SHALLOW HACKER ㋡

How To Fix Windows Offline File Sync Error

2011-12-16T00:16:00.001+01:00

When trying to sync offline files in Windows you may sometimes get an error “parameter is incorrect”.

Before I show you how to fix it, I'll tell you what's most probably gone wrong. This quote is a post I found in the digitalspy forum (see my sources) and explains it beautifully.
"The simplest explanation is that you've exceeded the maximum path and/or file lengths.
On Windows-based platforms, paths must be less than 248 characters, and file names must be less than 260 characters. 'Path' includes all the nested folder names, eg "C:\MyPrograms\Microsoft Office". 'File Names' include the extension."

Now here's a great way to identify which path or file is causing the problem.

Get the Path Scan app from here http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/File-Management/Path-Scan.shtml (This is an older version of Path Scanner but you need it because it works with UNC paths - i.e. paths that start with double-slash '\\' - whereas the newer version of the program on the official web site does not work with UNC paths, it only works with paths starting with a drive letter, e.g. c:\ and that's useless because the path length problem is all about the length of the full UNC path.)
Now go online and sync with your server so you can see the sync error "parameter is incorrect" again.
Look at the error to check the path where the problem occurred.
Paste this path into Path Scanner and don't forget to add a wildcard, e.g. it must end with ‘\*’

E.g. \\file-abc01.work.intern\home$\joeblow\*

In Port Scanner set the "Display files with more than" option to 261 char.
Then click Scan to locate the files for which the path is too long and do something about them.

E.g. Back up the file and/or folder that is causing the problem somewhere else, then delete it from the original location and try to sync again.

Sources

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=744475

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/dfsfaq.mspx#EPBAC

Unsync and Remove iPhone Contacts From Facebook

2011-08-13T15:21:00.001+02:00

See your "Facebook phonebook" here: https://www.facebook.com/friends/edit/?sk=phonebook. This will include contacts that you have synced from your iPhone (if you chose to switch that feature on.)
[Note: The iPhone app will only have synced your iPhone contacts to Facebook if you actually chose to switch that feature ON. You may not remember doing this though. I think when they introduced it they did it in a kind of sneaky way, where you hardly noticed. I think it's a pop-up when you first install the app on your iPhone]

First click on the link above and read the expanation in the right-hand column!
It says something like this.

Facebook Phonebook displays contacts you have imported from your phone, as well as your Facebook friends.

If you would like to remove your mobile contacts from Facebook, you need to disable the feature on your mobile phone and visit this page.

Where it says "this page." that is a link you can click on with further instructions (I also provide the link, but if it doesn't work, make sure you go to the actual Facebook page and try to click the link there).

So anyway, click on that link and follow the instructions. You will find instructions there to do both these things.
a) stop syncing your iPhone contacts to Facebook
b) remove your iPhone contacts from Facebook.

Note: Your friends that are already on Facebook and have chosen to share their phone number with you will NOT be removed.

This is what Facebook says about the whole syncing contacts from iPhone to Facebook thing.

How I Fixed Mac OSX Lion NTFS issue

2011-08-03T21:24:00.004+02:00

After I upgraded my Macbook to OSX Lion, my NTFS-formatted USB drive would no longer mount... GREAT! %$#@

I use an free open source NTFS driver for Mac called NTFS-3G (You can get it from SourceForge here - grab the dmg file).
However NTFS-3G is built on top of a piece of software called MacFuse (part of the NTFS-3G installation) and unfortunately MacFuse only provides a 32-bit interface, whereas OSX Lion has a 64-bit kernel. I found the explanation of the problem here.

I was able to solve the problem when I came across a little gem on this site:
http://www.fatframe.com/2011/07/25/macfuse-issues-mac-os-10-7-lion
This guy has posted a custom compiled version of MacFuse, compiled for 64-bit.

I downloaded this guy's custom compiled version (look for the link to the zip file half way down the page) and just installed it straight on top of my existing MacFuse version. Then rebooted.
It solved my problem! I can now mount my NTFS USB drive and I have read/write access.

(N.B. I sometimes see an error when I connect the drive saying it can't communicate with the drive, but when you actually try to access the drive it works fine.)

If you have never had NTFS access before (e.g. you just bought a new Mac or just never tried it before) you have 2 options.
EITHER
1) Install the open source NTFS-3G driver (from SourceForge as mentioned above) and then install the custom build of MacFuse on top of it. I'd recommend a reboot in between.
OR
2) Or go for a commercial NTFS driver like this one from Tuxera.

Further reading: Check out this thread on macrumours.com for other people's experiences.

Good luck.

The Future of Social

2011-07-13T13:32:00.000+02:00

A freind of mine made a comment (on Facebook) that he thinks social sites are "a fashion" and won't be where we get all out info from. He's right I guess (or is he?) but the point is that this got me thinking about where social media is really headed.

We all know things chop and change at an incredible rate here on planet internet(/webz/whateverz) and tomorrow's Facebook and Google+ sure ain't gonna look much like it does today (well litterally it will, but not figuratively.. doh, you know what I mean ;-).

What I envisage is the following. Our actual social profile will be a metaphorical cloud that hovers above all the social sites we interact with, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ (to take these as examples).

What on earth am I talking about? Well let's look at it from my personal perspective as a social media user. Why do I use social media? To interact with others of course. Other people, other brands, other celebrities (maybe). Do I really as a user want to have to care if I'm on Google+ or Facebook, or if my "friends"/"followers" are on Twitter or Google+? No, why should I need to remember who's where? It simply gets in the way of my activities.

What I want to be able to do is communicate with my contacts from a client (whether it be a web client or an app) by simply choosing an individual or a group, just like Facebook's friend lists and Google+ circles. I do not want to have to first think whether I need to cross-post to Facebook cos half my buddies aren't on Google+ or vice versa, my cool Google+ friends have exited Facebook in a puff of smoke.

A contact should not be tied to a social network. If I want to contact my friend Joe Smith, I should simply have to select Joe Smith and send him a message, without having to be concerned if he's on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter, and without him having to be concerned that he's set up all kinds of forwarding mubo jumbo either.

I see the contact Joe Smith as a bubble, that contains all Joe's contact info, including his various social network subscriptions. When I send something to Joe's bubble, I want my message to be made visible to him on all his social networks, or perhaps just the one where he's currently "online".

Bear with me.. not only do I want to be able to contact Joe in this fashion, but I also want to be able to do it from inside whatever network I happen to have open in front of me. You see I'm not saying i'm using a cool 3rd-party client here. I should be able to do this natively from any social network specific client, including web.

Now we all know Facebook does everything in its power to stop others poaching its users. But why should another network need to poach if we had a friendly way where social networks could share info with actually poaching it.

I'd like to be able to, from inside Facebook, put my friends into friends lists, but not just my Facebook friends. If my buddy is on Google+ I want to be able to put him in a Facebook friend list. Facebook should be able to connect to Google+ and without actually "importing" my friend's info, allow me to pop him in a friend list. And vice versa. In Google+ I want to add my friend who's only on Facebook to a Circle: should not be a problem.

If the social networks came together on this they could spend less time fighting over users and poaching prevention.

Also let's say I'm in my Twitter client, and my buddy is on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, and Twitter knows this (because I've allowed Twitter to connect to these other networks) then as far as I'm concerned if I mention that person or DM that person, I just want Twitter to make sure that person gets the message. So I want it to pop up in their Facebook, and Google+, as well as in their Twitter (or as I said before a smart system may simply look where that person was online first. So if they were online on Facebook it would only appear there and not in Google+.)

Remember I'm looking at it from my, the user's, point of view. I spend too much time thinking about who's in what network and on what list. That has to become more transparent. We have open social networks (OpenSocial?) but i'm talking more about an open social API. If we can do it for security (OAuth) let's do it for interchanging social info and it needs to be a real time exchange of info.

This may be a long way away, but seeing as there are at least two major players that will probably not be going anywhere anytime soon (Facebook and Google+) and possibly 3 (Twitter) it seems to me we have an inpasse on the social network front. There ain't gonna be "one ring to rule them all". Google+ has now made sure of that. So how long is it gonna be before these guys put the user first and open up the boundaries a bit?

Identify Your Mac AirPort Extreme Chipset

2011-06-25T21:34:00.000+02:00

Do the following:

Go to "About This Mac" (top left under the Apple logo)
Click "More Info..."
Choose "AirPort" on the left-hand side (in the "Network" section)
On the right-hand side look for "Card Type = AirPort Extreme"
The "Firmware Version" underneath should indicate what chipset you have. E.g. "Broadcom BCM43xx"

Hopefully this will help you out. Maybe you want to know this because you're hoping to use Aircrack to do some WEP cracking :). This page lists compatible aircrack chipsets.

Make Your Blog Mobile-friendly!

2011-06-19T02:31:00.000+02:00

This is a quick heads up for Blogger bloggers that may have missed it.

Blogger now lets you easily switch on an option to present your mobile readers with a special mobile formatted version of your blog.

If you've ever read stuff on a mobile device that's not formatted for mobile you'll know how annoying it can sometimes be navigating a non mobiel-friendly web site, even with mobile browsers like Opera doing a good job at solving that issue.

To switch on the mobile template view in Blogger, just

Go to your blog's "Settings" tab
Click "Email & Mobile"
Then where it says "Mobile Template (beta)" choose "Yes" and your done!

You can hit the "Mobile Preview" button to see what your blog will look like too.

Quickly improve your Facebook security

2011-05-14T00:46:00.000+02:00

There's nothing ground breaking here. But if you haven't got these Facebook setting switched on you should do so now!

In Facebook click Account in the top right corner.
Click "Account Settings".
On the My account page click "Account security"
Check all the boxes and click the "Save" button.

By the way, if you haven't given your mobile number to Facebook yet you'll need to do this before you can get SMS alerts, or you can just leave the "Send me a text message" box unchecked.

Also! - once you turn these security settings on your iPhone Facebook app might be messed up. But don't worry! Just follow the 3 steps in my previous post here to sort that out.

Fix your iPhone Facebook app login problems!

2011-04-20T13:23:00.002+02:00

If you are getting an error every time you try to login to the Facebook app on your iPhone, try this solution.

Go to http://www.facebook.com/iphone
On the left-hand side (you may need to scroll down) click "Remove app"
Now try logging in again on your iPhone.

Source

I found the solution here: http://goo.gl/LPYEu

So what caused the problem?..

Not exactly sure, but this started happening right after I update my Facebook security setting. I had turned on HTTPS and had activated alerts for when a new computer or mobile device logged in to my account. One of these settings must have caused it.

Fictional tweeting could enhance viewing figures

2011-03-25T15:37:00.000+01:00

What do you think folks, if the main character from your favourite series (think Hawaii Five-O, CSI, Criminal minds) was tweeting like a regular person and maybe had a Facebook page to boot, would this add a new dimension to the show?

Just to be clear I'm talking about Twitter and Facebook accounts that are professionally scripted to present the person as they are in the series in a real-life way. They would actually interact with the world around them just like a real-life tweeter would.

You'd need to have a clever little team, including the people who write the script of the actual series to create a realistic character, but if done well it could be really fun for people that enjoy the series and could even increase the popularity of the series.

Has anyone seen this being done professionally yet? If not I kinda bet that we'll start to see this in the near future. It may not be suitable for every type of series, but it could be really cool for suitable ones. Imagine that it could potentially bring characters from a fictional series to life in the real world.

This way you could inexpensively bridge the gap between series; give tips or hints about up and coming shows: imagine a Criminal Minds character starts tweeting about a new case, and then the show is televised the next day. If the tweeting tied in to the the information in the show it could give a cool new dimension to it.

Then you could have the post-show wind-down on Facebook. Imagine the character going out on the town with his/her buddies, talking about which clubs they hit, throw in some photos. :-) I can see people really going for that.

It would have to be done really cleverly and professionally, but if done well I could be a huge hit. I'd love to hear what other people think of this. :-)

My First Video Call

2010-05-20T19:06:00.005+02:00

[update: reformatted the post]
In today's world you'd almost want to bite back "dude video calls are ancient history... lame." But come on, who makes regular daily video calls. Do you? I'd love to hear on what device, on what network in which country :-)

I made my first ever (decent) video call a few days ago. I say decent because I have a vague recollection that I may have attempted a video call in the past, but it either didn't work, or was of too rubbish a quality to really consider a success.

Anyway it went like this. I usually tote a first generation iPhone, but today (because I need to use TomTom and had to update the satellite info) I had to put my one and only SIM card into my rather aged HTC Kaiser (TyTN II).

At some point during the day I pressed a strange little button on my Kaiser's dial screen by mistake, and suddenly my face popped up. In a couple of split seconds I figured that I'd hit the video call button, and the front-facing camera was displaying my mug (to me). It would presumably also have been displaying it to the other party, but then I saw that I had dialled my Voicemail.. :D.

But then I thought I'd try a video call with my mate for a laugh. I did so by selecting his name from my contacts then hitting the on-screen video call button.

Then it happened ;-))) within seconds my mate's grinning mug appeared in view, and there was my smaller face in the same place it was when I video-called my voicemail a moment ago.

What amazed me straight away was two things: 1) how cool it was making a real video call, that had actually worked right through to being able to see my mate at the other end just like a Skype call, and 2) how seriously decent the quality was. Ok, it's obviously a 3G network, but the quality was seriously good enough that if you're on an unlimited 3G plan, which I am (speed is only 128kbps by the way - as far as I know) then we should all be making video calls as of yesterday!

Remember, we were both using fairly old phones! I was on an HTC Kaiser which I bought something like 3 years ago (when it was just out) and my mate had an oldish LG, the Secret (TU750). It just so happens that both phones had front facing cameras, so that's a must at least, but they don't need to be the newest phones on the market. The 3G just needs to be decent I reckon.

Will I be making more video calls? Well I can't declare an all-out YES DEFINITELY, but nearly. The sound was a bit poor, but that's cos we were both holding our phones in front of us talking into them. A headset is essential, especially because talking to one's phone from 20cm is a bit weird, and not really suitable for making a call whilst using public transport, or sitting in the office. A headset would sort that problem out perfectly though.

So I may put it to the test. Just need to sort out the following:

- Get my old bluetooth headset up and running (even though they make you look like an idiot) ..ok, maybe i'll use the wired one ;-)

- Try to love my HTC Kaiser again like I do my first-gen iPhone (that's gonna be realllly hard - have you seen Google Reader for iPhone?!!)

Please comment if you make video calls or would like to share any video call experiences. :-)

Convert Inactive to Free Memory on a Mac

2010-05-14T15:26:00.008+02:00

It's easy to do, but it took me a little while to find out how...

Covert the "Inactive" memory used by my Mac (as displayed in Activity Monitor) to "Free" memory.

First you might want to know what the difference between the two is. This is explained clearly by Apple support here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1342

And yes we know that the Mac has an incredibly smart memory management system, and it's wonderful that Macs are able to distinguish between completely unused memory ("Free") and memory that was used earlier but that hasn't been marked as "Free" just in case we want to use it for the same app again ("Inactive").

Unfortunately my experience is that if you have next to no "Free" memory left, and tons of "Inactive" memory, everything you start up feels sluggish.

So, to solve that problem manually, all you need to do is to flick open a terminal, type purge, and hit enter.

It may take a little while depending on how much "Inactive" memory you have, but after that things will open up a tad quicker.

Hope this helps :-)

Why I forgive the iPad its faults

2010-01-28T10:53:00.005+01:00

I'm sad the iPad has received so much criticism, but pleased to see the bigger blogs are now standing up for it.

The fact is Apple cut corners to deliver an interesting price. That's the reason it's not living up to what a lot of critics seem to think their expectations were. But what did they want, a $1000 device? They'd have panned it for being too expensive. Because that seemed to be the big concern pre-launch.

This is what Brian Heater on pcmag.com feels is missing:

Video Camera

Expandable Memory

Flash Support

HDMI Out

Other Carrier Support

Multi-tasking

The only thing that I think is really a missed opportunity is the camera. But I still accept that there had to be compromise for the sake of price. And that's just the way it is.

In fact if Apple took a risk at all it wasn't with any of the things above. It was with the internal memory. Sure people think expansion cards are nice, but the iPhone has proved nobody really cares. Internal memory is stable (I've had a nasty corrupt microSDHC card experience on my HTC Kaiser). Internal memory also falls under your Apple warranty.

So back to the risk Apple took on internal memory. I miss memory on my 8GB 2G iPhone. It's full of apps, and apps, and music. And I'm constantly having to delete old material to make space for new material.

16GB really does seem far too paltry for the iPad. A few games and videos and apps that eat up storage, and your music collection.. and you're stuck. Remember people don't like deleting stuff. But hey, the 16GB model lets Apple quote the magic <$500 price.

But on the same note 64GB also only just about does the trick. I mean considering one can buy tiny flash devices that pack in 320-500 GB storage, it does seem they could have offered more. But back we come to the price goal.

So, now about Flash Support, HDMI Out, Other Carrier Support & Multi-tasking.

Well Adobe has confirmed we'll get flash on the iPad. Thanks for that Adobe. Steve'll post the cheque first thing ;-).

HDMI out? Ok, it would've been nice to have, but that's all really. With a Blue-Ray player in your home, and only 16-64GB to play with, your not going to be storing much HD video on your iPad.

But for streaming, yes, HDMI out would have been nice. So for HDMI out, I vote a definite nice to have.

Other Carrier Support? Well I'm in The Netherlands, so maybe I look at this differently. But to be honest I don't expect my hardware manufacturer to do wonderful deals with all the carriers. It's highly likely in The Netherlands iPad will hit stores on all carriers. Because 3G subscriptions are in full swing, and all carriers will probably be selling 3G subscriptions on a rolling monthly contract by June anyway, with or without iPad.

And the big cheese, Multitasking. Of course we want multitasking. But we won't miss it much. Maybe Apple will make apps like iWork retain state when they close, so when you open them they'll go straight to what you're doing. Because that's really the only reason for multitasking. iPhone already lets you play music in the background, so that's not going to change. I don't think this will really bother many people when the time comes.

As with the iPhone, I'll be eagerly awaiting the jailbreak community to open this baby up. and Apple will let them, just as it has done with iPhone. What, you think if Apple really really didn't want people to jailbreak they wouldn't have found a way to do so? Jailbreakers are like Apple's rogue R&D wing. They make the device do stuff that Apple didn't risk doing officially. Then they get to see how devices perform in the real world when other people take those risks.

So coming back to multitasking, using Backgrounder on my jailbroken 2G iPhone is fun. But it requires constant memory monitoring (literally, I use SBSettings to put the free memory on the iPhone status bar). On the 3GS I guess the memory requires less monitoring. But Apple obviously still saw multitasking as too much of a risk for the user experience. And remember it really does all hang on the user experience.

If you allow users to multitask, and they're not tech-savvy, they'll multitask everything! And the other apps will just get closed in the background anyway, and they won't understand it, and they'll complain, So that really compromises the overall experience.

Multitasking would have required more processing power, which would have hurt the battery. And 10hrs video is really only just about gives the iPad an edge as it is. Any less and it would have been simply OK.

So I love the iPad. I still think my iPad model of choice will be a bit expensive for me, and I also worry the old law of "$ = €" will be put into practice when it comes to the NL launch. But maybe by June, when it's supposed to touch our euro-shores, Apple will have boosted some stuff that gets us a bit more excited. Hell, they even have 60 days to make US users happier :-)

I'd say to Apple to at least give us Europeans the following:

- A damn camera ;-) (Steve, you have heard of Skype right?!)

- More memory options (I want to see 32GB-160GB at least. And you can drop the 16GB option Steve-o)

Other than that I await the iPad with a smile, and with the distinct feeling like something big just happened at 19:00 CET yesterday in the Apple camp (once again).

Short Search URLs

2010-01-12T15:06:00.001+01:00

Short Search URLs

I just had a neat idea for advancing a step in the short URL rage. I myself find short URLs very useful. I use snurl.com (sn.im) and often find my custom abbreviation of choice :)

My idea also spawned from the fact that I use search shortcuts in Chrome, to search directly in custom websites.

For example if I type "glotnl" into the Chrome omnibar followed by a Dutch word, it will lookup the Dutch word instantly, directing the browser straight to the page: http://interglot.nl/woordenboek?word=probleem&SrcLang=1&DstLang=2

(see below for how to set up a custom Chrome search URL)

It would be ideal if I could do this on any browser anywhere in the world at any time (lol) and this should be achievable by combining the short URL concept with the pre-programmed search concept.

So to cut to the chase, I want to be able to create a short URL, like for example sn.im/glotnl that I can place a search term after, e.g. sn.im/glotnl/probleem that will translate to:

http://interglot.nl/woordenboek?word=probleem&SrcLang=1&DstLang=2

Maybe an idea for Google to put through their labs.

To set up a custom Chrome search URL:

Go to the spanner icon in the Chrome toolbar (on the far right usually) then choose Options and click the Manage button next to where it says "default Search". Here you can add your own custom search URLs and give them each a keyword. Then you just need to type that keyword in the Chrome omnibar (the place where you type www.blahblah...) followed by your search term and boom.

A search URL is defined by using the URL of the search results page and inserting %s at the position where the search term should be. So for example my search URL for interglot.nl is

http://interglot.nl/woordenboek?word=%s&SrcLang=1&DstLang=2. I then have "glotnl" as my keyword. So Chrome knows that when I type the following in the omnibar:

glotnl probleem

Chrome automatically fills my search term "probleem" into the URL I defined and takes me straight to: http://interglot.nl/woordenboek?word=probleem&SrcLang=1&DstLang=2 - voila!

OV Chipkaart aparaat firmware error

2009-11-03T19:08:00.001+01:00

Lol, OV Chipkaart aparaten hebben ook bugs natuurlijk :-)

Posted via email from gigajosh's posterous

Lost your iPhone status bar?

2009-10-26T15:53:00.002+01:00

Has your iPhone status bar vanished? Or does it seem to vanish when you close an app? Have you been fiddling about with Winterboard?

Chances are you’ve got the Winterboard “SolidStatusBar” option switched on. This was driving me crazy but I finally discovered it. Not at the top of my Winterboard configurations list of course so I didn’t notice it was on at first. Eventually I scrolled right down to the bottom and there it was with an annoying little tick next to it ;-)

keywords: status bar top screen iphone vanished disappeared time date winterboard gone disappears

Vote for my wife's Autokiekjes photobook

2009-09-28T09:21:00.003+02:00

Hello there! Please take 1 minute to vote for my wife Angela's photobook idea and boost her chances of winning the super duper Olympus camera! :)

Go to the site http://www.eenfotoboekwaard.nl
Click the orange text that says "Bekijk het overzicht van alle ideeën"
In the search box where it says "Zoek je eigen idee" type: auto
Click the button "Zoeken"
Click on number 197, called "Autokiekjes"
Then to vote for the idea click the little blue box bottom-right that says "Stem op dit idee"
Fill in your email address (I don't expect spam from these guys)
Tick the first checkbox "Ik ga akkoord..."
Click the orange button Verzenden.
That's it, you've voted for my wife's photobook, thank you very very much!!

If you like please leave us a comment here :))

Thank you!

How to edit Plaxo privacy settings

2009-08-27T16:53:00.000+02:00

I've more than once had difficulties finding where on Plaxo I'm supposed to edit the privacy settings. Plaxo is a primarily work-oriented profile/ social networking site like LinkedIn

So here's a quick note to those that have the same difficulty.

Go to the Plaxo homepage
Click the My Profile menu
Click the About Me tab
Navigate down to the Websites section
Click 'Edit this section'
Click on the website name to edit privacy settings

N.B. If you don't see the 'Edit this section' link, go to the top of your profile and there should be an 'Edit this section' link visible there. Then go back down to the Websites section.

These websites don't seem to realise how badly their navigation sucks for people that don't use their website on a regular basis.

iPhone app BlogPress test

2009-08-24T15:41:00.000+02:00

OK, just giving the iPhone app BlogPress a quick test. It costs 2 euro something, but that didn't put me off giving it a try.

I'm using it for this blog, but it supports plenty of other blog formats. Google BlogPress for more info.

It supports horizontal typing on my iPhone with iPhoneOS 3.0 (3.0.1 firmware) not sure about older iPhone firmwares. That makes typing a 2-thumbed affair at least. I'd prefer a physical keyboard *cough* but that's a whole different story :-)

So now I'll add a couple of tags and see how this looks on the blog!

Oh, and here's a link of course just to test that out too. http://twitter.com/gigajosh

Btw, I forgot to mention that when you choose a Blogger blog, BlogPress lets you choose which of your Blogger blogs you want to use, as you'd expect. Anyway that all went fine, bar a couple of login errors. So now I've got 2 of my Blogger blogs hooked up on BlpgPress :-)

Do I really continue to use it long term? That's always the big question. Well, time will tell.

Adios!

JD

AdSense - The publisher must be associated with the developer account before the developer can invoke operations on the publisher's account

2009-07-10T16:26:00.002+02:00

You may be unfortunate enough to get this error when you try to switch on AdSense for your Blogger blog:
"The publisher must be associated with the developer account before the developer can invoke operations on the publisher's account."

Don't stress, you just need to go to
your Google AdSense account -> My Account -> Account Access

Now under where it says "Hosts with access" you may/should have a blogger.com entry with a link next to it "grant access".

Click the link, confirm, and you're back in business :)

TiddlyWiki - How to install the Beta version

2009-06-12T09:19:00.009+02:00

Anyone installing the TiddlyWiki beta version will probably already know how to do this. But anyway, this is for those that want a quick 1-2-3...

Remember, as stated on the TiddlyWiki beta page, and as with anything "beta" (although half the services on the web these days are in beta) don't use it for important data, and don't complain if it breaks!.. just report it to the developers ;-)

So, get TiddlyWiki beta as follows:

Go to http://tiddlywiki.com/beta/
Now just save this web page locally to your computer
In Internet Explorer 6 you do this by going to File -> Save As (in most browsers the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+S)
Save the browser page as HTML-only (tip: put "beta" somewhere in the filename so you don't forget)
You have now saved your TiddlyWiki Beta locally. So you can open it and edit it as usual.

Now if you want to upgrade an existing (non-beta) TiddlyWiki to the beta version you just downloaded do the following:

Open the TiddlyWiki beta file you just downloaded
Go to 'backstage' (top right-hand corner) -> 'import'
Browse for a file and choose your old non-beta TiddlyWiki file
Press the 'open' button
Select all tiddlers by checking the box right at the top (in the yellow-brown table header)
Uncheck "Keep these tiddlers linked to this server...." (also leave the other option unchecked)
Press the 'import' button at the bottom.
It will confirm that it has imported those tiddlers, press the 'done' button.
NOW save changes via the 'save changes' link on the top right-hand side of your TiddlyWiki as normal.
Then reload your TiddlyWiki (if you're using Windows just press F5 or Ctrl+R)
NOW you're done, UNLESS it displays the PluginManager tiddler and something has a red-pink colour. That's not good. It means one of your plugins doesn't work on the beta. So proceed as below:

Deal with a broken plugin as follows:

You can first check to see if your plugin provider also has a beta version.
If not, disable the plugin by first clicking the 'save changes' link on the top right-hand side to make sure you've saved the latest changes.
Then check the checkbox next to the red-pink plugin that's broken (if more than one is red-pink then check all the red-pink ones)
Then press the 'remove systemConfig tag' button. You might be warned by the browser that you might lose unsaved changes, but just press Ok to continue.
Then reload the TiddlyWiki again (if you're using Windows just press F5 or Ctrl+R) and this time there should be no warning from the PluginManager.

Good luck. You can catch me on Twitter: @gigajosh

TiddlyWiki - How to install an Adaptor

2009-06-12T07:40:00.003+02:00

First I wasn’t sure how to install TiddlyWiki plugins. Then I figured that one out. Now I was a bit confused on how I was supposed to install a TiddlyWiki Adaptor (I always thought Adaptor was spelt with an ‘e’ but I guess not J)

I wanted to import plain text files as tiddlers, so was looking for a plugin to do this when I came across this page about importing on tiddlywiki.org. It mentions that “By default, content can only be imported from other TiddlyWiki documents [but] Adaptors can be used to extend that functionality to arbitrary sources”. The Adaptors page it links to simply contains a list of links to Javascript files, so I wasn’t really sure what to do with them a first.

However, after downloading one of these Javascript files, the RawTextAdaptor.js, using right-click à Save Target As, and opening it in a text editor I saw there was a source URL (http://devpad.tiddlyspot.com/#RawTextAdaptor).

I realized that RawTextAdapter was itself a tiddler on a TiddlyWiki compatible page (tiddlyspot.com is a free TiddlyWiki host) so that was good news. Why? Because you can import TiddlyWiki tiddlers from other web pages directly into your own TiddlyWiki as explained by Ken Girard, who helpfully commented on my previous post with this information. He told me to:

go to the top right corner of your TiddlyWiki and click on ‘backstage'
then choose 'import'
enter the url of the site you want to import, so in my case that was http://devpad.tiddlyspot.com/#RawTextAdaptor
check the boxes of tiddlers you want to import, so in my case that was RawTextAdaptor (it actually shows you all the tiddlers available on the devpad.tiddlyspot.com)
down at the bottom tick the box that says "Keep these tiddlers linked to this server so that you can synchronise subsequent changes" so that you can use the built-in sync function to get any later updates (‘sync’ is also in the background section).

So that’s what I did and it imported the RawTextAdaptor for me.

The conclusion is that an Adaptor is simply a tiddler. I was just confused by the fact that the wiki linked directly to Javascript files (I would have preferred a link to tiddlers on a TiddlyWiki page). So even without using the import function as described above, I could have added the Adaptor to my Tiddlywiki simply by creating a new tiddler in my TiddlyWiki, and copying the contents of the Javascript file into the new tiddler, giving it any name I wanted and saving it.

However, the advantage of using the TiddlyWiki's built-in 'import' menu is that it gives you that option to "Keep these tiddlers linked to this server so that you can synchronise subsequent changes". This means if the author updates the Adaptor you can easily update it via TiddlyWiki's built-in 'sync' menu. So you don't have to go Googling for updates.

Posted via email from gigajosh's posterous

Posterous.com Essentials

2009-06-08T15:00:00.001+02:00

A couple of essentials I just read in the Posterous.com FAQ.

TIP 1

To tag your posts place tags in the subject field in the following format:

((tag: apple, gadgets))

TIP 2

To ensure your corporate (or any other) email signature gets ignored place the following at the end of your post (BUT WITHOUT THE SPACE BETWEEN THE “#” AND “end”. I had to put that there or it would have been cut off.. that’s the whole point right!)

# end

Posted via email from gigajosh's posterous

Realtime TwitPic image stream

2009-06-08T14:49:00.001+02:00

Why this site doesn’t show up near the top of results on Google for “twitter image stream” I don’t know.

I found it back in my delicious bookmarks. It’s a stream of images posted on Twitter via the service TwitPic.

Hopefully they’ll find the backing they need to open this up to all the other Twitter image services, and make the site look a lot cooler J

http://picfog.com/

tags: twitter image photo picture stream twitpic streaming realtime

This message is confidential and may be privileged. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, taking any action with reference to this information by persons other then the intended recipient is prohibited. If you receive this message in error, please notify the sender by reply e-mail and delete this message from all computers. Please note that e-mails are susceptible to change. The sender will not accept liability for the improper or incomplete transmission of the information contained in this message.

Spaar het milieu door deze e-mail niet te printen/Please consider the environment before printing this email.

Posted via email from gigajosh's posterous

Recover data from a restored iPhone (part 2)

2009-06-03T10:21:00.012+02:00

PLEASE NOTE: this method will almost certainly NOT work with an iPhone 4 or above, and may NOT work with the 3GS (although I have heard some report that it did work for them with a 3GS). The reason for it not working is to do with hardware encryption. Now on with the guide...

This guide is the practical implementation of the "how to" guide that I posted a while back. That original "guide" only consisted of 3 links. The first link was to a modmyi.com tutorial, and the other two were to pages with Cygwin information.

When I finally got around to executing the plan, I only needed the first link. Because since the original post I've bought a Macbook, and therefore don't need to use Cygwin (which for those that don't know provides you with a Unix environment inside Windows).

So armed with the modmyi.com guide I set out on my little iPhone image dump adventure. I'm just going to repeat parts of the guide or reference it, adding little extras specific to my setup.

FIRST of all, the modmyi.com guide provides the following list of things you need. I've added my own notes:

- Jailbroken iPhone
[Check this tutorial on coderetard.com for jailbreaking your iPhone successfully with QuickPwn]

- BSD Subsystem and OpenSSH installed on your iPhone
[When you jailbreak your iPhone with QuickPwn, BSD Subsystem will automatcally be installed, as will an application called Cydia. Cydia lets you search for and install other apps. So use Cydia to search for and install OpenSSH]

- Terminal (or MobileTerminal) installed on your iPhone
[Search for and install MobileTerminal with Cydia]

- An SSH server installed on your computer
[I'm a Mac newbie, so thankfully I got emailed a tip from Matthew Zito who has a blog at blog.crackpotideas.com. He directed me as follows: Go to System Preferences -> Sharing -> and check the box "Remote Login"]

- The 'DD' utility installed on your computer
[DD was already installed on my Macbook]

- Your iPhone's IP address
[If you go to the Wireless LAN settings on your iPhone it tells you in the details what your IP address is]

- Your computer's IP address
[on a Macbook open a Terminal and use the ifconfig command to check your computer's IP address]

Now you're basically ready to go. Just follow the modmyi.com guide, keeping in mind the following:

DON'T forget the tip about turning OFF your iPhone's auto-lock and do the SAME on your computer (on the Macbook it's under Energy Saver settings)

DON'T forget to change the user to "root" after you've started up MobileTerminal on the iPhone. The modmyi.com guide also explain this.

The only other thing I want to share is that the dump process took nearly 3 hours on a 802.11 G Wireless LAN. Below is a pic of MobileTerminal on my iPhone with the commands and the transfer data information. You can see the speed was approximately 783 kB/s and it took ages.

Ok, once you've got your iPhone image dumped, it's a piece of cake to turf at least your media out of it. I was hoping I could get the image mounted and browse it in its original state, but so far I haven't found a way to do that.

My original goal was to recover my photos, and that's what I achieved anyway. So here's the plan:

1) Go and get this wizard free application (Harry Potter would be proud) called PhotoRec. PhotoRec will make you happy I promise.

2) Just unpack it and run it against your disk image. E.g.

./Users/josh/Utils/photorec ./Users/josh/iphone-dump.img

You don't even need to be root to run it. It'll jump straight into a nice simple interactive terminal screen.

- So you choose "Proceed"

Then you pick the partition table of your image. For the iPhone that's Mac, or at least that worked for me :)

Then choose the partition, it only offered me one option

Then choose the filesystem. ext2/ext3 worked for me.

Then choose the location for the files it fishes out of your image.

And once you're satisfied with the location press "Y" and it'll start ransacking your image file :)

..Until it's done. It only took about 24 mins in the end. Not bad at all.
It found all my photos. At least, I can't remember exactly what photos I had or how many, but it found lots. Plus it recovered my mp3s and movie clips.

So, I'm a happy man, and can finally go back to using my 2G iPhone :D... er, did I say 2G? Yup, that's the bummer. It's a first gen model that I bought in the UK when the price plumetted. Still, it's fun to use. But man that 2G slowness certainly bugs me, especially when I'm used to 3G freedom on my HTC Kaiser.

So what'll it be?
- The 3rd gen iPhone (not 3G, I mean the 3rd generation of iPhone) that'll hopefully be out by Autumn 2009.
- Or the HTC Dimaond 2 with its slick look, wicked screen, pants camera, no qwerty keyboard
- Or the HTC Touch Pro 2, with its QWERTY keyboard, fat screen, and pure niceness.

Dunno, I'll probably wait till the next round. I'm a sucker for perfection and it takes them so long to bring out something REALLY interesting. Till then I'll probably just grin and bare it ;))

How to get an SSH server running on a Mac

2009-06-02T23:00:00.029+02:00

To SSH into your Mac you just need to do the following.

Go to System preferences >> Sharing
Check the "Remote Login" box
That's it!

This will start sshd on your system and you can now be able to SSH your Mac with your usual Mac username and password.
If this helped you out, hit the +1 button below. If not, feel free to leave a rude comment ;-)

Giving Posterous a whirl

2009-05-28T17:21:00.002+02:00

Posterous is a service that lets you post to Multiple destinations: e.g. Twitter + Facebook + your Blogger blog + Tumblr + .... others, simply by sending an email.

Pretty handy/nifty, but I'm not sure how much I'd use this in practice. Time will tell.

Trouble is my Blog is set up to post to Twitter via Twitterfeed, so I know this is already going to result in a double post on Twitter. Thank goodness all my tweets (on Twitter) are no longer auto-forwarded to Facebook, otherwise that's mean 3 Facebook updates. These days my tweets only get sent to Facebook if I explicitly tag the tweet with #fb (oops, haha).

What we need is a really really smart service that will intelligently synchronise all one's online messages. So there's not just a single start-point.

The service will monitor all one's online activity and reproduce it on one's other online locations according to rules or tags.

E.g. A single tag on any post could tell the monitoring service not to reproduce that post anywhere else.

We'll see, one day it'll all be much, much more integrated. One's "profile" will be more a sort of cloud hanging in the air above multiple web sites and services.

Amen ;)

Posted via email from gigajosh's posterous

Save That Word

2009-02-01T00:57:00.002+01:00

I was just alerted to an interesting website that tries to get people to "adopt" a word that is verging on extinction. Actually, if you see the words, you understand why they're becoming extinct.

It's like one of the laws of web 2.0 - keep things simple, nobody really wants or needs lots of different ways of saying something, or words that encapsulate the meaning of 4 or 5 other words.

It's easier to remember the 4 or 5 other common words than the one funny word that nobody ever uses.

But despite the above reasoning, I do find new words interesting. And I reckon if one took my fancy, I may just be tempted to slip it into conversation sometime (sure, right, and I live in Holland so that's gonna go down great!.. we'll see :D)

Here are 3 words that I just noticed on the site:

Casitive - Has grammatical cases - e.g. you could call a language that uses cases a casitive language. ... I think German is a casitive language come to think of it... :)

Lubency - pleasure/ willingness

Impudicity - hmm. I've lost that word now.. but it sounded kinda cool :)

The web site is: http://www.savethewords.org/

Super simple Twitter bookmarklet (aka Twitlet)

2009-01-15T14:12:00.007+01:00

I just made a super simple Twitter bookmarklet. Here it is :::> Twitlet+

Here's the javascript:
javascript:void(document.location.href='http://twitter.com/home?status='+encodeURIComponent(location.href));

Thanks to ClipClip for the tips.

And by the way, if you need to find this blog post again, use the sn.im link http://sn.im/twitlet

Macbook apps & mods

2009-01-02T02:23:00.022+01:00

This is just going to be a list of all the apps I install on my new Macbook :)

Could get long. We'll see. [I've also decided to add any kind of customisations I make in square brackets]

Skype

Adobe Air (for Twhirl)

Twhirl

OpenOffice (so I could view a darn Powerpoint lol!) (2/1/09)

MacPorts (so I can install aircrack-ng :)) (3/1/09)

Evernote (4/1/09)

Firefox (4/1/09)

[hide the dock: http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2168/os_x_hide_dock/] (11-jan-09)

uTorrent (11-jan-09) (surprised this didn't happen earlier :)) (http://mac.utorrent.com)

[TwitterFox add-on for Firefox] (this doesn't really count, but I'm kinda enjoying logging this stuff!) (11-Jan-09)

[Changed annoying Mac alert sound to "Hero" sound and reduced volume :)) - do this in Sound dialog - key-combo ctrl+F12] (11-jan-09)

GIMP (photo editor)

UnRarX (compressed file extractor - free - need it to unpack the VMWare download. Am wondering if there's a free rar/ zip decompressor for Mac out there with a nicer GUI)

[made TextEdit default app for opening NFO files]

VMWare Fusion

Quicksilver (31-1-09)

Google Earth (31-1-09)

Adobe Flash (prerequisite - kinda - for adobe air)

Adobe Air (oops, hang on, I already installed that..)

Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.0.1

Growl 1.1.4 (Because Peer Guardian suggested it)

PeerGuardian (to fight against baddies)

MS Office 2008 (v12.0.0)

[update Open XML File Format Converter for Mac to v1.0.2]

[update MS Office 2008 to v12.1.0]

Please feel free to suggest an app you think I can't do without :)

Mac keyboard shortcuts and other tips

2009-01-02T01:34:00.020+01:00

I've just bought a Macbook (13.3" aluminium, 4gb ram, lovely | battery, non-backlit keyboard, less lovely) and cos I've always been a Windows user there's a lot that is new to me.

Before I give up and install Bootcamp I'll probably discover a bunch of things that I'll want to remember. So I'm going to record them here.

I definitely need a comprehensive reference to Mac keyboard shortcuts. I'm sure there are plenty out there.

It's amazing how disabling it is not knowing all the keyboard shortcuts that one's gotten so used to over time. I shall battle on :)

Here is a list of URLs with keyboard shortcuts.

http://tinyurl.com/axudxr (thanks @vkoser)

http://tinyurl.com/5q86qh (thanks @murdamw)

http://tinyurl.com/5jjp95 ( " )

	Description	Key combo	Source
1.	Make a screenshot anywhere where you can select the area of the screenshot with the mouse (screen capture)	cmd+shift+4	http://www.intermedia.net/support/kb/default.asp?id=923
2.	Safari: Jump to the address bar (or location bar)	cmd+l	-
3.	Safari: quick page search	fn+(search term)	-
4.	Minimise active window	cmd+m	-
5.	Find my Mac IP address	Apple -> System Preferences -> Network	-
6.	Show desktop(?) (hides like EVERYTHING on screen)	fn+F11	-
7.	Hide window	cmd+H	-
8.	Switch between multiple windows of single app. (E.g. between 3 different Firefox windows or between multiple Finder windows)	cmd+`	http://www.applenewbie.com/archives/window-switching-mac-os-x
9.	Close Window	cmd+shift+w	http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/keyboard+shortcuts
10.	Switch between window elements on a web page, e.g. between fields, buttons (in Windows one just uses the tab key to achieve this)	OR alt+	No source, but a bit more info: Use just the to switch between text entry fields. But to switch between other items like buttons, checkboxes etc, you need to use alt+
-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-

N.B. Finally got a table going on in Blogger! Thanks to:

http://mlawire.blogspot.com/2007/01/table-formatting-in-blogger.html

How to format (prettify) XML

2008-12-29T16:59:00.005+01:00

Today I used Eclipse with the XMLBuddy plugin to format (prettify) a chunk of XML.
I then tweaked it with TextPad... as follows.

1)
Get Eclipse at http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/. The IDE for Java developers will probably be fine for you. (It may seem like serious overkill for formatting a bit of XML, but that all depends on how badly you want to format that bit of XML now doesn't it? :))

2)
Get the XMLBuddy plugin: http://www.xmlbuddy.com/2.0/download.php

3)
You just need to unpack the XMLBuddy plugin ZIP file to the Eclipse "plugins" directory, but here are some XMLBuddy install tips in case you have problems: http://www.xmlbuddy.com/2.0/faq.html#install

4)
Then just open your XML file with Eclipse and choose "Format" from the "XML" menu.

5)
The only problem is that it uses tabs to indent the XML, which you may find a bit of a pain, so I then tweaked it in TextPad as follows:
Copy the XML you formatted in Eclipse into TextPad (or some other text editor with search&replace) and use F8 (find/replace) to swap the tabs for spaces, and you've got a decently formatted bit of XML!

Good luck :)

Automatisch opnieuw opstarten in XP uitschakelen

2008-12-12T00:07:00.003+01:00

Voor het geval dat je het wilt weten, om te zorgen dat Windows XP zich niet automatisch herstart na het installeren van Windows updates, moet je de volgende stappen volgen:

1. Ga naar Start -> Uitvoeren en tik gpedit.msc

2. Druk op OK en komt het venstertje "Groepsbeleid" tevoorschijn.

3. Deze instelling uitschakelen: "Niet automatisch opnieuw opstarten als gebruikers zijn aangemeld na geplande installaties van Automatisch updates"

Je ziet het ook in het plaatje hieronder.

bron: 4sysops

Recover data on a restored iPhone

2008-12-10T22:59:00.003+01:00

I haven't yet attempted to or succeeded in recovering any data from the previous increment of my 2G iPhone, so this is more of a note-to-self.

After screwing it up with a new version of Installer (don't touch Installer with a long barge pole people, stick to good old Cydia.. and u know what they say about curiosity and what it did to the cat, well I was the proverbial cat) I restored it in iTunes.

My shopping list for trying to dump the iPhone disk image to my PC in URLs is:

A tutorial from the people that know:

http://www.modmyi.com/forums/file-mods/237321-how-iphone-data-recovery.html#post1484071

A guide to setting up an SSH server on Cygwin

http://lifehacker.com/software/home-server/geek-to-live--set-up-a-personal-home-ssh-server-205090.php

And er, a newbie's guide to Cygwin

http://lifehacker.com/software/cygwin/geek-to-live--introduction-to-cygwin-part-i-179514.php

Wish me luck!

2008-11-10T18:33:00.001+01:00

Ping.fm is scary ;) It's gonna post this to sites I've signed up for but have never really used. I find it an interesting experiment.. tbc

Found CSCCMD v1.1 on Jackson Technical

2008-11-07T17:18:00.004+01:00

CSCCMD, the Client-Side Caching Command-Line Options command-line tool is very evasive. One has to contact Microsoft to get it.

But thank goodness somebody stuck it on their web site so as to help others in their quest for freedom (or something equally vallant).
Jackson Technical is the place where v1.1 of this little tool can be found. Check it out:
http://www.jacksontechnical.com/article.htm?id=34
(Can also be found here on MediaFire)

What does this tool do you ask? Well, you can see that for yourself here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;884739

Nokia PC Suite v7

2008-11-06T13:53:00.003+01:00

Looking for Nokia PC Suite v7? Frustrated that the links on Nokia's website are dead?!
The link below might help you.. until of course they remove the file, or rename it :(
http://snurl.com/nokiapcsuite7
Good luck!

Print those pesky PRN files with PrintFile

2008-10-31T00:50:00.004+01:00

Have you ever wondered what that little checkbox "Save to file" does when you go to print something?

Well, guess what? It saves your print job to a file instead of actually printing it - uncanny huh? ;)

When you save such a file, it's a PRN file.

Well, that was kinda supposed to be funny, but the serious part of this post is that there's a utility out there that will let you print those otherwise useless little files. It's called PrintFile and you can get it here:

http://www.lerup.com/printfile/

Make a note of this, cos one day you'll be like - heh, I can't access the printer, but I know, I can save it to a file and print it off later (on another computer) with that cool little utility PrintFile.

And by the way PrintFile is free. How about that :)

EDIT: also check out EscapeE by RedTitan

NOTE: these apps won't always print your document perfectly! but if you're printer is messed up it could be a life saver.

Toodledo - King of the to-do list managers

2008-10-29T23:12:00.002+01:00

I've been using Toodledo for a good while now and it's a great to-do list manager.

It's free, and manages to offer lots of useful features for organising your tasks while still remaining very simple to use.

Also there are 3 different mobile interfaces you can use on your mobile phone or PDA, and there are integration options with sites like Google Calendar, Twitter etc, so you can send yourself notifications and synchronise your tasks etc.

All in all, a really cool to-do list manager :) so check it out at Toodledo.com

Computer Management in XP (MMC)

2008-10-28T13:42:00.004+01:00

This is more of a note-to-self than anything else, but nonetheless something that was bugging me.

I'm in a locked-down work environment and couldn't open the Computer Management console.

Pity, because I wanted to see if I was running XP with SP2 or SP3, and the only way I know to do that in my environment is via the Computer Management console.

Unfortunately in my environment:

- the "Properties" option in the My Computer context menu has been removed

- System has been removed from the Control Panel.

- and when you run the sysdm.cpl command from Start -> Run, nothing happens. (this should normally bring up the System Properties panel.

Anyway, I finally found the command to launch the Computer Management console directly:

compmgmt.msc

This worked.

Then it was simply a matter of selecting "Properties" from the context menu of the "Computer Management (Local)" item on the left-hand side.

And voila, there was the System Propeties panel (only this way the title of the panerl is "Computer Management (Local) Properties".

For a list of other .msc commands, take a look here: http://www.theeldergeek.com/microsoft_management_console.htm

Google Chrome in-page search shortcuts

2008-10-27T16:06:00.001+01:00

I couldn't work it out by myself: The keyboard shortcuts for jumping through one's Google Chrome in-page search results.

Well, I think I'll use Ctrl+G, hell, why not?! :)

Ctrl+F	Open find-in-page box
Ctrl+G or F3	Find next match for your input in the find-in-page box
Ctrl+Shift+G or Shift+F3	Find previous match for your input in the find-in-page box

Audacity great choice for recording audio stream

2008-10-20T18:03:00.001+02:00

Just wanted to share my great experience with Audacity yesterday.
I've always been annoyed with BBC online radio. Not because of its quality or content, but because I can't rip/ record/ copy the bloomin' stuff.

Now I tried recording the 1Xtra Drum n Bass chart, one of the shows I listen to every now and then, with some pitiful piece of recording software that I won't name, and it sounded rubbish. Like I'd used an old portable audio cassette recorder or something!

Yesterday however, I was listening to the MOBO awards, which you can maybe still catch here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/1xtra_aod.shtml?1xtra/mistajam_wed

I was once again determined to try to record the stream (it's a RealPlayer stream) so I did a quick Google for a recording software.

My Google search returned Audacity as the first result. Obviously I'm slightly confused as to why it never popped up before. Anyway here's the Audacity link: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

I just downladed the zip file for Windows and unpacked it.

I fired up the program and there was a record button staring at me. I pressed it and baboom, a sound wave signal thingy started moving from left to right. It looked like it was recording.

So to check it was working, I stopped recording, stopped the stream, and pressed the play button (in Audacity) and it played back the little gem it had just recorded. It sounded great, no crappy cassette-like sound.

I've used Audacity in the past to edit audio (had to get that one in so as not to sound like a pleb) but never knew it could record (maybe it couldn't back then).

Anyway, Audacity is my recorder of choice for the time being. And it's damn well free!

P.S.

I'd just like to add, so as not to mislead anybody, that Audacity doesn't actually record the stream directly, it records the audio channel on your PC.
So be careful you don't play any other sounds on your PC or mess around with the volume (I think you can safely change the main volume, but not the others - you'll have to test it and see). Basically, any change to the sound you hear will likely be captured by Audacity.

Obviously, if you are able to record an audio stream directly with another software, this will probably be a better option. This is an EASY option for recording ALL TYPES of audio, but essential for audio where the stream can't be recorded directly.

Import Tiddlers from another TiddlyWiki

2008-10-20T17:30:00.001+02:00

This TiddlyWiki plugin (below) lets you import Tiddlers from another TiddlyWiki.

I was actually looking for a plugin to import a text file as a tiddler. But this is also nice. I'm sure It'll come in handy some time. :)

ImportTiddlersPlugin

Installing the CoreTweaks plugin for TiddlyWiki

2008-10-17T18:31:00.005+02:00

As mentioned by Darrel Austin on the MN Interactive blog it's not easy to figure out how to install a TiddlyWiki plugin. He describes it nicely, but even so, I couldn't quite work out what I had to do on the CoreTweaks plugin page to get the thing installed!

It's a piece of cake once you know how of course. This is what I did:

1. Click the "view" link on the top right-hand side of the CoreTweaks tiddler (because yes, this is actually a tiddler, even though it looks nothing like an out-of-the-box tiddler. It's been customised you see to look cool ;))
[If you're still lost, note that the "view" is only visible when your mouse is actually hovering over the browser window]

2. When the "view" link has been clicked, you can see the source of the tiddler. Just copy this, create a new tiddler in your own TiddlyWiki and paste the CoreTweaks source into your new tiddler. I don't think you have to call your new tiddler CoreTweaks, but I did anyway just to be safe.

3. THE IMPORTANT PART is that you add the tag systemConfig to your tiddler. This makes the TiddlyWiki actually use the content of the tiddler.

Retrieve lost download on iTunes

2008-10-12T23:25:00.003+02:00

If you ever lose a song you were downloading in iTunes - i.e. you thought it was downloaded butit wasn't (I don't mean you deleted it) try the following.

Go to iTunes -> Store (menu) -> "View My Account" -> (you'll need to sign in probably)

Then IF there are downloads still waiting for you to finish off or start, they'll be sitting right at the top of the Account Information page above your Apple ID. There should be a button called "Download now" or something just a above the "Edit account info" button.

If not, and you've paid for music that you haven't received. Contact Apple.

http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/store/browser/

Stanza eBook reader for iPhone looks and feels great

2008-09-23T10:50:00.003+02:00

I've only just installed the free eBook reader, Stanza, on my newly upgraded iPhone and I already feel compelled to write about it.

To cut a long review short it looks and feels great.

- It's free to download in the AppStore

- You have access from inside the app to an online list of publications, including plenty of free ones

- You can change the font and the size of the text

- You can change the text colour and backgorund colour (I prefer light text on darker background)

- The page turning is quick

God I love the AppStore and the fact that there are so many great free applications to download :)

BBC 1Xtra Drum n Bass top 10

2008-09-21T16:14:00.003+02:00

I had some trouble listening to the BCC Drum n Bass top 10 this week. The BBC was telling me that iPlayer couldn't find the recording when I pressed the "listen now" link on the DnB chart page.

Oh well, luckilly I still had a rtsp link in my RealPlayer favourites and was able to play directly from RealPlayer. The BBC isn't too keen on their streams being played directly through RealPlayer; something to do with it not being all that kind to their servers. But if it's the only way.. :)

Here's the direct rtsp link.

rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/1xtra/mistajam_wed.ra?start=9300

You need to open this link in RealPlayer by the way. It's the only player that will play it I'm afraid. I've spent countless hours looking for an alternative without success. MPlayer can't play it, even though it supports rtsp streams. It's something to do with the way the streams are encoded.

Enjoy the bass ;)

iPhone upgrade: 1.1.4 (ZiPhone) to 2.1 (Custom ipsw) [via 2.0.2 QuickPwn]

2008-09-20T23:08:00.013+02:00

I followed a bunch of stuff I read on the Code Retard blog and found my way from a 1.1.4 iPhone (unlocked and jailbroken with ZiPhone) to a 2.1 iPhone (curtesy of Pwnage)

Now I'm going to be short and sweet.

- First I installed iTunes 8. Now that was kinda unintentional, but heh, what can you do!

- I hooked my 1.1.4 iPhone (ZiPhoned) up to iTunes 8.

(You can skip the red bits if you want because I finally resorted to custom firmware)

- I did Shift+Restore (hold down Shift and press Restore button) and loaded up an original 2.0.2 firmware image.

- After the 2.0.2 firmware was in place (took a while) iTunes was moaning about the SIM card being no good blah blah blah. Don't worry, that's what QuickPwn is for.

- I then ran QuickPwn 2.1 GUI and voila my phone was unlocked.

- iTunes was happy again

- Then I tried to upgrade to firmware from 2.0.2 to 2.1 in iTunes. Something that the Code Retard blog had said was possible (I thought). Anyway, it didn't work for me and I don't know why. My phone was showing the QuickPwn Pineapple, and then the catoon of a dude saying something is Russian(?) and then it would reboot.

- iTunes wasn't recognising it... oops.

- Anyway, I managed to get it into DFU mode (not exactly sure how) and iTunes finally recognised it. So it was ready to receive a new firmware.

(This is when I decided to go for the custom firmware, as recommended by Code Retard in another post)

- I got the custom firmware via BitTorrent and it was a very healthy torrent I can tell you. Here it is. I had it downloaded in no time!

[!!! N.B. THIS CUSTOM FIRMWARE IS FOR THE 2G iPhone ONLY !!! - See the Code Retard post for the 3G custom firmware.]

- In iTunes 8 I simply did a Shift+Restore (hold down shift and press the Restore button) and selected the custom firmware.

(According to the Code Retard article on upgrading to a custom firmware you DO NOT need to put the iPhone in DFU mode first, so don't! Just have your iPhone connected to iTunes as normal.)

- A short while later my iPhone was upgraded to 2.1 and iTunes recognised it immediately.

- I was able to restore the backup that iTunes had previously made before I tried (and failed) to upgrade to 2.1 via iTunes.

- This results in all your personal customised iPhone settings being restored, like ringtone settings, SpringBoard settings etc.

- Then I did a Sync and got all my lovely music, photos, and videos back.

- Then I was a pretty happy bunny ;-)

- 2.1 firmware means AppStore means free legit applications. And the added benefit of the free apps downloaded from AppStore is that if you check the box in the Apps tab in iTunes 8, iTunes will Sync any apps that you've downloaded from AppStore! This means if you do an upgrade to another iPhone software/firmware version, even though this wipes the entire iPhone, iTunes will put all your AppStore apps back on the iPhone when you next Sync it. Great!

Google Chrome has poor performance with PDF documents

2008-09-18T10:48:00.002+02:00

I always found opening PDF documents a drag in Internet Explorer, and just as bad in Firefox. All that waiting for Adobe Reader to load up its umpteen plugins...

But I must say that the PDF experience seems far worse in Google Chrome.

My CPU goes crazy and the browser hangs every time I try to scroll down a PDF document inside Chrome. I've already resorted to downloading the PDF first and then opening it, otherwise it's just not usable.

Hmm, wonder if anybody else has experienced this? I'll have to go check the Chrome bug list.

Google Chrome is a "must have"

2008-09-08T15:58:00.003+02:00

There's no getting away from it. Google Chrome is the browser of choice.

A beautifully simple and bug-free browser that's just dying to get onto every single desktop on the planet.

I'm certainly using it already as my browser of choice. Partly because I'm admittedly a bit of a Google addict. In the sense that I loved Google from the moment they found exactly what I was looking for (no, not that) back in 2001 or something. And partly because I just can't wait for another browser to gain market share over Internet Explorer, and give Microsoft another reason to make Windows truly user friendlier.

If you haven't tried Google Chrome yet, go and get it :) Here it is:

http://www.google.com/chrome/index.html?hl=en

Even if you don't have administrator rights on your PC chances are you can still install it. I could.

Now if you've already installed it and just happen to be thinking, like I did, that it would be nice to be able to make it look a tiddly bit different. And if you're not afraid of a bit of simple tweaking, go and download the Google Chrome theme manager XChrome here:

http://chromespot.com/index.php/topic,745.0.html

And here is a nice pack of 23 themes:

http://chromespot.com/index.php/topic,746.0.html

Enjoy the buzz of using a fast browser!

Embedding a tune from imeem

2008-06-21T02:18:00.003+02:00

I've been hunting about a bit for an easy (and free!) way to embed music into a web site.
I just signed up for imeem, a social music and video sharing site, and I've chosen to embed the lovely bit of drum n bass below to see how it looks in the post :)

Hope you enjoy the tones ;)

Rockstar - TC

Which vid do you dig?

2008-06-20T12:18:00.005+02:00

Hi readers :))

Which of these 2 vids do you dig the most. Please vote below :))

Vid 1

Vid 2

Vote here :))

LATO

2008-06-19T16:50:00.003+02:00

Just wanted to stop to big up a band that you guys (my loyal readers :)) should know about.
The band's called LATO and is a sort of rock / indie /alternative type of band.

Loads of great melodies - very listenable and relaxing in a rocky way. Definitely worth checking out :))

Their website is www.lato.co.uk where you can see when their gigs are - there's one on this coming Saturday at 333 Motherbar, Hoxton, London EC1V !

They've also got some vids up on YouTube, and of course a MySpace page.

Check them out!

Portable CD / DVD / image writing app

2008-06-19T10:17:00.003+02:00

I'm a sucker for portable programs as I hope will become more and more evident as I get into gear and start sticking some reviews up here.

I found this little baby today: http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/

It's a portable CD, DVD, image writer.
Now, in all fairness (or unfairness) I haven't checked the actual CD or DVD writing capabilities (although I've no reason to doubt them) but I did create an ISO image with exceptional ease.

You can download a zip file, so when I say the program is portable, I mean you just unpack the zip file and run the program.

So this is definitely one to add to your GMail collection. (what do I mean?). Well, if you get the GSpace extension for Firefox, you'll find it's a really neat little way of storing stuff on your GMail account, and I'd highly recommend using this to store little portable programs that you can later copy pack to your PC if and when you need them.

google4life.tk

2008-06-09T14:35:00.003+02:00

Doh, once again I haven't posted anything for far too long.
Well, this is just a quick reminder of my custom Google downloads search engine, google4life.tk.

You can either go to http://google4life.tk/ or just use the search box on the right-hand side of this blog :)

The search engine is good for finding direct downloads (i.e. zip files, mp3s, and stuff) and also lets you search for serials (for registering software) and torrents (for, er, bittorrent).

Transfer data from the Nokia 6101

2008-04-15T03:08:00.009+02:00

To transfer your data from the Nokia 6101, including the copy-protected ringtones, themes, wallpapers etc you need the following.
- 1 DKU-5 data cable
- Nokia PC Suite
- MobiMB

1. Install the Nokia PC Suite. This will also install the drivers for the DKU-5 cable

2. Then connect the DKU-5 cable to your PC and connect the phone. The cable should be recognised. If not, try another USB port.

3. Install MobiMB and setup as follows.
- Go to File -> Settings -> Connections -> Add connection
- Choose the Nokia DKU-5 cable connection
- Right-click the new DKU-5 connection -> Properties -> Port settings
- Choose "COM10 Port 1 on Nokia Adapter". The phone should be recognised.

4. In MobiMB go to File -> Settings -> Advanced and tick "Always show built-in ringtones".

5. Now just copy stuff from MobiMB to your PC. You can even drag and drop.

Mobile GBlogger

2008-04-08T10:39:00.001+02:00

Just trying out Mobile GBlogger, a Pocket PC app with which one can blog from one's Windows Mobile device.

- Posted using Pocket Watch Software Mobile GBlogger.

JMeter Config Element 'CSV Data Set Config' notes

2008-03-31T10:47:00.004+02:00

This post is for any other poor souls that can't figure out how to get the values accessed by the CSV Data Set Config configuration element in JMeter into the HTTP Request Sampler (or any other Sampler).

For some reason the JMeter User Manual page for the CSV Data Set Config doesn't explain this.

The key to getting your values used by your Sampler is to reference your values in the sampler in the following format:
${variable_name}

This is shown in the screen captures on the left.

Simple when you know how :)

Viigo wishlist

2008-03-06T09:43:00.002+01:00

I do like Viigo quite a lot. It's a free news reader for Pocket PC. You can choose from a huge list of predefined channels or add your own if you know the feed URL. You can also add news search feeds, let it find feeds from a specified web page, and other methods of getting feeds. (Hungry? ;)

I've already ramped up a fairly long wishlist however of features that I'd like to see in the next version. Here they are.

1. Be able to set a maximum number of news items per channel. At the moment only a max for all channels is possible. This means channels like BBC news that have loads of news items end up pushing items off of other channels.

2. I'd prefer if the application didn't crash when I rotate my screen from portrait to landscape or vice versa. It doesn't always happen, but often enough!

3. Then I'd like to see some kind of mechanism that ensured your changes and updates are permanently saved immediately they're made. Thus ensuring you don't lose all your changes if the program crashes (i.e. closes unexpectedly ;))

4. The "Mark Prior as Read" option which marks news items as having been read should be available in the menu when a news item is highlighted, and also in the main feed screen when a feed is selected. At the moment "Mark Prior as Read" is only available when the header of a group of news items is selected.

5. I'd definitely like to be able to make a backup of my saved articles. This would also mean I could move them elsewhere, freeing up space to download more news items. Otherwise my saved news items are eating into the max number of news items that I have specified.

6. I'd also really like an option to expand a news item title onto multiple lines when it's highlighted. At the moment, especially when in portrait view, but also in landscape view, if a news item has a long title it can't be read fully, forcing you to open the item to read it.

7. Another useful feature would be "keep at least X unread items" option for each feed. This would stop unread items in favourite news feeds being removed before you've had a chance to read them. Which as I mentioned above can happen if you have feeds that produce lots of news items, like BBC news for example.

7. It would also be nice when viewing an individual news item to be able to use left and right on the Pocket PC toggle button to jumps to the previous or next news item respectively. This saves you going back to the previous view and having to select the next item each time.

8. Also, for those of us with a hardware keyboard, or even a decent on-screen keyboard, it would be nice if the Backspace key took you up one level. E.g. from a news item to the list of items, or from the list of items to the feed overview page. Just like in a web browser.

9. Talking of browsers. Please add an option to open links in an external application or web browser. This would be great as both a one-off menu option, and also a global option so that all links would be opened externally.

10. Subscribe to feeds direct from Viigo browser. If you're going to have a built-in browser and you're product is a feed reader, please let us add feeds directly from the browser.

11. It's be great to see some more work on the browser too. It's too clumsy to be nice to use. A fit-to-screen option is a must, and a good tip may be to a text-only rendering option so that the reader can quickly get the full page without bothering with the images (see the NetFront browser for magnificent text-only rendering).

12. Another idea for left & right on the Pocket PC joystick(?) when you're in the news item list view is page-up and page-down. Scrolling through all those news items can be tiresome ;)

13. And how about this for an idea. Viigo channels, "ViiCasts" ;)) (think ClipCasts) where a personal channel is created from my saved articles (if I opt-in of course.. privacy and all that) so that other people can subscribe to my personal channel (or ViiCast :)) Then you can have a list of most popular channels etc.

14. Ok ,I'd also like to be able to sort my news feeds on the main page. Alphabetically, by most unread, or just a custom sort. So I can group all the technology feeds together, all the gossip feeds etc.

15. Next up I'd love to see an option to put a whitelist or blacklist filter on news feeds. E.g. A horoscope feed where I only see my starsign. Or a gossip feed where I can filter out news about some boring celebrity!

16. Then I'd love some built-in means to email or SMS links to my friends, or even to myself as a reminder. And what would be beautiful is if we could directly blog stuff. Yes please :)

Bugfixes.... got a few I'm afraid.

- There's the crash when switching between portrait and landscape that needs fixing.
- Then it seems my Viigo is updating my feeds even when I have the auto-update switched off.

Well, I'm done for now. Viigo is a great little feed reader so go check it out.
If you're looking for an alternative, a friend pointed out NewsBreak to me the other day. It's not free however, although the interface is nice.

Intel Atom processor gives 500 MHz for less than a Watt

2008-03-03T13:04:00.001+01:00

These little critters sure look fantastic. Or at least *sound* fantastic.
I could do with my TyTN II's battery life being a bit better, and although it never will be maybe it's successor's will!.. or maybe a generation or two down the line. When I upgrade at least
Check out the article for the juicy details of these eco-friendly power-punchers.

clipped from www.dailytech.com

Hardware
Thinking Small: New Intel Architecture Champions Sub 1 Watt x86
Brandon Hill & Kristopher Kubicki - March 2, 2008 8:12 PM

Silverthorne, a two-issue processor designed from the ground up, is now known as the Intel Atom processor. Atom
processors based on Silverthorne are aimed at Mobile Internet Devices
(MIDs).

Silverthorne-based Atom processors heading for MIDs will have a TDP
ranging from 0.6W to 2.5W and will top out at 1.8GHz. Sources inside Intel hint that the 0.6W version of the processor reaches just over 500 MHz.

Blog with Blogger in 4 additional languages

2008-02-18T15:02:00.001+01:00

A week or so ago I clipped something about being able to blog on Blogger in Hindi using the typical a-z character set.
Now it seems one can blog in 4 additional languages, namely: Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu.
Knock yourself out people :

clipped from www.blogger.com

(AppReview) Masterful NoScript could have predefined blacklist

2008-02-18T14:32:00.001+01:00

NoScript is a great extension. It blocks JavaScript from running on websites unless you explicitly allow it to run. Of course it’s packed with features like the ability to whitelist websites and to allow sites to run scripts temporarily. It also blocks certain types of dangerous script attacks even if you’ve decided to trust a website.

Considering I’ve heard tell that this year will be a biggie for attacks via websites, cross-site scripting and suchlike, this is a browser extension that no Firefox user can afford to be without.

I am however a great lover of things that do things for me J And I’d love to see integration of a predefined blacklist, or a choice to enable/disable such a list (or lists). This way I’d be warned in advance of a site that was a known offender, and wouldn’t fall prey to the desire to simply temporarily allow the site to run scripts so I could “get my content” if you see what I mean.

What I mean is, NoScript blocks script, which normally means it will stop parts of the website being displayed. A less advanced user - or even someone like me ;) - will probably get into the habit of just allowing websites (even if it’s only temporarily) because they want to be able to view bits of the content that are being hidden. This sort of behavior could easily result therefore in a user being stung by a bad site even if they use NoScript.

So I call for a built in way to enable known blacklists J

(AppReview) Could Download Statusbar have a smaller footprint?

2008-02-18T12:11:00.001+01:00

I just updated by Firefox plugins, of which I have a healthy number (or rather an unhealthy number), and I could help but (yet again) notice that the extension Download Statusbar is pretty BIG. It’s about ~650kB. That’s more than half a meg. Surely this little baby could be reduced in size?

I refer to it so lovingly because it really is a fab extension. Just simply showing you the status of the download as a progress bar in Firefox’s status bar. It shows speed and size, and lets you open the download with a double-click. Nice job. Could it be made smaller?

(AppReview) My humble opinion about apps and stuff

2008-02-18T12:04:00.001+01:00

I’ve decided to start a new collection of blog posts where I comment on applications/ utilities/ extensions etc.

I’m going to do this cos I find I’ve always got ideas/ an-opinion on these things, and like every human being, I like to think that other people are actually interested in what I’ve got to say! ;))

This post doesn’t contain an opinion about an app/ extension/ utility because I just needed to get this little introduction out of the way. I’ll try to remember to begin my review/ ideas posts with (AppReview) so that my excited and massive reader base knows what to look for. J Enjoy folks.

Assign multiple functions to individual Pocket PC buttons

2008-02-11T00:51:00.001+01:00

Ok, just spotted this little pocket pc application.
It let's oyu assign multiple applications to a single pocket pc hardware button.
I'm definitely going to give it a whirl asap. You can imagine that if this works like it says it does then it'll give great speedy access to your pocket pc apps.

clipped from hundera.dyndns.org

HButton is program for PocketPC (2003, WM5, WM6), which allows you to asssign unlimited number of applications to one hardware button on your device.

HButton is, and will be, FREEWARE. You can use it without any payments or limitations

Usage is very simple. If you press and hold button on which HButton is assigned, names of selected applications will be shown in given order. When you will see name of application you want to start, just release button.

Actual version 2.2 could be downloaded here

Donateware for artists

2008-01-28T09:32:00.000+01:00

Something just occurred to me. Why don't music artists accept donations for their music.
I mean I can't honestly say I always pay for the music I listen to *cough* but if I happened to really like something, I'd be happy to cough up some cash for it.

I mean sticking donate buttons on music sites and.. well, all over place actually, could be an decent additional revenue stream for musicians.

If you happen to read this in 2008, please drop me a comment and say what you think of this fantastic idea. ;)

Convert Word documents to MediaWiki markup

2008-01-25T14:21:00.001+01:00

This little bit of wisdom may help me feed Word docs to my corporate Wiki.
Needs to be tried and tested )

clipped from openwetware.org

Converting documents to mediawiki markup

Word Documents

Saving a relatively simple Word document (no images or tables) to html and then running that through the converter here produced good mediawiki formatting. A document including images, tables, and centered text did not work as well. The images would need to be added to OWW separately, the table also didn't come out quite right and centered text was no longer centered.
A direct converter can be found here.
A series of Word macros for doing simple conversions (including tables) is here; they seem to work reasonably well but aren't designed for sophisticated layouts.

Live Amsterdam video feed

2008-01-24T16:30:00.000+01:00

Live video from Amsterdam

Wanna have some fun. Ok, some geeky fun then..!

I came across THIS video feed via one of the mashups on Programmable Web (Google it).

It points to a cgi file that somehow also spews out an mjpeg stream.

Unfortunately I don't really have much of a clue how this works. Well maybe that was a good thing cos otherwise I wouldn't have had any fun playing around with it.

Essentially, I discovered that if I loaded this url in Firefox, waited a few seconds to watch the url stat loading, then hit the refresh button, I got a weird realtime video stream in the browser window. It was flickery, and I think what was happening is that the page (I guess this has something to do with the cgi file) was refreshing very rapidly, spurting this mjpeg stream out.

But bah, I don't really get it. What don't I get? Well I don't get that I still can't get any other application to play that video stream with the same url (http://82.92.73.206:443/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi).

So, did I get anywhere? Yes. I tried opening the url in IE, but you immediately get prompted to download the thing. OK, I tried downloading IT (not really knowing what *it* was). Well, it turned out to be the cgi file.. but not as I was expecting it..

The thin just kept coming in. A few minutes later I had a download of several megabytes and growing. Of course, I soon realised this was the actual video stream being dumped to my pc haha.

Well, I couldn't find where IE was storing this temporarily of course (even tho you'd think that would be simple grrr) so I went back to trusty Firefox and used the 'Add URL' function in the Download-them-all add-on to repeat the exercise - i.e. download the cgi url.

The temp directory for DTA is easy to locate from the add-on's options, so I quickly found the growing temp file and copied the little blighter. Having safely placed it out of harms way (I waited till it had grown to about 10MB) I tried opening it in VLC player.

It opened! Great, there was a busy street in Amsterdam. Funny thing was it seemed to play in high-speed as if it was being fast-forwarded. I guess the video dump thingy didn't have any frame rate parameters or goodness knows what (lost in video ignorance).

I tried hard to get the thing to actually stream from the url, really I did. I got down and dirty with mplayer, thinking something with a command line might give me a bit more power. Well, to cut a short story shorter, it didn't help. I did get a tiny bit further tho. I at least got the following result from mplayer:

C:\MPlayer-1.0rc2>mplayer
"http_proxy://proxy.corp.name.com:8080/http://82.92.73.206:443/axis-cgi/mjpg/vid
eo.cgi"
MPlayer 1.0rc2-4.2.1 (C) 2000-2007 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.60GHz (Family: 6, Model: 13, Stepping: 8)

CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.

Playing http_proxy://proxy.corp.name.com:8080/http://82.92.73.206:443/axis-cgi/mj
pg/video.cgi.
Resolving proxy.corp.name.com for AF_INET...
Connecting to server proxy.corp.name.com[123.456.78.901]: 8080...
Cache size set to 320 KBytes
Cache fill: 17.50% (57344 bytes)
Stream not seekable!
Stream not seekable!
libavformat file format detected.
[ingenient @ 00E1E768]Could not find codec parameters (Video: mjpeg)
LAVF_header: av_find_stream_info() failed

The bit up to and including the "Cache fill.." is before I kill the process with Ctrl+C because it seems to be doing nothing. The positive result when killing the process is the error message.
This seems to be telling me I simply don't have the necessary codec.. or is it? I question this because GSpot (codec identification utility) tells me I *do* have an mjpeg codec.

So, the search continues. I can't yet play this stream in a video player. And I would so love to be able to. A live video feed of a random street in Amsterdam :)) Just for a bit of geeky fun!

Apple Macbook Air

2008-01-18T12:18:00.001+01:00

When I saw this I started drooling and (nearly) headed straight to Ebay... and I'm not a Mac fan at all.
So here are some pics.
Note however the "fatal flaw" according to Gizmodo. You can't open it up.
To be honest, I don't really see that as an issue. I think many laptop owners, especially those that go for eye-candy never go near the inside of their laptop, or change the battery.

clipped from www.computerworld.com

The MacBook Air is only 0.75 in. thick at the hinge.

clipped from www.computerworld.com

The super-svelte MacBook Air. Courtesy of Apple.

clipped from gizmodo.com

MacBook Air's Fatal Flaw: Battery, RAM, HD Sealed Like an iPod

PocketPC hacking abbreviations

2007-12-23T20:21:00.001+01:00

I finally found these abbreviations on xda-developers!
I'm planning to try flashing some other ROMs to my HTC Kaiser, so I need to understand what the hell all this stuff means.
First I'm going to dump my existing ROM so I can get backto the original state if desired.
After that I'll stick the Hard-SPL on my Kaiser. This apparently lets you play around more safely with ROMs. I.e. there's less chance of ending up with a very expensive brick instead of a phone!

clipped from wiki.xda-developers.com

Describe Acronyms here.

Adaptation Kit Update ( AKU ) - they usually patch up existing bugs and enable several new features. Each newly released AKU pack retains fixes found in previous versions of AKU

( CID lock ) - aka VENDOR LOCK put on your device by the manufacturer to prevent installation of a ROM not released by them

Radio Interface Layer ( RIL )

ROM Upgrade Utility ( RUU ) - Its the s/w used on ur PC to do ROM upgrade for your PPC

( IPL/SPL ) - Its the bootloader for PPC. IPL is the Initial Program Loader. It boots up SPL - Secondary Program Loader. SPL in turn loads the actual OS.

World Wide English Edition ( WWE Edition )

XIP - Execute-in-Place

More at FAQ section

Essential Bluetooth hacking tools

2007-12-20T11:15:00.001+01:00

Just for fun people

clipped from www.security-hacks.com

Essential Bluetooth hacking tools

BTCrawler -BTCrawler is a scanner for Windows Mobile based devices. It scans for other devices in range and performs service query. It implements the BlueJacking and BlueSnarfing attacks. Download BTCrawler.

CIHWB - Can I Hack With Bluetooth (CIHWB) is a Bluetooth security auditing framework for Windows Mobile 2005. Currently it only support some Bluetooth exploits and tools like BlueSnarf, BlueJack, and some DoS attacks. Should work on any PocketPC with the Microsoft Bluetooth stack. Download CIHWB.

Barcode reader applications

2007-12-20T10:08:00.001+01:00

Want to somehow get something like this on my PocketPC.
you know, scan your shopping when you take it out the bags so you know what you've got in the cupboards, and scan stuff before you throw it away so you can keep track of what you need to buy!
Geeky, but it'd be fun to get something like this working

clipped from barcode-camera.qarchive.org

ClearImage Barcode 1D Basic

ActiveX easily reads Code39 Code128 Code 93 Interleaved 2of5 and 13 other barcodes from any scanned or faxed image. Automate the data capture with VB C++ or Delphi applications. High performance solution comes with FREE SDK and Consulting services

ClearImage PDF417

ActiveX easily and accurately reads high density PDF417 2D barcodes from any camera, scanned or faxed image (TIFF JPG). Automate the data capture with VB C++ or Delphi application. High performance solution comes with FREE SDK and Consulting services

Absolutely fabulous! James Bond style.

2007-12-19T01:53:00.000+01:00

Could really think of suitable title for this post. I just found this fun application for my HTC Kaiser. It's called "QuickMark".
It's a barcode scanner. I wasn't sure what to expect really, I just liked the idea of being able to scan barcodes with my phone's camera!
Well, it's early days (I've only had it installed about 30 minutes) but this thing I just did with the app made me laugh and I had to post it.
The little barcode picture above left is google.com... but not as you know it. Obviously, cos instead of saying google.com it's just kinda saying.. nothing except a weird little pattern.
But if you download, install and run QuickMark on your phone and zap the image with your camera the program immediately picks up the url "http://www.google.com".
I have no idea whether this is useful or not.. I'm still deciding! But it sure is funny :)

Smashing breakthrough this morning!

2007-12-17T09:41:00.000+01:00

I'm a very happy bunny this morning. Not that you'd know it to look at me tho, hunched over my laptop with headphones on and a glazed slightly moody look on my face...!
Anyway, I'll get to the point, and why I'm a happy bunny.
I finally managed to find a way to play BBC archived radio on my laptop.
You see, the special thing about my laptop is that I don't have admin rights and so can't install programs like normal people. That means any program I use has to be a portable program that doesn't actually need to be installed. (ok, some programs install, but not all).

The program in question for the BBC archived radio streams is of course Realplayer. This has to be installed, and not only that, your browser needs to recognise the plugin so that when you press play on the online BBC radio, it knows what to do!

1.
So let's cut to the chase. I found this fabulous portable Realplayer HERE.
It's a fully fledged version of Realplayer 11 as a single executable.

2.
Then I sparked up the BBC radio page, the one with my fave DnB top 10 show. Click HERE to go straight to the radio page.

3.
Then I used the UnPlug Firefox extension to show me what media links were floating around on the page. Well, UnPlug found a single link to an RPM file. So I downloaded this file and opened it up in Textpad. There was a single long rtsp address!

4.
Opened up my standalone Realplayer and opened the rtsp link. BINGO :) I was a happy bunny cos the 1Xtra DnB chart started playing for like the first time ever! (oh yeah, I had to change the default directories in the Realplayer settings cos my no-admin-rights pc wouldn't write to the default ones.)

All in all a complete, blinding success.

Shouts go out to the genius that created the standalone Realplayer and the UnPlug Firefox extension!!

I'm outta here to listen to some other archived BBC radio streams. Oh Yeah!!

EDIT:
By the way, if you somehow manage to break Realplayer by fiddling around with the Settings like I did just a moment ago, you'll probably need to delete the application data stored at:
C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Thinstall\RealJukebox 1.0
(where [username] is your windows login name)

Open .XLSX Spreadsheet Files Without Excel 2007

2007-12-11T11:05:00.001+01:00

I went for the Microsoft download. Worked like a dream.

clipped from reviews.qzizp.com

Open .XLSX Spreadsheet Files Without Excel 2007

If you have an .xlsx file attachment in your email inbox but the computer has no Office 2007 to open that extension, what are the available options?

The xlsx files is the default extension for spreadsheets written in Microsoft Office Excel 2007. The format is currently not support by GMail attachment viewer or any of the online office suites like Google Docs.

However, you can easily convert .xlsx spreadsheet to the traditional .xls format using the Microsoft Office compatibility Pack available here. This will help you open, edit, and save .xlsx files in Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003. More details on Office 2007 FAQ.

Alternatively, you can convert .xlsx to .xls or other text formats online using the Zamzar.com service here. Unlike the Microsoft compatibility pack, the Zamzar .xlsx to .xls conversion services will not require a copy of Microsoft Office on your computer.

Trijntje Oosterhuis werkt aan een nieuw CD met Burt Bacharach

2007-12-07T09:49:00.001+01:00

clipped from trijntje.nl

AMSTERDAM - Zangeres Trijntje Oosterhuis werkt aan een tweede cd met de wereldberoemde componist Burt Bacharach. Dat meldde zij dinsdagavond tijdens haar optreden in theater De Kleine Komedie in Amsterdam.

Google Maps Mobile 2 Beta

2007-11-29T11:56:00.000+01:00

Here's a tiny bit more information on the My Location feature in Google Maps Mobile 2.
http://www.google.com/gmm/mylocation.html?hl=en

At the moment it can't seem to pinpoint my location (without GPS). I'm in Amsterdam....
Let's see if it finds me during the course of today!

Well, I'm impressed :) The My Location feature did indeed kick in later in the day when I was on my way home. It told me (and showed me) that it had pinpointed my position to within "1700m". There was the familiar little blue dot, but this time with a faded blue circle around it. The position of the solid blue dot was in fact a fair bit closer than 1700m. It was about 900m away from my exact location.

So, this is pretty impressive. Not so great for door to door navigation. I mean, if you were in a car you'd be pretty screwed, driving through parking lots and over the edge of cliffs. No, "to within 1700m accuracy" doesn't cut the mustard. But for location-based news, weather, alerts it's perfect. I really really hope to see Google quickly allow users to sign-up for third party localised info via this technology.

For me this would have to work in such a way that the third parties were not able to access my location data (I'm obviously not too keen on random IT support guys knowing where I'm hanging out!) Only Google would know that (ok, ok, ok, Google, CIA, etc, etc!)

But it really would be very cool to get a spontaneous alert if I came within walking distance of a Chinese restaurant, and I had a particular weakness for Chinese food. Or telling me that it was about to rain!!! I mean, we can do pretty accurate weather these days right? I mean, a day or so in advance may still be iffy, but I reckon a weather prediction an hour or so in advance is going to be pretty good. The same goes for speed cameras, cinema's showing my requested film.. etc etc.

I think though that Google first needs to launch a mobile application a bit like Yahoo's nearly-there Yahoo! Go application. Yahoo! Go is a bit.. lumpy somehow. I still can't quite say what I don't like about it, but it's stuff like not being able to add attachments to emails - I mean I've got 3G for goodness sake! And I can only see my Inbox - when I've got a bunch of custom folders fed via custom filters. Then the Flickr part doesn't let you display images via keywords, and what about something simple like a feature that let you automatically update your background picture with a new Flickr photo on a schedule. Come on guys, let's see some meat! :)

So I've had my mobile moan. Till next time!

Google Rolls Out Mobile Phone Locator: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

2007-11-29T11:51:00.000+01:00

This new Google service sounds fun and scary. God knows who'll be able to hook into your exact location!...
Well, I guess all the big brothers of this world were able to do that anyway using your mobile phone signal.
So now we'll just have to add a bunch of hackers to that list of people that know where you are...
To be continued.. after I've had a go using the new feature on Google Maps Mobile 2!

Rigveda quote

2007-11-22T17:23:00.000+01:00

Just need to jot down this little rigveda gem before I lose it. :))
प्रासादशिखरेऽपि सन्न काको गरुडायते ॥
Means something about a fool...

More Kaiser niggles

2007-11-20T10:16:00.000+01:00

- Missing the Home and End and Ctrl and Alt keys badly

- Also my Google password just got auto-completed by Opera Mobile. Though I'm not sure if that's Windows Mobile 6's fault or Opera's.

- Then, I also need to be able to modify my auto-complete list... not only to remove that password!!.. but...

TyTN II wishlist

2007-11-18T00:08:00.000+01:00

I'm gonna start a little wishlist. This is stuff that I can't/ don't know how to do on my HTC Kaiser (aka TyTN II, MDA III etc etc) that I either need to, want to, or simply HAVE to know how to do.

I actually started writing this post on the 16th of November, so some of my original issues have already been resolved. Where this applies I'll mention the solution..

- Use t9 (or similar) completion of words when entering text into apps.

- Keep the screen flipped horizontal even when the keyboard is shut. -> Solutions: Found a place where I could remap my hardware shortcut keys and lo and behold, there was an option to set a button to flip the screen. So I applied this to one of the hardware buttons and now I can indeed flip the screen on demand. Unfortunately the button is also the walkie-talkie (or soundclip) button in MSN, so now I can't use that. Oh well!

- get back the block recognition (kinda like the scribble(?) input on Palms) that I have on my ancient Asus A620... it's a shame that ain't standard :(

- Close apps immediately so they're not running in memory. I.e. Pressing OK just "minimises" apps without actually closing them. I want to be able to close them, and preferably with just 1 click. -> Solution is offerd in the Task Manager options. You can set it up so that tasks actually close/end/exit when you press the little red cross, and don't just minimse.

- Better control over switching between WiFi and 3G. I want my phone to recognise when my chosen WiFi networks are in range, and switch over from 3Gto WiFi.

- Also ability to automatically connect to any non-secured WiFi network automatically if I'm using 3G.

- Switch between open/ running apps via keyboard. -> No solution as yet, but I'm aware of a program (cab) that allows you to map keyboard cobinations to specific functions. Hopefully I can use this to let me switch between tasks via the keyboard.

- I need to be able to turn off the screen after I've locked my Kaiser, preferably automatically (well it'll have to be if the Kaiser's been locked). I need this for Windows Media Player. If I press the standby button it kills the stream when I'm streaming music. It only seems to kill the stream over WiFi funnily enough though, not over GPRS (3G not yet activated - *sigh*).

- Next up, I want a registry tweak so that I don't have to keep on authorising Opera Mini to connect to the Internet each time I restart it. -> Solution for this has been found on a forum. It's a bit fiddly and envolves using a HEX editor. I may get around to applying it some time :)

Problem 2.. easy solution :)

2007-11-18T00:01:00.000+01:00

The source of my 2nd problem was my FON connection...
To be more specific, I couldn't use my internet connection (or so it seemed) with any apps other than Internet Explorer!
Then I realised I was using the free signal on my FON router. It dawned on me that either the FON boys don't allow other apps to connect over the free FON connection, or it was simply down to the fact that I wasn't logged into FON, so it wasn't letting any traffic thru.
..Although I'm sure there was a moment when I was definitely logged onto FON... hmm.
Anyhow. I decided to connect to my non-FON router and my other apps (Skype, Opera mini etc) are happy again :)
Grrreat.

Problem 1 on Tytn II.. solved

2007-11-17T21:55:00.000+01:00

Just got a new phone. The HTC TyTn II, also known as many other things including the Kaiser, the p4550, the T-mobile MDA III... :)

It's grrreat, but as with any new gadget there are bound to be some stumbling blocks along the way.

My first issue was that the Opera Mini browser that I have grown to love having used it on my Nokia 6230i for ages didn't want to connect to the internet :(

Eventually I found the very very simple solution on the site above (even tho the solution was in the Opera Mini error msg).

I had the date on my phone set incorrectly, and the Opera server apparently didn't like that very much. Once I'd fixed that it worked fine... EXCEPT over WiFi. It works over GPRS (gotta wait 2 months b4 I can use my UMTS sim) but not over WiFi... oh well, that's the next problem that needs to be solved.

PRINCE2... for Team Managers

2007-11-16T00:31:00.001+01:00

This is the Stage in PRINCE2 that's most relevant to Team Managers.
Thought I'd just pop it on me blog.

clipped from www.crazycolour.com

Overview

Managing Product Delivery is the interface between the Project Manager and Team Managers (or, in a small project, Team Members). The Team Manager may be a 3rd party supplier and will not necessarily manage their projects using PRINCE2. However they should be aware of PRINCE2 terminology and delivery expectations (via the Work Package and perhaps in contracts). The basic sequence of events is:

MP1 Accepting a Work Package - agree work with the Project Manager
MP2 Executing a Work Package - get the work done
MP3 Delivering a Work Package - hand the Work Package back to the Project Manager.

It is the responsibility of the Team Manager to make sure products are delivered by the Team Members. Team Managers must:

Accept and check Work Packages
Create and revise a Team Plan for the work
Ensure that the work is done
Ensure that there are regular assessments and that the product meets the defined quality criteria
Obtain approval for the finished product.

Being spammed to shit by some prick(s)

2007-11-02T20:54:00.000+01:00

Am being spammed to shit by some losers via comments. Funny thing is I don't see the actual comments on the blog. I just ge the bloody email telling me I've received a comment... I hate not understanding this kind of thing.... bah!
Anyway, I've turned word verification on for comments. Let's see if that helps.. :(

Buys Ballotstraat 210907 1902.jpg

2007-10-16T17:41:00.001+02:00

7 Energy Sinkholes (and How to Avoid Them)

2007-10-15T14:35:00.001+02:00

Good tips for productivity.

clipped from www.lifehack.org

The 7 Energy Sinkholes (and How to Avoid Them)

1 - Disorganization

2 - Poor Diet and Lack of Exercise

3 - Problem Contacts

4 - Focusing on Your Weaknesses

5 - Squeaky Hinges

6 - Blog/E-Mail/Facebook Addiction

7 - Pleasing People

Data prices for Dutch mobile networks

2007-10-14T01:16:00.001+02:00

Clipmarks user gigajosh has sent you a clip...

gigajosh's Message:

This is a good little summary of the prices of the various data subscriptions for the Dutch mobile network operators.

clipped from www.bellen.com

Aanbieder	Abonnement	Datalimiet (p/mnd)	MB buiten bundel	Snelheid (kb/s)	Kosten p/mnd
Hi	Regelmatig Online	5 MB	€ 2,-	128/64	€ 4,95
Hi	Regelmatig Eindeloos	FUP *	n.v.t.	128/64	€ 9,95
KPN	Surf & Mail Instap	5 MB	€ 2,-	128/64	€ 4,95
KPN	Surf & Mail Totaal	FUP *	n.v.t.	128/64	€ 9,95
Orange	World	25 MB	€ 3,-	384/128	€ 6,-
Rabo Mobiel	Onbeperkt Mobiel Internet	FUP *	n.v.t.	60/10	€ 10,-
Telfort	Surf & mail unlimited	FUP *	n.v.t.	128/128	€ 10,-
T-Mobile	Web 'n' Walk Pocket Internet Totaal	onbeperkt	n.v.t.	64/16	€ 9,50
T-Mobile	Web 'n' Walk Pocket Internet Totaal Plus	onbeperkt	n.v.t.	192/32	€ 19,50
Vodafone	Zorgeloos Mobiel Internet	FUP **	n.v.t.	1800/384	€ 9,50

Get Clipmarks - The easiest way to email text, images and videos you find on the web. It's free!

Stuff I SHOULD build!

2007-10-14T01:03:00.000+02:00

Two things I'm missing from my browser at the moment are:

1) A way to send a web page I like to multiple destinations with only having to fill in a single form (e.g. Send simultaneously to Furl, LinkaGoGo (old skool but POWERFUL online bookmarks manager), Blog (?!), Digg, Yahoo bookmarks, Google Docs n Spreadsheets, Gmail - Whatever!!

2) A simple way to select part of a web page and just blog the stuff I've selected.. OH.. I just remembered I can do that with Clipmarks. Super. The only thing I'm not to fantastically keen on with Clipmarks blogging is that it fancies up the blogged bits and sticks a frame around everything blah blah. I just want it to blog the stuff with zero fuss.

Google SafeSearch

2007-10-11T14:15:00.000+02:00

Here's an example of searching for the term "sex" on Google Image Search with SafeSeach switched on.
sex safesearch: - Google Image Search

I was looking into this for my new custom Google search engine "Google4Life" that let's you search for content that's been uploaded to various archive sites.

Google4Life

2007-10-09T09:12:00.000+02:00

I'd like to announce my new little Google-powered customised search.
It's called (very appropriately) Google4Life!
I've been a Google fan for ages, and the recent surge in handy sites where others have uploaded files, which Google is indexing has provided me a great alternative to p2p programs.
So try out Google4Life today and see what you can find :)))

The direct link for Google4Life is:
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=004424456071348148938%3Ah9c31h8hajm

Try before you buy..

2007-10-08T18:53:00.001+02:00

This little custom Google search engine will help you avoid p2p programs like eMule, Kazaa, etc.
Check it out

clipped from www.google.com

Google4Life

Sees what goodies others have been uploading.. that they shouldn't be :)

Het gevecht kan beginnen

2007-10-05T00:37:00.000+02:00

SKOEPS.nl/evenementen :: Het gevecht kan beginnen

This is a video of me (among others) charging into the Bijenkorf, a shopping mall on Dam square in Amsterdam... I'll tell the story another time :)

Je hebt een mms-bericht ontvangen.

2007-10-01T12:53:00.001+02:00

je hebt een mms ontvangen

Bekijk hieronder wat voor mms'je je hebt gekregen en van wie.*

mms-bericht


afzender:


	Airbus 330 landed very gracefully. First I should mention that flying KLM was a very pleasant experience. Smiling hostesses and soothing music coupled with that cool-blue KLM colour made for a nice journey. But the landing of the Airbus 330 was impressive: it slowed down incredibly quickly after touching down, and it seemed, with much less roar than the plane I flew out on - think it was a Boeing but not sure which!

Wil jij ook mms'en?

Met een mms'je verstuur je vanaf je telefoon een foto of video met geluid en tekst. Heel makkelijk, net als een sms'je. Maar veel leuker. Je moet hiervoor wel een telefoon hebben die mms ondersteunt. Bel naar 1200 vanaf je mobiel om mms te laten activeren. Heb je geen telefoon die mms ondersteunt? Bekijk hier onze aanbiedingen of bekijk hier waar je de dichtsbijzijnde Orange shop kunt vinden.

" src="http://www.orange.nl/img/eml/mms/arrow.gif"> alles over mms

* dit mms-bericht van kun je helaas niet via e-mail beantwoorden.

BBC - Food - Recipes - Macaroni cheese

2007-09-14T01:56:00.000+02:00

BBC - Food - Recipes - Macaroni cheese:
Will I make it?... hope so :)

Fascinating stat about credit cards in the US

2007-09-08T04:20:00.001+02:00

clipped from www.fool.com

Credit card debt remains the single best answer we know to the question "Why can't I ever seem to get ahead?" As of this writing, there are more than a billion credit cards in circulation in the United States -- that's almost four cards for every American man, woman, and child. And nearly 70% of all credit card holders in the U.S. today carry a revolving card balance each month (i.e., they're just paying the minimum amount due).

How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off

2007-09-08T03:39:00.000+02:00

Cool idea the way this guy suggests you train yourself get out of bed when the alarm goes off.
Might try it.
It's a bit weird tho....
Well, I've gotta find a good solution, and when I do, I'll post it here :))

Hack to get free internet access at WiFi hotspots

2007-07-12T21:50:00.001+02:00

Nice little set of instructions
Haven't tried them out yet unfortunately but was too good not to blog..

clipped from www.system666.net

How to get internet free!

Tools (windows):

Mac Makeup

Wireshark

Angry IP Scanner (optional)

Step by step howto (windows):

1. Connect to the network

2. Open up Wireshark and start a capture for the nic you are connected with.

3. Filter it so you can just see the network traffic your connected to with this (insert filter thingy)
If you are having trouble finding traffic or other computers, you can use Angry IP Scanner to see what other computers are on the network.

4. Pick an ip that you think had access and look at the corresponding mac address

5. open up Mac Makeup and select the nic you wish to change
NOTE: BE SURE TO SAVE YOUR ORIGNIAL MAC ADDRESS
Open up command prompt and type ipconfig /all and save it somewhere.

6. Look at the new mac address and enter in the box in Mac Makeup and click Change.

7. Now you should have internet access.

Response video to media coverage of MMC

2007-06-24T20:01:00.000+02:00

Response video to media coverage of MMC

Intel(R) Extreme Graphics 2

2007-06-18T18:29:00.000+02:00

This is a nice technical post (kinda) cos I haven't posted in ages (blame goes to Facebook)

Ok, see this little icon on the left. If you use Intel(R) Extreme Graphics 2 you'll see it in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen along with the other annoying icons that sit there doing nothing.

One of the handy features of Intel Exteme Graphics is that it allows you to rotate the image displayed on your computer screen. Obviously you'd only want to do this if you're also able to physically rotate the screen. This is sometimes nice if you're writing a document cos then you can fit a whole page at once on the screen.

I have such a screen (at work) and until today I've had to locate this icon in the corner and go into the menus to rotate the screen.
Today, all that changed. I was pressing some random keys trying to make little e's with accents (é) and it wasn't working, and suddenly my screen flipped.

So here we go. The Intel Extreme Graphics keyboard shortcuts for flipping the display are:

Ctrl+Alt followed by 0 and then 8 = normal
Ctrl+Alt followed by 0 and then 4 = 90 degrees
Ctrl+Alt followed by 0 and then 6 = 270 degrees
Ctrl+Alt followed by 0 and then 2 = 180 degrees

No more fiddling in the menus :)

Music downloads via Google and ZShare (with UnPlug)

2007-05-08T01:06:00.001+02:00

There have been a few clips on hacking Google to get music.
Here's another option if you use Firefox and have the UnPlug extension.
Do a simple Google search for your music keyword plus site:zshare.net
Example:
madonna site:zshare.net
Click on a search result then use the UnPlug extension to download the song (use UnPlug's normal Save option on the far right-hand side).
Good luck

clipped from zshare.net

With ^zSHARE you can upload files, images, videos, audio and flash for free. Simply use the upload form below and start sharing! You can also use ^zSHARE as your personal file storage: backup your data and protect your files.

clipped from addons.mozilla.org

UnPlug 1.6.03

UnPlug is an extension which lets you save video and audio which is embedded on a webpage - it's a video download tool.