Oct 27 2008

Bodging The Night Away

Category: PersonalChrisM @ 9:24 pm

We went out today to try and buy a few AV cables for the inlaws. They recently bought a new TV, and moved the old plasma screen into the kitchen downstairs. Ideally, I wanted a fully pinned up SCART cable, so the satellite receiver could output RGB to the new TV, a SCART to 3 RCA (Composite Video, Left & Right Audio) lead, and finally a SCART gender bender.

SCART Gender Bender

The last item was needed as the wireless Audio/Video sender has custom leads plugged into it, with only a SCART plug at the other end. As the old plasma screen has no scart socket, a gender bender would have meant I could have eventually gone from the modified 3.5mm plug at the AV wireless receiver end to 3 RCA. (Unfortunately the 3.5mm three channel plug was not of a standard length, meaning my existing lead did not carry video correctly, as the spacing between connections was non-standard). The shop we went to did not have a gender bender, nor anything with a female SCART socket involved. Back to the drawing board… In the end I looked up the pin outs for a scart plug, refreshed my mind as to which was + and which was ground on RCA (phono) plugs, and soldered/bodged a new lead.
Unfortunately I have a nagging suspicion that the extra wall the signal will now have to travel through (the old, old TV in the kitchen was sat in a cupboard away from the wall) means the quality won’t be great.

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Oct 24 2008

Construction Freeze & Outdated Or Incomplete Report

Category: Friends,In The Media,KazakhstanChrisM @ 5:21 am

So here we have a video I recorded from the World News Report – Business Edition from the BBC World channel. (I did try to find one officially uploaded earlier in the day, but couldn’t locate one, so I used my AV card). Anyway, our friend Natalya Kim lives in Almaty, and as I don’t see her city often mentioned on the news, I thought I’d show it here. It contains information on the global financial crisis and how it effects Almaty residents, especially those involved in the construction industry.
I was a little surprised that the correspondent didn’t make mention of the Prime Minister and President’s recent speeches on the matter – you can read more on this over at EurAsiaNet’s article.

I suppose it is possible this was recorded a week or so ago, and they didn’t have time/didn’t think to re-dub it?

[edit]
OK, so that video was originally uploaded and ready for embedding in this post an hour or so ago. Then I checked it’s YouTube page, and the audio had pitch shifted down a few octave! I’d not originally had the speakers on as I didn’t want to risk waking Ira, servers me right for not (quietly) checking it before uploading I suppose. This one should be ok, and don’t blame my poor AV card for the video quality – thats down to YouTube’s conversion process I’m afraid. Better go and find out how you get those ‘Watch In High Quality’ links on your uploaded videos I suppose.

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May 23 2007

Phone Bill Sky High?

Category: PersonalChrisM @ 8:19 am

If you have a Nokia phone, and find strange charges for SMSs to Russia, you should probably install an anti-virus application for you Symbian powered SmartPhone, as an article over at The Register.
This appears to be proof that the malware creators have started to work in earnest on misbehaving codes for mobile devices. Although anti-virus programs have been around for a while, when they were first released, many people scoffed, and saw them simply as another income source for AV companies. Now, the twisted individuals who create viruses, trojans and other malicious code seem to have broadened their horizons. Sad news, but worth taking note of, I believe.

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