Our first Hak.5 LAN Party was a grand success. The three hour Counter-Strike: Source marathon was a blast and I’ve got to give mad props to Rob Fuller for the impromptu live in-game commentary shoutcast stream. Now if you weren’t able to make our pilot fragfest don’t worry, we’ll be doing it again next week. Details:

Game: Counter-Strike: Source
Date: May 20, 2006
Time: 9:00 PM EST (-5:00 GMT)
Server: game.hak5.org
Password: hak5

The Hak.5 LAN Party is powered by

There are a lot of great happenings here at Hak.5 so I’m going to take a few moments to run through the highlights.

T-Shirts by Jinx

This is something that we’ve been very excited about for a long time and the day has finally come. Our new T-shirts are now available at www.jinx.com/hak5/ and they look great! With a big bold Hak.5 logo on the front and “Trust Your Technolust” across the back they really make a statement. The quality is leaps and bounds above those old white tees and they’re less expensive too! We can’t wait to get our first email with a picture of you wearing one. Score one for Hak.5 fans & thanks to Jason over at Jinx for making that happen.

DivX Movies

We’re also happy to announce that we’re now featured on the DivX.com site in their new Video Blogs section. Best part is you can now watch all our episodes either on the page streaming, or download them to disk. This is great news considering that prior to this announcement direct downloads of the xvid version of our back catalog (episodes 1-5) have been offline. So if you’ve missed some of the older episodes and want to catch up you can now grab a copy over at divx.com! Thank go to Ben at DivX.

Bit-Tech and Wired

We’re excited to be recognized in such awesome ‘zines both online and in print. The Wired article is now available online (We’re on page 2). You can also check out the write-up on Bit-Tech.net’s May 2nd article, IPTV Decoded (Page 3). According to Wired we’re “ubergeeks” and Bit-Tech claims we’re “hacking gurus”. As long as we’re not labeled “nerds” we’re A-OK ! Thanks guys!

G4 TechTV: Call for Help

We just recently got back from a trip up to Toronto where we shot three segments on Call for Help. Keep an eye out for Wess & Darren on episodes 370 and 374 this month!

Episode 10
It’s mad crunch time. We lost a week to my vacation at the beginning of the month, a weekend to weather, and a weekend to our trip to Toronto. We’re behind schedule and the editing box is on its last leg. It’ll be getting a reformat as soon as this episode is out the door. That said we’re burning the midnight oil to get this puppy online. Officially ep10 is our season finale which implies that we’ll be taking a break. If we even do take a break and how long said break will be is still up in the air. But some things are for sure. Once ep10 releases our focus will be on a website redesign & DVD release. Stay tuned for announcements on those in the coming month.

And most importantly, thank you everyone who has been so supportive of our dream. In our first year we’ve made some big steps and we’ve very proud to have such an amazing fan base. Whether you’ve been with us since episode 1 or just discovered us I’d like to say thank you for your support. Everything from seeding the torrents to donating to watching the show really means a lot to us.

–Darren

First off I want to thank everyone that made the transition to the new IRC server, irc.hak5.org, successful. And thanks to everyone that’s helped us “beta test” the game server and offered suggestions. I’m sure over the coming months we’ll get to all the games that have been suggested (with the exception of multi-player-minesweeper )

And now the awesome big news. Hak.5 is being featured in the May issue of Wired Magazine! That rocks! Check us out on page 128 where we’re called “An appealing cast of übergeeks” with a “Must See!” vodcast. Thanks Wired!

Episode 10 production is going good, yet slow. Maybe it’s the senioritis kicking in since we’re working on the season finale. Last weekend we got rained out, hindering our ability to shoot the scheduled segment. So we got some inspiration and decided to shoot this little Firefox ad with Evil Server. IRC-goers can find the secret URL to the B-Roll on that .

We’re in Toronto Thursday – Sunday this week shooting some Hak.5 stuff and doing a few segments for upcoming episodes of Call for Help. Kick me an email if your in town and down for a Rickard’s Red .

Trüsten Der Technölusten,
–Darren

Good news all! We now have a new and more stable IRC server at irc.hak5.org. We welcome everyone to join us in #hak5. We’ll be slowly making the transition over the week. Thanks go to Oliver Wine for making that happen smoothly.

And in other awesome news, we’re currently beta-testing a new Hak.5 game server — sponsored by EVOLANS.com. We’re currently testing Counter-Strike: Source. You can join us on the server at game.hak5.org (password is hak5). Kick us an email or leave a comment about your experience, we want to get everything worked out before episode 10 release on May 5th.

Thanks to everyone that has been so supportive bringing these new Hak5 services online.

–Darren

Good news and bad news. The good news: the torrent RSS feeds have been fixed. The bad news: our IRC server is dieing a slow and painful death. We’re currently evaluating options and hope to move to a new IRC server by the end of the week. We’ll have details here when that takes place. If you have suggestions for IRC hosting that won’t break the bank we’d love to hear from you.

In other news, we’re evaluating several gamehosting companies and hope to have a Hak5 gameserver soon. We’ll most likely rotate the game every month and schedule an event where the Hak.5 crew will join in the fragging pleasure.

Thank you everyone for the awesome feedback on episode 9, your continued support means so much to us.

–Darren

Tonight Hak.5 will be featured on the pilot episode Torrent, a new show on G4TechTV. From the website “Torrent is a weekly one-hour television Internet-culture show for tech-savvy audiences looking for unique first-person pop-tech stories from around the world“, however Torrent’s host Amber Mac does a better job of summing it up on her blog.

The pilot episode airs on G4TechTV in Canada at 8:00 PM EST and more information can be found at Torrent’s official site.

We’re excited to be featured on such a unique community driven show and hope everyone has a chance to check it out.

–Darren

Is the 5th really coming up that fast? Yikes! Render farm to full speed! We just wrapped shooting what we believe to be our best episode ever and can’t wait to release it. Videora and VirtualDub are standing by ready to encode the xvid and mp4 as soon as I finish some final touches. Running time is creeping up on an hour so be prepared for a power packed episode.

Now I know we’ve made a promise from day one to release quality tech/entertainment on the 5th of each month, but I’ll level with ya. The 5th is going to be a crazy day for us for many reasons and it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. So we’ll be releasing on the 4th! I don’t have a firm time since I’ve got a business trip that day so expect it some time that evening (EST, -5 GMT of course). For the most up to date happenings head over to the IRC chat in #hak5 on irc.techphile.ca. That’s where we’ll be holding the usual release party. If you’ve never joined us in chat for a release party before tomorrow is a perfect time to join the crew and see how much crazy fun it is.

Now without further adieu, production note screenshots hot off the timeline.

Rob Fuller joins Wess with a fantastic segment and a sexy laptop.

Back in the control room things go very wrong. Wess and Darren plan corrective action.

Wess, Jenn, and Darren all remind you to trust your technolust. It’s like using the force!

Thank you everyone for your continued support, it has pushed us to make the show better with every pixel. We hope to see you on the 4th for a rockin’ release!

–Darren

Yes, you read the title correctly. I’m actually doing production notes. Been a while eh? Yes, I did just write eh. I blame our special guest this episode. So far everything is running smoothly. I’m very happy with the way this episode is coming out. We have some really solid segments either in the can or on the deck, and our sketch shoot tomorrow is going to be so much fun. We’re also happy to be harboring a Canadian in studio. Yes, the clever Jenn Cutter of OpenAlpha is joining us for some Hak.5 and OA fun, and she brought Guitar Hero. Wess has been practicing his micro to no end, it’s amazing he’s available to direct a segment at all .

Jenn Cutter and Tux school Wess

I love the image quality of Jenn’s Canon XL2, but the green lens flare has got to go!

Can’t wait ’till the 5th!

–Darren

Friday night I was on the Computer America show to talk about Hak.5. Unfortunately the show was plagued with technical difficulties throughout the night. Half hour in the board operator could not get me on as the phone network was down in their area. Finally, co-host Carey Holzman calls me from his cell phone, puts it on speaker, and holds it next to the mic. It works slightly better than tin cans and string.

Download the train wreck here: Hour 1 MP3, Hour 2 MP3.

We’ve been invited on again and I’m sure next time it won’t sound so horrible.

Hak.5 will be on the Computer America radio show with Craig Crossman and Carey Holzman for at 10pm EST (-5 GMT)/ 7pm PST. Computer America is “America’s longest-running nationally syndicated radio talk show about computers”. You can tune into the radio broadcast if it’s carried in your area or listen to the Internet stream.

I’ll make the MP3 available here tomorrow. This is a live call in show so feel free to join in!

–Darren

Last month we got very excited to find that issue #648 of the Amazing Adventures of Superman included references to TWiT, CommandN, and Hak.5.

On a recent trip to Toronto for Call for Help the infamous Sean Carruthers of Lab Rats suggested that we autograph a number of copies to benefit the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

A limited edition eight copies have been autographed by Amber MacArthur (CommandN, TWiT), Darren Kitchen (Hak.5), Leo Laporte (TWiT), Mike Lazazzera (commandN), Wess Tobler (Hak.5)

The top three bidders will get theirs also autographed by Hak.5′s Alli and a special TWiT Pocket Protector autographed by Kevin Rose, Patrick Norton, the Woz, and Leo Laporte plus bonus TWiT swag.

All the money raised will go to benefit the Electronic Frontier Foundation in their ongoing fight to protect your rights online.

Head over to ebay and bid for this unique podcast collectible!

PS: I had so much fun photoshopping Sean Carruther’s original image that I couldn’t resist turning it into a desktop wallpaper. 1024×768, 1280×1024

–Darren

After waiting for so long for the ISP hosting our forums to come back online we can’t wait any longer. The forums are back, hosted at dreamhost. They rock and I’ve got nothing but nice things to say about them. Unfortunately we had to start from scratch so I hope you’ll understand as we rebuild the forums community.

–Darren