ICO Violates GPL

Well normally I don't like to blast away at PS2's thunder. Seams to me the publishers of ICO could benefit more than suffer by releasing the source code and providing space for a community to thrive. However past experiences with this sort of thing tend to lead me in an alternate direction. hop over to Digg or the website linked below for the proof.

read more | digg story

5 ways to make your PC more like a Mac; But why?

Here's another example of what the spinning rim, black under lighting, and NOS installing wanna be Geek fan boy has brought to the table (along with crappy case mods, supporting an ever growing list of 3rd person shooters that suck, and daddy's trust fund money.) Theres a time and place for everything boys and girls; and that place is high school. But seriously; In the below linked article, (well written and lain out by the way), sets out guides for setting up the windows Vista/XP UI to be more like a Mac. The question I lay before you is WHY? If you want a mac, buy a mac, be an adult and say proudly: I'M BUYING A MAC BECAUSE I THINK IT'S USEFUL. Not that it's my personal choice; however, I use a lot of windows only applications in day to day tasks; its' not really an option for me. Which is neither here nor there. I submit however, that the never ending quest to make PC's more like macs has never gone well... Lets look at a few company's who've tried this. NExT - Steve Jobs pet project that was broken up and sold off in peaces. Be OS, a company started by cast off (cast off or left intentionally)mac software engineers with little clear cut goals besides making an alternative to windows. The new operateing system that sold abysmally, and they couldn't even really give it away either. Am i missing anything else? Not to sound overtly negative (like I have any chance of that now) however there's good reasons to doing as the article says ... however talk about it messing with system configuration files spells disaster for the very large percentage of users who would be using the software for the "flashing lights and neat buzzer" factor. I'd have played the article out as more of a guide for advanced users who are put off by the Vista / XP UI and need something else.

read more | digg story

Social Media is "The Godfather" of the Internet ... NOT

Well if social media is the mafia/godfather of the internet... then what is C|net or Slashdot or even Digg? Dose social media control the internet or is it merely a reflection of a post 90's generation need to be on the yearbook comity? Time Tells all but for one thing is certain cash is king and some of the above listed sights have a lot of it.... perhaps social media is not the godfather but a passing fad, a glimpse of right now; I say social media is the Crash Test Dummies of today... A great band in there own right; but who plays it anymore besides Lucy (XM54 in the us). Lets think before we compare greatness with ambiguity and passing fads.

read more | digg story

By Far the Best... Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

OK so is it' so bad to digg my own post? well anyways like the post on TV Guide says this is one of the greatest Christmas specials ever!!! really! it out Saturday the 8th on ABC Family.... its an adaptation of the L. Frank Balm classic story the Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.

read more | digg story

AT&T Samsung Sync (SGH-A707) - A poor man's iPhone

Okay, Okay I own a sync, and I'm a "loyal" AT&T wireless customer, now before you get all bent out of shape yes I work for the cable company. To a certain extent that makes me a hypocrite but because I am a AT&T wireless customer, that doesn't make me less of a cable man. First and foremost, the thing you have to understand is originally i subscribed to the service back when It was Cingular. Then AT&T came out and bought Cingular... well.. something like that; but at any rate it doesn't matter much to me cause the service works and I don't have to think about it.... and that's fine for me.

ehhem, with that said we can get down to brass tacks... I LOVE MY NEW PHONE! First off it's red, yeah i know it shouldn't matter but I haven't had a new phone in like FOREVER! so that being said it's great that finally I get a new phone. But that's not why your here I'm guessing you want to know a little bit about the phone before you buy one. Well first off; it's dirt cheep right now when you sign a contract... i picked mine up for $20.00 with a contract from AT&T, upgrade rate online deal... it was a steal (i thought) till i saw it at wall mart for free with a contract... sigh. Well all of that aside it's a nice little phone; that gets even better when you get yourself set up with Blue Tooth and a MicroSD card.

Everything I've read about this phone says that if you have head phones plugged into it it becomes bulky and the port cover is venerable; easily solved by investing in a set of blue tooth headphones; which the phone supports. I think this phone was originally conceived to take advantage of bluetooth; and it's highly miss rated by the community as bluetooth is not as hyped of a feature for phones. Because the phone supports so many bluetooth features you don't need to use the io port for anything but plugging in the power to charge the thing. Another drawback that's de-bunked by blue tooth is the SD port being fragile and hard to operate... both of these statements are true; however you can copy things to and from the SD card over Bluetooth as well as through the cable with no trouble. This eliminates the need to remove the SD card from the phone at all. I purchased a USB Bluetooth key for 20 at walmart, also the SD card was bought there but i don't remember how much that was... it was cheep though.

Video playback is tolerable and SUPER (TM) makes excellent quality files from most media formats; making watching video on the phone very easy to accomplish and low cost. The phone supports 3GP and MP4 container types. Limited to only Narrow Band AMR audio codec, but allowing mpeg4 Visual codec, as well as standard H.263 video (of the two the phone uses Mpeg4). I have successfully viewed videos up to 320x240 at 15 FPS with a Fixed bit rate of 350Kbps. the audio is monual 8000Hz 13Kbps (even though the unit has 2ch speakers). Minimal blockyness was seen on animated clips at this resolution but i haven't tried anything live action. Serial TV episodes (around 29-35 minutes) end up being around 54 MB. Recommended to accomplish this task is SUPER at a bare minimum but you may have to adjust the aspect of the Video in virtual dub so that video doesn't look so stretched out. One minor annoyance is the video playback bar stays peasant on the screen during playback. Long movies might be cumbersome to watch from the middle as there is no playback support for encoded chapters.

Audio playback supports (at least) WMA, and MP3. The phone Records in AMR format and play's it back. The unit was bought more or less as a video player so i don't know much more than this. it seams to play whatever I through at it in these 3 formats however.

The phone has quite Decent Internet Access, as I don't use it much, I have little to say about it. It supports bidirectional IM and that's all i need it for. Phone has 3G support so those of you buying the phone for streaming video or audio will be pleased as punch. It has built in SongID, from what I can tell from the 3 day trial it seams to work well.

The phone book is useful and intuitive, it integrates with the IM client to tell you if contacts are on line or not at a glance. I haven't tried integration with a calendar or outlook.

Over all The phone dose what I need it to. I couldn't be more happy with it, I hope this review sheds some light on a well thought out purchase. but feel free to leave comments here if you don't understand something or need additional information. I will gladly try to accommodate.

Fun with CCE or one of the things less fun than shooting yourself in the face.

This is just a quick slap up here, i've started to work with the MPEG output generated by my DVD player.... I am currently working on a project to convert some off air episodes to DVD (yeah i know i just recored them to DVD), with subtitles, and chapters... the easy part is pulling apart the commercials but when it comes to taking CCE (closed captions) thats where the fun begins. I have tools for riping them right out of the MPEG output generated by dvddcrypter... but; then i have to cut out the commercials leavening the subtitles badly out of sync... what's a boy to do? well currently i am trying a method involving a frame server and subrip. I want to eventually write a little app to cut the subtitles from one of the various output types that comskip generates; but as far as i can tell that's going to be a pain in the ass as well. well here's hopeing :)

Three computers too much for one desk?

Ok, so i have 3 computers on my desk... 4 if you count my pocket pc. I use one of the laptops for video conversion, one for document reading and software development and the third for games and ohter stuff. I don't see a problem with this. I payed for one of the computers the other two are hand me downs... anybody else think this is pathetic?

Final Fantasy VII PC on Windows 2000 SP4

Well, I dusted off my old copy of Final Fantasy VII for PC on a whim early this week. Mainly cause I was impressed with all the fan based patches that were coming out for it. I was flabbergasted by the lack of support for windows 2000 SP4. Not to mention that there's conflicting opinions about what patches to use; what makes playability better etc. What Annoys the hell out of me is that to finally make it work under windows 2k you need Micro$oft's Application Compatibility Toolkit V3.0; not surprisingly enough you can't find it simply anywhere... (wouldn't want people to get the idea that they don't need to upgrade to window$ vi$ta would we..) Well after googleing around much of the known universe I managed to find a copy. Then it was a simple matter of patching the hell out of the game to make it work. Since there's a lot out there and it's a popular TFH starter, i will refrain from telling exactly which patches I used. Suffice to say theres quite a bit of information floating around out there and you can decide for yourself what you would like to run.

Here's the ACT (Application Compatibly Toolkit) settings

Start the ACT Compatibility Administrator Tool - hit fix, Enter Name and Publisher (FF7//Squaresoft and browse to the ff7.exe Hit next. Select None, hit next, enable: Shrinker, EmulateWriteFile,Virtual Registry. Hit Next. SelectAll and then finish. Run should do it now! (thanks to: http://www.ffseven.com/faq.php).

After that you might want to save the database... I don't know if you have to but it worked for me. From here on out you can run FF7.exe by clicking on it and it will work. I don't know about the High Res Patch or the Sound Replacement projects I will be trying those later.

Usefull Links:
This is were the settings for the ACT came from.
Get All (most of) the patches here

Files:

The_SaiNt_High_Res_FF7PC_Patcher.7z (I had problems with alot of the distributions out there ... this one works)
act30pkg.7z ~ managed to pull this off a Russian tech help site... heres the download without the Russian

OH AND ONE OTHER THING:

Stay away from the XP patch... it's a hack of 2 different fan patches and it was done without permission, it has also been known to cause problems with midi playback.

Vampire The Masqurade ~ Redemption (on windows 2000)

OK, here goes! The Activision web site says you have to use a replacement .ins (setup.7z below) file and copy the setup directory from the first disk to your hard drive. Go ahead and follow those directions. THEN, what you need to do is download the modded registry files below and run that. You should then be able to patch the game's files and go from there. PLEASE NOTE, you may have to edit the .reg file to your system settings in the notepad before installing it or the patch wont work AND the game won't run. Pay special attention to Drive letters... if you install to C:\ then leave it the way it is but for certain, unless your CD drive letter is E:, your gonna have to change that. YOU WILL RUN INTO A LARGE NUMBER OF ERRORS while installing, this is OK as far as I can tell you just click through them. The game runs splendidly at 1024x768 32bit color; with all the settings at there highest levels, on the presario 2100. Better than i remember it running on my first athalon (733mhz).

Files:
vtmreg.7z - Modded Registry file
setup.7z
VampirePatch.7z

Radion IGP 320M

Boy, and i thought getting my IDE cards working right under win2k would suck.

TURNS OUT... GART support is NOT included with the Compaq drivers for the Compaq presario 2100... Well you can download the drivers from ATI, and then install them... i would suggest you do that before you install the drivers... or you might have to reinstall the drivers ... lol anyways the Machine supports AGP, the drivers work in PCI mode but MUCH better when you can enable 4x agp. I have the omega 3.8.252 drivers installed (the newest version that works right) and the newest GART drivers from ATI.

Below is a modded GART driver... and the IGP 320M Omega Drivers.

rad_w2kxp_omega_38252.7z
Radion IGP 320M modded GART drivers.7z

Bash head Here X....

OK so it's 7:53 at night and I'm reinstalling the computer... YES AGAIN! I've had it with Vista, and everything it stands for! I'm putting win2k back on and it's staying till something else comes along that's WAY more reliable. I went to win2k with the laptop about a week ago and i found myself doing WAY more than i wanted to do with the lap top, and it's slower and has less memory!!! well, anyway enough about that rant, on to something more my style... I have a question. How come you have to Reboot windows 30 or 40 times to reinstall something.... and were not just talking windows 2000 but even vista, you make the slightest system change and BAM! your rebooting your machine. I just think Micro$oft has been in the operating system business with PCs since what, 1983? perhaps earlier... here we are 2007, and ... Please wait wile we reboot your computer because you made a two character change to this configuration file. WTF? anybody who's been around to the other side of the block knows you almost NEVER have to reboot a mac or a Linux box for that matter. So what gives? is it just laziness or, no competition that drives this. Micro$oft seems to be so good at stealing open source software and getting away with it *Ehehm... Qteee ... eh, cough cough* sorry just clearing my thought; perhaps they should steal a few software engineers from the other camp to show them how to write a kernel better, or better yet; take a stand, realize that there platform is out of date, and stop perpetuating compatibility with older platforms at the cost of performance, reliability and system security. But what do I know, I'm just a cable guy. See you all on the flip side.

taken a break to reinstall winblows...

well there you have it, I've managed to screw up another perfectly fine XP install, and like the bone headed fool I am i wiped clean the system partition (not the project partition, OggCConv is safe, without checking any hardware versions or anything! well that sux but can I bring my Compaq 2100 laptop back from the dead without begging Compaq for help? the answer is yes and since there is literally NO information on putting windows 2000 on this machine available on the web i thought I'd write a little tutorial here.

First thing's first, make sure you have drivers for Ethernet, and a good install media available. It helps to have SP4 and the security roll up on cd too before you start but dont say I didn't warn you if you decide to do these with the web based install, I haven't tried it... just not my style. NOW first off getting some key info... I had to download Everest home edition and profile the system to find out most of this stuff but here's the specs for key hardware drivers not available on the Compaq web site.

MY specific model is 2108us.... *(atholon)*

Ethernet: National Semiconductor DP83815 10/100 Fast Ethernet Controller
Sound: Uli/Ali M5451 AC-Link Controller Audio Device
Modem: Uli/Ali M5457 AC'97 Modem Controller (shows up as a pci device under device manager)

I was able to Google all of these drivers, I posted them all along with 7zip and the Everest Home Edition tool (freeware downloaded off of Major Geeks). See the bottom of this post.

EVERYTHING ELSE is available on the Compaq web site, I just downloaded the display drivers and the Intel power management stuff.

Install Win2k, basic settings, reconfigure to taste and then install SP4 and the roll up (if that's your style, there are some hard core SP3 users out there, I don't know if this guide will run as smoothly though I haven't tested it.) After all of that is done install the drivers i've uploaded and you should be good and well on your way to installing AVG, Adaware and Spybot SD... or whatever else you install next on a fresh install. Hope all this helps; here's the link to the files:

2108US - Win2K Drivers & Utilities.zip

2108US - Win2K Drivers & Utilities.7z

OGGCConv 1.02 Released!

Another release for OGGCConv, this version suports some error detection, and better handling of time stamp conversion by rounding seconds if ms is > 500... neat stuff, if you don't want that for your files continue to use 1.01... command line flags not supported yet but soon.

OggCConv1.02.zip
OggCConv1.02.7z

Pull them off of snap drive as usual, still no word on sourceforge project page... still being reviewed.

OggCConv

Well i've been saying it for years and now I've finally done it. I tied myself down to an open source project. I wrote a little app that converts OGG style Chapter files to DivxMediaBuilder format. Useful if your app you are working with doesn't generate DivxMediaBuilder Files... you can pull it off my snapdrive at http://www.snapdrive.net/files/469964/OggCConv1.01.7z or http://www.snapdrive.net/files/469964/OggCConv1.01.zip

worth a look right? I put in a request for sourceforge this afternoon, hopefully my application gets approved.

MyspaceIM in a sane environment?

My space, the Juggernaut were everybody who's anybody gathers to network... perhaps but there are many; myself included trying out alternatives to this online lifestyle, using services such as Google, face book, and (dare I say it) yahoo. This works out most of the time but what if there's people in your ring of friends that aren't willing to cut the proverbial cord and go with a more open networking solution? For now you have to install myspaceIM to keep in touch with those im buddies who still cling to the add bloated service. But there's hope for all of us (well at least a glimmer) surf on over to the summer of code and check out this application! http://code.google.com/soc/gaim/appinfo.html?csaid=4B00CA67C908BCE3 some programmers are working on a way to reverse engineer the social network juggernauts IM protocol and create a plug in for the well known IM client Pidgin (formally known as gaim) some really neet stuff.
Anywhoo... real life beacons

PS: theres also a link to the Pidgin Wiki here: http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/MySpaceIM

MKV... Pocket PC.... ETC...

OK so it's a crappy title for this blog but there's not much here, but here goes. I am playing around with the IPAQ and I've decided to write a set of notes on how to make MKV files for TCPMP. I Tried several software's for doing this automatically and finally decided the best way to do it (like anything) is manually. I should have a new post for everybody put up here for later till then were running around getting ready for Thursday (the big due date). Cheers everybody!

Dave

A quick one then I Gotta go...

Just a small update, everybodys fine here at the collins ranch. No baby yet; mary go's to the doctor today to see if we can go early for a C-Section. We're playing around with our pocket PC's i hope to have some fun stuff (with pictures hopefully) to post next time. I'm sorry for not being as diligent with this blog as the rest of you would like. BUT im so glad to not be tied to MySpace any more. Cheers all, i gotta get to work.

PS GOOGLE ROCKS!!!

Day 1 ... a new blog a new rant and fun with Vista

OK here we go i installed vista last night, thinking mary's not using this licence .... well that's were the fun began. I started by popping in the vista cd and clicking fresh install... a few moment's later realized EVERYTHING they taught me in systems class about not putting NTFS on the partition i want to put the OS on (cause you might wanna boot into dos and fix something...) yeah that was wrong..... SOOOOO i start by booting up my computer with the Vista CD and putting in my serial number .... this is an upgrade please run from OS you are upgrading.... SUCK... OK well; next comes the fun part i boot my computer up with win2k install disk (i can't use XP cause my disk is bricked and that was the whole reason for the Vista adventure in the first place) repartition and install win2k... by now its 11pm and i don't even have vista on the computer yet. So after playing though a goodly portion of Wild Arms on the PSX and waiting for the fairly minimalist install to work.... i reboot and then i get nothing! Win2k turns out trashing my partition table... and boom Dave's booting Linux Ubentu now to blank the whole 160 gig disk and start over.... 12:30 win2k install gets to the second stage, I'm setting time zones and installing SP4 (yeah cause the vista installer wont work without SP4).... 1:15 am i kick off the install enter my serial number and walla we have lift off... all 15 gigs of vista are floating off the DVD and on to their new home on my Maxtor.... Wild Arms you are my only friend... 2:00 am vista finishes installing and is testing performance of my computer... i dive into bed but am two wired to go to sleep so end up getting back up and watching the last 45 minutes of watter boy. perusing through the welcome center i come across an activation link with a *you have 3 days to activate* link... so i click it (Mary's not using this licence remember?) .... BOOM this copy of Vista has been activated; SUCK again ... well quickly hop over to Microsoft's web site to see how much a licence for home premium upgrade costs ... $129.99 weee... Mary just spent that to buy her copy and cause she used it for 2 weeks looks like were spending it again. :( REALLY frustrated and tired i install the catalyst drivers for the x1300 and go to bed. *4:00am* ... OK so Mary's 7.5 mo's snoring ... something that usually doesn't happen so i end up out on the couch that is dumpster bound once we move ... ANYWAY i get about 3 hours sleep and Ben wakes up and wants to play... Mary wants me to go to the bank etc... long story short Ben and I get to spend the morning together! yeah! I end up out at comp USA ... apparently everybody but me knows they are closing ... they have the memory upgrade i need to get Dirge up to 1Gig ... yeah so what I'm a cheep skate, and Vista Upgrade at close out prices ... i ended up spending around 150 bucks total for the memory and Vista... not to bad... Ben and i spend the rest of the morning bumming around and i make loud funny noises at him while we drive down the road. I get home and take a nap for about 3 hours... end up at my mother in laws for dinner (pizza NICE) and then home around 6/7 for Ben's bed time... all and all a productive day ... can't wait to see if the extra 512 makes a difference hopefully tomorrow i will actually get to play LC we shall see. Latter all.