Archive for the ‘General Computer Stuff’ Category
Get EVDO, and stop being taken
I was having a fascinating chat with my traveling buddy, Walt, yesterday. We were sitting in the restaurant of the Hilton North Greenpoint in Houston, and he asked me how the internet access in the hotel was working out.
T (Me): Well, the speed’s fine.
W (Walt): Is the wireless pretty good?
T: I suppose. It transmits data, if that’s what you mean.
W: No, I’m just wondering if it’s any better than what I went through to use on of their desktops in the “business center.”
T: I’d guess that using my MacBook is better than using a PC in any room, on any internet connection. /me grins.
W: Yah, especially at $1.50/minute.
…and this is where the rant begins. $1.50/minute? I was already paying [correction: the company was paying] $10.77/day for a connection, wireless or wired, on each device that needed one. In my case, that was three - MacBook, Dell laptop for work, and the iPhone…which made for a grand total of $64.62 in internet charges for two days. [Note: this is about $5 more than what I pay for my Sprint EVDO card/month]
Neat Trick: Two Laptops, One Without Wi-Fi?
I was recently with a buddy whose corporate laptop doesn’t have wifi, and it occurred to me to see if I could share my EVDO connection with him. Guess what? The sharing preferences on your Mac make this task a two-click process.
Connect to the internet with your mac, and you can share that connection seamlessly over ethernet, firewire, or even wireless.
I guess I always knew this was possible, but I’d never realized how convenient it was. Give it a go.
TiVo To Go
I’ve had a TiVo for quite a while now, and it’s been good to me. As a result of laziness, my trusty TiVo has operated with a standard phone connection as its only link to the outside world; it downloads its updates in the background, and I hadn’t given it a thought.
That is, until today.
So it turns out that one of my buddies is on MTV this week, and we want to capture the show to send around (Disclaimer: this practice probably violates several content protection laws, but I’m claiming ignorance). A recent chit-chat confirmed that I was the best bet, in our circle of friends, in getting this video on a hard drive. Naturally, I turned to my TiVo.
Fortunately, I had an extra USB wireless adapter laying around…and after some USB cable jiggery pokery (can you believe it uses an A-A USB cable?), was able to get the TiVo on the network here at the house. And a whole new world opened up to me…
You might know that I have an affinity for podcasting, and it turns out that the TiVO has a “Podcaster” app built in. Yep, you guessed it: you can listen to your favorite podcasts directly through your TiVo! Rad.
Copying movies from the TiVo is a cinch with the TiVo To Go app from their website, and a slick little app called DirectShow Dump, you can quickly convert the videos to an unprotected MPEG format.
I’ve now got all of the music on my server available for perusal and enjoyment through my TiVo, as well as all of the photos in my iPhoto library.
Did I mention that there are several little internet apps on there (like weather and traffic)?
Hook up your TiVo. Seriously.
technorati tags:tivo, tivotogo, television, dvr
Quicken, Macs, Smartphones…
For those of you who use Macs, you’ve probably installed Quicken at least once or twice. It’s arguably the only reasonable finance management program available for Mac (though there are several alternatives), for a whole slew of reasons; most importantly, it does an adequate job of retrieving transactions from online banking sites..and that’s huge.
But if you’re a Mac user, using Quicken, and also carrying around a Windows Smartphone…you may have noticed that you’re missing something.
I’m personally fond of the idea of having a mobile Quicken interface in my pocket when I’m out and about, and Windows users have been doing this for a long time. There are programs like Pocket Quicken that will let you sync your Windows Quicken up with your Windows Smartphone, and a few others that will let you sync up your Windows OR Mac Quicken with your Palm OS device. Alas, there are no alternatives (that we’re able to find) for syncing up Mac Quicken with a Windows Smartphone.
Hey, Mark/Space - can you add this to your list? Or, if you’ve got some ideas for how to do this, please fill up the comments…
technorati tags:quicken, mac, smartphone, windows, finance
“Clear” up your voicemail
Have you ever thought: “Ya know, my voice sounds like absolute garbage in my voicemail greeting…just like everyone else”? Take a hint from us, and give this a shot.
Skype is offering free “SkypeOut” until the end of the year, as identified on their site:
Free calling within the US and Canada.
But remember, you can make free calls within the US and Canada to both landlines and mobile phones until the end of the year. It’s really easy; there are no contract fees, no line rentals. All you need is Skype and a phone number you want to call.
SkypeOut lets you make calls via Skype to regular landlines, and given that the connection quality is higher than your normal phone connection, you’ll find that your voice will sound ever-so-wonderful when recorded on your voicemail system.
It’s also an excellent way to record messages left for you and distribute them online.
Samsung Camera Videos in OS X
My relatively new Samsung sports camcorder rocks the proverbial house. The thing is so small, solid and generally usable that I’m amazed it ever has time to charge.
That being said, we’ve had a hell of a time with converting its videos (which are .AVI DIVX files) into something usable on our Macs. Thus far, I’d been unable to convert the videos using any of the standard tools (DivX Toll, DivX Doctor II, etc.), and had been using iSquint - which works where Quicktime had not - to export the videos in .MOV.
I’ll still use iSquint, but it’s going to be for iPod conversions only…thanks to the solution below.
I took a few minutes and sent the following email to a lesser geek buddy of mine. You might find it helpful.
Yo -
I just discovered a much better way to convert the videos you shoot
with your Samsung video camera.iSquint works pretty well, but it’s really more intended for
converting videos to be iPod-friendly.This new method keeps the original file size, shape and resolution.
You can always export for iPod when you’ve done something in iMovie.First step: change the recording mode in the camera options of your
camera from TV to PC. Leave it there.Second step: download hexedit for OSX here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/hexeditOnce you’ve copied your camera movies (*.AVI) over to your hard drive,
open one of them in HexEdit. Leave the settings as “auto”.It’ll open up a bunch of stuff that’ll look like garbage to you. Don’t
worry, this is hexadecimal representation of the file’s code. If you
look on the right side, you’ll see the letters “SEDG” twice: once on
row 70 (usually), and again on row B0. You want to replace each
instance (there are only two) of “SEDG” with the letters “DIVX”. Using
the Apple-F (Find) command has an option for Replace, so it simplifies
things a tad. Be aware that doing the “Replace All” command will take
a few seconds, as large video files have a ton of lines…I find it
quicker to “Find” then “Replace” twice for each file.Save the file, close it, and try to open it; it should open in QT by
default. If it plays, we’re golden.There may be some DIVX codecs that you don’t have installed….but
that’s super simple. Let me know if this doesn’t get your videos
playing.Once you’ve done that, you’ll probably notice that you’ve got a new
file called YOURFILE.AVI~, and the original called YOURFILE.AVI. This
is HexEdit automatically creating a backup of your file. Once you’ve
got things rolling smoothly here, you can turn off “Create Backups” in
the options menu of HexEdit, and it’ll no longer create those files
with the ~ at the end. You can also delete those files once your’e
satisfied. In the event that something goes terribly wrong, you can
restore the ~ files before deleting them.Essentially, Windows recognizes that SEDG nonsense…even though it’s
not standard. We know that the Samsung cameras are encoding in DIVX
format, so we’re just circumventing the weak attempt at further
Windows monopoly.
Tip: If you’ve got a bunch of files to modify, select them all in a
Finder window, and right click (ctrl-click), select Open With, choose
Other, and select HexEdit. It’ll open all of the files in stacked
windows.
Enjoy!
Technorati Tags: DivX, iSquint, video
Gmail Hosting: Part Deux
As we discussed in our last post, Google is now offering email domain hosting, and we took the plunge with Turnip Network last week.
The setup process was more or less straightforward, though we encountered a little speed bump when changing our MX records. We’d be interested in hearing some "tech guy" commentary on this, but if you use Yahoo! Domains (with a custom DNS pointing to your own server, or a server somewhere other than Yahoo!), there is no way to modify the mail server. According to Yahoo!, you must change the mail server information on the domain to whose nameservers you are forwarding your domain.
Let me boil it down. In our case, we needed to modify MX/mail server entries on our server - not with our registrar. This particular situation isn’t identified in any of the Google help documentation, and it wasn’t until after some extensive sifting in Google Groups that we actually found something. Regardless, after tweaking the server, we were good to go.
You get 25 addresses to assign, each of which come with just over 2 GBs of storage. The administrator account has an e-mail address, but also provides settings/control panel for the domain. Get ready to use a new URL for logging in; good old gmail.com or mail.google.com won’t cut it. You’re given a domain-specific login (which clearly explains whatís going on) at a location like mail.google.com/hosted/yourdomain.com.
After all is said and done, youíre going to be loving Gmail, and not hating the infamous "On Behalf of" attachment to your non-Gmail addresses. Bravo Gmail; now, let us pay extra for more storage, and we’ll give you our credit cards (2 gigs simply is NOT enough).
Tags: gmail hosting, gmail, webmail
Gmail…your taunting continues
I’ve spent a lot of time - most visibly in this series of posts [turnipville.com] - complaining about the shortcomings of Gmail’s "send from" feature. I found out the hard way just how Google’s message headers result in the infamous "On Behalf of" tag in front of your e-mail address…and I was devastated.
My frustration was substantial enough that it sent me running to to a premium Yahoo! account, then to Runbox, over to a small stint with Mail.app, and finally back to Yahoo!.
Well, it’s all clear now. Google’s launched domain e-mail hosting. Like everything else they do, it’s in Beta…but they’ve approved mine, and I’m giving it a run.
I’ve moved all of the turnipnetwork.com e-mail over to Gmail, and will be testing it over the next several weeks. My first impressions are simple: it looks like Gmail, and I can send e-mail from turnipnetwork.com addresses WITHOUT the dreaded "On Behalf of".
This is an excellent solution for organizations that have several accounts, and want some quality e-mail options. It’s not the answer for people who are looking for a way to manage several different e-mail addresses.
It’s probably perfect for those of you who are starting up your own websites, but don’t have the time or budget to wage a full-scale e-mail campaign.
Instant Messenger Wars
How is it that there are so many instant messenger protocols, and that they’ve ALL got substantial support?
I’m reminded of VHS/Beta (and the impending Blu-Ray/HDVD) battles every time someone says "what’s your IM?"
"Hey, send me an e-mail and we’ll set it up."
"Why don’t you just IM me?"
"Ok..gimme your screen name."
"x391jf93ltricks22"
"That’s AOL, right?"
"No, Yahoo!"
"I don’t have Yahoo!…do you have an MSN account?"
"No. You’ve got Skype though, right?"
"I used to…just send me an e-mail, and I’ll call you."
Now, thanks to things like Trillian and Adium, people are able to combine their different IM accounts in one interface…but you’re still using three or four different protocols. Is there really a difference?
I’ve heard that it’s almost a geographic thing: U.S.A. uses AIM, Canada uses MSN, Australia uses Yahoo!…
…but how the hell did that happen?
My official proposition: since I use AIM primarily, I would ask all internet users to either convince me of the benefits of Yahoo! or MSN, or begin using AIM exclusively.
Thank you. I’ll be waiting.
Tags: IM, Instant Messenger, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, AIM