teccy.com

iPod Camera Adaptor Revisted

2006-08-06T21:58:00.000+01:00

Having been using my camera for some photo journalism today (well, recording the postion of buried water pipes, anyway) I decided to give my iPod Camera Adaptor another go with the EOS 350D. I set the camera to 'Print/PTP' mode and hooked it up... Now I tried this once before but I didn't have any luck but I've updated the iPod firmware since then so who knows?
I shoot RAW + JPG so I was expecting, if it was going to do anything at all, that it would copy the JPGs and probably ignore the RAWs but when I checked the iPod hard drive from my PC there were the RAWs too!
So, the iPod does work as a photo storage drive for RAW images. I'm not sure whether it can handle displaying them, I doubt it but it can cope with eight megapixel JPGs without any trouble.

Take Two Browsers Into The Shower?

2006-07-07T21:13:00.000+01:00

Those boys at Google have done it again (maybe).

They’ve released an extension for Firefox 1.5 (you are using that, right?) that synchronises your browser state between machines. What do I mean by ‘state’? Well, try this:

· Cookies

· Saved Passwords

· Bookmarks

· History

· Tabs and Windows

Tabs and Windows! That’s pretty cool. Any or all can be switched off (switching them all off would make the extension a bit pointless though) and they can all be encrypted.

I’m trying it at the moment and don’t have an opinion on the performance yet, which is why I said they may have done it again. ;-)

If you’re feeling adventurous, give it a try. The FAQ is here. It’s good to see some cool companies give you information.

Wearing Out F5?

2006-07-06T10:22:00.000+01:00

Windows PCs are funny things; each one has its own unique personality. My work PC, for example, wouldn’t show changes to the file system through Explorer unless I manually refreshed the window by pressing F5. This was particularly irritating when creating a new folder because while the folder was created with the name highlighted to allow me to rename it, I couldn’t see it! Refreshing the window displayed the folder but cancelled the rename operation, so I had to highlight the folder and select rename again and finish the job. It doesn’t sound much but when a two step task becomes a five step task for no good reason it makes me wonder why.

The cure for the problem is of course in the Registry and if your PC is afflicted with the same problem here’s how to fix it:

Start RegEdit and work through the tree until you reach ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Update’. In that folder there should be a Value called ‘UpdateMode’, if it’s not there, create a binary Value and give it that name. On my work PC the value of this Value (stay with me) was 1. I’m guessing this a polling interval or something similar. Change the value to 7 and close RegEdit. That’s it; you’re done. Make a change in Explorer that normally would need you to refresh by hand to see it and you should see the change immediately without having to do a thing.

Alternatively, save the text below as refreshfix.reg and double-click it, agree that you are sure you want to add the information to the Registry and you’re ready to go:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Update]

"UpdateMode"=dword:00000007

Sshhh... It's Apple

2006-07-03T21:11:00.000+01:00

Me: Well, Apple have released a firmware update for the iPod.

Not Me: I didn’t hear about that! Did you get an email?

Me: Nope. iTunes has been updated and I was using Google to find out what had changed when I saw mention of the iPod update.

Not Me: Hang on, you mean Apple didn’t say what was changed

in iTunes?

Me: Not a thing. The forums say it’s something to do with the

Nano/Nike bop while you jog thing.

Not Me: I see. Well, I’m capable of choosing my own music and have

no need for a musical pedometer.

So about this iPod update; what does it do?

Me: Apple say ‘Bug fixes’.

Not Me: Bug fixes are good, but that’s a bit vague.

What kind of bug fixes?

Me: Not a clue.

Not Me: Alright, so they didn’t go into detail but they said something about the video playback bug, right? I mean, that screwed-up a lot of the Apple faithful.

Me: Nope.

Not Me: I see. I’m noticing a pattern here: So I’m expected to install this update which may or may not fix something that’s been bothering me and it may introduce more problems or change functionality, like the last one did?

Me: Pretty much, yes. Though I don’t think Apple actually care. It’s not cool to worry about things not working. People who aren’t cool aren’t Apple.

Not Me: Have Apple even heard of release notes?!

Me: I’d have to go with ‘No’ on that one. You see, my confused friend. Apple aren’t like other companies; their products exude an… Appleiness that means that details like what’s wrong, what’s fixed and when it happens just aren’t ‘cool’ and don’t matter. In the same way that things like good engineering, customer support, value for money, profit and loss, working Wi-Fi, overheating and lifts that work just don’t matter; they’re not ‘cool’.

Not Me: I’m installing Linux on a home built rig and listening to FLAC files on a valve amp.

Me: You said it.

Some Vista Graphic Cleverness For XP

2006-06-22T20:30:00.000+01:00

One of the few things I’m looking forward to in Vista is the 3D Alt-Tab mechanism. Well, now that’s available on XP thanks to TopDesk from the good people at Otaku Software. Click the link to see what I’m talking about if you don’t already know. Give the trial a run.

Something to watch-out for is if you have another application, like the Microsoft Alt-Tab Replacement PowerToy, then that will have control of Alt-Tab and prevent TopDesk from working. The solution is simple; remove or disable whatever else you've been using!

An additional benefit for users of Logitech mice with a task switch button is that the program doesn’t have to respond only to Alt-Tab. So what? Well, this provides an opportunity to get away from the <cough> functional task list provided by Logitech by re-mapping the mouse button to a key combination in the mouse driver and then telling TopDesk to use that combination to activate. Once that’s done, all the task switching gets done using the same cool technique.

All this for about £5 a go! Can’t be bad. Now if only Linux had the same kind of thing…

In case you’re wondering, alt-tab won’t work as a key combination for the mouse button because you’ll switch away from the software before it can record it. Which is why if you do this make sure to re-map the mouse button before configuring TopDesk or you’ll have the same problem.

Poor Man's Hybrid Drive

2006-06-12T17:06:00.000+01:00

I haven’t heard anyone else suggest this so either I’ve had a really good idea or I’ve been missing out on something:

Hard drive manufacturers are starting to make drives with a lump of flash memory in them so that frequently used files can be reached more quickly; the trouble is, these drives are so new they’re barely available and the ones that are available are as expensive as you’d expect something as new a revolutionary as this to be. So, what to do? Well, the other day I saw a message box pop-up on my PC , followed by a click from my hard drive as it woke-up followed a second or two later by the playing of the sound file associated with the message box and I thought to myself how that whole process wasn’t as smooth as anyone would like and won’t it be great when we get these hybrid hard drives. Then it hit me: Use a USB flash memory stick to hold files that get used often! Things like sound files, wallpaper, all the things that are used so often they more or less blend into the background (or at least, are supposed to). This idea can be used for other files too, like perhaps mail client files (Outlook PST files, for example). The only real limitations are how much space is available and whether the program can be convinced to store it’s files there. I’m thinking this will let things happen more smoothly on PC’s where the hard drive has spun-down and also save power and wear and tear on the hard drive. I’m also thinking about perhaps installing Firefox on a stick to see whether there’s any performance gain to be had there. This ties in neatly with Portable Apps and the work they’re doing on being able to take your most important applications with you from computer to computer.

[Edit] Apart from the limitations mentioned above, the real disadvantage of this approach is that you have to do it by hand, finding the files and changing settings. The advantage, apart from cost and availability, is that you get to chose the files that are stored in flash. The files I mentioned above are most likely not going to stay in a cache for long because they aren't used often enough so by my choosing which files to move I can taylor the storage as I want it and after all, isn't that all any geek wants? ;-)

So, what do you think? Is this old news or a good way to get flash storage working for you without the big outlay?

Podless, I mean, pointless (IMHO)

2006-05-22T20:46:00.000+01:00

Since I had the opportunity to read PC Gamer today, I happened on an article highlighting that iPodLinux is now available for the video iPod. Now, I’m no stranger to Penguin love so I thought I’d take a look. Well, I sort of wish I hadn’t. Why? Because for all the brilliant work that’s been done to make the project work, I have to ask, what’s the point? Sure, on an older model you can now run videos and that can be a good thing depending on the screen but other than that and the ability to play FLAC files on some of the variants that’s about it. It seems to me that the vanilla iPods (no, that’s not a new colour for them) are slooowly catching-up with what iPodLinux can do. Oh, you can run a file browser and Doom and there’s a Matrix style screen saver thingy that doesn’t save the screen but take another look at those three and the flaws soon appear: Doom is never going to be as playable on an iPod as, well, practically anything else with an interface so that's more of a technology demo than a real game. The Matrix scrolling demo is just that, another demo among many that are available and as for the file browser; without Linux there’s no need for it anyway! Who would sit on a park bench and need to know where the files are organised on their iPod? Bearing in mind that we’re talking about files that aren’t video, photos or music because they have dedicated lists in the iPod interface.

I don’t know… it’s very clever, no question. There are a lot of talented and dedicated people producing iPodLinux and they’ve been doing it for some time but it seems like a solution looking for a problem; unless someone produces a killer app for it, what’s the point?

If I’ve missed the killer application that’s going to make me want to use it just show me and I’ll flash the little fella right there and then

Is Your PC Vista Ready?

2006-05-19T13:19:00.000+01:00

Do you care? If you do, run this handy tool from Microsoft to get the bad news on just how much of your PC will have to be replaced in order to get all the Vista UI niceness. Which, lets be honest, is about the only thing left in Vista worth having.

[Update] Hey, whatdoyaknow? My PC is Vista ready. I should *&$@ well hope so too! Well, all apart from the SCSI card but I think Microsoft or Adaptec take some perverse pleasure in not providing updated drivers because I had that problem when I upgraded to XP too. This time, when I'm eventually forced to upgrade, I'll just ditch the drive altogether.
Interestingly, having seen what Vista does on my PC already and how it handles the hardware, the upgrade advisor lumps the SCSI card for which Vista doesn't (yet, I suppose I have to say) have a driver together with cards like my Nvidia graphics card which is definitley supported both by the manufacturer and out-of-the-box. Is that a pre-production short-fall, lazy research or intentional muddying of the waters? A bit of each I suspect.
Incidently, I installed Vista on one day, a Wednesday, I think, and having waited about four hours and tricking it into ignoring the SCSI card (there's no option to ignore the hardware, it's either all supported or Vista WON'T install. Thanks, Microsoft, for giving me the option. Isn't it still my PC?) I took a look at it, had a bit of a rumage and swtiched back to XP the following day. Why? Well, from what I saw of a recent beta it wasn't really worth the bother. Office 2003 got broken in the upgrade (ah, the I love the smell of irony in the morning) and frankly Vista didn't offer enough of an incentive for me to try to fix it. How's that for a damning assessment?
So, until I discover something new my official teccy.com rating for Microsoft Vista is: Feh.

Ding ding ding! New Gadget! Ding ding ding!

2006-03-17T20:15:00.000Z

I’ve been reading a few camera magazines at the moment so that I can feel like I’m contributing to the process of Owen and H spending about half a grand of my cash on a digital SLR. I’d like to go on record at this point by saying that I have complete faith in their recommendations and guidance on this and it’s not often I say that about anyone.

Anyway, back to the magazines. One of them was talking about how to get extra storage space while on the move by dumping pictures on to an external hard drive and suggested the iPod was good for this sort of thing. Now, I thought that the camera interface wasn’t compatible with the iPod Video but it turns out that’s just not true. So what does it do? Well, plug the small white box into the bottom of the iPod and a new menu appears, plug the camera USB cable into the other end of the white box and click the option to start the transfer on the iPod and wait. When it’s done, all the pictures are copied into their own ‘film roll’ folder and you’ve got the option to remove the pictures from the camera so you can take some more.

The pictures can be viewed on the iPod and used in a slideshow if you want to and when you’re ready to copy the pictures to your PC it’s easy; they’re in a ‘DCIM’ folder on the iPod just like they would be on a flash card ready to be copied of by Explorer or photo software.

In summary; how cool is that?!

Crazy tin-foil hat

2006-03-15T19:53:00.000Z

I noticed this the first time a few years ago but this time I have to get the story out:

I’ve been looking for a new digital camera for about a year now; I was hoping to get the Canon PowerShot S90, working on the theory that the S70 does most of what I want but it’s a bit slow and the resolution isn’t high enough, I’m after 8 Mega pixel, it’s successor, the S80 does most of what I want but it doesn’t support Raw (see a pattern here?). So how does the S90 match up to my requirements? Well, it falls at the first hurdle; it doesn’t exist. For some reason Canon haven’t updated that particular part of the range this year. I’ve noticed that Canons compact cameras seem to be settling at about 5 Mega pixel while the low to mid-range D-SLRs are hovering around 8 Mega pixel or so. So what’s this about tin-foil hats? I’m coming to that…

So, this week, having discussed it with my two go-to guys for photography, Owen and Henry, I’ve settled on the Canon 350D with a Sigma lens rather than the standard kit lens because it gives a bigger bang for my buck. This camera is 8 Mega pixel, supports Raw, it exists (always a bonus, and one-up on the S90), and will let me try out all the stuff I’ve been wanting to try like long exposures (so to speak) and short depth of field, not to mention being cool.

You’re still wondering where the metal headwear features in this, right? Okay. I’ve been a subscriber to PC Plus magazine for a number of years now, and while it’s a great magazine it has one particular trait that I don’t see in any others, which is that they seem for some reason to have articles on what I’m doing at the time I’m doing them; putting in a wireless network, there’s the article. Having anti-virus trouble, there’s the group test. Setting-up a Linux box, here’s the new beginners guide. You get the idea. Now, understand that these articles don’t appear within a couple of months of me doing that stuff; they’re there in that month’s issue. And no, I don’t read the magazine and then decided to do it; the idea comes first, then the magazine.

So, here I am, deciding the time has come for a new camera and opting for the 350D but with a different lens. Wondering whether their track record will hold up I decided that I’d wait for the next issue of PC Plus before parting with any cash just to see what happens… I got home today and sure enough there’s PC Plus with an article on D-SLRs and a review of the 350D that says it’s a great camera but the kit lens isn’t up to much. 4.5/5 Stars.

As if that doesn’t have me reaching for the bug detector, this week I also replaced the fans in my Mum’s PC with quiet ones from QuietPC.com just like the ones I put in my PC a while ago, and PC Plus are also running an article on making your PC quieter!

What are the chances of digital SLR cameras and making PCs quieter being in the same issue at the exact time I’m doing that stuff?!

Okay, I know they’re not really bugging me and watching my every move and that they try to give their readership topical information but wow, that’s some sort of sustained coincidence. I’m not complaining; getting the information I need exactly when I need it is great!

iPod? We Don' Need No Steenkin' iPod.

2006-02-09T11:00:00.000Z

A quick mental stock-take tells me that while I’m the only person I know who has an iPod, I’m not the only person I know with a portable media player of some sort. So what? Well, about eighteen months ago I discovered podcasts, which are like radio programmes that can be downloaded and listened to on, well, all sorts of things, anything that can play pre-recorded music (record players would require your own record manufacturing plant). At the time my Creative Zen Xtra Jukebox and a dial-up connection didn’t make a good environment for regular listening. Now I have an iPod and broadband I’m back into it.

The trouble with the name ‘podcast’ is that many people think an iPod is needed to be able to listen to or watch them and while that was the original marketing hook and got the whole ball rolling, it’s just plain wrong. Think of it as offline consumption of time-shifted audio / video content. Would you like to know more?

Incidentally, what makes the iPod good in my case is that I can connect it to my car which is where I do a lot of my listening.

But, that's not me!

2006-02-08T22:05:00.000Z

Well, following my own advice and delving further into Lifehacker I decided to Google myself. Ooer.

I found a lot of, let’s call them ‘false positives’, some of which could conceivably have been left by me; comments on the BBC News for example have the right name and country and don’t identify themselves any further. The thing is; none of them are me. Not one. I’m okay with that. My point is that if someone Googles (is that verb yet? I know they didn’t want it to be) me looking for information then they’re going to be building a composite of the wrong person:

I went to Kingston Grammar School
I’m big on German trains for some reason.
I have a lot to say on the BBC web site and use some bad words.
I’m a member of the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce.
I play the flute. F’nar. (sorry)

Wrong! All that is from page one of the results. People use Google for this kind of thing every day and it’s not a good idea. A few more criteria may help but like with any Web search; the more you add, the more you miss.

I think it’s reminding me of ID cards and their ‘we know who you are’ stance. Except they don’t; they know who they think you are.

I’ve got some tinfoil round here some where; I wonder what my hat size is…

Idle Browsing Material

2006-02-08T21:21:00.000Z

Here’s a couple of sites that are worth checking out in an idle lunchtime:

Lifehacker

All sorts of projects here, it also led me to:

PortableApps

I’ve tried Firefox from PortableApps but couldn’t get it to work. Your mileage may vary.

Getting Started With Broadband

2006-02-08T20:12:00.000Z

As promised, here’s the article I wrote almost a year ago on getting my ADSL connection, without further ado:

What to do, what should happen and what happened to me.

Getting an Internet Provider

Preparation

Activation

Afterglow

This article describes the basic steps for getting a broadband connection, it includes some useful links and catalogues my own experiences in getting it all working.

Why should you get broadband, why not dial-up? It's faster, there's no need to wait to connect, you can use the phone at the same time, more than one computer can use it at once and it's faster (important, that one). On the other hand, there's no pay-as-you-go option so it can be more expensive. It seems to me though that when you're starting out on the Internet that's when you'll spend the most time getting round; you don't know where anything is! So pay-as-you-go dial-up could prove the most expensive of all, and certainly the most stressful.

Getting an Internet Provider

The place to begin is with a connection to the Internet. If you're lucky enough to be in an area served by Blueyonder then go here. If, like me, you live somewhere, let's say, more remote (don't get me started) then you'll have to rely on ADSL (Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line, which means it's faster at getting stuff than it is at sending it) and BT (British Telecom, but you knew that already). In which case go here. Once you've checked whether you can get ADSL you'll need to choose an ISP (Internet Service Provider) and a good place to begin is here. My own choice is BT Yahoo! because they offered the cheapest 1 Megabit connection and because they were my dial-up ISP and it seemed less would go wrong with the move to broadband by staying with the same supplier. My knowledge of cable broadband is mostly anecdotal so I'll do my best to give a complete picture but if I miss something it's because I wasn't told!

Criteria for choosing an ISP includes:

How fast the connection is.

How much the monthly download limit is.

What hardware you get when you sign-up and how much it costs.

What services you get; streaming music, web space etc.

Do you like the look of their logo?

Okay, maybe not that last one so much, but the rest is important. It can be worth looking on the forums like this for experiences with that company. When reading these reports remember that people without problems generally don't say anything so most of the stories will be horror stories.

Preparation

All that could take some time, so rather than wait for you to work your way through all that, let's move on to what happens next.

As I understand it Blueyonder is either a case of an engineer coming and installing a box on the wall into which is plugged a cable modem which by all accounts will be something like this or your television's set-top box may contain a network socket that can be used.

ADSL on the other hand is slightly more involved. Each ISP will be slightly different and I've only done this once so I'l explain how BT Yahoo! works. There will be three emails, each containing a box marked 'essentials'.

First, an email arrives confirming that you're ordered broadband and giving basic information like the order number, the telephone line you want ADSL on, your user name (for identifying yourself to BT Yahoo!) and a number to call if you get jittery (more on that later).

In a few days time you will get another email that includes your network ID (not the same as your user name, it's only used to connect to the broadband network) and confirmation of the activation date.

Finally, before activation day you should get a final email telling you of the activation and reminding you of your password. This, combined with your Network ID will let you get broadband working and used in conjunction with you User Name will let you get access to your account, email services and all the other stuff only available to subscribers.

Now, back to the jitters. I signed-up for broadband the very second BT let me, which was six months before my local exchange was upgraded. As time drew near I was keeping an eye on my order and the status of the exchange (orders have been known to go missing and it was six months ago) I used the BT Broadband site to check it's progress. The site claimed to have no idea what I was talking about! I called BT Yahoo! and was told that the order would not show up on the site until the exchange was activated. Fair enough, the exchange was activated and I went back to the site to check and still my order was nowhere to be found. It seems that the BT Broadband site is not the same as the BT Yahoo! broadband site, even though the 'check order status' link on the BT Yahoo! site sometimes (!) takes you to the BT Broadband site. With me so far? Good. If you want to check whether BT Yahoo! has your order, click here. One final point on this subject, the Status section of your order may not be entirely accurate; checking the status of my order now, a month later, apparently I'll be receiving my modem soon and then I'll be ready to be activated. Oh dear.

Speaking of which, at some point before activation you should receive a parcel from BT Yahoo! containing your new modem, a CD-ROM and a pair of white boxes with phone sockets and a lead on. These are your microfilters, they get plugged into the phone sockets wherever you plug in a telephone. You see, ADSL works on your phone line without tying it up; you can still make phone calls at the same time as being on the Internet, honestly, after using dial-up for years it's like magic. Anyway, without these filters you will, in theory at least, hear hiss on the line while on the phone and at the same time the noise from the phone call will disrupt the broadband connection. So install the filters, unplug the phone, plug the filter into the wall and plug the phone into the filter. You'll notice that their are two sockets on the filters, one is oblong and is where the phone goes, this is the filtered phone line. The other is the more square American style and is the unfiltered phone line for use be the ADSL modem.

Activation

It's the big day, you're taken the day off work and didn't get a wink of sleep last night but what's going to happen? Well, if you've gone for Blueyonder, the engineer will have flicked a switch somewhere and you should be ready to go. A similar situation should exist with BT but in my case while my broadband connection was supposed to be activated on the Friday, I got no modem, no email and no tell-tale hiss on the line to tell me it was activated. BT telephone support isn't open on the weekends...

What should happen with an ADSL 'wires only' activation day is you get the final Activation email, plug the modem into the wall and your computer, install the drivers from the included CD-ROM and wait for a minute or so while the modem finds the ADSL signal and synchronises. You then install the BT Yahoo! software, enter your Network ID and password and head of on the Information Super Highway, scarf trailing in the wind. I'm guessing a bit on the modem part because my experience was somewhat different...

That was not a fun weekend, I'd been waiting literally years to get broadband and now on the big day, nothing <sigh>. Let's skip to Monday, which was a much happier day. I called BT Yahoo! and politely enquired as to the actual status of my order, it has been known for a line to fail it's tests and for BT to simply lose interest in the whole thing without so much as a parting email. I was polite despite my frustration because whatever's gone wrong it isn't the fault of the person on the other end of the phone is it? Now if I could have talked to the engineer who was supposed to activate my connection... Anyway, the man from BT Yahoo! went and checked with the engineer and was told that the line had indeed been activated on the Friday as expected and had been operational all weekend! Whoohoo! Now, while I didn't have the BT Yahoo! modem, I had got ahead of myself and ordered a Netgear wireless ADSL modem/router from ebuyer which I hadn't opened because I had intended to test the connection with the BT Yahoo! modem and if the line was no good to send the Netgear back. So once off the phone I ripped open the router box, plugged it and and sure enough the ADSL light lit and I was away. More or less. It took a bit more fiddling to get XP to see the router as a way to the Internet and not to keep trying to dial either the modem or my mobile phone via Bluetooth. I'll cover the steps to take when installing a new piece of kit on your network here.

The lessons I learned from that are:

ADSL does not necessarily produce hiss on the phone either with old phones or modern DECT ones.

Expecting to deliver a parcel on a specific day is fatally optimistic (for a comparison consider parachuting with an anvil).

BT Yahoo! order status page is less than ideal.

Always have an escape route (I think Q (James Bond, not Star Trek) said that before disappearing into the floor).

Afterglow

Once you're though all that, that's it, if you had a dial-up modem either put it safe in a box somewhere in case something goes wrong or blow it up / nail it to a tree / run over it with the car / donate it to charity. Whatever you do, unplug it from your computer; you don't need it now unless there's a problem and unless you're using it for dialling your phone or for faxes it leaves a security vulnerability where rogue dialler software can be installed from the Internet without your knowledge and can start calling premium rate numbers on the other side of the world. It happens!

Go, enjoy how much better it all is with your fat new pipe.

OLED display from Universal Display Corporation

2006-02-08T03:28:00.000Z

See, now this is what I’m talking about. If there’s a picture in this post, well, cool, otherwise take a look at the Gizmondo link to see it in action.

I’m cheating today and using Gizmondos article from their RSS feed, but I’m not claiming it as my own.

http://us.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/flexible-oled-display-153252.php

Starting out strong at the Fifth Annual Flexible Displays and Microelectronics Conference in Phoenix—there's a conference for everything, it seems—is a prototype of a full color active matrix OLED display from Universal Display Corporation. The display is 4-inches diagonal, .04-inches thick and .2 ounces, and runs full motion video using metal foil, which the company says helps thermal and mechanical durability.

And it rolls up. Neat.

Firm shows off flexible metal foil display [The Inquirer]

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New directions in gadgets

2006-02-06T22:21:00.000Z

I decided it was time to try a new gadget direction, so after some research, and following a LOT of auctions on ebay, I got a Sony Ericsson P910i. Why did I go this way? Well, let me lay this out in some bullet points:

It’s a smart phone, which means, it turns out, that it does less out of the box than a normal (regular, dumb, unsmart; what is the opposite of ‘smart’ in this case?) phone but can have a lot more features added through software. More on that in a minute.
It’s got a bigger screen, which makes the other software easier to use.
It’s a Sony Ericsson, which is important to me, not because I’m some crazed Sony fan (a large proportion of my gear is Sony but that’s another story) but because it can connect to my cars phone kit with just a change of a cradle rather than a complete new kit.
Unlike many smart phones, it’s got a touch screen. I’m not convinced that a device like this without a stylus isn’t a step too far.
Sony Ericsson have a decent track record with phone hardware and PC <-> phone sync software which is important when it comes to getting your numbers onto the thing, if only when it’s new.

I won the phone on ebay about a week ago having watched and bid on a lot of auctions; one of which ended at £500! I got mine for £130 which was a fair price for a phone that is like new. In the past week I’ve used the phone quite a bit, half of which was while away on a training course, and I’ve learned few things. First off, the operating system, UIQ, is a bit different to what I’m used to: I’m a Windows man primarily and I’ve used Pocket PC / Windows Mobile for a good few years now, The link I included towards the start lists all the software that’s included and it’s a lot of stuff that works well. There’s plenty of software that can be added and I’ve picked:

Magic Profiles Pro, which adds normal Profile support (something that almost every phone already has) but builds it up to provide changing profiles automatically based on geographic location (by GSM tower ID), specific times of the day, and by key words in the agenda, so if I’m in a meeting and it’s in my agenda the phone switches to a meeting profile for the duration and switches back to the office profile when it ends.
TomTom Mobile, sat nav! Essentially the same thing as on my iPaq but on the phone.
Sony Ericsson Desktop, a freebie from the manufacturer which adds a ‘today screen’ with the latest tasks, calls, messages and appointments displayed along with an application launcher.
SMan, this app does a lot, from task managing to bluejacking. If you’re interested, look it up,
Opera, a full feature web browser with java support and great support for restructuring pages for the long, narrow screen,
Resco Photo Viewer, I use this on the Pocket PC and find it to be a really good picture viewer and basic editor.
Orange music player, lets me access the Orange online music store and gives me five free downloads. Careful with that, there was a bit of a hiccup and I ended-up downloading the same track twice. I know why Orange allow it to do that but I think it’s a bit of a dirty trick.

What I can’t find is a decent RSS reader that supports pictures and can import an OPML file, and a currency converter with online updates. Is it just me, or are currency converters that need you to manually enter the conversion rate just a waste of time?

I did have one show-stopper problem with it, which reminds me of one of the cool features; It comes with a docking cradle which can be used to upgrade the firmware (I think I’m addicted to firmware upgrading). So naturally, the first thing I did was upgrade the firmware to the latest version. That went without a hitch, I installed all the software I wanted and headed off. So where’s the problem? Well, when I got back from my course I installed TomTom Mobile on my new 1Gigabyte Memory Stick Duo card (ebay again) an switched the phone off while the TomTom was still running. When I switched the phone on again… nothing… it vibrated once, showed the Sony Ericsson logo but the backlight didn’t switch on, and that was it. A protracted Google later and I discovered on Esato that the solution may be to reflash the phone. So, back to the cradle and the update software and… success: This time I installed all the software on the memory stick which frees up a lot of memory on the phone and lets me restart the phone more or less vanilla if something goes wrong.

The phone’s not as big as I thought it would be; it’s about the thickness of a closed Sony Ericsson Z600 but about 50% wider, which makes it a bit on the large side for pocketing but still fits in a shirt pocket.

Battery life is… debatable… I’m not sure how long it lasts yet because at first it seemed to hardly last a day whereas now it can go for several even under similar conditions. It’s possible that the bloke I bought it off hadn’t used it enough to break the battery in (if that’s even a problem these days).

I realised recently that it’s just turned a year since I got broadband. If I can find it I’ll post an article I wrote for my original website describing the experience of getting broadband installed.

Anyway, Bewitched is on so, time to go.

Fresh from the 'set of things that are strangely addictive'

2006-01-28T22:37:00.000Z

http://www.devilducky.com/media/41026/

iPod school opens in London

2006-01-16T13:31:00.000Z

Now, I’m not saying I couldn’t benefit from a bit of this but, well, good grief.

Correspondents in London
JANUARY 16, 2006

UK-based Selfridges has opened an iPod school an upmarket part of London, even though the manufacturer does it for free in its shop just round the corner.

Clueless music lovers who have embraced the trendy new technology but not the know-how can pay 65 pounds ($150) for a 40-minute lesson at Selfridges, on the popular Oxford Street shopping haunt.

A Selfridges spokeswoman said the one-to-one "iPod Survival" sessions, to be launched later this month, have been set up in response to customers who are baffled by the devices.

The lessons, which include subjects like using iTunes, installing and deleting videos, creating playlists and downloading Podcasts, are given either in-store or on a home visit.

Selfridges set up a so-called SpeedPod service in December last year, in which CDs are loaded on to the music players for a fee.

The service's manager, Kristina Rate, said the tutorials were set up in response to consumer demand, particularly from children and the over-40s.

"Our guys basically know everything about it by really being interested. There isn't such a thing as an iPod school or an MP3 player course," she said.

The tutorial, however, costs nearly as much as the cheapest iPod - the iPod Shuffle - which retails at about 69 pounds in Britain.

A short walk to manufacturer Apple's Regent Street store will also save the uninitiated money as iPod workshops there are free.

Troubleshooting and tutorial pages to help with iPods and iTunes are also available on the US computer giant's web site.

Agence France-Presse

New Microsoft Thingy

2006-01-13T20:21:00.000Z

I started my computer this evening to see what witty comment had been made about my failing to read the iPod manual only to find that WindowBlinds wouldn't start properly. When I tried the old trick of 'select something different and then go back to what I wanted' in the Display Properties it crashed and sent an error report to Microsoft. Nothing new there but the dialogue popped-up to tell me that there was more information available; I expected it to be 'error caused by a device driver' but instead it said that I could have a virus. WHAT?! So, out with Norton Anti-Virus and a full scan which found six infected files despite the real-time scanning running constantly. Not happy.
Anyway, apart from that, the Microsoft crash analysis system took me to this page, which was nice. Looks interesting even if I haven't tried it yet because I'm still doing a full spyware scan. If anything remarkable takes place while I'm trying it out, I'll remark on it.

More iPod good news

2006-01-13T20:05:00.000Z

Today seems to be a back-slapping day for the iPod round here. I actually discovered this next feature a while ago but I'ev only just gotten round to mentioning it. I've been asked (by Steve) if, when playing video, the iPod can pause it and let you do something else. Well, at the time I said that I didn't think so but I had only bought it that day so give me a chance! Anyway, the actual answer is yes, it can. It looks like it can save the current postion for multiple video files. Whether it can store a different position for each file or only the last few, I don't know.
I've got to say, I disagree with the opinion that the iPod Video is no good for video. I think the original statement, that video is a sideline for a device that is a music player is about right. I watched dl.tv at the gym today and could see everything perfectly well. Obviously a fold out eight inch screen would be great but that just ain't gonna happen.
The Creative Vision:M just leaves me cold, better codec support or not.

D'oh!

2006-01-13T14:38:00.000Z

So I’m sat here listing to my iPod, cursing it for not having a shuffle-within-a-playlist option, and I go into the settings menu to turn of the repeat mode which was replaying podcasts that I’d just listened to (it repeats all the tracks in a playlist and if you’re up-to-date on your podcasts that might be only one file) and I notice that there’s a shuffle option which is turned off… I switch that on and now tracks in my playlist now appear in random order! You can shuffle either songs or albums which means it either plays random tracks or chooses an album and plays all the tracks in it before moving to the next album. That’s pretty good! So it seems that the iPod does do proper shuffle, at least, the latest one does. So, d’oh! I’m still going to blame apple though; if they’d included a printed manual I’d have found that. ;-)

The other problem I’ve been having, the one with iTunes claiming that my iPod has been used with another library has, I think, been fixed by plugging the iPod in, NOT starting iTunes, starting the disk management console (right-click My Computer and click Manage) and choosing a different drive letter for the iPod to use. In my case, I chose drive U: which is far enough away from the top of the alphabet to not get affected by plugging things in and using virtual drives. So far, it’s working but if that is the solution, it’s not the kind of user friendly thing you’d expect to have to do, is it? Of course, as I said before, most people won’t be adding and removing drives (virtual or otherwise) on a regular basis but that’s not really the point.

Still, if it’s now working that’s close enough. I can’t agree with this ultimate digital music player tag that the iPod has managed to grab for itself but it’s getting better. RTFM!

There is another

2006-01-13T13:55:00.000Z

Lately I’ve been trying surfing the web from my phone, a Sony Ericsson Z600, which isn’t a ‘smart’ phone though it does support java. Listening to the Chris Pirillo Show today I heard an interview with Opera, the web browser people, who were talking about a new product called Opera Mini, now I’d seen that on the opera site at http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/operamini/ but I thought it was their smart phone browser. Wrong! It’s their dumb phone browser which lets most java capable phones surf using a version of their software. I’ve just installed it and so far it seems to work well. I’m still suffering from the small screen and the relatively slow GPRS connection but I’m not going to fix either of those without a new phone and a new contract. So, Opera Mini, breathes new life into <cough> classic tech.

London to host first UK PHP conference

2006-01-10T20:12:00.000Z

By Jonathan Bennett, Builder UK

Builder: PHP developers from the UK and abroad will gather in the capital to discuss technical issues, in what should be a friendly and relaxed environment

The UK will get its first dedicated conference for PHP developers next month when the PHP London user group stages PHP Conference UK 2006 at the Keyworth Centre in London. The conference, taking place on 10 February, will include talks on a number of PHP-related topics by coders from around the UK and Europe.

The list of speakers includes Matt Zandstra, author of Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours, Harry Fuecks, author of The PHP Anthology and Christopher Kunz, a contributor to the Hardened-PHP project. Subjects include AJAX, the Dependency Injection pattern and RAD using PHP.

Read the rest of this story on Builder UK, ZDNet UK's site for developers.

Snow Sign!

2005-12-29T17:33:00.000Z

It's snowing! It's also dark, so no chance to take a picture but if it's still there in the morning I'll see what I can do. According to the thermometer thingy on the garage it hasn't been above freezing today. That's more like it.

I shuffle you not

2005-12-28T20:21:00.000Z

I'd hope by now that those who know me would say that I'll give an honest opinion on something when asked (and when not asked too (sorry)) and not to say something is fantastic just because I have one, so I have this to say on the iPod (stupid), the designer of the iPod (stupid) and, therefore, by extension, people who buy the iPod (stupid / unlucky). Why? Well, perhaps I was a bit harsh back when I said those things, but consider this:
You've got several thousand music tracks and only a certain amount of time to listen to them, you've got your favourites but you don't want to hear the same track over and over again, you want to listen to something new, but at the same time you want to select from a particular range of music (genre, for example) a list to be played, a playlist if you will. You want to play a random track from a playlist. Sorry, iPods can't do that. You tell me; Stupid, or not? Bear in mind that I'm talking about (I think) the sixth iPod variant here.

In my defence and that of other unsupecting iPod owners out there, who knew? I mean, who'd have thought that any sort of music player wouldn't have a half decent shuffle mode? I should say at this point that it is possible to play a random track from the entire library of those available but want kind of mood would you have to be in to want Handel -> Snoop Dogg -> Shola Ama?!
I realise that I'm in danger of generalising from my specific case; Believing that everyone listens to their iPod in the same way I do. The thing is, the only built-in way I can see of avoiding starting from scratch every time is to have no play lists and just have the whole collection laid out before you. Secondly, when you start looking around, lots of people (more than three, anyway) are having this problem.

The question now is, would I have changed my purchasing decision if I'd known about this sooner? Probably not, but that's only because the competition is so very weak:
Someone make a portable media player with a four inch screen that can play wma, mp3, aac, flac and ogg, that has an interface that doesn't need four thumbs and a degree in quantuum physics and that has a dock connector for connecting to a car / hi-fi / PC, stick wi-fi in there too, what the hell, it's Christmas and a 80GB hard drive. Oh, and that can be left charging without being a fire risk as Creatives Xen Xtra is (the instructions say not to leave it charging because there's a danger of over charging. Eh? Say what now?)

That turned into a bit of a rant didn't it? Still, right now my iPod is playing All Saints (begins with an 'A', you see) through my seperates stack while being controlled by the remote I got for Christmas (thanks Scott) and there's no other player that can do that.

There are supposedly work-arounds for the random playlist 'feature' so I'm going to take a look at those and I'll report back for posterity if I find anything that works.

I'm not paranoid

2005-12-23T20:00:00.000Z

Last months PC Plus magazine ran a letter from someone who was using Microsoft on-screen keyboard to avoid being monitored by key loggers, he reasoned that if he didn't use any keys there'd be no keys to log. I wrote an email to PC Plus saying that since Windows operates by moving messages around and the on-screen keyboard is trying to be a straight replacement for the real keyboard, not a security device, then it will create the same messages as the real thing, which, guess what, will be picked-up by the key logger. Doh!
Well, this months PC Plus dropped onto the doormat and I've had my letter published! Woohoo!

See, all that time with subclassing has finally paid off!

Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas
Kiss My Ass
Kiss His Ass
Happy Honica

(Name the film)

Hmmm... Upgrades

2005-12-23T19:35:00.000Z

I've been having trouble with my mouse lately, with it not correctly tracking as I move it. So I decided it was either the mouse, a Logitech MX700, or the mouse mat, an Everglide Giganta, which I have warn smooth in places. To try to identify the problem I put a peice of white paper on the mouse mat and used that as my mousing surface for a few days. That improved things so I decided to try sanding the surface of the mat (it's plastic) with rough sand paper to see if that made things any better (it's not working, so what's the worst that could happen?) Well, that improved things a bit not good enough. It was about this time that the mouse started flashing red, well, the LED on top did at least and that indicated that the batteries were getting low. Now, considering that the mouse in on its charger all night and should go seveeral days without a charge that suggested that the batteries weren't holding a charge. Great. So, I decided that it was time for a change: I've always liked the Logitech MX1000 and ebuyer had a shiny black version in stock (normally they only come in a sort of satin blue). I should mention at this point that another nail in the MX700s coffin was that the satin silver finish was coming off both from where my fingers rest on the buttons and where the charging cradle rubs the back of the mouse while it's charging. So I was (am) hoping that the shiny finish will be longer wearing. What's so good about the MX1000 over the MX700? It's got a frickin' laser, it's got sideways scrolling, the application switch button (think one-button Alt-Tab) is by your thumb rather than under your palm like it is on the '700 (Logitech engineers must have weird hands; no palm, all fingers), it's got a frickin' laser (I like that), it's really fast and accurate and it wakes-up instantly from standby. It's also got a three-bar LED power meter which is good, but not essential (laser). Oh yea, and unlike the latest Logitech mice, it still has forward and back navigation buttons whereas the newer ones only have one button, an I like having forward and back easy to get to like that.

Right, that's the mouse, now for the mouse mat. A bit of research revealed... that there's no real concensus. So I looked for something hard wearing and came up with this, an Icemat 2nd Edition in black. It's made of glass! It's big and smooth and hopefully will last for a long time. It also comes with a set of pre-cut 'skates' that attach to the pads on the bottom of the mouse to help it glide better. The MX1000 tracks perfectly on it.

Okay, I've got more stuff to cover, like iPod cases, speakers, lightscribe and Sky's new delivery system but that'll do for now.

Quiet PCs (Update)

2005-12-16T18:37:00.000Z

Not everything went as planned with the quiet part upgrade:
I noticed that there was a high-pitched noise coming from somewhere in the PC which I tracked down, at six o'clock Friday evening, to one of the new fans. These things happen; a dodgy ball-bearing is all it takes and spinning at a couple of thousand RPM will soon show any flaws.
So I sent an email to QuietPC.com asking how I go about returning the faulty fan for replacement and went off to get a coffee, expecting to hear back on Monday or perhaps Saturday if I was lucky with instructions on the returns process, but when I got back to my PC there was a notification of the impending dispatch of a replacement fan and a note advising me to throw out the faulty fan because of the difficulties with the post this time of year.
So the moral is, get quiet parts for your PC, even if you've already done so a few years ago because things improve, and when you do, buy them from QuietPC.com!

The top 10 weirdest USB drives ever

2005-12-15T13:49:00.000Z

http://gadgets.fosfor.se/the-top-10-weirdest-usb-drives-ever

Quiet PCs

2005-12-14T21:43:00.000Z

I've just upgraded my PCs power supply because my old power supply couldn't cope with the new graphics card I'm getting. So I went to QuietPC and got myself and Elan Vital Greenerger SSM PSU, a set of the latest quiet fans (I already had quiet fans but thought there was room for improvement and fan technology moves on like anything else) and some vibration absorbing gaskets to mount the fans on. Now, this power supply (PSU) is a bit special because the single 120mm fan only runs when the PC is doing some hard work, otherwise it stays off, in case the benefit of that isn't obvious, I'll spell it out: No fan = No noise. Contrary to a recent review in PC Format, the cables are all wrapped in mesh and colour coded, with a dedicated graphics card power lead and four Serial ATA plugs while the molex (power for the big stuff like CD drives, hard drives) are an easy remove type. The cables aren't modular, which is to say you can't disconnect the ones that aren't needed, but the way the cables are arranged suits my PC just about right.

So, is it quiet? I've never heard anything like it.

Firefox Extension Update

2005-12-09T16:28:00.000Z

Since I've been using Firefox 1,5 I've been waiting for some of the extensions to catch up with the new version and using the built-in extension updater to do it. Well, that seems to have been the wrong thing to do in the case of Adblock. The 'current' version that the updater gets doesn't work properly with Firefox 1.5, you need to remove it, restart Firefox and go to this page: Adblock , then restart Firefox and your ad should be blocked just like the old days.

Here's another one in case you missed it, Scot's Newsletter this month has an item on a new extension for Firefox that mimicks a feature of IE7.
Viamatic foXpose . I'm giving it a go now and I like it so far.

Here's one for the planner

2005-12-08T19:08:00.000Z

SCIENCE FICTION SERIES: Doctor Who
Channel: BBC 1 West 101
Date: Sunday 25th December 2005
Time: 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM (starting in 16 days)
Duration: 1 hour.
The Christmas Invasion.
Cosmic adventures with the Gallifreyan Timelord, in a Christmas special starring David Tennant as the new Doctor. The Tardis falls to Earth on Christmas Eve, bringing the new Doctor home to Rose's family. But while his regeneration goes wrong, Santa-shaped assassins and deadly Christmas trees herald the approach of a terrible danger from the stars. The Sycorax are coming, and without the Doctor, the human race is helpless.
Starring: David Tennant, Billie Piper, Camille Coduri, Noel Clarke, Penelope Wilton
(Widescreen, Subtitles, Audio Described, 3 Star)

Excerpt taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from http://www.getdigiguide.com

Copyright GipsyMedia Ltd.

My own little world

2005-12-06T19:57:00.000Z

Okay, so it's been pointed out to me (thanks Owen) that my blog doesn't have an easily accessible RSS feed button. This is true, unless you're using Firefox 1.5 like I am, in which case the RSS indicator lights up in the address bar without a problem. Anyway, like I said before, it's not about me, thanks again Owen for reminding me of that, so now there's an RSS button on the sort of middle right that will let you get the site feed if you aren't using Firefox 1.5 (though why on earth that might be, I can't imagine). ;-)

Oh yeah, and one more insignificant tweak is that I've replaced the button Alt tags with Title tags. Just standing up for the Standards. [Edit] Or not: Replacing the alt tags wasn't the way to go (thanks H) so I've now got Alt and Title tags.

Before anyone asks...

2005-12-05T22:54:00.000Z

If you're seeing a UK2.net banner at the top of the page, it should be disappearing just as soon as they update the service. If you don't see a banner, disregard this message.

One for all you XP Flickr users

2005-12-05T21:23:00.000Z

I just found this; it integrates Flickr into the XP picture upload wizard. I like it!

Upload to Flickr via Windows XP Explorer

iPod don't scratch? My ar$e

2005-12-05T20:21:00.000Z

Well, I've had my iPod video for about... let's see... five days, and the surface already has light scratches on it. It's nothing serious but, I take about as much care with these things as is possible to do while waiting for my iPod gimp suit from Hong Kong so you'll understand that I'm unimpressed.
On the other hand, I can't not use it while I wait for the case to arrive because this iPod is great. Seriously. I've put off getting an iPod since they first came out because they're too (pick one): much of a fashion accessory, common, low quality for music playback quality, expensive, etc. Not to mention, they're Apple, which is too... and so on. Anyway, now I've taken the plunge with the 5G because my music collection is too big for practically any other MP3 player on the market (AFAIK), so I'm getting the universal dock, the dock remote (both for Christmas, isn't it great to give?), the AV cable and a car adaptor from ebuyer which makes the iPod appear as a CD changer.
How good is it? Well, my gym has the most useless television/music setup going (it's a hard life, eh?) so let me paint this picture for you of my time there this evening: I started off going through my video podcasts and an Aeon Flux trailer, and then moved on to the audio podcasts with plenty of time to look around, finishing-up before /. review had ended, so I pause the track and go get changed. When I get to the car I plug the iPod in and it picks up where it left off with the /. review, pausing to let the traffic news through.

That's the good part. The process of getting my music library in a fit state for use is another post entirely.

New Direction

2005-12-05T20:18:00.000Z

I still can't face making my own site (sorry Owen), so I've decided to go down the blog route for now. I've picked one of the standard templates and I'm going to tweak it as I go.

The purpose is still the same; answer questions I get asked a lot and tell people how I get on with stuff. Remember; the answer is on my web site, if it's not here, you must have misunderstood your question...

What do you think so far?

Okay, two for the price of one today

2005-02-06T19:53:00.000Z

Okay, two for the price of one today, first, have you noticed how when you do something like delete an 'everyone' group from the start menu in XP that the warning dialog that appears doesn't have the XP style? Probably not, but I did, so I added a manifest file to the Windows directory and called it 'explorer.exe.manifest'. You can get a manifest file from this zip file:

Using XP Visual Styles in VB

Don't worry about the XML in the file it's only the file name that matters!
Do the same, reboot, and all those dialogs will now be XP themed.

The second tip is to speed up Firefox, read this and do what it says, on my PC Firefox went from fast to near instant!

Secret Tips For Speeding Up Firefox

Long time coming

2004-11-27T22:02:00.000Z

Well, I’ve made several changes to the site, I thought it was about time since more people having been coming here recently, It’s more top-down now which gives me more space for the content I’m to add,

Speaking of which, there’s now some information in a few of the pages. Things like RAID levels and links to HTML guides that I’m using to make this thing work. Still can’t see how to get rid of the many scrollbars problem when using frames though.

Hopefully, this is my first post by e-mail…

Todays top tip

2004-02-08T17:40:00.000Z

When setting IP addresses for your home network make sure that they are all in the same address range. For example, 192.168.0.x where x is different for each device. In cases where any of the first three numbers are different from the other devices, that device won't be visible to the others on the network.

2004-02-08T11:21:00.000Z

First post to my blog!