Oct 16 2008

He Is Old… Oh… Hang On

Category: In The Media,Videos — ChrisM @ 1:43 am

Another 236 video here. I had not come across this great Palin speech before. In it, she refers to Joe Biden, the Democrat candidate for Vice President. She refers to having heard about his speeches back in the second grade. Obviously a (not very) subtle reference to her opposition’s age. Which is a bad thing. Except who is that man standing behind her, to the right of this video window? John McCain, who is SIX years older than Biden!

I’m guessing that this was either not through through properly by her speech writers, or it was an inspired off the cuff remark she just thought up on the spot. In either case… OOOPS

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Oct 15 2008

2D TV Style Prediction

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 5:47 pm

OK, to my American readers, apologies, as this post’s title probably doesn’t make a great deal of sense. 2D TV was an ITV satirical show in the same vein as Spitting Image, but portrayed with animation instead of puppets. What do you mean “Spitting Image… Whats that?” go and Google/Wiki away your ignorance 🙂 I’ll wait.
…
Done?
Good, then I’ll continue. Anyway, the following was found on 236.com, and is supposed to be an idea of what would happen in the oval office, should McCain and Palin win the upcoming election.

My thanks to 236 for not making it difficult to embed their work on this site, just a quick view source was enough to find the relevant code, and no amendments were needed for once.

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Apr 14 2008

424320 Seconds To Go!

Category: Amsterdam — ChrisM @ 5:08 pm

Well it is now just 118 hours until Irina and I leave for Amsterdam 🙂
I still have quite a lot to do work to do before we leave, not least is working out what to take with us for both the Netherlands and our subsequent trip to Britain. In terms of lightweight equipment, I am trying to minimize on the gadgets and accompanying power supplies etc., and also working out the minimum amount of clothes we can take, considering we’re not likely to be using a laundry in Holland. So what am I taking? Well my HTC TyTn II is definitely coming along, as it serves as my phone, a PDA (for gaming in between flights, internet browsing whenever I can find a WiFi signal) and it also has a built in GPS device, so there’ll be no excuse for getting lost whilst stumbling from one coffeeshop tourist destination to the next.

(Yes, I know 118 hours does not equal 424320 seconds, but by the time I wrote out this post, a few more minutes had past 🙂 )

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Feb 26 2008

Gilbert Goodmate on a WM6 Device

Category: Personal,Windows Mobile — ChrisM @ 8:29 pm

Just got round to installing all the applications and games I have on my old (mostly broken) iPAQ 2210 over onto my HTC TyTn II (originally known as a Kaiser). I’ve run up against a few problems, with some old games informing me that I need to have a device with at least Windows Mobile 2002 before I’m allowed to run the program. As the device has Windows Mobile 6 (at least 3 major versions more recent), this error message is erroneous 🙂 I have yet to find a way round this issue, however I did manage to sort a problem I encountered with updating some programs. I don’t remember having this problem on the old PDA, so I can only assume that perhaps the WM6 environment has caused things to go wrong. When attempting to update an application, sometimes all files are removed, instead of only those that will actually be updated. When you have separate updates (like having small updates from 1.0 > 1.02 > 1.03 > 1.04) instead of one leap (1.0 > 1.04), this can lead to a lot of critical files dissappearing.
Rather than giving up, I decided to think of a way of having a fully updated program installed. As an example, Gilbert Goodmate (if you’re old enough to remember the Monkey Island series, you’ll know its genre) exhibited this strange behaviour. So, I installed the main program, copied the directory contents to a separate temporary directory. Installing the next minor update caused lots of files to disappear, however it did cause the updated files to be placed in the original installation directory. So, copying this new version of the directory to another new temporary directory, I continued until all updates were installed. I then copied across the oldest temporary directory to the install folder, and repeated until the last temporary folder to be copied across was the latest update. This then left me with a complete, updated installation, at which point I could delete the temporary folders. Hope it helps someone out there…

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Dec 19 2007

Left A Bit, Down A Bit

Category: Kazakhstan — ChrisM @ 2:30 am

I need to find someone with an A3 scanner here in Astana, as I intend to try out the GPS feature of my HTC TyTnII next year, here in Kazakhstan’s capital. As I could not find any decent digital maps, or even just scans of road maps, I tried scanning in a fairly recent poster a while ago. As it was a lot larger than A4, I tried to scan it in segments, then stitch them together. Unfortunately the task was not exactly completed well, and although it is usable by human eyes and standards, I know that using it a basis for navigating using Lat/Long will result in a lot of inaccuracies. Anyway, if anyone hears of a friendly company willing to do a high res scan of the map for me, I’d be very grateful.

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Dec 10 2007

GPS Alternative

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 2:27 am

As you may remember from my previous posts re. the HTC TyTn II, I already use a Global Positioning System device when I am in Britain. Although there are of course the usual horror stories of little old grannies mindlessly following instructions and driving their Nissan Sunny into a pond, or of being taken on 250 mile detours, I find the ability to chill out about exactly which junction I need to exit from on the motorway, or the location of speed cameras very useful. According to an article over at BBC News, Europe is planning the launch of a system to offer an alternative to America’s GPS. The table at the end of the article is the sort of thing I really like from the BBC – a neat summary of exactly what is on the table, and in this case at least, who each section will be aimed at.

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Dec 03 2007

My Main Christmas Present

Category: Personal,WiFi,Windows Mobile — ChrisM @ 3:01 pm

I just wanted to show my readers a demonstration of my next toy 🙂
It is called a HTC TyTn II and will be replacing some of my current equipment…

My current phone (an Orange C550 (a rebadged HTC Hurricane) which crashes and some buttons no longer work all the time.
My current PDA (a HP iPAQ 2210) with a non-functioning directional pad, faulty USB socket, a snapped battery cover and it also crashes.
GPS unit – my current one no longer gets a fix on satellites.
The TyTn II also has a built-in camera, which should be an improvement over my current phone’s. Though without a flash, I don’t think it will be completely replacing our current digital camera.
Anyway, have a play with the demo below, you can spin the model around, slide open the keyboard and tilt the screen.
Continue reading “My Main Christmas Present”

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Apr 24 2007

System Specifications

Category: Personal — ChrisM @ 4:14 pm

When describing technical issues, I’m often called upon to supply the specifications of my IT equipment.
This post has been put together so I can easily refer people to the pertinent information…

System Specifications – PC

Intel D945 PVS Motherboard with 10/01/07 BIOS
Intel P4 660 3.6 GHz CPU
2 Gb RAM (2 X 1Gb 667MHz DDR2)
Asus 7900GT – PCIe x16 256Mb Grfx card – on Forceware 97.73
BenQ FP91V 19″ , Subini S-6811T 8″ & Sony KDL 40W2000 40″

NoName 550 Watt Twin Fan PSU
APC ES 525 Uninterruptable Power Supply – battery knackered
other UPS must update details here
Innovision EIO AP1680 PCI ATA133 RAID Controller (ITE IT8211 based)
Seagate Barracuda ST3320620AS 320Gb 7200rpm 16Mb Cache SATAII
Seagate Barracuda ST3160023A 160Gb 7200 rpm 8Mb Cache PATA-100
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus8 40 Gb PATA-133
Buffalo External 80Gb PATA/USB
WD External 250Gb PATA/USB
2 x Lite-On SHW-16H5S DVD-RR
EIO USB2 & Firewire PCI card

NetGear router – UPDATE
SafeCom IC+ 56K Ext. Modem (SEMT-5600)
TDK Bluetooth v1.2 Adapter (TRBLU03)

Logitech USB Cordless Trackman Trackball
Genius Keyboard – KKB-2050HS
XFX Executioner Dual Impact USB Gamepad (PSX-like force feedback controller)
Logitech Formula Force GP Force Feedback Steering Wheel & Pedals

Sony Ericssion K700i (used as a Bluetooth Remote Control/Phone for UK SIM card)
PC Line PC-100 TV Card – TV tuner/RCA/S-Video/InfraRed input (Based on Phillips 7134 chipset)
Genius VideoCAM Look WebCam
Canon DC080W (3Mp Digital Camera)
Microsoft Fingerprint Reader (Model 1033)
HP 1513 MFD
Various USB Thumbdrives

Redundant Spares
SafeCom SWAMR-54108 ADSL Modem/Router/AP – Now with Mother-in-law
D-Link 604T ADSL Modem/Router/AP – Now with Mum
Origo ASU-8000 USB ADSL modem
D-Link DWL-G122 USB2 Wi-Fi 802.11g Dongle
D-Link DGE-528T 1GBps PCI LAN Card
SafeCom USB 11Mbps WLAN Dongle – Now with brother
Nisis DV Cam 2 (Rev.1) – Photo, Video & Webcam

Software & Services Used :
Win XP Pro SP2 – All updates applied
No-Ip (Dynamic IP pointing)
TightVNC/WinVNC
ShoutCast
WebCamXP

System Specifications – PDA/PPC

iPaq 2210
240×320 Display
Intel PXA255 CPU
64Mb RAM
OS – Windows 2003 Mobile Edition (WinCE 4.20)
1Gb SD Card
11Mbps CF Wireless Card
GPS – 16 Sat
Bluetooth
Broken D-Pad – 4 hardware buttons re-assigned to navigational duties

System Specifications – SmartPhone

Orange SPV C550 (HTC Hurricane rebadged by Orange UK)
OS – Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphones (2nd Edition)
GSM & GPRS, triband 900/1800/1900 MHz
2.2 inch screen 240×320 pixels TFT transflective LCD, 64k colours
Camera 1.3 Mp
TI OMAP 750 Processor
64Mb ROM, 32Mb RAM
2 Gb Mini-SD Card
GPS – 16 Satellite
TomTom Mobile5, Battery Monitor, CellTrack, TCPMP, SmartVNC, GPRS Traffic Monitor, Smurf, Doom, GNUBoy, PicoDrive, NES Emulator, Worms World Party

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