d3ngar's Blog: Linux and Windows tutorials, funny quotes and other stuff

Auto Download File From FTP - then rename

2012-01-08T19:19:00.001Z

A little while ago my friend asked me to help him with some Windows commandline scripting. Basically he was waiting for ages for the development team in his company to sort this simple task out and asked me how he can every day automatically download a file from FTP, then rename it with the current date.

I don't do Windows very much and Linux is just much better for exactly these things, but this seemed like an easy enough challenge.

In the end I didn't manage to do everything in one file, but I think that two should work just as well when you add them to the Windows task scheduler...

Here are the files with some explanation:

downloader.bat:

@ftp -i -s:"%~f0"&GOTO:EOF
open ftp.someserver.com
[username]
[password]
!:--- FTP commands below here ---
mget "*.*"
disconnect

The first line starts the windows command line FTP client and the parameters essentially say that everything else in the file should be ignored by the command line itself, but be parsed to the FTP client.

Line two opens the connection and line three and four will send the authentication details. Line six gets all files in the current directory. You could really do here anything you want on the remote and local server, eg: change the local directory path (lcd ...), the remote one (cd ...) send files (put) or even delete them (rm). At the end, I simply disconnect.

renamer.bat:

for /f "tokens=1-5 delims=/ " %%d in ("%date%") do rename "SomeFileName.txt" SomeFileName_%%f-%%e-%%d.txt

In one line: I'm starting a for-loop and I use a tokeniser to delimit the following string into 5 (1-5) sections. %%d specifies the beginning character used for the token (d) and all that follow will be e,f,g...

then I use the %date% (in ("%date%") function to get the current date. Now, In the do part, I will rename the file from SomeFileName.txt to SomeFileName_yyyy-MM-dd.txt

I hope this makes sense and helps a few people. Best of luck...

Script to disable & enable touchpads

2011-10-29T16:56:00.000+01:00

I constantly touch the touchpad when I type. I also normally use an external mouse when I'm on my laptop. I seldom really need it, but I will sometimes want to switch it on (or off).

First you need to find the name of your touchpad in the xinput list:

$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ Razer Razer Imperator id=10 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ Razer Razer Imperator id=11 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ PS/2 Mouse id=13 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint id=14 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Sony Vaio Keys id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Video Bus id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ USB 2.0 Camera id=9 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=12 [slave keyboard (3)]

So in my case the touchpad is most likely: PS/2 Mouse on id 13.

You can easily identify if the device is "on" (enabled):

$ xinput list-props "PS/2 Mouse"

Device 'PS/2 Mouse':

Device Enabled (144): 1

Coordinate Transformation Matrix (146): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000

Device Accel Profile (267): 0

Device Accel Constant Deceleration (268): 1.000000

Device Accel Adaptive Deceleration (269): 1.000000

Device Accel Velocity Scaling (270): 10.000000

Evdev Axis Inversion (271): 0, 0

Evdev Axes Swap (273): 0

Axis Labels (274): "Rel X" (154), "Rel Y" (155)

Button Labels (275): "Button Left" (147), "Button Middle" (148), "Button Right" (149), "Button Wheel Up" (150), "Button Wheel Down" (151)

Evdev Middle Button Emulation (276): 0

Evdev Middle Button Timeout (277): 50

Evdev Wheel Emulation (278): 0

Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes (279): 0, 0, 4, 5

Evdev Wheel Emulation Inertia (280): 10

Evdev Wheel Emulation Timeout (281): 200

Evdev Wheel Emulation Button (282): 4

Evdev Drag Lock Buttons (283): 0

Now create yourself a little file (eg: "touchpad"):

# toggle synaptic touchpad on/off

SYNSTATE=$(xinput list-props "PS/2 Mouse" | grep Enabled | grep -Eo '.$')

if [ $SYNSTATE = 0 ]; then xinput set-int-prop "PS/2 Mouse" "Device Enabled" 8 1

else xinput set-int-prop "PS/2 Mouse" "Device Enabled" 8 0; fi

dengar@dengar-vaio:/usr/bin$ $ xinput list-props "PS/2 Mouse"

This should sort you out. Don't forget to change the name of your actual device, remember mine is "PS/2 Mouse"

Next you need to make the file executable:

sudo chmod +x touchpad

Now, to have that file available from the command line, simply copy it to /usr/bin.

eConsultancy Paid Content

2011-09-04T13:24:00.001+01:00

eConsultancy is one of the most renown blogs in the industry. Although eConsultancy staff insist that it is so much more than a blog, it really boils down to the articles that are emailed to you on a daily basis.

Also there are simply too many posts to look at and there are so many that are just blatant agency advertisements, it remains a referred to resource.

What often annoyed me is that, as a free user, you can't download their PDF documents. There are best practise guides and research papers advertised at horrendous prices. As a free user you only get a little teaser, so you never know if it's any good.

Since a little while now, I have a paid account that is sponsored by my company. I have flicked through these precious PDFs and can assure you: it's not worth paying for. If you still want to read them, I have some here for free that I share with you :)..

EConsultancy Email Beginners Guide
EConsultancy Checkout Optimisation Guide
EConsultancy Email Best Practise Guide
EConsultancy Internationalisation of eCommerce
EConsultancy Mobile eCommerce Best Practise Guide
EConsultancy Multivariate Testing Buyers Guide
EConsultancy Product Pages Best Practise
EConsultancy Selling Online How-To Guide 2010
EConsultancy SEO Best Practise Guide
EConsultancy UK Internet Statistics Compendium

Enjoy!

Let me know if there are any missing...

Facebook on the decline

2011-06-23T00:20:00.004+01:00

It seems to me that it is set in stone: eConsultancy says it and even the Metro confirms it, the end of facebook has started. And it is welcome news indeed and it should have come much sooner. I can't wait for the time I don't have to read the blatant lies and white washing that is all to prominent in the marketing industry's media.

Digital publications

I have always disliked, but somehow, maybe because I enjoy being cynical, still read the articles in the online marketing press and blogs. Or maybe I was indeed looking for a change in this crappy platform for customer engagement and relatinship management; looking for the recipe of how to make it work, but I never found it..

One of such publications, the latest issue of Figaro Digital, arrived at my desk not too long ago and it was full of facebook junk. I understand that it is a buzz at the moment and that it represents, thanks to limiting API access to selected agencies, a gold mine for digital agencies that found themselves in need for clients as more and more SMBs would take their search marketing in house. Yes, agencies understand how to peddle dung! Three or more pages full of people that claim to understand social media and how to manage it with little columns of half-wisdom, but then: Martin B. With his outrageous claim: "It isn't outside the realm of possibility to suggest that one day facebook will be the internet."

Sure, it isn't outside the realm of possibility, it isn't outside the realm of possibility to suggest that one day man will be born with wings on their back we are all flying and and humankind is enslaved by man-bear-pigs, but you still have to be an imbecil to realistically sugget such a future vision.
But Figaro printing crap is no news to me. In a former role I was working alongside a Marketing Director who wrote the article 'Standing on the Shoulders of PPC Giants'. While this wasn't an agency, it was written to encourge SMBs to join the marketplace and forget doing their own PPC. Of course, joining a marketplace is not a bad idea and this marketplace doing SEM for your products is a great way for both parties to sell products, but this obviously shouldn't deter SMBs from doing their own search engine marketing. It is easy and effective!
Sadly it isn't just Figaro that sells out their good name. eConsultancy has it's fair share of guest blogger that promote their own ideas and flog their own agenda. It is just too tempting to get other people to do your work for you free of charge. Their reputation won't suffer as much, users are well aware that they are reading opinions and advertorials on their site.

The selling data game

The other thing that is shocking to see is how much anonomous data facebook sells. Well, when I say sells, they make these regbporting APIs available to their selected agencies only. These then sell the facebook advertising on to their clients. Agency and facebook are winning. The client however is left with a feeling of tapping into new audiences, wondering if they found a cheap way of building brand awareness. Having been in a meeting the other week with an agency that actually makes this data available, I think a lot of facebook users would think twice about using the site altogether.

Facebook knows this and with all likelihood hopes that their users stay unaware of this for some time to come.
Paying for likes
Yes, most companies tried facebook advertising. Either direct or through an agency. Your direct response / acquisition campaign was in all likelyhood unsuccessful and when you indeed tried it through an agency you would have received the suggestion to instead of getting traffic through to your site, you should acquire fans for your brand and use facebook as a tool to communicate with these people.

Beware, something went majorly wrong here! Instead of getting cold hard marketing leads that are measurable in terms of ROI from your advertising budget, you are trading it for - mmm - a bunch of extra people that you have to manage a relationship with on a platform that is difficult to control.

Today I was looking at an agency's report on how one of our campaigns is performing. New in this report: facebook doesn't allow the tracking of fans anymore, so we now measure the cost-per-like... £1.90.
I think it will take the next generation of martketers to figure out how you turn 'likes' into money.

The slow demise

It will take a long time and lots of 'internal restructuring' till facebook is really out of the marketing world and the majority of people currently working for it will be laid off or have moved on, but it is the beginning. As an advertising platform, it never performed and always seemed like a waste of time and effort. Yes, there are other opportunities for facebook to monetise. Selling their users data, one way or another, in bright daylight or the sneaky way.

As for the private investors, I believe they will get the big money when facebook floats. But take a good hard look at facebook and decide if you want to put your money in the concept of people "liking" things, by clicking on something out of pure boredom.

Not all is bad

No, facebook is a useful tool! It is ideal for viral marketing, managing reputation or making announcements. However, you do want to keep the majority of this communication in and on your own domain, simoly because you own and control it.
All these activities should be free and I believe they currently are. I believe facebook won't be earning money on these now or in the future.

Some simple MySQL date-time functions

2011-05-10T19:27:00.000+01:00

I often need the first of the month, the last of the month or how many days are in the month for reporting and forecasting purposes.

You can, of course, like myself in the past look up how these things are done every time you need them. But this gets frustrating and it's often easier to surround yourself with your set of own SQL-functions that give you what you need and are easy to remember.

For this purpose I give you:

First of the month date:

drop function if exists fn_getFirstOfMonth;
create function fn_getFirstOfMonth(date_ datetime) returns datetime
begin
set @dater = date_;
set @dater = DATE_FORMAT(@dater ,'%Y-%m-01');
return @dater;
end

Last of the month date:
drop function if exists fn_getLastOfMonth;
create function fn_getLastOfMonth(date_ datetime) returns datetime
begin
set @dater = date_;
set @dater = DATE_FORMAT(last_day(@dater) ,'%Y-%m-%d');
return @dater;
end
Days in the month:
drop function if exists fn_getDaysInMonth;
create function fn_getDaysInMonth(date_ datetime) returns int
begin
set @dater = date_;
set @dater = day(last_day(@dater));
return @dater;
end

Do let me know if there are other MySQL date and time functions that you would like to know.
Happy to post them here...

Can I have some Thetan for my sandwich? - Buying religion off the shelf religion from the street

2011-05-07T03:26:00.000+01:00

Scientologists, although not quite often recognised, have been flogging their religion on the streets for many decades now. And why not? - Other cults and religions are doing it too. Mormons, Heavens Gate and even the Manson Family have successfully advertised their ideology through direct promotion, they know the system works.

I believe people are naturally curious, but would be more careful when they know they are being 'evaluated' by a religious cult, so to circumvent the initial resistance that they would have to overcome, Scientology doesn't advertise with it's name, in fact, nothing at their meet stand indicated that they are in any way pursuing another agenda than offering a 'free stress test' and a giant book to help you through it.

Anyways, there I was, coming out of the tube and seeing the Scientologist stand right in front of the station. I was ready to be Scientologied.

"So this device checks how stressed I am by passing an insignificant amount of electricity through my body?"

I am surprised though how many people go for the "free stress test" offered by L. Ron Hubbard's minions though. I remember the 'Churches' earlier recruitment efforts required their subjects to undergo a more detailed test, that can still be taken online. It's a fun thing to do when you have absolutely nothing to do for 16 hours of your life. Feel free to do it here.
This time I was promised that the Free Stress Test would last only four minutes.

Soon enough I was handed the handles of the E-Meter, a device that measures changes in the electrical resistance of your body and the conductance of your skin by passing a very tiny current through your body. It did take a while, talking about various levels of potentially stress inducing scenarios until my tester, through turning and twisting of various dials, managed to get the needle to swing. I think about 4 minutes, in fact. It must've helped that my hands started to get a bit sweaty, after all that does increase the conductance of my skin. The result: yes, I am stressed - what a surprise.

My antidote was purchasing the Dianetics DVD and book for the little sum of £20. Since I always wanted to have a gander, I negotiated the price down to £5 for the book only, but I am afraid I have not had the chance to flick through it. After the sale, I was of course encouraged to give my name, address and email to the lead Scientologist, but I only left my first name and an old email address that I haven't used in a long time.

Your soul is possessed by this volcano and only Tom Cruise will be able to show you the way.

I did take the book home, but I was rather surprised when I saw it sodomising actual literature, see here how it forcibly engulfs my favourite book, Cannery Row by John Steinbeck.

Bad El-Ron! Down! Leave the Cannery Row alone!

It did seem rather popular with the crowd in front of this London tube station at 8.30 in the evening. Maybe buying religion off the shelf is a huge business? Maybe I should create a religion eCommerce shop where you can create your own religion by mix and match? Eg: mix some Judaism with Buddhism, top it up with Greek Mythology and sprinkle some Heaven's Gate over it. £350,000.
See, that's the clever thing about my religion shop: the product is easy to produce and even easier to source, but if you do pay THAT kinda money, you will treasure it...

Create a home VPN and allow computers to connect with each other

2011-04-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

Like most organisations, my workplace has quite strict security policies. For some reason, I wasn't allowed and able to connect to the data centre through the Cisco VPN that had been set-up by our company. I had to had a static URL at home that needed to be allowed, but I wouldn't consider changing my provider purely for that benefit.

There are plenty of options to 'break' that security restriction, like having a Terminal Server within your corporate network that you could log onto. The slow and clunkiness of that solution turned me off. In addition, I would have to get helpdesk to install all sorts of programmes and, since I'm a Linux man, I would have to compromise on every which way.

The easiest solution, I thought, was, since I can't VPN onto the network from home, to VPN to my home network from work!

I already have a server for various tools that keeps on running most days and nights, so why not also use it as a VPN server.

Installing and configuring the necessary software is easy and takes just minutes.
First you will need to install the PPTP daemon:

$ sudo apt-get install pptpd

In Ubuntu, the configuration file for the pptp-daemon is: /etc/pptpd.conf and we will need to modify it so there is a separate IP defined for a) the server (which can be the one the server is getting from your router) and b) the client(s). If you have more than one client you will obviously have to make sure you have a range of IPs available for the clients.

In my case, since the networks should be quite separate at home and through VPN, I decided to use a different IP range. My router assigns IPs in the range 192.168.1.XXX, so I will use the range 192.168.0.XXX through my VPN server. You will need to update the last lines of your pptpd.conf like this:

localip 192.168.0.1
remoteip 192.168.0.2-10

This assigns the IP ~.1 to the VPN server (a separate interface) and allows the numbers ~.2 to ~.10 to be assigned to clients.

Next step: create VPN users and their passwords. This is stored in the /etc/ppp/chap-secrets file. Here is an example:

# Secrets for authentication using CHAP
# client server secret IP addresses
CLIENTLOGIN pptpd CLIENTPASSWORD *

You could obviously restrict the IP addresses the client can connect, but a very long password should also be quite secure.
In theory that's all you need to connect, but you might want to allow clients to use the server's internet connection and allow it to connect to other IPs within your local network. For this we will need to use NAT and IP forwarding. You can enable this via adding this line to your /etc/rc.local (before exit):

iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

and in /etc/sysctl.conf uncomment the line:

net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

Now you can restart the daemon:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/pptpd restart

If your computer doesn't use the public IP address, eg. you are behind a modem - router or a firewall, you will need to forward the port 1723 to your server. And to avoid trouble with dynamic IP addresses you get from your ISP, you should use a dynamic DNS service. This will update your current IP to the DNS lookup tables and you get an easy URL name to remember. I think I use DynDNS.org.

Finally, you are on the client, but you can't see any other computers within the VPN or the local network of the server. This is because the routing is not set correctly on your client computer. You will want to "search" this VPN IP range through the VPN server, not your normal internet connection, so you can add a manual route like this:

route add -net 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 dev ppp0

Tadah! You can find other computers in the VPN!

For more advanced routing, eg: make your client's local connections available to hosts local connections, I advise to take a look at this page full of knowledge. The beauty is that once the VPN connection is established, you can bridge pretty much all connections through using routing and iptables.

Response to the Microsoft & Nokia partnershit

2011-02-11T16:13:00.000Z

I read this article about the partnership on BBC. I think it's very well written, good article and thank you, Preston, for it!

Yes, this, in my opinion, and I'm working in the New Media industry, is an act of desperation from both parties.

The Windows 7 phones have, and rightly so, not sold very well. This can be blamed on the marketing and the better marketing of the competitors, but that's just a cheap excuse.

I was always very fond of my Nokia phones, they simply work and keep on working, so that's a plus. On the other hand, I haven't owned a Nokia in over 7 years, cause their phones don't have the features you expect today.
I remember when I was in a Nokia store, back in the days when they actually existed, and asked for a phone with MP3 player. "Oh, people don't want to have phones that play MP3s", I was told - despite me being the customer. Thanks, dear shop employee, for reminding me what I actually want.

Anybody that has had a Windows phone will have had experience with the issues of a Windows phone: slow, crashing, clunky sync and yes: SLOW, CRASHING! I nearly tossed my HTC Windows phone in the Thames one day.

So this partnership is really a partnership out of desperation:
Windows wants phones that people know are reliable - Nokia wants phones that are in the 21 century (and yes, I know there is a huge Symbian market)

Unfortunately (or fortunately), both will fail. Android is the best selling platform at the moment and will remain exactly that. I have and will continue to recommend ANYONE to ditch their phones and go for Android, cause it's free, fast, open-source and WORKS very, very well

My favourite Android Apps

2011-01-31T16:26:00.001Z

I have an Android phone since the launch of the HTC Magic (in some countries Saphire) in July 2009. I have never found a phone more useful and, with 2.2 on most devices now, pity the people that are on Blackberry or iPhone when they had a chance to get an Android device.

I must admit, some models are just not as aesthetic than the iPhone and they don't seem to be as functional for business people, but that's where people are wrong...

I thought I give a quick run down, in separate posts, of my favourtie apps:

Astrid Tasks for Android phones

2011-01-31T16:26:00.000Z

Astrid is, apart from standards such as email and calendar, my absolute must have app on Android. It syncs tasks with RememberTheMilk, Productee and Google Tasks.

Apart from it's easy to use interface and classic Android white-on-black theme, it's unbelievably useful for people that have a lot of things they want or need to do, but keep forgetting personal or work related tasks. I now slot everything - from watering the flowers or washing the laundry to preparing monthly KPIs - in my task list using Astrid.

It's a very handy app when in meetings, conferences and when you are on the road. I task that needs doing comes up and instead to jotting down notes that you probably won't ever look again, you get it on Astrid and sync it back with your online task list.

Constant reminders keep nagging and encouraging you to finish tasks and you can schedule due dates and tags on your tasks.

Geo IP lookup - ipinfodb.com API integration using PHP

2011-01-31T16:07:00.000Z

(this also explains the PHP DOM parser)

For one or the other reason, and be it that you want to determine the home country of your visitor for localisation and language options, you might find yourself looking at integrating an IP lookup through an external API.

I suppose they all work very similar, but I have just integrated my shopping cart with the API from IPInfoDB.com. How it works is explained below...

A word up-front, though: When using third party APIs - think! Do you really need to hit the API with every page request? Especially in this case, would it not be fair to assume that the whole sessions would be coming from the same IP and therefore the same country? To an extend, could you not assume that it is one user you are tracking here and that he would probably come back to your site from within the same country, even though his IP might have changed? Could you therefore store the result from the API in a browser session or in a cookie?
- I actually do store it in the DB per cookie, but that's not important for this little tutorial.

First up, you will need to have access to the API, so you need an API key, token-code or something to identify yourself with the API. On the IPInfoDB.com site you can register and receive your free key within seconds.

Got the key? - off we go then: Thankfully this is a pretty simple API that doesn't use SOAP, but requires a simple HTML request and returns a nicely formatted XML. Here is a result:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Response>
<Status>OK</Status>
<CountryCode>GB</CountryCode>
<CountryName>United Kingdom</CountryName>
<RegionCode>P9</RegionCode>
<RegionName>Windsor and Maidenhead</RegionName>
<City>Hillingdon</City>
<ZipPostalCode></ZipPostalCode>
<Latitude>51.5167</Latitude>
<Longitude>-0.45</Longitude>
<Gmtoffset>0</Gmtoffset>
<Dstoffset>0</Dstoffset>
<TimezoneName></TimezoneName>
<Isdst></Isdst>
<Ip>217.42.247.86</Ip>
</Response>

So far so good... Let's create a corresponding PHP class that will make the usage easy portable to different projects.

I create a class and bunch of variables and add getter methods to the class, so I can return the variables when I need them:
class geoIP {

var $apiKey = "XXXXYOURKEYHEREXXXX";
var $city;
var $country;

function getCity() {
return $this -> city;
}
Now I know that API key will be available when I initialise the object. Moving on to making a call...
It's quite easy in this instance, because we don't need to set SOAP headers or anything. It's a simple API and all information we need to give IPInfoDB can be parsed into the request URL. Here is how it looks:
http://api.ipinfodb.com/v2/ip_query.php?key=YOURKEY&ip=IPTOCHECK&timezone=false
So I create a method, let's say, "makeCityCall" that I can then send the IP to check to:

function makeCityCall($ip) {
$urler = 'http://api.ipinfodb.com/v2/ip_query.php?key='. $this -> apiKey .'&ip='. $ip .'&timezone=false';
The "$this -> apiKey" will return the API key that we declared and initialised as a global variable for this class. The "$ip" is what I send to the method.
I know when I load this URL, I get an XML response. XML is best parsed via a DOM-parser. The DOM parser comes standard with most versions of PHP and is an object in it's own rights. We have to instantiate this and can then give it the URL we declared ($urler) to load:
$parser = new DOMDocument();
$parser -> load($urler);
As we saw by the result returned above, the interesting bit is wrapped in a XML node called Response. We only get one, of course, but I will still ask the DOM parser to repeat the process of getting the values from all nodes that it finds:
$nodes = $parser -> getElementsByTagName("Response");
foreach ($nodes as $node) {
I now want to get the values of the nodes contained within the Response node:
$cc = $node -> getElementsByTagName('CountryCode');
$cc = $cc -> item(0)->nodeValue;
$this -> countryCode = $cc;

$cty = $node -> getElementsByTagName('City');
$cty = $cty -> item(0)->nodeValue;
$this -> city = $cty;

$ctry = $node -> getElementsByTagName('CountryName');
$ctry = $ctry -> item(0) -> nodeValue;
$this -> country = $ctry;
Thus setting the variables that I later want to retrieve via the getter methods.
Lastly, if I now want to make a call from a PHP application, I simply need to instantiate the new class, get the IP address from the site visitor (or from wherever) and use the method to make a request. I can then retrieve the results from the getter-methods:
$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
include ('PATHTOPHPFILE/geoIP.php');
$gIP = new geoIP();
$countCall = $gIP -> makeCityCall($ip);
I can then write this out onto the page or re-use it as I wish:
echo $gIP -> getCountry() . '<br />';
echo $gIP -> getCity() . '<br />';
echo $gIP -> getCountryCode() . '<br />';

I hope this gets you further...

Java Swing GUI builder for Eclipse

2011-01-21T15:53:00.000Z

I often struggle to make Swing applications to look good, or even make them vaguely look like I intended. The different JFrame layout options and all the coordinates of where to place what and how long is that makes the creation of Swing interfaces difficult.

Since I don't like using different development environments and got very used to Eclipse for anything I need to do, I was looking for a good graphical GUI builder that works as a plugin for Eclipse. I came across this really nice one: Jigloo from CloudGarden.

It's pretty easy to install into Eclipse, via update site: http://cloudgarden1.com/update-site and then creates GUIs by drag and drop in a way that I thought wouldn't have been possible. The commercial use of this product is prohibited without license, but this shouldn't stop any hobby programmer, much like myself, from using this great product.

Here is a screenshot I leeched off their site (I might attach one or two myself):

Enjoy

Bear?

2011-01-07T15:43:00.001Z

From: d3ngar
To: bear
Subject: Bear

Message:
Wow, Bear!

What a nick - what a movie...

You might not know this, Bear, but there is a movie with the same name, Bear, that came out last year. You might have guessed: it features a bear, named Bear...

You might wanna check out Bear, the movie, it's really great : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1468703/

Best Regards,

d3ngar
d3ngar.blogspot.com

BadgerComp / Cart & Opilion

2011-01-05T02:21:00.000Z

Anyhow, so I decided to start using the Java code from Opilion for crawling tasks for BadgerComp.com.
I probably will continue building on the image getter first. I'm thinking that you will want to upload them straight somewhere. Probably via FTP. Or you could download them to your local hard disk first.

I'll probably make the tool available via the BadgerCart Wiki, but it might be getting annoying to enter the user details all the time. Maybe I need to be able to load settings via XML?

where did all the social shopping go?

2011-01-05T02:08:00.000Z

Maybe two years ago, when I was still working for an eTailer, "social shopping" became kind of the new buzz-word around town.

Social networking needed to be adapted into everything and, with women being the most active shoppers and gossipers, the connection of social shopping - a way of sharing your online shopping experience with friends - was an obvious one.

Many marketeers just assumed that women would happily sit in front of their computers at home, have a cup of tea and combine shopping with chatting to their best firend, whilst not having any worries at all.

I don't doubt that there are people like that, but it never took off and I doubt it will. The reason is that online shopping is simply fast, easy and anonymous. No standing in line, no filtering through piles of clothes, no need to have a coffee and stretch your legs. So why would you want to take a friend along?
Sure, the do-you-think-this-looks-good-on-me question is still something that you'd like to have answered, but that answer must come pretty much immediately and who can expect their friends to lurk on the social networking site ready to pounce on your "Can I wear this?" - question with a definite yes or no answer.

It won't even start working if you'd pay your visitors for such free PR and back-linking, because how much (net-revenue) have you got to give that you can incentevise links and make a margin?

Anyways, I think I will build and affiliate scheme onto BadgerComp, simply so that the Cart has everything :)

GMote - Turns phone into remote

2010-12-30T13:41:00.000Z

I don't have television, I got rid of it over two years ago and never missed it. The initial decision to get rid of it was made when my Virgin home broadband wouldn't work properly and Virigin wouldn't want to do anything about it. It was very frustrating...

Since I don't have an antenna and don't want to get a receiver box and, most importantly: I disagree with TV licensing, I got rid of television. Yes, I don't mind private channels, but the BBC can f*ck off and keep their rubbish programme to themselves.

Since then I lived on DVDs and content available through the internet.

While I do have a wireless mouse, I am really fond of Gmote:
it connects easily to the Java client that runs on any operating system that has also VLC installed. You can browse all video content files by simply selecting it and you then get a menu for forward, backward, volume up & down, pause of stop.

You can also use the screen of your phone like a touchpad to your PC and a keyboard mode allows you to send text to the computer too.

And to make Gmote even more brilliant: it allows you to stream video content from your computer to your phone.

NewsRob - best Google Reader client I found

2010-12-30T13:28:00.000Z

Reading news and blogs while on the road is how I stay updated... I do have long commutes and a lot of it is underground. For this I do need a reader that downloads content to my phone in regular intervals and gets me all of the RSS content.

NewsRob does all this, has an icon sized widget for the Android homescreen that tells you the amount of unread articles (that you have synced) and easily syncs with the RSS you subscribe through Google Reader.

The only minor downside of it is that it sometimes takes a long time to download the content to my phone..

Another really likable feature of NewsRob is that it's got a nearly endless list of options. I like programmes with a lot of options, it means I can use the app as I want, not as the developer had envisaged. Making apps customisable is important!

When the official Google Android App came out earlier this month, I thought it might beat NewsRob in terms of service. But while a lot more articles are available and I never saw any lengthy download / syncing periods, the main problem with it is that it does not show you full articles, but downloads only a fraction of it.
It's not what I need when I'm out and about without the internet, so I stick to NewsRob.

Nimbuzz - Connecting to most IM networks

2010-12-30T13:19:00.000Z

When I first tried to connect my old Sony Ericsson k750i to instant messengers, I came across fring. I later re-discovered fring when I had windows mobile devices and found it to be the best solution I came across so far. Then my friends started to have iPhones and I introduced the to more fring.

Eventually I got myself an Android, but there was no fring.

After searching for a viable replacement, I finally found Nimbuzz. Nimbuzz is like fring in the way that it connects to pretty much anything, that it has it's own chat protocol and that you can both type and voice chat.

The beauty of it was that it also connected to facebook chat, something I didn't see until then. I also found out that it has got a pretty cool online interface and you can manage your connections through that. In theory you can set it up online and then connect through your phone using your Nimbuzz username and password and everything populates itself automatically.

Having your instant messengers available while you are out and about is one of the most important features for me on a smartphone and it's difficult to find a better solution than Nimuzz.

Even as fring finally released their Android app, I was amongst the testers, I found Nimbuzz to be the superior app. Not only because of the many, many bugs in the beta version. Maybe it was because of it's online access, maybe because of the facebook protocol - I don't quite now anymore.

I still have both fring and Nimbuzz installed, mainly because I don't know if you can make voice calls to normal numbers using Skype over Nimbuzz. Something that definitely works now on fring. Also fring does look kinda nice, they certainly spend some time making it look other than the standard iPhone / Android apps.

For now, my vote for best Instant Messenger goes to Nimbuzz

Seesmic - Very functional and free Twitter client

2010-12-30T11:57:00.000Z

You might like twitter or you might say it's total cr*p. Either way, I agree with you...

In my opinion twitter serves a need, the need to inform people through a short message about something you are doing, seeing, reading - in short: experiencing. Unfortunately it doesn't fulfil this need very good, as you have 140 characters to express yourself.

Google's Buzz is the far superior product, in my opinion, but twitter came first and it looks like it's established a good foothold...

There are probably more clients for Twitter on the Android market, than for any other web application out there. Many of them are getting quite good, especially the ones that integrate with the rest of your phone. HTC and Sony Ericsson have, as far as I know, got some good clients factory build in.

My phone doesn't...

I tried many, many clients for Android, but ended up on using Seesmic. I had various requirements from my twitter app:

Needs to be free
Support multiple accounts and networks
Everything should be customisable
Should have a widget for the homescreen

The last point is where most clients fell short. Seemic too, that's why I was on TwyDroid for many months. It didn't have the widget neither, but it just seemed to be the better ad at the time. Now Seesmic has got the widget and I have migrated and I don't want to change anymore.

But Seesmic does offer a lot: geo-tagging for example. This is now automatically added to my mobile tweets. You see pictures that were tweeted in the timeline (see above). Visit people's profiles and follow or unfollow, plus see the timeline of their tweets.

It even got it's own lightweight browser, so you can quickly follow links and return to the timeline without leaving the application.

Seesmic is my twitter client of choice.

Spotify for Android - More music on the go than you could ever listen too...

2010-12-30T11:31:00.000Z

I think everyone is aware of Spotify by now and if you are not, you probably don't live in the UK, France or Scandinavia. Shame for you really, because Spotify is really part of the digitial music revolution.

Hosting an incredible 10 Million tracks and growing by about 10k songs every day, Spotify can really give any serious music collection a run for it's money. A subscription allows you to play songs on the go, download them on your device and listen to them offline for 3 month and stream from mobile devices. A subscription costs currently £10 a month, which is not much if you spend that much on CDs each month anyways.

Unfortunately Spotify is not yet ready to replace CDs. Not all artists are on Spotify, in fact I often find artists missing. Most notably Led Zeppelin and The Beatles to name just two of the big ones.

Nonetheless, you might not want to store music on your phone, you might not want to stream it from home or you just don't have the song you want to listen to at all, maybe you fancy something new and need a suggestion or you want to listen to the new album by your favourite artist... Spotify probably gets you what you crave and thus makes it on the list of my top ten Android apps.

The app itself as the typical Spotify look and feel. You can create playlists on the go, listen to playlist you have on your account and download these playlists to your Android. It runs pretty stable in the background and also scrobbles to Last.fm.
Do you need anything more?

Subsonic - Turn your home PC into a music streaming server and listen to it from anywhere

2010-12-29T15:35:00.000Z

Having music on the go is important. I have an iPod and I also have Spotify, but Spotify costs money and I'm still thinking about cancelling my subscription if it wouldn't be so damn convenient while at work.

I came across Subsonic, a free software developed by Sindre Mehus, and I was instantly taken.

Well before Spotify made your songs available online, this sofware turned your home computer into a music streaming service. The application itself is Java based and needs you to run an instance of Tomcat, but you can simply install it through the provided installer.

There are now five applications for various devices out, but I would want to mention the Android app, as it's developed by Sindre Mehus himself. The Subsonic Android app supports streaming, downloading, playlists, album art and searching. For improved performance, music you have listened to is cached on the phone. An offline mode is also available for when you are outside 3G/Wi-Fi coverage.

All in all it's a great app when you happen to like music and you have got your entire music collection on one computer at home... Get it from the Android market and start listening to your favourites today...

Touchdown for Android - Easy and complete Outlook connectivity

2010-12-29T14:40:00.000Z

I love free software, but I don't mind spending a bit of money on software that truly fulfills its pupose. Such a piece of software is Touchdown, by NitroDesk, probably the best MS Exchange Client there is for the Android.
In fact, I think that the software is so good, it easily compares it's features with the likes of Blackberry or Windows mobile for Exchange connectivity.

I know that you could fetch Exchange email via IMAP (if your system administrator allows it) or even via the email application included in Android these days, but there are reasons why you wouldn't want to do this.

My Android is my private phone, but I also use it for work. I do like to have an office and a private mode. I don't want my appointments to appear in each other's diary all of a sudden. I also want to keep my phone-book and that of works separate and you might have tasks and other features that just simply don't synchronise properly over Android's native software.

Touchdown has no problem with anything. See HTML emails and reply in HTML, you even see the picture of the person that you are corresponding with (provided you have the pictures available on your Outlook).

Another important feature for me is booking meeting rooms and scheduling meetings while not in front of the computer. It all works very easy and is quite intuitive with NitroDesk's Touchdown for Outlook.

The beauty of the product is that it's completely customisable: choose how much of each email you want to download, choose your in office / out of office times, set signatures and how many days to synchronise. It syncs emails, calendars, contacts, tasks and notes - the complete package.

You can even search through your inbox or any folder that you have synchronised with.

It's a great app to have!
Get it from the Android market.

Transdroid - Add torrent files to your home PC from anywhere

2010-12-29T13:52:00.000Z

I do use my home computer for various things while I'm out. The more important ones features for me are SSH / SFTP and Subsonic, but I also keep Transmission, the default ubuntu bitTorrent client, running throughout the day.

So it does happen, that files are being uploaded or downloaded, while I would like to use the available bandwidth otherwise.

Along comes Transdroid...

With transdroid you can control your torrent client remotely, set download limits, delete or pause and resume torrent down and uploads.

But it does one important other thing: it allows you to find and add torrent files. Search for some (if not all) the popular torrent search engines is already build in. All you need to do is select it.

If you are often away from your computer when you remember that you should actually be downloading something, or restrict downloading of a torrent, then this Android app will be of great valuable to you. Here is the QR code to download Transdroid from the Android market it right away:

Transport maps - never get lost on any public transport

2010-12-29T13:26:00.001Z

You can't say that this is a bad concept for an app: Having all the worlds public transport maps on your fingertips....

Transport Maps does just that. Download from thousands of maps already available through the application. If it's not available, contribute to the ever growing database of transport maps by uploading yours here.

Download transport maps through the Android Market today.

Feng Office - Team Collaboration & Project Management software

2010-11-05T14:16:00.000Z

Feng Office is the successor of a software called OpenGoo and probably one of the best pieces of free, open source software that I have come accross. It's really on par with MediaWiki and has become a real asset in the development of my site.

It combines a powerful project management and tracking system with a collaboration hub.

Using workspaces, you can conveniently manage multiple projects at the same time and handle resources accross the different projects. User rights prevent people from accessing locations that they are not meant to see.

Through a bit of customisation, you can set it up to not only track changes to all your online files, but also see who is working on which file at the moment. While someone is working on a file, and be this a PHP file or a letter to a supplier, it is marked as 'checked out'. This prevents two people modifying the file at the same time, thus eliminating one parties work...

It also has features for Notes, email, contacts and a calendar. It's a truly amazing piece of software and deserves the support fo the community...

A Retrospective of John Travolta's last decade

2010-08-04T11:14:00.000+01:00

The past decade has not been kind to John Travolta. It began with Battlefield Earth, and ended with the movies about the middle-aged guys on motorcycles (Wild Hogs), the middle-aged adoptive fathers (Old Dogs), the middle-aged guy who found valuable dancing shoes (Gold Clogs), the middle-aged children's book author who runs at a medium pace (Roald Jogs), and the middle-aged guys who flip milk caps in a meat storage locker (Cold Pogs).

It may seem like Travolta has gotten a raw deal from movie-going audiences. Despite the fact that he hasn't had a hit in a long time, believes some crazy things about Thetans, and is starting to resemble the batty aunt you've never seen wear anything but a...

(from the Rifftrax newsletter)

MySQL problems: Starting MySQL. ERROR! Manager of pid-file quit without updating file.

2010-07-22T11:15:00.001+01:00

I stumbled across this error when I tried to import an InnoDB backup into my existing MySQL server.
I have one application that collects data that I need to tie to another set of data that is recorded on a different server through a different application.
It's been rather challenging, cause I had to work of an InnoDB backup and they aren't easily imported to another MySQL server, especially if you want to keep the data on that other server.

Okay, so what I tried, and ultimately prevented me from restarting MySQL was:

changing all tables on the MySQL server to MyISAM
killing MySQL (yes, I couldn't stop it)
copying the files in the MySQL DataDir to a backup location
Copying the InnoDB backup files that I want to import into my DataDir
trying to restart MySQL

But this is were the trouble started. The files couldn't be imported and I had to roll back and use my backup files. But:

# sudo /etc/init.d/mysql start
Starting MySQL. ERROR! Manager of pid-file quit without updating file.

So I deleted the pointer file in /var/lock/subsys/

# sudo rm -f /var/lock/subsys/mysql
# sudo /etc/init.d/mysql start
Starting MySQL. ERROR! Manager of pid-file quit without updating file.

This didn't work...
After long fiddling, I found out that the files in my DataDir have changed it's owner, since I copied them as root to the backup location and back. They were now owned by root. So after:

# sudo chown mysql:mysql *
# sudo chgrp mysql *

I could do:

# sudo /etc/init.d/mysql start
Starting MySQL. SUCCESS!

Hope this helps you too!

Spot The Badger

2010-04-15T13:43:00.000+01:00

This was the first thing I ever produced in Java. Good times...

Click here to test your knowledge of badgers

Connecting your MySQL data with MS Excel

2010-03-24T12:31:00.000Z

Excel is still the most popular product when it comes to working with spreadsheets or analysing data. I often analyse large spreadsheets with data I got from a database.

While it's not too much effort to copy the data into the spreadsheet when you do need something ad hoc, it can be quite frustrating if you are preparing the same reports over and over again. It would be much easier to just integrate the query as a data source in Excel.

Excel has already got great features to tie into MSSQL, probably because they want to sell more of their own stuff, but I suppose it should be just as easy connecting it with MySQL...

We will need a driver:
MySQL provides a lot of connector files on their website, it's pretty easy to navigate and find what you are looking for, but, just in case, here is the link to the ODBC files I will be using for an Windows XP conncetion: http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/odbc/#downloads
We will need the data source as a ODBC connection in Windoze:
Go Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Data Sources (ODBC) > Add...
and find the newly installed MySQL driver. Then it will ask you to enter your details and you should be half way there already...
It's already time to use Excel:
so start Excel... There are now different ways of getting data into Excel. I want to use my own query, so I'm going to use the 'From Microsoft Query', as it recognises the existing ODBC connection we established.

Then I'm going to connect to the 'localhost' connection I previously created:

To get further, I need to select at least one field from the database. It doesn't matter if it's a relevant field, because a query tool will appear at the end of the dialogue.

It comes in form of a question, and you select the lower radio button:

Finally, you can add your own query (SQL button).
And the result:

It will take a while when you enter your own query, very much depended on how complex your query is, but I hope for you it takes under five minutes to run :D

Let me know if that works for you or if you have any breaking points.

Logo & Pie Charts - funny

2010-03-18T10:54:00.000Z

Link to the PDF about Logos and Pie Charts

Android as remote control (mobile as computer remote)

2010-02-12T02:42:00.000Z

I found the Android application gmote on the Android Market and thought I'll check it out. I have a big screen TV that is used as a display for the computer. Like most I run VLC Movie Player.

The installation of the host is pretty straight forward. Works all OS too, get the Gmote > Server deamon.

Once you run the file, you will be asked which directory the client should connect to. Afterwards the computer should operate as a host.

And indeed the phone application found the computer running Ubuntu. I could use the browse to navigate through my folders and it was pretty easy to start something. All the keys (start, stop, pause, volume, mute, forward and backward, as well as off) worked well and surprisingly responsive.

Use the browse to load a movie and off you go.

Interesting benefit: there is a beta to play mp3 and mp4 and I did try to play a video, but the video would not load on my phone. Maybe the mp4 was way too big and complex to buffer? I don't know...
Maybe I will try a smaller one some time.

Installing Office 2007 on Ubuntu

2010-02-12T01:16:00.002Z

This evening I thought I finally give installing Office 2007 another go. Not that I don't like OpenOffice, but I often deal with files that have more than 65k lines...

I am no fan of Microsoft, but I must admit that the Office suite was always great. Probably that's why it's the only non native software that's made it to the Mac...
I also got quite used to using the ribbon and it's visually very pretty to work with MS.

So, I read that you should use an older wine version, namely 1.1.14, but I also read on the wine site that everything above 1.1.3 should also be suitable, so I will get the latest wine version Synaptic can find (which is 1.1.38). I will also install wine-gecko and I know we will need cabextract... The package manager thinks it's wise to install a few other packages to, so here we go!

Good news: so far so good..
it starts the installation and asks for product key...
off to choose the programmes...
and the installation proceeds... (the installation is anything but quick...)

For the next step we need winetricks:
Get it by:

sudo wget www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks

So now we should be able to install a few windows repositories:

sh winetricks corefonts tahoma vcrun2005sp1 wsh56js

This will ask you a few time if it's OK to install certain things and once completed, you need to configure wine:

winecfg

Find the libaries tab and add to new overrides:
riched20 & usp10
both will need the 'Native (Windows)' button ticked.

And off we go!
It installed in fine and it runs fine. Here is a screenshot:

Why does ... (or the problem of predictive search)

2010-01-07T16:30:00.000Z

found this when I started typing 'why does...'

I think most search engines would rank the results according to popularity, rather than results or relevancy. So it's shocking to know what people really want to know about themselves and their dogs. Funny though

(Google Predictive Search)
FYI: I wanted to search for 'Why does it hurt when I pee' (not for myself, but the popular Frank Zappa song. I assure you, everything is fine!)

Joke of the Koala and the Crocodile...

2010-01-04T00:35:00.000Z

I shared the PDF of the Koala joke.

Java & MySQL select query to return a two dimensional array of results

2010-01-04T00:19:00.001Z

(vector of arrays actually)

When I started to do some Java again, I noticed that Java doesn't really have an easy way of getting an array from a query, if you don't always want to declare how many columns and rows you expect. To circumvent this problem I have a class in my toolkit that contains a method that returns a vector of result lines and each element contains an array of results...

This makes it really easy then to just write a query, like

Vector  myResultVector = selectQuery("select * from customerdetails");

, and get the Vector of arrays back.

To illustrate, here is the method:

public Vector selectQuery(String query) throws SQLException {
  Statement st = connection.createStatement();
  ResultSet res = stat.executeQuery(query);
  
  ResultSetMetaData rsmd = result.getMetaData();
  numCols = rsmd.getColumnCount();
  
                // Optional print out:
  //System.out.println("The query was executed. The number of columns returned is: " + numCols);

         //We don't return this here in the same method, but this variable is declared earlier and can be returned through a different method.
  for (int i=1; i<=numCols; i++) {
            columnNames.add(i-1, rsmd.getColumnName(i));
           // System.out.println(columnNames.elementAt(i-1));
  }

  while (result.next()) {
   String[] arr1 = new String[numCols];
   for (int t=1; t <=numCols; t++) {
    arr1[t-1] = result.getString(t);
    //System.out.println(arr1[t-1]);
   }
   results.add(arr1);
  }
  return results;
 }

In the constructor of the actual class, I have the database connection, looking something like this:

 public mysqlConnector() {
  
  try {
   String userName = "YOURUSER";
   String passWord = "YOURPASSWORD";
   String url = "jdbc:mysql://YOURSERVER/YOURSCHEMA";
   Class.forName ("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver").newInstance ();
            connection = DriverManager.getConnection (url, userName, passWord);
            System.out.println ("Database connection established!");
  }
  catch (Exception err1) {
   System.err.println ("Cannot connect to database server!");
   err1.printStackTrace();
  }
 }

Maybe worth mentioning the global variables that I declare in this class:

 public Vector results = new Vector ();
 public Vector  columnNames = new Vector  ();
 public int numCols  = 0;

The results, because there are other methods that are using the same Vector, the columnNames and the numCols, because there is a method that returns them when I need them:

public Vector  getColumnHeaders(){
  return columnNames;
 }
 
 public int getColumnNumber(){
  return numCols;
 }

It might also be good to close the database connection when you don't need it anymore:

 public void disconnectionNotice() {
  if (connection != null) {
   try {
    connection.close ();
    System.out.println("Connection to DB closed!");
   }
   catch (Exception err2) {
    //err2.printStackTrace();
   }
  }
 }

Hope this helps some of you that might have struggled with the same problem. Email me if this isn't all clear to you... Happy to help.

Installing the Google debian / ubuntu repository (chrome / picasa)

2010-01-02T01:41:00.000Z

I have found it difficult to find the line what exactly the line is that I need add to my /etc/apt/sources.list ... I finally found it on the Google site here.

But to spell it out:

# Google software repository
deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free main

If you are using the GUI, you can simply go to

Software Sources > Other Software > Add

and add the repositories this way. This should then also automatically provoke an update of the software sources...

There might get a warning saying that the package is unsigned. I haven't tried, but from what I can see, there is a link on the Google page.

UFO Archives opened

2009-12-04T15:27:00.002Z

My personal favourite:

See more crude drawings of aliens and their vessels here.

Google Wave - Testing the preview

2009-11-29T15:10:00.002Z

What can I say? Not much, except it's a cool tool.

I have yet to find reasonable use for it, but having access to it is quite nice. I also still don't have enough people that I can communicate with, so it's a bit of challenge using it.
I still have a few invites left, so if you are reading this and are interested, send me a message or leave a comment to get access...

One plugin that I think would be very desirable is a calendar feature: link items straight to your Google or Office calendar would be awesome.

We will see what the future holds...

Here is an early screenshot:

Removing the Koobface Worm (WORM/Koobface.bgn)

2009-11-24T22:31:00.003Z

I came across this facebook worm for the first time today... It's seems that more and more facebook users get their account hacked and then somebody posts links to malicious sites on the walls of their friends.

Unsuspecting friends then install updates to the 'Flash Player' or what-have-you and BANG!

In this instance the removal seems easy enough:

Get a list of suspicious processes (HiJackThis can help). In this instance we have:
C:\windows\ld15.exe
C:\windows\pp12.exe
And lots of files in:
C:\Documents and Settings\[USER]\Local Settings\Temp
I got myself a Linux Live CD (ubuntu) and booted into this live version
I started deleting the files above
I rebooted into save mode (press f8 just after BIOS message)
When Windoze started, I went into the registry (press WinKey + r and enter 'regedit') and deleted the referring keys in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Run\

Restarted and prayed :)

But it seems to have worked, cause I don't see any suspicious process in HiJackThis anymore.

Oxford Street Christmas Theme

2009-11-22T17:24:00.001Z

This year's theme is A Christmas Carol. Yet another Disney movie. Makes me wonder how much Disney pays the city for all this extra advertising....

- Posted using Mobypicture.com

No cars on traffc on Oxford Street

2009-11-22T16:01:00.001Z

A few days ago Oxford Street was closed for car traffic as the Christmas lights were lit.It definitely was less crowded and I hope they'd do these eves more often. I would actually go there :).

- Posted using Mobypicture.com

Trying Fring for Android (early version)

2009-11-14T17:37:00.004Z

I have been quite fortunate to get an invitation to test fring for Android. It's not released on the Android market and the market version is still a few months away from what I've heard.

fring's user interface is really quite creative and unique. The elements are quite cartoon like which makes navigating quite fun. This early version works pretty stable and when it works, it does work well. I have been trying Skype out calls over 3G and chats on all sort of messengers.

Unfortunately some things don't work. I was, for example, not able to log into Gmail. Also a facebook / myspace plugin does not exist (yet). Here are some more problems:

Seldom connects through WiFi
List of contacts isn't fetched completely (can't re-fetch)
Options menu is slim: no option to turn off sound for incoming chat alarms
When making a call or Skype out call, the application crashed frequently
Application doesn't stay 'awake'. After a while it disconnects from your networks and reconnecting is difficult. I normally restart...

Nonetheless, with fring working on this project, I hope that Skype out through WiFi on my phone will soon become possible...

I'll attach screenshots eventually.

Video splitting with MEncoder

2009-11-14T17:05:00.002Z

So now the question is how can you use MPlayer's Mencoder to split a video file into chunks, or how can you just cut a scene out?

I haven't really found an option to just cut it out in one go, but MEncoder is so fast, it's easy to just cut twice, first the beginning:

mencoder -ss 00:13:11 -oac copy -ovc copy original.avi -o new.avi

Simply exchange the time (HH:MM:SS) with the 'begin' point of the new video. That copies all the rest of the file into a new one.
Now you need to trim the file to get the new end:

mencoder -endpos 00:01:11 -ovc copy -oac copy in.avi -o out.avi

This makes the file exactly 1 minute 11 seconds long.

With this method you can split any video in any number of smaller chunks.
Happy video sharing!

PS: I think I already showed how you can combine to videos, in case you wanna reverse the process, if not, I will post this soon.

Uploaded my first YoutTube Video

2009-11-14T16:52:00.003Z

I have uploaded my first YouTube video today. Unfortunately it was blocked, because the content is owned by NBC (those b***ards). I clipped a little episode out of 30 Rock, episode 10 of the first season (The Rural Juror).

It's the clip where Tracy Jordan markets his meat machine on a infomercial type show. It's one of the best episodes, in my opinion.

If you want to see if you can watch this clip (it's restricted in some countries), you can check it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWcKgSj66TM

I wish I could embed this clip on here:

Twitter tools

2009-10-28T16:49:00.002Z

I don't think much of tweet-deck. Maybe it's because it uses Adobe Aero and who wants to install any more software than necessary and let's face it: Twitter is still pretty useless...

I do however get "twats" to my Android phone, using both Twitgit and Twidroid. I will comment on the later some other day, cause it's really well developed and free.

But I found a widget for the Google Homepage that works fantastic and keeps you up to date with the twats you receive - it's intriguingly called 'TwitterGadget' and looks something like this:

Enjoy!

Barr Limeade - worst softdrink I ever had

2009-10-26T19:18:00.001Z

The other day I had to make a purchase in a convenience store, so I could pay for my Indian takout lunch.After trawling the store for 5 minutes, trying to find something cheap yet consumable, I opted for Barr's Limeade. Who's ever had a softdrink he ever bought that couldn't be drunk? - Now I have...

- Posted using Mobypicture.com

From the BBC discussion page

2009-10-25T19:44:00.001Z

As per tstaddon:

So, here's a much better AND CHEAPER idea for Stephen Timms:

We know our village could partner up with a local company, to install and operate a community microwave broadband solution offering 16mbps broadband service to anyone who needs it (which could offer >50mbit broadband with minimal investment, in a couple of years' time).

The projected cost to us to get this up and running, doesn't even run into five figures.

We'd much rather have a grant to get that project up and running NOW, than twiddle our thumbs for a few years paying the 10p tax for the substandard infrastructure we have now so we can subsidise BT for giving places like Ebbsfleet and its brownfield trial sites in North London a better broadband service than they already have (even though their services are way better than ours).

We KNOW there's no point holding our breath for the roll out of a network that's ALREADY out of date in technology terms. We KNOW it will be even more out of date when (if) it ever gets to reach places like ours. And we KNOW we'll be left till last by the major players.

So come on, Mr Timms. Show a bit of backbone. If BT and Virgin show no interest in upgrading the infrastructure in places like ours, for God's sake don't BRIBE them into doing it because it's a waste of cash.

Outrageous UK Broadband Tax

2009-10-25T18:50:00.002Z

It becomes increasingly likely that UK residents with a land line phone will be hit with a new tax. As of the beginning of the coming year, the new broadband tax will become effective and anyone, with or without internet access, will have to pay 50p per month to satisfy this new tax. This money then be squandered by politicians, contractors and sub-contractors... The only thing this money won't be used on is fund the changes it is meant for.

But that's not the problem, after all we are paying tax on cigarettes and that money doesn't go to healthcare; we pay liquor tax and that money doesn't go into healthcare either.. so why be upset that the 50p that we pay now might be used to fund weapons research?
No, the real problem here lies in the fact that a new tax is established and a ridiculous label is attached. If I think that this tax is being raised to fix the problem of broadband availabilty, but that it will never, ever disappear again, it makes me rather sad. I can see this tax being raised already: lower the VAT and raise the BBT... It's awful. All the government is doing is masquerade it's income. A little tax here and there is not as easy to track and understand as two income and value added that everybody is used to.

I would be hurt, but not upset or even outraged, if the government would raise the income tax. But to establish a completely new tax has only got one intention: being deciteful about it's plans.

I read on various blogs and newspaper sites that the plan to build out the existing telephone lines to make them broadband compatible was too little and too late. There are various new technological solutions that would be much more cost efficient and would provide a better infrastructure for the future to build up on than copper wires in the ground.

But that aside, I just wanted to highlight the injustice, the undemocratic aspects of it, as only the BT gets the benefits from this tax (obviously what's left after the administrative aparatus has taken it's more than modest share). How can it be fair that Virgin is paying for it's own lines and, like most other broadband provider, still has to rent lines from the BT - while the BT gets them free of charge from the government? Free to exploit their customers for years to come, free to monopolise and already heavily monopolised market.
This already creates an unfair environment that favours the BT, a company that made £2.5b profit in 2008, I might add!

Also consider that remote areas are exactly that: remote. If you live in a beautiful (or maybe less beautiful) place in the countryside, you should bloody well pay for the privilege of getting the 21st century out there. Is there an electricity tax because some houses in remote places don't have electricity? What about water and other such commodities? It's simply that people in remote places aren't willing to upgrade... If they really wanted to, they could (but admittedly would have to pay more for someone that lives in London)! Again, to highlight the hypocrisy: I live in London and my cost of living and transport is that much higher - is the government taxing other areas heavier to make sure that everyone pays equally?

If this is such an important thing, why not use the money they already get from us? We pay quite a bit of tax already, but raise the tax by 0.00001% and I certainly wouldn't mind. An additional charge infringes with my consumer rights: I shouldn't be double charged for one service / product. For the same reason I don't have Television - I refuse to pay that BS tax! I rather NOT have a service than pay a second time for it to someone that does NOTHING to maintain the service or provides an additional service that I rather not pay for.

In short, the best things to do in response to this are:
1. Write to BT, inform them that you will immediately leave them should they impose the tax on you
2. Write to Stephen Timms, the [horrible swearword] that is pushing forward with this programme. Contact here: http://www.stephentimms.org.uk/contact_me
3. Indeed cancel your BT contract with immediate effect (once the tax goes through), thus freeing you from the burden of an inflated bill and use your mobile and get a USB internet connection.
4. Write to other MPs that are opposing the planned tax.

PHP function to exchange HTML characters

2009-10-14T01:09:00.006+01:00

This is of course if htmlentities does not satisfy you

Ready for you to copy:

function html_strReplaceSymbols( $str) {
$str1 = str_replace( '&', '&', $str);
$str1 = str_replace( ' ', ' ', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '!', '!', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '"', '"', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '$', '$', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '%', '%', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( "'", ''', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '(', '(', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( ')', ')', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '*', '*', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '+', '+', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( ',', ',', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '-', '-', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '.', '.', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '/', '/', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( ':', ':', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '<', '<', $str1); $str1 = str_replace( '=', '=', $str1); $str1 = str_replace( '>', '>', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '?', '?', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '[', '[', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '\\', '\', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( ']', ']', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '^', '^', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '_', '_', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '`', '`', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '{', '{', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '|', '|', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '}', '&#125', $str1);
$str1 = str_replace( '~', '&#126', $str1);
return $str1;
}

Ampersands in XML

2009-10-14T00:47:00.003+01:00

A word of warning:

Some XML parsers won't be stopped by the ampersand (&) symbol, others, I found, so for example Firefox, do have a problem with that.

You might find an instance were the XML parser stops when it encounters and untranslated ampersand. What happens is that these XML parsers expect to see the HTML number code written after an ampersand.

For the complete reference see here: http://www.ascii.cl/htmlcodes.htm

So for example, it's not good to have:

<name>Peter & Paul<name>

But better:

<name>Coolibert & Jonathan<name>

And it is obviously better to have Coolibert and Jonathan, cause Peter and Paul just don't cut it.

Letter to the BT about Broadband Tax

2009-09-24T10:08:00.006+01:00

Tax payers should not be forced in to paying for private infrastructure upgrades!

Here is a letter I send to the BT:

Dear Sirs,

I hope this finds you well.
I have just read in the paper that the government is planing to implement a 'phone tax' to fund some crap...

While I couldn't care less about the government, I would like to issue a strong warning to the BT: if I would have to pay such a tax, I would be double charged for a service that I receive from you. I strongly disagree with the concept of paying for anything twice to two separate organisations. I admittedly am forced to pay twice for ONE service that I receive from you (Telephone and Broadband, although I only use, want and have access to the broadband), I consider this to be an even more ridiculous concept...

As a result, I would be forced to cancel any direct debits, payments and contracts that I have running with BT with immediate effect.

Please consider this email not as a threat, but realise that the current government concept is bad for your consumers interest and will ultimately result in a loss of revenue. I advise that you use your lobby to block this ridiculous law from being implemented.

Best Regards,

Star Wars Jesus

2009-09-22T22:21:00.004+01:00

I was in a church in Poland the other day and I saw this picture of Jesus shooting a red and blue laser from his hand...
Is this Star Wars Jesus?

Quake Live now for Linux

2009-09-14T19:56:00.022+01:00

I have been playing ID software's ego shooter since the years of Doom. Back then I wasn't really 'hooked' and found ego shooter a rather dull waste of time.

Although, I did went on playing Doom 2 and it's franchise, but again for lack of something better to do.

When I first saw Quake with it's very pixelated graphics, I immediately disliked it. It wasn't until me and my friends started patching computers into a network, using Coax cables at the time, that I learned that mouseaim and strafing opened a new dimension to Doom legacy...
When I then saw the game in GL mode, I realised the potential the game had... Shadows and pixel free animation was such a great improvement to the game.

Shortly afterwards I got hooked. I played all the expansions, with my favourite one being Painkiller, a multiplayer only mod. It featured the can of beans (gave you 100 HP, but made you fart), the bear trap and the gravity orb. It was good fun and we had lots of laughs when we were playing it some years ago. I even played Alien Quake, which was so dark and scary, it made me jump everytime I saw (or could hear) and enemy.

I played SO much that I was by far the best in my league of friends. I started playing online, even went to a few tournaments and bigger events.

Then came the long awaited Quake 2 in 1997.

It was different. A lot different. Apart from my usual problem of not having a high end machine to play the game, it was also a lot slower then Quake. The rocket launcher was not as strong anymore, the
jumps didn't seem to be as powerful (although I found out that they were better than in Quake, but way too late) and noone really wanted to spend much time playing it.
Needless to say, I finished my way through the story mode and then never played it again. I saw people playing it on LAN parties, but I stuck to good old Quake or played Blobby :)...

Two years later, in 1999, ID software released the best ego shooter the world has seen to this day: Quake 3 Arena.

But at the time it was out and new and people were playing it religiously, I didn't have a computer that was able to support that game. In later years, when it was still 'in', my computer was good enough to play it and I developed some half way decent skills. I played with friends till the early dawn, went out and played on LAN party tournaments and even got into moderate ranks from time to time.

But I couldn't play online (because T-Online didn't have a proper ping). The usual mods came out, within them a few really good one: Challenge Pro Mode Arena, another Painkiller and the engine was used in pretty much any ego-shooter you could think of.
In the meantime, Quake 3 developed into somewhat of a religion. Even girls were starting to play Quake 3! But it got worse: people weren't afraid anymore to admit to being excessive gamers, in fact some even painted to logo on their skin:

(but there were also pretty ones)

A few years later and I had a very decent Quake 3 able machine, but guess what: nobody played anymore :(... I found a few people to give me a game on rare occasions, but these poor guys had no Quake experience and lost constantly, even when I tried to let them win. I had moved countries twice and playing with the old team was nearly impossible.

Eventually I migrated to Linux and by that time discovered OpenArena, which was good fun and had a nice community, but that community was small and you often couldn't get games going. Still, I was very fond of the usual playmates :)

In my frustration I tried Quake 4, a title I actually bought - don't ask me why...

Until I heated rumors about Quake Live: Quake 3 but browser based! How cool was that idea? I got my beta account fairly quickly and even installed Windoze to play it, but eventually gave up on the dual boot, as I never started Windows. Now, another 7 month down the line, there is a Linux native Firefox plugin for Quake Live. My prayers to the ID software god have been heard!

I haven't been playing all that much, as i hardly have time for it. It's still a great game and it's always good to play it with some familiar faces...
I hope you will join me online for some frags soon. Play the best ego shooter in your bowser: Quake Live! If you want to connect with me, my in-game name is: d3ngar (surprise!).

UVC webcam upside down image

2009-08-05T22:51:00.003+01:00

I have a laptop with a buld-in webcam. This would normally be all well and good, but the damn thing has a problem with the picture being upside down...

If you have the same problem, here is the solution:

Download the new uvcvideo from here and extract it.
Extract the file (tar xjvf uvcvideo.tar.bz2)
Get one of the patches: 1_mirrored, 1_notMirrored, 2_mirrored, 2_notMirrored (courtesy of arjos85)
Save the patch in the folder ~/linux/drivers/media/video/uvc/uvc_video.c (~ is the path to the just downloaded and extracted driver)
Then run: patch -p0 < [your_patch]
Now build the module: make && make install
load it with: modprobe uvcvideo

Now everything should be working correctly. Try it with Skype or Cheese!

Let me know if there were any problems...

Banana Poll

2009-08-02T15:58:00.002+01:00

I opened this poll on Facebook, to find out what the most popular side up is...

I miyself actually swapped sides. First I opened it from the stem side (the bottom), but I'm now going top side all the time. What about you?

Thanks,

Chris

Malware removal: PersonalAV

2009-07-29T11:01:00.006+01:00

A friend of mine contacted me today with this issue:
PersonalAV - a malware programme she accidentally installed and can't get rid of.

Here are some instructions to get rid of the programme, but I don't know if it comes with any additional Trojans or something...

Step 1: Kill the running processes.

Go to the Task Manager:
right click on free space in the windows panel OR:
Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to get into a menu and choose the Task Manager

End the following processes:
PersonalAv.exe
services.exe
PerAvir.exe
winlogon.exe
services.exe

Step 2: Remove registry keys:

Start > Run > 'regedit' > Enter.
Search for the following keys and remove them:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Personal Antivirus_is1
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_ITGRDENGINE
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ITGrdEngine
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer "PrS"
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run "Personal Antivirus"

Step 3: Remove the programme files:

I have written two scripts that will do this work for you. Use either Windoze XP or Windoze Vista...

You can also manually delete them:
PersonalAv.exe
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop\Personal Antivirus.lnk
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Personal Antivirus
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Personal Antivirus\Personal Antivirus Home Page.lnk
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Personal Antivirus\Personal Antivirus.lnk
c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Personal Antivirus\Purchase License.lnk
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\Personal Antivirus.lnk
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\settings.ini
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\uill.ini
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\unins000.exe
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\Uninstall Personal Antivirus.lnk
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\db
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\db\config.cfg
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\db\Timeout.inf
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Personal Antivirus\db\Urls.inf
%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\log.txt
%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\pguard.ini
%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\services.exe
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\activate.ico
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\Explorer.ico
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\PerAvir.exe
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\unins000.dat
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\uninstall.ico
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\working.log
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\db
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\db\DBInfo.ver
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\db\ia080614.db
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\db\ia080618x.db
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\Languages
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\Languages\IAEs.lng
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\Languages\IAFr.lng
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\Languages\IAGer.lng
c:\Program Files\Personal Antivirus\Languages\IAIt.lng
c:\WINDOWS\system32\log.txt
%UserProfile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\winlogon.exe
%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\iGSh.png
%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\iMSh.png
%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\iPSh.png
%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\iv.exe
%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\log.txt
%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\pguard.ini
%UserProfile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\services.exe

Good luck!

However, if you don't want to do all this and are contemplating reinstalling Windows anyways, make the right decision and install a different OS altogether...

URL for your Dynamic home IP

2009-07-27T11:01:00.003+01:00

To be able to connect to computers or servers on the internet, you will have to be able to reach that computers IP address. You might want to connect to your home computer from anywhere in the world, but the IP your ISP gives you changes from time to time.

This is quite common and, unless you constantly carry a note with your IP, you won't be able to make use of your home computer.
I myself run various services that are remotely available from my home desktop computer: FTP server, VNC server, MySQL, Torrent interface and there are many more soon to come.

To bypass the problem of a variable IP, you will need to use a service like DynDNS. There are many other free service provider out there, I just happen to chose this one.
DynDNS is a free service that, upon updating through their API or interface, makes a record of your IP address and routes that to a URL that you can access through the internet.

Step 1: Simply create an account!

Firewalls and / or routers:
Most commonly people have a router these days. A router acts like a firewall and will not let incoming transfers through, unless it specifically has been set-up to do so and to a specific internal IP. In some cases you can also use the DMZ (DeMilitarised Zone) of the router / firewall. The DMZ will channel all incoming requests through to set IP as if the machine would be connected straight to your external IP. This is not recommended unless you use a software firewall in addition to protect yourself.

Use NAT (Network Address Translation) or how it is called in my router 'Application Sharing' to map the incoming requests from any port to a specific internal IP and port. In most cases FTP will run on 21, for example. VNC will run on 5901...
If you use a software firewall, open the same ports on your software firewall. In the Windoze firewall, you have to use 'Exceptions', I think (although I haven't done this in a while).

Step 2: Punch holes in your firewall

Now the last step: You will have to auto-update the DynDNS site from time to time. Most of the newer routers have a feature build in to update Dynamic DNS. You simply select your DynDNS service and add your username and password. Otherwise, you might need to install a programme that will make these updates for you.
There is a list of update tools on the DynDNS website here.

Step 3: Add service to auto update your IP with dynamic DNS host

Transdroid - Connect to your home computers torrent client

2009-07-27T10:49:00.004+01:00

Hi,

This is a recommendation for those of you using an Google Android Phone, such as my HTC Magic:

I often find myself talking about a programme or tool or something that I want to get from torrents while I'm on the road or at friends places. Of course, so far, I wasn't able to download that then right away and once I got back home, I totally forgotten about said download.

But the solution is here: with Transdroid, a free and easy to use application you can now track the status of your torrents, search torrents while on the go and add torrents to the tracker while you are out and about.

How to get it? - Transdroid is available through the Android Market.

It works with the most commen torrent clients, I use Transdroid with Transmission, the standard Gnome / ubuntu torrent client.

Setup was easy and a guide can be found on the transdroid-blog. This will get you going while you are in the range of your local network (eg. you connect your android phone to your home wireless), but to truly use it on-the-go, you will have to have a web-URL or static URL for your machine that is available from the net.

Here is how you can get one if you are connect through a common ISP that provides dynamic IPs...

Linux, X11, how to reload the keyboard driver

2009-07-07T17:23:00.001+01:00

Very simple:

# setxkbmap

eBay initiative: Demand an end to unfair trade practices

2009-07-07T10:44:00.002+01:00

Hi,

I received an email from eBay this morning, informing me about a petition they want their users to sign.
I can only recommend everyone signs it as it is, in my opinion, a very important part of retaining your rights and a free market - it's about the sale of branded goods.

We all know that there are more counterfeit products on the markets than genuine ones. I myself tend to buy branded goods, although they have to be reasonably priced. I also buy 'counterfeit' products - or 'like' products - not because I want to damage the brand that's been copied, but because I like their product, but find that less quality at a much more affordable price is what I'm happy with.

Who expects to buy a genuine Armani jacket for £15? - Someone incredibly stupid! But if it's nice, I would buy it, well aware that it's fake, but I'm happy with purchasing it.
When Armani says that this damages their profits, they clearly do not understand that I would never pay £500 for the same item, no matter how wealthy I am. I am clearly not their target consumer. Nor would I go and claim that this is a genuine product or do I care what the label says.

While I do buy counterfeit and often prefer counterfeits to the real brand, I encourage the purchase of those products from countries that have ethical workplace policies: no child labour, fair wages...

There is another side to it. The bigger brands are trying to eliminate the re-sale of their products through eBay alltogether. This is not because they fear for their brand name, but simply because of their greed. If you really want Prada, but can't get it used, you will have to purchase it new.
This not only puts pressure on your wallet, it also infringes on your rights as owner of the products.
When you buy something it becomes rightfully yours... You should be allowed to wear, show off, sell or destroy the product as you please. It's yours.

Once authorities take away your rights to your own property, what could that mean? - You would own a watch, but will later be forbidden to look at it; you have dog food; but you aren't allowed to feed it to your dog, throw it away or consume it yourself; you have a bank account, but won't be allowed to get money off it; you have a house, but won't be allowed to live in it. The abstractions are endless, but it's important to understand the concept: if something is yours, you should have all rights to do with itas you please as long as you don't harm others...

For all these reasons, I encourage you to sign the eBay petition!

Trees that smell like semen

2009-07-03T13:57:00.004+01:00

Hi,

As you may know, if you follow my Twitter updates, I recently complained that Hyde Park smells of semen all day, especially around the Serpentine. I cycle through there morning and evening and endure more or less endure the stench, but had very few people believe my plight.

For days I thought something perverted is happening near the serpentine, but thanks to a work colleague, I found out that it's actually true.

Apparently the Bradford Pear and a few varieties smell strongly like spunk when in bloom.
Here is a picture, unfortunately it's not the most brilliant quality:
Although the wikipedia article does not mention the smell, there are plenty of other sources on the net that do mention it, plus, it's on Y!Answers.

I read that this pear tree is preferred in urban areas, because it grows higher and not so wide as the average pear tree.

Publish Post

On the other hand, I wonder why the park authorities didn't plan ahead for this and chose to use other trees use that don't smell like the jizz?

Gourmet Burger Kitchen Voucher

2009-06-24T12:15:00.004+01:00

I thought I share this voucher with you.

If you want the PDF version for better print, you can use this link.

It's two for one, where GBK promises to pay for the more expensive burger of your choice. Offer is valid until Sunday the 28th of June.

I tried it yesterday, having a nice burger in the evening sun in Chiswick. Very nice.

Star of the popular media died - Thank God!

2009-04-08T14:16:00.003+01:00

...Or I don't know who to thank, but we should all be very happy that she is very dead. Unfortunately the media hype has not quite died yet...

Apparently it also had quite a positive effect on the national IQ (see picture).

Whilst I feel sorry for her family, I have to say that I feel that something should be done to draw attention that so many people are actually paying attention to it. That people talk about it in offices, cafes and around watercoolers, is grotesque at best.

Hence I say: "I bless the degenerate bastard that digs her up, cuts off her head, burns the rest of her body and sticks her hollow head on a ten foot pole, so that it sends a clear message out to all the people that actually consider themselves as her 'fans'."

VMWare Player - Have a second operating system & create your own appliance

2009-04-05T21:27:00.006+01:00

Hey,

If you want to try different Operating Systems before actually committing to a complete switch, you might have come across Virtual Machines. A Virtual Machine is essentially an emulated computer system inside your running Operating System.

As far as I know, there are two major virtual machine products on the market:

Virtual Box - Which I tried, but had some problems getting some of my hardware working with... And:
VMWare - Which has three product offerings: Server, Workstation and Player...

VMWare Player is free and there are versions for Windows and Linux available for download. There are also some 'applications' - pre-build virtual machines available for download...

However, you will discover that there is a small hurdle to overcome: You can't create your own machine and if you do want to run Microsiff operating systems, you need to create your own appliance. This is where this site: EasyVMX is coming in handy. Simply fill in the information and download the empty virtual machine. This you will then be able to use to install your favourite operating system...

One last step:
Once you installed the Operating system, you will need the VMWare Tools to connect your Virtual Machine to your regular Operating System to allow things like file sharing... Again, these do not ship with VMWare Player. You will need to download server or workstation's LINUX version.
In the tar-ball are the tools... Have a look for any additional *.iso files. Normally the name gives them away 'Linux.iso', 'WinXP.iso'... something like that.

Either mount the iso in your virtual machine as a CD or you burn it and actually put in the CD...
If you do want to use an ISO as a Disk in your virtual machine, this can be very easily achieved with these settings in the *vmx file:

# Settings for physical CDROM drive:
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"
ide1:0.startConnected = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"
ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"

# Settings for iso as CD:
ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
ide1:0.fileName = "office.iso"
ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"
ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"

Have fun with your new virtual machine and let me know if you found this post useful...

How to re-encode videos using MPlayer

2009-03-29T03:54:00.004+01:00

Hi,

It often happens to me that I get sent a video and it turns out to be unnecessarily huge. I think nowadays people record videos with a digital camera or an older camcorder - but this isn't really important...

If you use Windoze, there are probably hundreds of programmes that you could use to re-encode videos, provided you pay a license fee or steal the software. Linux however this comes free for all of us and it's fairly easy to do from the trusty shell (console, prompt...). In addition you will find that you can change aspect ratio, frame rates and do other processing functions easily using MPlayer. In addition, MPlayer crosscodes nearly all media files, certainly most I have ever come across...

The prerequisit is that you get MPlayer and their codec-pack installed. You can find that here: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/. If you use ubuntu, you should be able to do something like:

sudo apt-get MPlayer

to install the player using the package manager.

Let me know if there is need for more detailed instructions on how to install MPlayer...

There are different codecs for re-encoding for both audio and video. It's also not always possible to convert the audio part of a file into something much better - and why would you, it's not going to sound better!

Next, we need the massive video file that we'd like to shrink. Simply navigate to the folder it is in. To encode with standard settings, using the liblav codec (for DivX), try this command:

mencoder -ovc lavc inputFile -oac mp3lame -o outputFile

This will re-encode the file, but this mightn't be using the best settings for your needs, so I'm going to intruduce a few more features:

Need to fix a broken index in your video file:

mencoder -idx input.avi -ovc copy -oac copy -o output.avi

Want to merge a few media files? This is for you (be sure that they are the same format etc...):

cat 1.avi 2.avi | mencoder -noidx -ovc copy -oac copy -o output.avi

Here's a simple command that converts an MPG file to AVI format:

mencoder file.mpg -o file.avi -ovc lavc -oac lavc

-ovc and -oac represent the options for the video and audio codecs that mencoder will use. To find out what video codecs are installed on your system, use mencoder -ovc help and mencoder -oac help.

Suppose you need a file with no compression on the audio part and decide to use PCM. You can specify the type of audio codec you want by using the acodec option:

mencoder file.mpg -o file.avi -ovc lavc -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=pcm

When it comes to MP3 compression, you can also choose a bitrate using abitrate:

mencoder file.mpg -o file.avi -ovc lavc -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=libmp3lame:abitrate=128

You can use lameopts if you have libmp3lame installed and want to add extra options to the encoding process. You can also create files with variable bit rate audio compression:

mencoder file -o file.avi -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=2:q=3

where q can be any number between 0 and 9.

You can do the same thing with the video part of the file:

mencoder file.mpg -o file.avi -ovc lavc -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=libmp3lame:abitrate=128 vcodec=xvid

If you don't want to use video compression, try vcodec=copy. With that option, the frames will be copied one by one from the source file.

You can use xvid or divx directly, without going through lavc:

mencoder -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -o destination.avi source.avi

If you need customized quality, you can add a few options to the XviD compression:

mencoder -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -xvidencopts bitrate=878 -o destination.avi source.avi

The higher the bitrate, the better quality the video file will be. The downside is a larger file size.

Now let's get fancy and make an XviD copy of a DVD using two passes. During the first pass, mencoder analyzes the content of the file; on the second pass mencoder encodes the new file based on the information obtained. By using two passes you can produce a better compressed file, but you'll have to wait a little longer for it, and you'll probably see CPU usage at 90% during the conversion:

mencoder dvd:// -oac mp3lame -ovc xvid -xvidencopts pass=1 -o /dev/null

mencoder dvd:// -oac mp3lame -ovc xvid -xvidencopts pass=2:bitrate=800 -o xvidfile.avi

You can use whatever bitrate option you want. If you need to squeeze a DVD into a 700MB XviD file, you could use the following command, which forces the file size of the resulting AVI to 700MB.:

mencoder dvd:// -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -xvidencopts bitrate=-700000 -o file.avi

If you don't like the CPU being used to the max and want to leave resources for launching other applications, use the nice option, which will run the program with the lowest priority when it comes to process scheduling:

nice -n 19 mencoder dvd:// -ovc xvid -oac mp3lame -xvidencopts bitrate=-700000 -o file.avi

Suppose you have a folder full of small video files of different types and would like to merge them into one big movie for easy watching. First, rename them so that they're in the order you want them to appear in the final video, then use:

mencoder * -o output.avi

If you want to add a particular audio file to a movie, use:

mencoder source.avi -o destination.avi -ovc copy -oac mp3lame -audiofile file.wav (for uncompressed files)

mencoder source.avi -o destination.avi -ovc copy -oac copy -audiofile file.mp3 (for compressed files)

To convert a video file to run on a device running iPodLinux, use:

mencoder -ovc raw -ofps 15 -oac pcm -vf scale=176:-2,expand=176:132,format=bgr16 input.file -o output.avi

This produces a RAW AVI file with uncompressed audio data and scales it so it fits the Nano's tiny screen perfectly.

I have a Pocket PC that I sometimes bring with me on business trips. I take a couple of movies I haven't seen in a while and convert them to fit on a 512MB SD card:

mencoder -oac mp3lame -lameopts mode=3:preset=24 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=384:keyint=250 -vop expand="320:240" -o outputfile.avi inputfile.avi

mencoder input.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=200:abitrate=48 -vop scale=320:240 -oac copy -o output.avi

The difference here is that the latter command scales the file and the former fills the PDA's 320x240-pixel screen with the movie.

If you have a webcam and want to record the output, use:

mencoder tv:// -tv driver=v4l:device=/dev/video0:width=640:height=480:forceaudio -ovc lavc -oac lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:acodec=mp3 -ffourcc divx -o test.avi

The command records anything output by /dev/video0 in 640x480 resolution, using DivX with MP3 audio as an output result.

As you can see, you can use mencoder to convert almost any type of video file in several ways. It works fast, it works well, and I wouldn't change it for any other application, be it GUI-friendly or not.

Kindest Regards to Kivilcim Hindistan - from whom I ripped some parts of this tutorial...

Spotify - Listen through a huge catalogue of music online

2009-03-02T15:30:00.004Z

Hi,

If you like music and you are lucky enough to live in a country where it is available, you should get an account with Spotify (www.spotify.com).

It contains a huge catalogue of music albums and samplers from most of the major record labels and I'm amazed how many -what I thought, would be- rare tunes can be found there.

If I find out how I can get my playlist published, I will try to do so here.

mySpace Account

2009-03-01T20:38:00.004Z

Hello,

I thought that I need some inbound links for my webshop (Badgercomp - a retailer for computer hard and software) and so I decided to give mySpace a go. Afterall, sooner or later all these SNS will huddle together...

Anyhow, I opened an account and here it is: My mySpace profile. I actually thought that this was pretty easy, but it turns out the navigation and features aren't really as easy and as 'plug-and'play' as on facebook.

I also didn't set up my shop as an endorsed link, simply because I thought that there must be some link to my "website". I guess some things need to be done manually there...
In the meantime, I will see if there are any cool apps on Blogger that work plug & play...

Switching off the Synaptic touchpad in Linux

2009-02-22T23:41:00.003Z

If you are anything like me, you will find it annoying that your hand sometimes brushes against the touchpad of your laptop and - bang - the mouse has moved, the courser is misplaced and you have to correct what you have just written on...

Normally switching off the touchpad on laptops is easy, there will be a hotkey, but in Linux you will find not all ACPI options are working well and properly - or at all.

But it can be quite simple switching the touchpad on and off.

We need one step of preperation:

Open your xorg.conf as root (in my distro):
# sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Somewhere there should be this section:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
Option "SHMConfig" "on"
EndSection

It is important that you have this in there:
Option "SHMConfig" "on"

If that's done, save and exit.

Next you will need to restart your graphic interface (so xorg.conf get's loaded again). Simply press CTRL + ALT + BACKSPACE

Great, that's done - now you can do this (as root):
# synclient touchpadoff=1
to switch it off, and:
# synclient touchpadoff=0
to switch it back on...

Kingdom Of Fear

2009-02-17T11:07:00.002Z

An interesting article I saw in the morning paper, cited that the former head of MI5 warns that British Labour (the party) is using fear of terrorism to restrict our civil liberties and invade our privacy.

I found an article on BBC about here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7893890.stm

'The Home Office said it was vital to strike a right balance between privacy, protection and sharing personal data.'

The truth is, in the eyes of the state, the right balance is no privacy for the individual. This is something I've learned to accept and it's quite understandable that people won't start a revolution over what is essentially put into place to protect them.

Nonetheless, I think I will use the opportunity of posting a few tutorials about staying save and 'private' on the internet. Afterall, why would I want the government to read and record my emails? I don't know what they could spin me out of whatever, but my secrets should stay mine. I feel more comfortable this way.

How to change the mouse polling rate in Ubuntu

2008-11-13T11:51:00.003Z

Changing the mouse polling?

Special Thanks to: Cesare Tirabassi and everyone contributing in this thread

Beginner Tip: You must use sudo when editing these files.
Such as:

Code:

 gksudo gedit /etc/modules

Blackmagic's solution:
Edit /etc/modules

Code:

gksudo gedit /etc/modules

Add these two lines onto the end:

Code:

-r usbhid
usbhid mousepoll=2

reboot.

Alternate solution that may work on Feisty (try the first one first):
Add

Code:

options usbhid mousepoll=2

on its own line at the end of /etc/modprobe.d/options

and then add

Code:

usbhid

on the end of /etc/modules
reboot

Alternate solution that may work on Edgy:
Add

Code:

options usbhid mousepoll=2

to /etc/modprobe.d/usbhid

and then add

Code:

usbhid

on its own line at the end of /etc/modules
reboot

aidanr's alternate feisty solution
Create a file at /usr/local/bin/mymousesettings with the following inside:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
rmmod usbhid && modprobe usbhid mousepoll=2

or if you want to use lomoco (a program for changing the resolution on Logitech mice) you can use this instead:
(G5 and G7 mice don't need lomoco because they are software-independant)
{
Install:

Code:

sudo apt-get install lomoco

lomoco's Homepage: http://lomoco.linux-gamers.net/

Code:

#!/bin/bash
# -4 for 400 cpi, -8 for 800 cpi, -m for 1200 cpi, -h for 1600 cpi, -g for 2000 cpi
lomoco -h && rmmod usbhid && modprobe usbhid mousepoll=2

}

After doing either method enter the command

Code:

sudo visudo

and replace the line that says

Code:

%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

with

Code:

%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL, NOPASSWD:/usr/local/bin/mymousesettings

Use Control + O and then hit enter to save and then use Control + X to exit.

Add that command to startup in System --> Preferences --> Sessions by clicking add and then adding

Code:

sudo sh /usr/local/bin/mymousesettings

as a new entry.
reboot

hanging the mouse polling?

Fixed it with the help of the Gentoo guide:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/TIP_Change_mouse_hz

I added

Code:

options usbhid mousepoll=2

to /etc/modprobe.d/usbhid
(using "sudo nano")

and then I added

Code:

usbhid

on the end of /etc/modules

=)

Code:

$ cat /sys/module/usbhid/parameters/mousepoll
2

Here are all the mouse polls:

1 = 1000Hz
2 = 500Hz
4 = 250Hz
8 = 125Hz
10 = 100Hz (Default)

OpenArena - the pure fun of playing Quake 3

2008-11-10T01:07:00.005Z

As a Linux lover, I'm always happy to find games that are a) free and b) cross-platform (that means my non-linux friends can also play with me...

The latest of such games is OpenArena, a 3D First Person Shooter based on the now openly available source code ID Tech 3 (which was Quake 3, lots of COD parts and many more). Aparently the creator of OpenArena took the liverty of also smoothing out some of the bugs of Q3 and the result is an unbelievably rocking experience.

But not enough: the existing mods for Quake 3 (baseq3, OSP, CPMA, ...) are working on it too!

Because it's free it's still very much played online, I saw a lot of servers and will probably try to get my own dedicated server up in a few days...
The address will be posted here.

For all of you looking for a good online shooter, I can very much recommend OpenArena:
http://openarena.ws/

Microsoft Employees Forced Into Op To Make More Evil

2008-10-21T16:21:00.007+01:00

Yes, the rumors have been around for quite some time. Since 1998, to be precise. A friend of mine, Dick Scratchy, has recently quit working for the corporation 'that want's to dominate the world by eliminating any other operating system', [sic].

Dick told me how, after successful interviews, he was invited to a private surgery to turn him into a 'Microsoft Compatible Employee (TM). Little did he know, he received a full anesthetic upon arrival and what happened to his body was blanked from his memory - only traces of the terrible experience remain with him.

Apparently, Microsoft Doctor (TM) removed the sublingual gland from his mouth and replaced it with a venom gland of a king cobra (see picture).

Microsoft, so he Dick tells me, altered his body and installed the poisonous gland to 'deter enemies of the company and allow their employees to spit blinding poison in the faces of users of other operating systems or also people who are generally unhappy with Microsoft or any of it's products.'

Poor Dick had a lot of problems with his girlfriend because of the new gland, the two eventually split up.

This clearly illustrates what we all suspected: Microsoft wants to dominate the world. They don't care about you - the user. User friendliness is an illusion that only used to capture audiences initially. Now, as other operating systems clearly bring better value to the user, they use anything in their power - that includes their vast arsenal of employee resources around the world - to fight their competitors.

Be careful, never trust Microsoft and if anyone near you identifies themselves as an employee of said company - destroy their jaw! It's where the poisonous gland sits!

Some god be with us!

Office 2007 Installer - The windows installer service cannot update one or more protected windows files.

2008-10-19T19:41:00.002+01:00

FIX: Office 2007 Installer - The windows installer service cannot update one or more protected windows files.

I came across an interesting dilema just now trying to install Office 2007.

Before actually starting to install the product the setup stalled with:

The windows installer service cannot update one or more protected windows files.

I was a little stunned, this is clean installed box. So I checked the Event Viewer:

Product: Microsoft Software Update for Web Folders  (English) 12 -- Error 1933.

The Windows Installer service cannot update one or more protected Windows files. SFP Error: -536870654.

List of protected files:\r\nc:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\40\bin\fp4autl.dll

Ah ok, this is a customised installation of windows (I'll post how this happend later) and its looking for the frontpage extensions which (in this install) doesnt exist. So how to fix? Simple, download a copy of the missing file from DllDump, place it into the c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\40\bin\ folder and retry installation!

Fix the upside down on uvc webcams

2008-10-19T15:10:00.006+01:00

Hi everybody,
it's a very quick how-to that will help you to solve the problem of those webcams who give back upside-down images/videos!!!
This help is intended only for those who have a UVC capable webcam.
But it will be usefull only if your webcam supports YUV image format and the applications that use your webcam request YUV format to your webcam!!! I've tested it and it works with:
skype, amsn, kopete, luvcview, mplayer!!

So...let's start!!!!

In order to know if your webcam is UVC capable you just need to open your shell and run:

Code:

lsusb

you will get something like this:

Quote:

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 002: ID xxxx:yyyy "Your_Webcam_Model"
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

Then type:

Code:

sudo lsusb -d xxxx:yyyy -v | grep "14 Video"

If you get something like the following, your webcam is UVC capable:

Quote:

bFunctionClass 14 Video
bInterfaceClass 14 Video
bInterfaceClass 14 Video
bInterfaceClass 14 Video

If your webcam passes this test, you can go on reading. Otherwise, your camera needs to use propertary driver, because it doesn't use standard protocol/command.

Well,
now you need to donwload the UVCVIDEO driver sources, but they are on a SVN repository, so you need to install the SVN client:

Code:

sudo apt-get install subversion

and now you can download the sources:

Code:

svn checkout svn://svn.berlios.de/linux-uvc/linux-uvc/trunk

The sources will be saved into a folder called "Trunk" in the path from where you run the previous command.

Next, you need to use a patch to update your clean uvcvideo driver. Please download this.

Then proceed..

Code:

patch < patch_solution1_mirrored.patch

Well, now the worst part has been done!!!
We just need to compile our modded file and to install the new driver, so from shell you have to go to the "Trunk" directory and type:

Code:

make

there shouldn't be errors!!

Then, ONLY if you are using one of the Ubuntu distributions (ubuntu, kubuntu, etc.), open with you editor the "Makefile" and change the following line:

Code:

INSTALL_MOD_DIR := usb/media

with

Code:

INSTALL_MOD_DIR := ubuntu/media/usbvideo

Now we just need to remove uvcvideo module (if you have previously installed it):

Code:

sudo modprobe -r uvcvideo

Then:

Code:

sudo make install
sudo modprobe uvcvideo

Now everything should work!!!

Let me know!!

Fix 'Hardware error' for Adobe CS2 running over wine

2008-10-19T13:08:00.001+01:00

PERMANENT FIX: The permanent fix is actually very simple. The problematic file is the General Settings file, "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Prefs.psp", which references the default fonts Adobe expects to be installed. If for any reason these fonts, or any other files, are not installed or not functioning as expected, the application will terminate to the desktop. This settings file is located here:

In Wine:

/home/[USER PROFILE]/.wine/drive_c/windows/profiles/[USER PROFILE]/Application Data/Adobe/Photoshop/9.0/Adobe Photoshop CS2 Settings/Adobe Photoshop CS2 Prefs.psp

In Crossover Office:

/home/[USER PROFILE]/.cxoffice/[CS2 INSTALLATION BOTTLE NAME]/drive_c/windows/profiles/crossover/Application Data/Adobe/Photoshop/9.0/Adobe Photoshop CS2 Settings/Adobe Photoshop CS2 Prefs.psp

Naturally, replace [USER PROFILE] with the user name you are working under, and replace the CS2 INSTALLATION BOTTLE NAME with whatever you named the bottle you installed Photoshop CS2 under in Crossover.

Now, if you've encountered this error, you've already run CS2 twice, and the settings file has already been created and corrupted. Although deleting it will allow you to start CS2, it will again store a corrupted file when you exit the application, and next time you start the application, you'll repeat the same fatal error as usual.

So, having located this file, perform the following steps:

(1) Rename or delete the corrupted file
(2) Start CS2. It should start just fine.
(3) IMMEDIATELY after it has started, change the permissions on the newly re-created settings file (Adobe Photoshop CS2 Prefs.psp) to READ ONLY. You can do this in your file browser, or, if you are at the command line, use the following command:

chmod -w ./Adobe\ Photoshop\ CS2\ Prefs.psp

2008-09-03T14:10:00.005+01:00

[18:10:45] [Name blanked]: My grandfather used to tell me: Never trust a horse, because a horse is only happy when it pees
[18:12:25] Chris Matenaers says: Seriously?
[18:13:03] [Name blanked]: Well, yes. My grandfather was a confused man in his later years.

Warthogs

2008-08-28T17:56:00.003+01:00

[17:53:45] Chris Matenaers says: If it's wrong to stick your tongue in a warthogs anus - man, I don't wanna be right
[17:53:56] meesterhammond says: :D:D

Any questions? - Look at this handsome fella:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Namibie_Etosha_Phacochere_01.JPG

.

Logitech VX Revolution

2008-08-28T01:25:00.002+01:00

I struggled for a long time to use the 'back' and forward button on my mouse in some applications. Especially the open source apps seemed to not recognise the button 4 and 5.
I tried assigning key macros, so that I maybe be able to use simple copy paste actions, but this didn't work either.

I finally found the solution: Simply switch of the SetPoint software that launches with windows start. Started working like a charm right away...

YugmaSE Team Collaboration

2008-08-19T16:22:00.003+01:00

I have used this before, but reinstalled windoze and Skype, so I lost it. I only reinstalled it again recently and was amazed to see what good of a FREE product this really is:

Basically, this is WebEx for a small audience - you share your desktop, invite others to take control of your desktop, do white-boards and because it's all integrated with Skype, you have voice call and chat.

The free version limits you to 11 people to share the desktop with, but I hardly ever need more. The paid version comes without this restirction.

The installation was a bit cumbersome: Go to any person in your Skype list, click on menu (little grey box), 'do more...', 'get extras' and search for it. You start to download it, then it takes ages to install. You must afterwards create a new account (yes, it doesn't tie in all the way in). When you get an alarm asking you if you want to allow Java to do stuff, say 'yes' and it should be good to go.
To start, you now have to click on 'menu' -> 'do more' -> 'organise extras' and you should have a link in there.

There is also a desktop / Skype independent version of this handy tool. However, I use it with Skype and was never interested in having it install as a seperate programme.

Have more fun and be more productive with sharing!

Mongeese

2008-08-13T09:43:00.003+01:00

July, 22nd 2008:

Chris Matenaers says: 'Were I a Mongoose, I'd eat poisonous snakes ALL the time!'

A new post!

2008-01-29T23:01:00.000Z

After month of quiteness... A new post.

As always, I'm rather busy at work, I have a new laptop after my old one was stolen and I have experimented around with different operating systems.

Computer-wise I'm now running an ubuntu system and I have to say that I'm quite pleasantly surprised... Apart from my sound-card, the hardware is sorted. I can't very well use USB devices in Windows which is annoying, but I think I can live with that for the moment.

I'll be working on the design of the blog in the weeks. And I will see what else I got time for. I see if I can blog some more, maybe add different themes

Problems with the FTP

2007-06-30T12:08:00.000+01:00

As the very few ones that actually came to this blog have noticed: there is a promise of a working FTP, yet the links to the FTP aren't working.

It's working now!

The problem was that my FTP server did not support passive connections. I set this up now, BUT: passive connections are only accepted when they are directed at the specified, non-local, IP address.

Elegibly, my ISP gives me a new IP every time I sign onto the network. But I never sign off, so I keep my IP for many month at a time. This is both good and bad: my dynamic IP address handler DynDNS cancels my account if I don't change my IP once a month :(

On the other hand, once a blue moon, when I do need to restart my rooter, the IP has mistically changed.

I guess there is no easy solution and I gotta start web-hosting myself. I will install Apache in the coming weeks...

rapebear (or: how to write screenplays. badly.)

2007-06-26T00:27:00.001+01:00

congtratulations to jeremy slater and dan whitehead, probably the funniest blog i have seen so far:
"how to write screenplays. badly."

it was last year mid-summer, when i discovered the screenplay follow up call to "rapebear" - the bear that rapes. i laughed so hard that even a year later i feel that this blog needs to be revisited by as many people as possible.

You can find the rapebear story right here!

the brazillian rear of the year

2007-06-26T00:14:00.001+01:00

it doesn't really matter that this presentation is from '02! Some things never grow old!

get the powerpoint presentation here.

Great site about Redlichkeit: [but only in German language :( ]

2007-06-25T23:17:00.000+01:00

Some years ago, when the internet was still young and some people though it was only made for exchanging pornography and hack into banking servers, I found this really amusing website.

It's the only link that I have kept for years. I've stumbled accross it in the sad year of the lord 1999 when Helmut Kohl's era ended and 8 years of depressing socialism plagued the land of Germans. the here author claims to be incapacitated - meaning he is not allowed to manage his own money, or vote (or be alone with children)

Note, that it is hosted on Geocities (and it's still live!!!):

Werden Sie züchtig und keusch!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lieber Fußgänger, Sie haben gerade von einem redlichen Menschen einen Flugzettel in die Hand gedrückt bekommen und fragen sich nun, was das soll. Bitte nehmen Sie sich kurz Zeit, den Zettel durchzulesen und besuchen Sie danach meine Internetzseite.

Es stört Sie

daß ältere Menschen die Internetzsprache nicht verstehen können, da sie aus wahllos zusammengewürfelten Wörtern deutscher / englischer Sprache besteht?
(Bsp. e-Mail [e-Brief], Internet Explorer [Internetz Erkunder])

daß manche Menschen Sie lapidar mit "Hallo" begrüßen, oder mobile Telefone benützen, obwohl die Strahlung lebensgefährlich für alle anderen ist?

daß Rauchen und Alkohol immer noch nicht verboten sind?

daß es Menschen gibt, die sich nackt im Internetz oder gar in der Öffentlichkeit präsentieren?
(Bsp. FKK-Strände, Schmuddelseiten)

daß es im Internetz immer wieder Menschen gibt, die ihre Aggressionen an guten Menschen auslassen?

Oder haben Sie gar selbst Probleme, ein züchtiges Leben zu führen? Das ist kein Problem. Besuchen Sie meine Internetzseite, denn ich lebe vor, wie man gut und züchtig ist und sich so auch noch viele Freunde verschafft!

http://www.geocities.com/reinhard_pfarrpfeifer
Ihr Reinhard Pfarrpfeifer

Fake or real?