January 2005 Archives
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January 29, 2005
Now this the way to do things...
Using the piezo speaker on the iPod to get the flashrom off the Apple iPod...
January 28, 2005
MP3 Playing Toilet
No matter how you look at this, it's definitely all Japanese. What's cool, though, is instead of having pre-programmed noises to make when in the toilet (when in Japan) you can bring your own SD memory card and play your OWN sounds. That would just be too much fun! ;)
January 26, 2005
Bright Rainbow Today at the Office
We had a very bright double rainbow at the office today.
This is it, with my V710. It's one of the best images I've seen from this phone.
And posted with flickr... which I haven't used before. It's interesting...
Cleaning the Sensor on an (Expensive) Digital Camera
I had the stressful experience last night of having to clean the CMOS sensor of a Canon 20D. Laurie is off already going to take pictures of Sea Lions (hopefully). Of course, it's raining pretty good now. The timing didn't work out so well.
But anyway... I enjoy cleaning the camera lenses and stuff. It gives an interesting sense of accomplishment when I finish and a lens starts drying and the top glass element practically vanishes from view. But cleaning all of the lenses didn't fix all of the problems.
So, I had to put both cameras (Digital Rebel and 20D) into CMOS cleaning mode. That's where the camera lifts up the mirror so you can see directly into the sensor. Well, luckily there is actually a glass (or something) filter right above the sensor so you're not directly looking at raw electronics.
In any case, you're supposed to clean it by using a rubber balloon blower to burst air in and move the dust around such that it's not on the sensor. This worked perfectly fine on the Digital Rebel to get rid of a single visible bit of dust. Unfortunately, this didn't work on the 20D. A very large and very stubborn piece of dust had gotten stuck to one part of the sensor and another area of the sensor looked all smudged (a bit strange since nothing ever touches it). All of this had been noticed on the last photo shoot and it was a bit disappointing, but not critical (nothing a small dose of photoshop pills wouldn't solve).
However, as Laurie pointed out to me, lots of photographers had reported that sending the camera in to get cleaned costs a bunch `($50 plus shipping, packing, insurance, etc.) and often they still come back with some bits of dust. No clean room job found here. So, I found that some other people had actually decided to clean the sensor (well, the filter) directly.
One scratched and you're totally screwed and the repair is supposedly as expensive as a new camera. On top of that, the Canon manuals say that even a soft brush can easily scratch the surface.
Well, that didn't stop me. I put lens cleaning tissue around an equipment-cleaning-ready cotton swap (bits and pieces don't fall off), got it a little moist, and dabbed it on the dust bit. That easily went away. Then I moved on to a light rubbing of the entire surface. In a test picture at the end, all of the main bits had been removed. And nothing new was added. Lucky? Yeah. Would I do it again? Definitely.
However, we've changed the policy about moving lenses around. It's now move the lenses around as little as possible. Swap cameras if needed. Of course, this means having two of the same kind of camera balances out what each lens can do. Will we dump the Rebel and get a second 20D to solve that problem? We'll see...
January 25, 2005
24: Conspiracy?
Maybe this is all part of the new 24: Conspiracy mobile episodes...
Broadcasting Cable reports that "according to Fox publicity, the prop master on drama 24 got more than 50,000 calls on his cell phone after his number appeared on-screen in the Jan. 17 episode of the show.
January 24, 2005
*phew* Lots of Traffic!
I'm glad my host comes with a reasonable amount of traffic. My little posting and cached copy of the "vw_20_b3.mov" video (VW Polo) has gotten quite a lot of downloads for my little site (about 2GB worth and it's only a little over 2MB).
If traffic continues to grow, though, I'll throw it up on a Torrent link in an attempt to reduce traffic (not that I've used much of my allotment yet, though).
I'm amused by how much traffic this one video has generated... it certainly is a good one, though! ;)
craigslist: 14", 15", and 17" Monitors for Sale
I'm selling a few monitors. Please check the following craigslist posting for more information:
Cheap CRT Monitors: 14", 15", and 17" ... $15 to $50
I've never used craigslist before to sell something. Listing is free! I'm sur everyone knows that. But did you know you don't even need an account? It really is simple. That explains why there were about 40 times as many Jeeps on craigslist as there were on eBay. It really is just an online classifieds area. One where people actually look at the listings, too.
Anyway, if you want any of the monitors make me an offer. Preferably via the craigslist email thing so I don't think you're spam or something.
January 21, 2005
Your Pets Like Gadgets, Too!
If you think this is over-the-top, just remember that people will actually buy this!
It's actually interesting how big the pet market is. $34 billion is a lot of money to slice up. One good movie promo for this device is all it'd take.
January 20, 2005
E-Puppy: USB Puppy Reads Your Email
No, really, it does. Outloud, even. Which is really good for those personal emails so the whole office can hear about them. And junk email, so the whole office can hear that you need a bigger you-know-what. It also gives a visual notification of new email and can read other things, such as web sites.
e-Puppy (SKY-EP01) E-Puppy Personal USB E-mail Communicator $19.95 E-PUPPY-N
January 19, 2005
New Anchor Tag Modification to Decrease Power of Comment Spam?
Well, it's only a proposal from the search engines, but MovableType (and thus LiveJournal) will be implementing it -- with some work already completed and available for it.
This is a good thing as there is even less a reason for automated and not-so-automated comment spam. No longer will a site be given a PageRank (or equivalent) boost. Also, the blogs own links, rather than the user submitted ones, will thus carry even more weight. This also means, though, that any good links in comments or from users would probably need to be called out as an "update" in the main post to give them any sort of weight.
The downside is that powerful sites could block all PageRank boosts they give out by flagging all outbound links with no-follow. In other words, the power to give or not to give PageRank now lands on the content side rather than the search engine site. So now when you rant about a site you can make sure the negative coverage doesn't turn into a boost in popularity (you know, any news is publicity sort of thing) and vice versa.
Hrm..
January 18, 2005
VW Polo. Small but tough.
... or so this ad claims. Even if it isn't real, it's quite funny. Some might think it's in bad taste. If you're one of those, why are you looking for videos like this? All videos like this are in bad taste to you. :p
Cached here so it doesn't go away.
Originally from here:
vw_20_b3.mov (video/quicktime Object)
Real Plants for your Phone
I have to admit... these are amusingly curious. And I'm sure many are hanging off of phones and not as many off of keychains in Japan... afterall, that's what the lanyard connection is all about, right?
Akihabara News : Toutes les nouveautés High-Tech du pays des Sushis
January 16, 2005
Interesting Artwork
What's curious to me is this sort of effect (on a whole image) was recently in a Photoshop magazine...
Thanks to ritilan for the link.
January 12, 2005
Microsoft Gets Into the Antivirus Business
Well, at least from the tools point of view. It's not like they're charging any money for the tool. But it certainly can't be good for the AV vendors. Microsoft is now planning on providing updates to this tool on the first Tuesday of every month. It initially supports removing of the following:
- Win32/Berbew January 2005 Moderate
- Win32/Doomjuice January 2005 Moderate
- Win32/Gaobot January 2005 Moderate
- Win32/MSBlast January 2005 Critical
- Win32/Mydoom January 2005 Moderate
- Win32/Nachi January 2005 Critical
- Win32/Sasser January 2005 Critical
- Win32/Zindos January 2005 Moderate
They're also providing an online version and a downloadable version. In addition, it can be run from the command line, which is useful for servers and such.
How long before it's starts removing Spyware (or suspected spyware)? How long before it starts removing things Microsoft doesn't like? You know, like unregistered software? Or, for the conspiracy people, non-Microsoft stuff? Heh.
This is what Windows Update told me:
Size: 256 KBThis tool checks your computer for infection by specific, prevalent malicious software (including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom) and helps remove any variants found. You should also use an antivirus product to remove other malicious software that may be present. This tool helps maintain your computer, and its appearance does not indicate that your machine is infected with malicious software. After you run this item, you may have to restart your computer.
It can also fit on a 360k 5-1/4" floppy disk, should it need to. Heh.
Of course, their stance is that it isn't a replacement for AV software:
Q7: Is this tool a replacement for an antivirus product? A7: No. We strongly recommend that you install and use an up-to-date antivirus product. For more information, visit the following Microsoft Protect Your PC Web site:http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=37595
However, it does allow them to push updates and cause it to be run from the automatic updates tool. That means that in the event of a massive outbreak, Microsoft can quickly push out updates and scanning commands to millions of machines. That's really not a terrible thing. It does put them in a massively powerful position, though. But they couldn't do this if they weren't already in the position that market forces have left them.
January 10, 2005
RAM with LED Readout
I mostly agree with Gizmodo that this is over the top. However, for PC Modders, hackers, and mini-cases this has some interesting uses. Not only can you use it for cool sayings, but you can also use it in conjunction with headless systems for basic status without having to build some sort of monitor into the case.
Sprint to Offer 2 MP Cameraphone
The Samsung SPH-A800 is a rather nice phone from the features point of view. It's got a QVGA display, 2 MP camera, 18-bit color main display, video, and 3D capabilities. It even takes a TF (TransFlash) just like my Motorola V710. Sadly, the next phone I'll probably won't will take miniSD. There are just far too many memory card formats for handsets. The Samsung i730 also looks nice, with a QWERTY keyboard for input.
*sigh* My Motorola V710 is getting so dated and old.
Reiter's Camera Phone Report: Sprint PCS to offer first two megapixel camera phone in U.S.
January 9, 2005
Archos at it Again: The Pocket Media Assistant 400 or PMA400
The PMA400 is much like the AV400 series the preceded it, but it's much more than just a portable PVR now. It's still has all of the play and record features that we've come to love about the Archos media devices (as opposed to just about everything else that just plays). This allows anyone to get their own content on it that they legally acquired without the hassle of ripping, converting, copying, etc. Just record that DVD and go. And it happens in realtime, which is great compared to the 8x time to generate video for a phone.
Anyway...the PMA400 also features WiFi, IRDA, ethernet, games, PIM, and the ability to "Personalize your PMA400 with third-party software" and "Develop your own applications." What's that really mean? It means it's one of the most powerful Linux PDA platforms available. So powerful, it can record video in real time. Basically, this time around, they didn't bother keeping it a device only. It's a full PDA with a first function of a portable PVR.
It comes with Opera, an email client, and various other PIM software. You can browse the web by connecting via IRDA to a cell phone, WiFi, or Ethernet. So it has an ethernet port? Well, no. Actually, it has something even better: USB Host! You can connect any ol' USB ethernet adapter you have laying around. And, of course, that means you can connect it to just about any other USB device that you can find a driver for Linux for. Naturally, it'll work out of the box with USB drives, which include memory keys, external hard drives, digital cameras, MP3 players, memory card readers, and other things all via USB 1.1. Yeah, that's right. The host mode is only available via USB 1.1. But it has two USB ports, so something else (a host, of course) can be connected to the USB 2.0 port. And it even has a removable battery so when you're done charging your cell phone while copying stuff to it off the USB port, you can feed it another battery. And they ditched the Archos standard 20GB drive for a 30GB drive. Excellent. And a decent QVGA display will keep it ahead of many media players, though not many Linux PDAs.
As with all new Archos AV devices... I want one. And now. Of course, I haven't gotten one since the Multimedia 020. I skipped the Multimedia 120, the AV300, the AV400, and the Gmini 400.
What am I waiting for?! Well, for one, it's not actually available yet. And for two, it's expected to cost USD$800 That's rather quite expensive. Doh.
Also read about it at Linux Devices.
Even worse face grease problem...
N506iS, DoCoMo's new phone with no speaker - Engadget - www.engadget.com
Seriously, though... it might be some cool tech that can do this (you know, a transducer... those are totally new) but it'll just make the screen that much dirtier...
Verizon and Motorola at the Wrong end of a Class action suit over the V710
Well, it looks like the "crippling" of the Bluetooth in the Motorola V710 that Verizon surely required could cause trouble for both companies. Who knows if the suit will get anywhere. After all, it does do the DUN and headset profiles. Of course, since a hack for the V710 is floating around that enables some addition features it's clear that the features were there. But how could the suit get anywhere -- it's not as if those features were advertised as being there and then weren't there. Supporting Bluetooth doesn't imply any sort of set of profiles.
Don't get me wrong. I want my OBEX and Serial profiles available. But still...
Massive Despam
I just finished removing about 1600 pieces of comment spam, upgrading to MT 3.14, and installing the latest version of MT-Blacklist.
I then went to try to comment and discovered that something wasn't setup properly and I couldn't comment with a TypeKey login at all. Doh!
Real comments should be possible now, should anyone want to do so.
If spam is sufficiently reduced by all of the steps I've taken to reduce it, I may turn on unregistered comments again.
We'll see. I don't really expect comments for most things I post. But should someone want to comment, I don't wan't to make it too much of a pain, either.
January 8, 2005
A Real Eye Opener
The other day I had to go into a DMV office. I overheard a couple of things the person in front of me was saying (yeah, there was actually only one person in front of me).
The person in front of me was a mother with her son, who looked to be about 4-5 years old. The statement I overheard, with a gesture towards her son next to her was, "My son here has brain cancer."
...
January 5, 2005
TrackBack Ping Spam
Well, it's happened. The spammers have started spamming with trackback pings. Hopefully some of the Movable Type anti-spam stuff will be able to guard against this. However, until then, I'm thinking I may have to turn off the track back feature. At least with the regular spam it won't show up unless I approve it.
*sigh*
There's gotta be something that can be done to seriously make spammers thing twice before spamming...
January 4, 2005
LBS enabled Phone Games
This is a list (with some description) of various mobile phone games that use LBS. Cool if you're looking from something fairly new or different.
eBooks -- Daily Pages Via RSS
Russell Beattie Notebook - Serialized eBooks via RSS
Ever wanted to read a classic but you don't have the time? Have time to read your RSS feeds because they're short and "quick"?
Try Russ's new "Serialized eBooks via RSS" feed service that will feed up a daily page of a classic book. All URL based, at least until someone does a quick front end for it, so you kinda need to know what you're doing but it's easy enough once you do.
It should be interesting to see how popular this is. Personally, I think it's great, although I can see some issues. For instance, is a page enough to be able to keep track of what you're reading? Especially since you're only starting with a page? Might be interesting if the first hit returned, say, 10 RSS items just to get things rolling.
