| 12/20/2006 |
All Good Things...
As you may have noticed, Emulationzone.org has turned 10 years old. That is one heck of an accomplishment for a site that originally started as a bet amongst friends to see who could come-up with the best website. I remember starting the site with nothing more than an idea and a yearning to see this idea reach its potential.
Over the years the site morphed away from being a site about console emulators to instead focus on the “spin-off” subjects from this genre, such as utilities, ROM hacking, fan sites, and the like. While the site had its share of failures, it had it’s successes as well, such as SSRG, ‘ZRN, Emulinks, and a little Sonic site known as “SonicHQ”. The site even survived the great “UltraHLE” debacle, in which a “perfect” N64 emulator was released during a time in which the N64 was Nintendo’s flagship console.
But as times change, so do we. And for myself, I have grown tired of the genre and feel it’s time to leave it all behind for the new generation to pick up and continue. So with that, after 10 years of service to the gaming community, I, NO CARRIER, am announcing my retirement from Emulationzone.org and its affiliates. The site will remain up as long as ZTNET can afford to do so, as so will sites hosted on the ‘Zone. In fact, many of these sites will continue to be updated in my absence, including ‘ZRN.
And yes, I know, “Ha ha, we heard that one before.” I originally tried to retire from the ‘Zone in 2001 so I could focus on my new job and on grad school. However, shortly afterwards I returned and continued to work on the site in a limited capacity. Why?
I guess I came back because the sites I was leaving behind were not left in an acceptable state. Perhaps I came back because I enjoyed the site as an outlet for fun. Perhaps I came back to try and finish my work? To put it in another words, I came back because it was not time for me to leave.
But after working on the site for 10 years, I feel it is time for me to move on. I have grown tired of the genre and whole heartedly want to move on to do other things. And for that reason, my second retirement will stick. And with that, I say farewell and thanks for sticking with us over the years.
Andy Wolan
NO CARRIER
Founder of Emulationzone.org
(NO CARRIER)
| 01/23/2006 |
Updates Archives Added New Project Added: Wolf Chat Speak
The "updates" section of the site has been updated to include all old news posts made from as far back as Dec 1998! There are a ton of interesting stories on there, include one about my experiences with a WinModem. :)
If you want a blast from the past, check out the "Update Archive". It's now searchable thanks to Google. :)
Update Archive
(NO CARRIER)
Dear Return to Castle Wolfenstein gamers,
how many times have you missed that all important chat message because you were too busy killing or dying? Well never again for all you RTCW fans, because there's Wolf Chat Speak. This handy little program converts incoming chat text messages from within the game into speech, and plays them back for you.
You can snag the program here:
http://www.emulationzone.org/projects/wolf_Chat_Speak
(Note, this site is a mirror of the original WCS website.)
(NO CARRIER)
| 04/27/2005 |
TSSZ News Feed Replaced with Sonic News
As many of you already know, Tristan of TSSZ has called it quits on his ground-breaking Sonic and video game news site earlier this year. Because of that, the feed which we use for our news headlines feature was out of date.
To replace it, we recently installed a brand new news feed from Sonic Stadium's "Sonic News" service. As you may know, the web masters of Sonic Stadium are also in charge of SEGA Sonic Radio (SSR) over at 'ZRN.
Expect to see the same great news headlines you have become accustomed to seeing from TSSZ with SN. We hope you enjoy the new news feed!
(NO CARRIER)
| 02/24/2005 |
Video Game Art Archive (VGAA) Opens Its Doors
Today, Rlan is proud to annouce the opening of VGAA, the Video Game Art Archive!
He decided to create this website because of the huge difficulty there is trying to find good quality, larged sized artwork from video games without big logos cluttering it all up. Through magazines and official sources, along with his own collection, he intends to catalogue as much artwork as he can, with help from others as well.
You can visit his new site over here:
http://vgaa.emulationzone.org
(NO CARRIER)
| 02/15/2005 |
Funcom Anarchy Giveaway NEW 'ZRN Unvailed
To celebrate ‘ZRN’s upcoming fifth year anniversary and the release of our new layout, Funcom and ‘ZRN are teaming up to present the Funcom Anarchy Giveaway!
From now until March 31st, we will be giving away free copies of the expansion packs for Anarchy Online. Winners will have a choose of either the Notum Wars, Alien Invasion, or the Shadowlands expansion pack. Not only that, winners will also receive a free 30 day online subscription! (The game normally comes with a 7 day trail subscription.)
For more information, visit http://radio.emulationzone.org/zrn/features/funcom.php
(NO CARRIER)
After a year of on and off planning, tinkering and designing, we at ‘ZRN are proud to unveil the NEW ‘ZRN! Over the past few months, we incorporated a slew of changes, modifications, and enhancements. The most obvious change is the new layout scheme for ‘ZRN. It’s more stylish, more functional, and just flat out cool looking!
Other changes include a new message board, new station websites, new site features and high quality streaming options. Believe it or not, there are other new features and changes that will find their way on the network in the coming months, if not sooner. So stayed tuned!
I'd like to thank OcRemix and GameKast.com for inspiring our new layout scheme!
(NO CARRIER)
| 01/10/2005 |
Graphics Artist Wanted for 10-15 Hours of Work
'ZRN is in immediate need of someone with good graphics design skills. We'll probably need you for about 10-15 hours worth of work.
Your job, if you choose to accept it, will be to design various logos and come-up with some color schemes for certain sub-sections.
You should be familar with Adobe Photoshop or some other professional image editor and be somewhat familiar with web design.
Work will start immediately and last as long as you want.
For more information, email me:
wacko at emulationzone d0t org
(NO CARRIER)
| 10/11/2004 |
'ZRN to Support MP3Pro 'Zone Turns 8!
‘ZRN, our video game themed internet radio network, will soon be streaming in the MP3Pro format! Currently, we stream audio in the MP3 format at a bitrate of 16kbps. After receiving many requests from the public for a “broadband” or “hi def” version of each station, we at ‘ZRN decided to not only bump the bitrate up to 32kbps, but also researched various formats so we couls delever the best possible sound at the bitrate we could afford. The result of our research was the selection of MP3Pro.
MP3Pro is a relatively new audio format that is designed to be backwords compatible the MP3 standard. In fact, it’s backwards compatible. What Mp3Pro does is preserve high frequency sounds that would normally be lost in a normal MP3 at the same bitrate. So what does this mean? It means we can get the quality of an MP3 encoding at half the bitrate! Let’s examine the followign example.
Many regard that an MP3 streamed at 128kbps is “CD-Quality”. With MP3Pro, an MP3 encoded at 128kbps (in stereo) will sound equally as good as an MP3Pro file encoded at 64kbps (in stereo)! Thus, a user can get CD-quality sound at half the bitrate or file size.
Now, if we reduce the audio stream to one channel, the user will get a single channel of CD-quality sound (FM radio quality) at a bitrate of only 32kbps! Not bad! In order to achive that level of quality with OGG, we would have to go to a bitrate of 48kbps. (OGG was not really designed for extremely low bitrate like 32 or 16kbps, MP3s were.)
In the coming week or two, stations that utilize the new standard will go online. We will be retaining the existng 16kbps stations for those that connect via dial-up.
(NO CARRIER)
Believe it or not, the ‘Zone is now 8 years old! Actually, the site’s birthday was back in August. I wasn’t around at the time to do anythign fancy for the site’s anniversary.
In any event, not too many exciting things happened to the site over the past year. The biggest things that occurred were the addition of Secrets of Sonic Team (SOST.emulationzone.org) and the "Rebelius Fingers" insident.
(NO CARRIER)
| 08/13/2004 |
Rebellious Fingers Visits the ‘Zone
If you tried accessing the main page of the site between the afternoon of Aug. 10 to noon Aug. 13, you were greeted with the following message:
Rebellious Fingers Ownz j00!
So, what happened? Apparently, “Rebellious Fingers” is a Brazilian hacking group that prides itself in “defacing” websites. They do this defacing by replacing the main page with a custom message along the lines of “Rebellious Fingers Ownz something”. From what I gather, they are using old exploits in message boards to achieve their deeds. This includes “Pivot”, a web-blog like system, and “Ikonboard” a popular message board software. It is possible that they may even try to use old exploits in Apache or the Linux OS.
The way they got through on our site was through an abandoned Ikonboard message board. Sk8ter, a former staff member of the ‘Zone, left the ‘Zone several months ago to start his own server. On his old site was an old Ikonboard message board. We both forget that he left a message board kicking around after he left, which apparently R.F. later found out about it.
A flaw was discovered by the Ikonboard authors in April of 2003 and a correction was posted. (http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/11702) However, the patch was never applied to the message board that Skter was using.
Rebellious Fingers, after learning of the existing of the board, used an exploit to get into our server. You can read about the exploit they used here: http://seclists.org/lists/vuln-dev/2003/Apr/0010.html
Kudos goes out to Rebellious Fingers for intentionally not causing any real damage to the sites they hit. A real hacker finds security loopholes in people’s software and reports them. Idiots use them to destroy files on innocent people’s computers. (Unless they are out for revenge.)
For a listing of the sites Rebellious Fingers have hit, do a search for “Rebellious Fingers Ownz” in google.
(NO CARRIER)
| 06/08/2004 |
Friendly Summer Sega Coding Contest!
Hi!
I'll keep it brief, but we have a small coding contest happening, free entry, for the summer. Just for some fun!
The official page is here: http://www.emulationzone.org/projects/metalix/ccsummer04.htm
Have fun!
(Metalix)
| 03/15/2004 |
Packing day! Don't forget your socks & the kitchen sink.
Well after a great 3 years being hosting here at Emuzone I am sorry to say I will be moving. All my sites will be moving to a domain I just purchased. The domain is G4M3R.NETThe purpose of this site? There is none. Thats the best part. I have so many projects im working on it would be impossible for me to choose one topic for a domain and stick with it. So this site will be a accumalation of all my Modding, gaming, and just down right cool projects. The following sites will be moved to the following locations:
Sonic Secrets Group -> http://ssg.g4m3r.net
Sonic 2 ME -> http://s2me.g4m3r.net
Sonic savestate archive -> http://sssa.g4m3r.net
Xbox Live Wire -> http://xbox.g4m3r.net
Other non-zone sites:
Eternal Godz (FPS clan I own) -> http://eg.g4m3r.net
And of course remember to sign up at the forums
http://forum.g4m3r.net
The beauty of unlimited subdomains =D
A huge thanks out to Andy and everyone here at Emuzone for your help over the last few years. Through the good and the many bad times emuzone stood strong. The domain should be up by late tuesday the latest and all the sites should be moved by friday hopefully. Anyone who played a part in any of these projects please contact me (STH2K, that means you) so i can give you news posting rights on the main page of the site. well i think thats all so thanks again to everyone here at The 'Zone.
(Ken (AKA Striker))
| 01/29/2004 |
Sonic Fan, Rejoice! SOST is Born!
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the death of SSRG: a tragic fate to a site that was once popular with the Sonic Hacking community. (Some even say it still is, even one year after its death.) At its start, the Sonic Hacking Community was exciting place, full of activity and drenched in positive enthusiasm. Over the years, however, the community sadly mutated into something bad, scaring away contributors and eventually leading to the site’s death.
Luckily for us, Rlan was not discouraged by all the hate and negativity bubbling and effervescing from within the community.
For the past year, Rlan has been secretly hammering away at creating a new website, a website that would raise the bar for the “Sonic Secrets” genre. Unlike other “Secret Secrets” sites, all information is accompanied by background information and analysis to give the reader a more detailed background at what he or she is viewing. The end result is quite possibly the web’s most organized and detailed archive of “Sonic Secrets” on the Internet! And unlike that “other” site, this site is not littered with fowl language, indecent imagery, or negativity. It’s a Sonics Secret site, plain and simple, and its one in which your parent’s would gladly let you visit. (It’s also one in which magazine editors would happily mention in their publications as well.)
Rlan and I agreed to mark the launch of his new website on the one year anniversary of SSRG’s death. This was done to not only promote the site, but to give the community a jolt of new hope on a day marked by a tragic event.
The new SOST site can be found at http://sost.emulationzone.org We hope you enjoy Rlan’s latest creation!
(NO CARRIER)