.95, but thanks to MacHeist, it’s free! This is quite a neat and handy program to have on your Mac.

Here’s what it looks like:

Now as you can see, it’s pretty simple looking. If you have a certain folder that’s quite large, let’s say your movies folder. You would simply drag or add that folder in, and that’s it! It will decrease the size of that folder.

Now, your Mac will read that folder exactly how it is, it basically just condenses it. How do you tell how much space you saved? The program will actually show you directly from there!

This was a folder that had about 15 pictures in it, and by adding it to Squeeze, it condensed it, and saved me around 1.46mb of space!

This is defiently a program worth giving a shot. After all, it’s free! So why not try it out for yourself. Available again from, MacHeist.com.

From the instant someone reads the article title starting with “RealPlayer”, PC users will say “boo! RealPlayer is fail!”… understood, but I’m not talking about the player here. RealPlayer SP is bundled with a converter that actually works out better than the player (surprisingly.) Of course, it aims for the highest quality possible (with configurable options). Most video conversion software out there may not convert RMVB to another format… or the quality may be dramatically reduced (sadly.) So the developers at RealNetworks, Inc. decided to do something right and develop a converter that converts many formats (including their RMVB format) to a format that many computers and devices can read, retaining the quality!

RMVB format, or RealMedia Variable Bitrate, is RealPlayer’s highest quality audio/video format, but may not be able to be played without RealPlayer or 3rd Party Software (like the Community-Combined Codec Pack (CCCP)… which still requires RealPlayer.) So thankfully, RealNetworks decided to develop RealPlayer SP Converter to convert to many formats for various devices… not just for a PC! Even if it’s not RMVB, there’s no reason why not to convert some other video file to another format. Hey, iPhone, iPod, PSP, Zune, Apple TV, Xbox 360… even PS3? Even I would never have thought that RealPlayer’s bundled software would be that good! Of course, you can add devices by choosing “add custom device”… HD sound good? 

Don’t worry, RealNetworks didn’t forget about mobile devices! Believe it or not, the conversion makes the output as high quality as possible for each individual device. It seems RealNetworks took a little into research into these pre-set output settings for each phone. It’s amazing what RealNetworks has developed that could be so useful!

Of course, with these amazing features, there are some downsides to it all. First off, users would need a lot of patience… or a powerful computer. It can take a very long time to convert a certain video file or a particular format. Since RealPlayer SP Converter tries to convert videos in the highest quality possible, or as configured, patience is necessary. Second and last, users need to pay or have RealPlayer SP Plus with SuperPass™ subscription (free for 14 days) in order to convert to H.264 video, a high quality format.

Otherwise, why would it be a bad thing to give it a try? 

Skype Beta 4.2 seems to be a bit of a rewind of a Skype version with improvements. Skype has even brought back two of its popular features that has been long awaited for its return: Skype Extras and Call Transfer (for incoming calls.) One new feature (which I have yet to test out) is Skype Access, where Skype users can use their Skype Credit to make Skype calls from public Wi-Fi hotspots. Improvements have been made for call quality, the aspect in which Skype has always concentrated on.

Skype Pro, the version of Skype before 4.0 for paid customers, included a feature called Skype Call Transfer. With this feature, users were given the option to transfer an incoming call to another Skype user on the menu (after the original recipient of the call has answered.) It was useful for businesses with SkypeIn numbers (numbers provided by SkypeIn Subscribers/Subscription-based users) to transfer calls to a certain user in a certain department through Skype, providing the best in call quality.

Skype Extras was removed on version 4.1 due to Skype dropping the service. On the 4.2 beta, it has returned. However, the catalog is slowly returning because developers are slowly returning for developing for  Skype Extras. Popular extras like PamFax, PrettyMay Recorder and Sharer, Chinese Checkers, Backgammon, and more have returned on Skype Extras. It is only available on the beta, whereas the option is disabled/grayed out on the stable release.

Skype has always focused on call and video quality and ways they can improve it using the Skype software, making call quality improvement as hassle-free as possible. This time, there is a simpler interface that doesn’t require users to constantly go to the options panel and adjust settings in another window.  The caller interface enables users to see the status of the item selected and have the ability to adjust the settings on the next page. Sound levels from the mic and the speakers are also displayed next to their respective icons. Computer speed is also crucial to call quality and the respective icon and information is displayed. Connection speed is a big thing in call quality, so the call quality is tested as well. Webcam quality goes as well, but it (obviously) depends on internet speed. All the information is simple to understand and using the new call quality interface is much simpler than the previous versions (stable version.) As always, video conferencing among three or more people is still not available.

Skype Access (Beta) is a service where users can use Skype Credit to access the web at a public hotspot. Their supported method is pay-per-minute, as explained on the dialog box. Since it claims that over 100,000 hotspots worldwide support this service, there may be some in the United States that may have this service enabled at competitive rates. Hopefully, that means that rates for Wi-Fi Hotspots outside the U.S. are reasonable as well. Since I have yet to access a (non-free) Wi-Fi Hotspot that supports Skype Access Beta, I have no further details about this service.

From using the Skype Beta for the past week, there have been a few bugs found. Ironically, while typing this and talking on Skype, an existing conference call interrupted my 1-on-1 voice chat and instead of hearing the Skype ringtone, I hear the ringtone along with a ringing tone. Even after declining the call, the ringing tone will continue to play and the one I was talking to won’t hear me since Skype will mute the microphone. Another bug included crashing while accessing some Skype Extras. However, that’s rare. Overall, I’m surprised that it isn’t all that buggy.

Keep in mind that Skype Beta is constantly being updated by developers at work. The information above can change anytime and new details may be actively updated as new information comes along. As always for all beta software, use it at your own risk and (try to) try Skype Beta on an experimenting machine, not on your primary productivity machine/home environment unless you know what you’re doing. Be sure to send feedback within the software, since the developers take almost every idea into consideration.