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You could also try tk Social Bookmarking Search or tk Video Search!

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Free: TinyLoad, ADrive, ASCII browser, Just Bento/Just Hungry

1 comments

Offtopic: Darn, I thought I'd be early today. :)

TinyLoad

TinyLoad Sick of file hosting sites and their tiny bandwidth limits? Here comes ! Upload your file to TinyLoad and it'll mirror your file on up to 10 other file hosts. Sure there are other sites that provide such a service, but do they upload to ?

With Amazon S3 as one of the upload sites, you don't need to worry about entering captchas, buying premium memberships or slow downloads. For programmers, TinyLoad also has an to hook into for easy uploading of files.

To test out TinyLoad, I and downloaded from Amazon S3. Needless to say, uploading and downloading were done in a flash.

The only important pieces of info I was unable to find were the download and storage (how long you can store files) limits for TinyLoad. I'm inclined to think forever, but by now you should be well aware nothing lasts forever. ;)

ADrive

ADrive Signup for and receive 50GB of online storage! I signed up but couldn't try it out since I had problems logging in. I'm guessing it's due to my dynamic IP.

ASCII browser

Ok I have to admit that I have no idea why you would need . But if you need a quick text-only proxy (and you're really desparate), use ASCII browser as a quick fix.

Just Bento / Just Hungry

Just Bento Learn how to prepare boxed meals with . Sister site, , has more yummy-looking Japanese recipes. You'll love Just Bento and Just Hungry if you're into Japanese food.

And don't forget to store the recipes on . :)


Jack O'Lantern hell Spidey-O-Lantern

Enjoy these two Halloween wallpapers (click on them to go to their original Flickr page), even though Halloween is already over. :) Over and out till tomorrow!

 

CARNAVAL v0.5 - No AnySIM Yet

Comments

Offtopic: It's time for Today in iPhone unlocking news. :) Only one update today, but different offline jailbreaking/activating/unlocking methods are being worked on by various folks.

CARNAVAL v0.5

. Not quite the version many were hoping for though. That version (the one with integrated AnySIM) is still in progress. I guess the wait goes on. :P

CHANGES: Bug Fixes, Addition of README.TXT, addition of international versions.



FUTURE WORK

INTERNATIONALIZATION

I'm trying to make CARNAVAL in different languages, mainly because the whole process depends a lot on the instructions.
Right now I have versions in english (orignal), portuguese, and spanish (thanks to Gandalfj).
I'd also like to translate the new README.TXT (rigt now it's only in english for all versions).
If you want a version in your languange you can help by translating the language files that are located under the "text" CARNAVAL's subfolder.
Just pay attention to the format and to the line breaks so things don't get messy. Post your translation here in the thread. That's is gonna help in case there's more than one translation to the same language (because others will also give their opinions).
It's also nice if you can run a trial with your translation to see if everything works fine. Of course, credit for the translation will be given.

FEATURES:
* I'd like to add AnySim to the package. This is an easy change, I just wanna make sure of one thing before I do it, and that's What exactly the dependencies are. Also, the AnySim installation I'm gonna add is going to be uninstallable via Installer.app so when you're finished using it you can uninstall it easily.
* I'm also going to add a newer version of Installer.app


Edit: .

 

Friday, November 02, 2007

Free: Deki Wiki, YouGetSignal, Site Layouts, KitchenBug

1 comments

Offtopic: You know who to blame for the timing of today's freebies. :) Hint: It's in .

Deki Wiki


is a free open source wiki and application platform for communities and enterprises. Deki Wiki is an easy to use and sophisticated wiki for authoring, aggregating, organizing, and sharing content. Deki Wiki is also a platform for creating collaborative applications, or adding wiki capabilities to existing applications.

Deki Wiki

It's got the feel of a desktop application and looks better than most wikis I've seen. Notable features includes tags, RSS, a rich text editor and its search engine. And it's all for free. Of course if you want to pay them for support, that's also possible. :P Don't know about you but I think I'll stick to keeping my wallet fatter. :)

YouGetSignal

YouGetSignal I has got signal. :P actually consists of 2 useful network tools - and - for the price of none. As its name suggests, the open ports tool checks for open ports, which is useful for checking if your port forwarding succeeded (quite important for torrents :) ). You could also use it to find if there are holes in your network. Similarly, the network location tool shows you your location on Google Maps via your IP address. Naturally you could also use YouGetSignal to get your IP address. ;)

Free Layouts

Free Layouts Steal all kinds of templates at ! :D They stock website templates, blog (MySpace/Xanga/WordPress/Blogger/Movabletype) themes and CMS (Joomla/Textpattern) styles. Maybe I should go get one myself... :P

KitchenBug

KitchenBug hopes to be your social cookbook. Share your secret recipes or copy learn from the pros. Don't keep the goodies to yourself, invite your family and friends as well. At the very least, you could see who's a worst cook than you are. :) , so I won't venture any further. The KitchenBug you see now is just an appetizer release, which means you need an invite to get in. The previous TechCrunch link has 1000 invites, but if it runs out, I've got some too (since I registered via the TechCrunch invite and members get to invite people). :)


I'll leave you with two interesting links I saw today - and . I have totally no idea what they are, but they are nice to look at.

 

gOS on Virtual PC 2007, Plus a Quick Review

Comments

Downloaded the Green Operating System (gOS)...

So I and was all set to get my hands dirty. I just didn't realize how much work it would take for me to get it up and running.

Some setbacks

To be fair, it wasn't very hard to load it on Virtual PC 2007. Create a new Virtual PC machine and harddisk, capture the downloaded gOS iso image in Virtual PC and 5 minutes later, I'm looking at the boot screen.

gOS boot screen
gOS boot screen. Wow, that was easy.


Simple, right? Wrong. After taking a few minutes to load everything, the mouse isn't detected in Virtual PC. I thought I did something wrong. So I tried reseting. Nope. Again. Still not working. About 5 tries or so later, I turned to Google for help.

Help is around if you know where to find it...

Because I knew gOS was really Ubuntu underneath, I turned to the Ubuntu website for help. And there it was - (works for 2007 as well).

Fortunately the mouse fix was there. (Mouse support is necessary to even begin installing gOS, unless "single only-ubiquity" is manually entered. The "single only-ubiquity" tip comes from .) Just enter
i8042.noloop

into the boot options and after installing edit the kernel boot line in GRUB to make it permanent.

Another oddity I experienced was that the gOS live CD boots in 1152x768 in Virtual PC. I managed to fix this after installing by selecting a screen model (it was originally generic) and changing the screen resolution. I didn't test out my sound, but my network card was working. :)

Thoughts and comments about gOS, after 15 minutes of use


gOS screenshot

The lure of gOS (at least for me) was the Google and other webapps integration. While they work well (clicking on any of them will open a new tab in Firefox or open Firefox), I found them to be no better than Firefox's bookmarks (same functionality).

I'm unsure how transforming bookmarks into pretty icons is any better than plain old browser bookmarks. Maybe it increases accessibility, but clicking the Firefox icon, which is also sitting in the dock (you don't see it in the screenshot because some programs are hidden), and finding the appropriate bookmark isn't that hard. Firefox even makes this more convenient with its bookmarks toolbar. Stick all your frequently used webapps in Firefox's bookmarks toolbar folder and you have gOS in Firefox.


WebRunner in action

About the Google Search bar you see in the top right, it's just a widget. Type in a search term, press Enter and out pops a window called WebRunner. You can think of WebRunner as a stripped down Firefox (no menus, no tabs and a bit irritating when you do need them). WebRunner was recently renamed to in case you thought it was familiar. Again, this is already in Firefox, although this makes it slightly easier. :) (Another thing I noticed was a custom Google search page that loads when you use this search. Is this allowed?)

For offline use, gOS comes pre-installed programs like GIMP, OpenOffice, Xine Movie Player, Rhythmbox Music Player, a CD/DVD writing app and games. Nothing spectacular here, so I won't touch on it. :)

Final words

After using gOS for a while (and typing the parts above :) ), I realized that it was quick and responsive even in a virtual environment, making it great for older PCs. Once installed and setup, gOS was simple and intuitive to use.

However, the same can be said for Ubuntu as well. And since you can configure Firefox to replicate the functionality of gOS (it's close enough, only an extra step of running Firefox), Ubuntu would likely to be a wiser choice as support for Ubuntu would probably far exceed that of gOS (there is a tech support aka Q&A button powered by but only a few questions exist at the moment).

gOS is a cool idea, but I think Ubuntu is also quite user friendly. :)

 

CARNAVAL and iDemocracy2 Updates

Comments

Offtopic: The daily iPhone update comes a bit late today, because I had problems with gOS and Virtual PC (you can find out more in my next post).

What's happening to CARNAVAL?

From :
Hi Folks,

I'm finishing up some updates to CARNAVAL and releasing a new version probably later today.

The main changes will be the addition of delays during iphuc runs (so vista users don't experience the problems they are facing with installer.app) and also I'm gonna add an updated version of Intaller.app.

If everything goes as planned I might be able to include a working AnySim (with all dependencies) as well. The good part about this is that you will be able to use Installer.app to uninstall AnySim. This will depend on my schedule (I'm sorry I can't assist you more often).


Extreme thanks to tetsu and dtube for all the support they have been giving lately.

I'd like to let you know that I'm working on an offline version of CARNAVAL that does all the jailbreak without the need for internet.

I'm cooperating with Drakken so we can have everything embedded in a nice GUI just like iDemocracy.

Again I'd like to ask your help on internationalization (or improvement on the english version) of CARNAVAL.


Thank you very much.


Cheers!

brasuco


Edit: .

The new iDemocracy

Drakenza has announced iDemocracy 2.0 is in the works.

Release Date: As of right now (1 Nov 2007) there is no official release date for iDemocracy 2.0, though a rough estimate is two weeks from now.


Upcoming Features

As of right now, this is all I'm telling you:

* The Installer.app Fix and Activator patches have been integrated into the app so that there's no more downloading of little side applications.
* One-click installation of MobileStack. EDIT: Apparently the MobileStack guys got it a little bit wrong: StackController.app can switch your stack from straight to curved but cannot install/uninstall Stack. (aaaand it's confirmed working!)
* One-click installation of iDemocracy Wallpapers!! OMG!
* And I've got a bunch more surprises up my sleeve... :D


The and some other (fairly unimportant :) ) misc pages were also updated.

Edit: .


To summarize, expect exciting new jailbreak/activating/unlocking programs soon, possibly including an offline solution. Still unsure when the holy grail of iPhone jailbreak/activate/unlock programs will arrive in a complete offline (if possible) package.

 

Green Operating System (gOS) download links

10 comments

Green Operating System (gOS)

gOS???

Based on Ubuntu 7.10 Linux system with an Enlightenment E17 interface, the PC's productivity will be almost solely derived from Google apps accessed through Firefox: Mail, Calendar, News, Maps and Documents & Spreadsheets. It also comes with OpenOffice.org 2.2 and some other freeware Linux faves.

Basically, your utility of gOS will be at a maximum when you have an internet connection (and a free Google account ;) ). Otherwise, it does have some installed apps to tide you over when you're offline.

Where're the download mirrors?

Like many other folks, I wanted to check out the fuss behind the . Thing is they didn't setup mirrors and the main download link is down. (Their site states they are currently in the process of securing mirrors.) So what does the community do? No surprise here, download mirrors have sprung up in the form of torrents.

Get gOS 1.0.1 here! (728MB 695MB iso image, fits on a CD now!)

Official download links (currently down it's back up, but who knows for how long ;) ):

Unofficial HTTP mirrors for gOS 1.0:

Unofficial HTTP mirrors for gOS 1.0.1:

Torrent Download links for gOS 1.0:


I'm downloading it right now and I'm getting very decent speeds in the range of high 100s (kilobytes/sec).

Edit: I'm done. :) And gOS has listed a torrent on their site (it's the same as the ones here).

Update: gOS's site is currently down. Looks like the response is way better than they had anticipated. They're back up and running. Still the same torrent link.

Edit: You may want to check out .

 

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Free: DecentURL, TestDisk/PhotoRec, Higher Intellect

Comments

Offtopic: I forgot about this (meant to announce this a few days ago), but folks who would like to subscribe to my full feed can email me (you should see my email at the top of this post) for the Feedburner link. The one you see here is only a summary feed because unscrupulous webmasters () were republishing some of my posts elsewhere. (Yeah, I'm surprised too.) Of course, if this full feed gets scraped as well, then I guess it'll be axed as well.

I was actually waiting for to launch first before posting (looks interesting, hopefully free :) ), but it seems to have been delayed (I swear I saw 9am on Nov 1 or something close).

DecentURL

Obscenely long URL? Make it decent with . Here's (which is actually longer than the original URL). I tried but didn't succeed in making it, because someone already did. :) I wonder if I should be flattered or annoyed.

TestDisk/PhotoRec

TestDisk is an open-source, cross-platform (Windows/Mac/Linux and more), multi file-system (FAT/NTFS/HFS/ext3 and more) partition recovery software. What that mouthful means is that if you screwed up your harddisk partitions, TestDisk could recover it for you. It's companion, , is also very handy to have around as it recovers files from almost any media you can think of (harddisks/CDs/USB drives and more).

Higher Intellect

Higher Intellect Before visiting the , I had absolutely no idea there were so many text files living on the net. You probably think I'm exaggerating. So check this out:
250,209 files online. Total size is 106gb

Yeah, that's the number of text files waiting to be found on Higher Intellect as well as their combined size. And here I was thinking text files were extinct...


Bonus: Just saw on that you can watch Hulu videos without an invite. It's a list of about 2000 direct Hulu video links. Only problem is those are raw links without the video titles.

Bypassing the Hulu private beta isn't actually new. :) (The technique listed on Buzzfeed to bypass the invite barrier though is new.) I had a a few days ago (which bypasses the block in a different manner) and of course has already been updated to include Hulu video results.


Oh yeah, that concludes the freebie post for today. Another one will appear tomorrow. ;)

 

AppSnapp and Other iPhone Guides

Comments

Offtopic: I don't see any new developments. Maybe I'm just blind. :P

Here are more polished guides focused on the method. It's the most favored method for jailbreaking/activating/assisting to unlock your locked 1.1.1 iPhone, since it doesn't require a computer.

Due to some bugs YouTube doesn't seem to work for some folks. Unconfirmed: SIM swapping doesn't work. To fix these niggling problems, you do require a computer unfortunately.

The guides

- This is an update of . I was lucky to have caught it as it was just updated by the author. It includes unlocking steps now.

I have added the ultimate tutorial. It will take you from fresh out of the box to jailbroken, activated, with AppSnap Installer installed and SIM unlocked in less than half an hour. It does NOT require a computer! It does not get any easier than this. - Mark @ Hack the iPhone


- After unlocking with AppSnapp, you may face some problems. This thread tackles some of them. Obviously, you should proceed only if you do experience them.


- If you didn't turn off 'Dim wallpaper', you may encounter this.

 

Download THE INEVITABLE RISE AND LIBERATION OF NIGGYTARDUST! Email Received

Comments

40 minutes ago...

The time has come! Click the personalized link below to download THE INEVITABLE RISE AND LIBERATION OF NIGGYTARDUST!

If you have any problems with the download, please contact our support team:
customercare AT musicane.com

Thank you and enjoy!
Download link here

If you decide at any point you'd like to directly support the artist for this work and feel it's worth what we're asking, you can always click this button. It will also allow you to re-download the record at audiophile rates if desired.
YES I WANT TO PAY


I'm downloading it right now off Amazon servers (looks like the music folks have become wise), so there shouldn't be any bandwidth problems. It's 113.8MB (free 192kbps version) by the way.

If you haven't got a clue what I'm talking about, see .

 

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Free: AutoSizer, Zombie Detection System, Legal Music Sites, Splashup, Disqus

Comments

Offtopic: Hey, cut me some slack bro. It's Halloween. I'm in zombie mode. :) Oh and about the ugly rounded box at the very end of everything, I know about it, since I put it there. :P When I get time, I'll stick other stuff into the box.

AutoSizer


automatically resizes programs for you, keeping them at a specific size or keeping them maximized. One popular use is to keep Internet Explorer Maximized when you go on the web. It works with most programs, including Notepad, web browsers, and many others.

AutoSizer

Oh great, they stole my line, now what am I supposed to say? Well, I gave it a quick spin and noticed some apps (Opera USB) don't seem to work with it (even though I used the window class search method, which is more reliable). But it does play well with most programs and it's easy to use, so get it if you need it. :)

Zombie Detection System

Are you hiding a zombie? Use the to hunt them down! :) Disclaimer: The Zombie Detection System only tracks computer zombies, not those of the undead kind. :P

Free Legal Music Sites

lists 12 of the best places on the web to find free and legal music. An apt and well-timed resource considering all the ominous news surrounding not-so-legal music. :)

Splashup

Splashup , formerly known as Fauxto, bring the power of Photoshop/Paint.net/GIMP/your favorite image editor to your browser. With layers, integration with popular photo sharing services (Facebook, Flickr, Picasa), brushes and lots more, Splashup looks and feels just like any regular desktop image editor.

But it beats the offline competition with its ability to open/save images from/to itself, Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, any image URL, your own computer or webcam. The only obstacle I faced was the lack of keyboard shortcuts. Other than that, Splashup is great for quick image edits. In fact, the Splashup logo used here is edited with Splashup (although I forgot to resize it). :)

Disqus

Disqus is a commenting and forum system that you can just stick into your WordPress/Blogger/TypePad/MovableType blog like (the commenting system I'm using here). Disqus is packed with features like threaded comments, clout (commenter's reputation), anti-spam and control over your blog's comments.

One interesting feature in Disqus is that each post is given a separate thread in your forum and other registered users can start new threads (that are not linked to any of your posts) in your forum as well. This is certainly a quick and easy way to create a community and spur discussion on your site.


You've reached the end of this post. Come back tomorrow for more!

 

Happy Halloween Google Logo

Comments

Happy Halloween greetings from Google


Happy Halloween Google logo

In the spirit of , Google has changed its logo for trick-or-treat day. Opting for the haunted house theme, complete with a broken mirror and cobwebs, I feel the word "Google" seems to be squeezing its way into this haunted house image, ie it doesn't look like it's blended into its surroundings.

Except for the first red 'o'. That 'o' was pretty sneaky. I nearly missed it when I first took a quick glance at the logo. Upon closer inspection, the border of the mirror is actually the 'o' in Google.

You may argue the first 'G' is also camouflaged like the 'o'. But the blueness of the 'g' is too great a contrast against the dark painting in my opinion.

It's the witching hour at Google Maps!

Edit: Another Halloween treat from Google at .

witch front profilewitch front profilewitch flying leftwitch flying right

[via ]

OpenSocial and Maka-Maka

By the way, Google has a treat for you tomorrow on Nov 1. It is launching (URL not up yet, live on Nov 1) on Thursday. It's the first phase of Google's Maka-Maka, its new (rumored) social platform.

[See more about Maka-Maka and OpenSocial at and ]

 

Free Saul Williams - The Inevitable Rise And Liberation of Niggytardust Album Download! Produced by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.

2 comments

Free music so far...

In case you haven't heard by now, . Dashboard Confessional had a which was featured on their latest album, The Shade of Poison Trees. 3 doors down also gave away a , with the National Guard backing them.

The Inevitable Rise And Liberation of Niggytardust by Saul Williams for free? Kewl!

Yes, it's true. You can get produced by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails for $0. Or if you wish for a low fixed price of $5.

What‽ Where‽ How‽

  1. Head over to the .

  2. If you're opting to listen to the album for free (like me), select



  3. Enter your email twice.



  4. After submitting your email, you should see this screen.



  5. Check your email account and look for a confirmation email. It should show something like
    Saul Williams Order Confirmation

    Thank you for your interest in Saul Williams.

    Order number: Your order number here
    Order date: 10/30/2007
    Your email address: Your email here

    Order total: $0.(US)

    You will receive another email on November 1 that includes the link to download your files.

  6. Wait till Nov 1 for your download email.


  7. Profit!

What's in your Niggytardust download?

If you choose to pay for the record, your download will be available in the following formats:

* 192Kbps MP3
* 320Kbps MP3
* FLAC lossless audio

If you choose not to pay for the record, you will receive it in 192Kbps MP3 format.

All versions include a PDF with artwork and lyrics


All files are 100% DRM free, and can be played on any device. MP3s are encoded with LAME v3.97 and love.


So freeloaders like me will be getting 192kbps MP3s, artwork and lyrics. Not too bad a deal. :)

Niggytardust Track Listing

1. Black History Month
2. Convict Colony
3. Tr(n)igger
4. Sunday Bloody Sunday
5. Break
6. NiggyTardust
7. DNA
8. WTF!
9. Scared Money
10. Raw
11. Skin of a Drum
12. No One Ever Does
13. Banged and Blown Through
14. Raised to be Lowered
15. The Ritual


Written and performed by Saul Williams
with Trent Reznor, CX Kidtronik, Thavius Beck and more.

Produced by Trent Reznor
Mixed By Alan Moulder
Mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner
Engineering / programming: Atticus Ross

Enjoy!

[via ]

An interview with both of them - .

 

AppSnapp Guide & Some Trivia

Comments

What's up? Nothing's up.

There isn't much of an update today. (I did see an updated SimFree 1.7 by iPhoneSIMFree, but that's not free. Just stick with .) In fact, with the , many of the utilities were made obsolete. However, some unlockers still prefer the manual jailbreak programs like . To each his own, I guess.

Of course, this doesn't mean this post is simply about a lack of updates. :) But if you don't see an iPhone post in the future, it means I didn't see anything worth posting about.

AppSnapp Pictorial and Video Guide

Hack the iPhone has updated his guide to use AppSnapp for jailbreaking. It's chock full of pictures and a YouTube video showing the entire procedure is thrown in as well for good measure.

Check out .

Edit: I've just realized that the guide at Hack the iPhone would only help you to jailbreak the iPhone using AppSnapp. (this is step 3 for Macs aka unlocking steps).

Step 2 of should fill that void. Step 2 in this unlocking guide only requires your iPhone, so it doesn't matter if you're running Windows/Mac.

iPhone Jailbreaking Trivia. Did you know?

In many of the guides available, you'll be asked to enter
prefs://1F

as a bookmark or home page on your iPhone. Have you ever wondered what 1F stood for?

It actually stands for nothing. :) 1F is not required at all. 1F was simply to indicate that preffs:// is a misspelling (note the 2 'f's). Entering
prefs://

will bring you to your settings page just fine. :)

[info stolen from ]

 

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Free: DriveImage XML, 30 Wonderful Fonts, Ask500People, Halloween wallpapers

Comments

Offtopic: Not too early today am I? :P (I'm using them for comments) just got a big update (OpenID login, other commenting features) and they are in open beta now, so check them out if you want/need a great commenting system. It's free after all. :)

DriveImage XML


is an easy to use and reliable program for imaging and backing up partitions and logical drives.

mentions that you can backup a fresh install of Windows and restore it later on when you need to reinstall Windows, thus saving you time. I also recommend setting Windows up the way you like, which includes installing the programs you regularly use and then using DriveImage XML to backup this install. This would really cut down the time it gets you back up and running.

[from via ]

30 Wonderful Free Fonts

Universal fact of the day: You can never have enough fonts, especially with these . They'll leave you wanting for more. And more. And more...

[via ]

Ask500People

Ask500People Is tk here the best site around? :P Ok, maybe you wouldn't ask that question to the world, but if you're bored/curious or have a burning question that needs answering, keep in mind. They claim
When a question goes live on the network, over 75,000 websites display that poll. This network reach allows us to deliver voting results in real-time.

I don't know anything about that but a neat feature is that you can waste your time finding out who wasted their time on voting in real-time. :)

A couple of free Halloween wallpapers

These are not your usual pumpkin heads. Something is wrong with them...

Click on them to goto the original Flickr page where they're located.

What's wrong with me?
What's wrong with me?

Edit: Yeah, that's it. Come back tomorrow for more. :)

 

Just Out: Virginator 0.4 & AppSnapp updates

1 comments

Offtopic: Hello reader, you have reached my daily iPhone unlocking scene update. :)

Virginator-0.4

is the newest version of the virginator script that automates backing up seczone and virginizing.

If you're wondering what's changed in this version, well, I'm wondering too. :P Maybe someone more knowledgeable could fill me in.

Other than this bump in version, the iPhone Elite Team also updated the Wiki page for Virginator aka the RevirginizingTool to match the new release.

Get .

AppSnapp updates

People are reporting all over the place that YouTube is not working on their iPhones after using AppSnapp. (For an explanation of AppSnapp, refer to )

The fairly simple YouTube fix is located here: .

And if you want to see the entire process, here's a YouTube clip (yeah, it's ironic that YouTube doesn't work) courtesy of (obviously in French). An English video and instructions are available at .



Edit: Almost forgot about the "other" problems some people have faced. Found some help over at .

Edit: What to do after jailbreaking? Find out at .

 

Howto: Blogger Sitemaps Errors/Warnings Fix & Entire Blogspot Sitemap Submission

16 comments

What/Where are these errors you speak of?

Blogger/Blogspot users that use are well aware (maybe not) that if they submit their feed normally, they will run into the dreaded Errors/Warnings that no one likes to see. By a normal submission, I mean something like
http://tkhere.blogspot.com/rss.xml
OR http://tkhere.blogspot.com/atom.xml

(Little known fact: It is possible to submit feeds like
http://tkhere.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
OR http://tkhere.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/summary

as well. Simply add
http://tkhere.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/

as a site. Re-verification of your blog is not necessary.)

It gets worse...

If you turned on and click tracking in Feedburner, you'll get a lot more errors. This is because Google doesn't allow foreign URLs in your sitemap. And click tracking in Feedburner changes your feed links to the Feedburner domain in order to track clicks. Bumper.

The simple fix

My method:

Note that this method is not supported officially and should NOT be used. :)
Simply add ?orderby=updated to the end of your feed URL. This simply sorts your posts by their updated date and not published date. So it should turn out something like this:
http://tkhere.blogspot.com/atom.xml?orderby=updated (recommended)
OR http://tkhere.blogspot.com/rss.xml?orderby=updated (recommended)
OR http://tkhere.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated
OR http://tkhere.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/summary?orderby=updated (not recommended)

Another method: Simply add ?redirect=false to the end of your feed URL. This tells Blogger/Blogspot not to redirect your feed to Feedburner. So it should turn out something like this:
http://tkhere.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false (recommended)
OR http://tkhere.blogspot.com/rss.xml?redirect=false (recommended)
OR http://tkhere.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?redirect=false
OR http://tkhere.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/summary?redirect=false (not recommended)

This method comes from via .

But that's not all...

has gone further on to explain how to submit your entire Blogger sitemap to Google Sitemaps. Here I add some pretty pictures to make it easy to follow.

The proper way to submit your entire Blogger Sitemap to Google Sitemaps!

Note: I used
http://tkhere.blogspot.com/

in the following steps, replace it with your own site URL. Some URLs can't fit into a single line so I've split them into 2 lines. When you enter them, they should be in a single line with no spaces.


  1. Figure out how many posts you have made so far.

    • Login to . You should be at now.

    • Click on Posts.

      Looking for posts?

    • Look for
      Your Posts: All, Drafts, Published

      When you found it, click on Published.

      Number of posts

    • Next to Published, you should see something like
      1 – 10 of 386

      which shows you the number of your published posts so far.


  2. Now login to and submit
    http://tkhere.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&max-results=100
    &start-index=1

    as a sitemap.

    Note: If you haven't already, you would need to add your site
    http://tkhere.blogspot.com/

    into Google Sitemaps before you do this step.


  3. The observant among you would have noticed the red 1 in the previous step. If you have more than 100 posts, you would need to repeat step 2 as many times as needed to submit your entire sitemap, adding 100 to your previous start-index each time.

    • Example: If you have 150 posts, submit
      http://tkhere.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&max-results=100
      &start-index=1
      http://tkhere.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&max-results=100
      &start-index=101

      as sitemaps. This means you would need to add 2 sitemaps for your site.

    • Example: If you have 250 posts, submit
      http://tkhere.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&max-results=100
      &start-index=1
      http://tkhere.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&max-results=100
      &start-index=101
      http://tkhere.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&max-results=100
      &start-index=201

      as sitemaps. This means you would need to add 3 sitemaps for your site.

    Technical explanation in layman's terms: The query parameter
    max-results

    tells Blogger how many posts you want returned. There is a limit to the number of posts that Blogger will return, currently 500 (as Kirk states), but to be on the safe side, stick to 100.

    The query parameter
    start-index

    tells Blogger which post number to start returning results from.


Holy crap Batman! How did you guys figure this out?

The query parameters shown here are not hidden in the darkest corners of Google. :) Google has a list of valid query parameters for Blogger at . Have fun! ;)

The only exception I'd like to note is that the redirect parameter is not listed here. It originally (as far as I can tell) comes from . Another more informative post was made again at the , this time including WordPress users of the Feedsmith plugin. I don't use WordPress, but isn't there a Google Sitemaps plugin for WordPress or something?

Final words

Anyway, this should clear up everything... till something breaks. Again. :)

 

Monday, October 29, 2007

Free: Unicode Code Converter, EZTV, Bundle-Fu, EasySponsorship, Hulu

Comments

Offtopic: Had to comment out the for the time being. It (and the site) is currently dead. :(

And I'm late again. Better late than never as they say. :)

Unicode Code Converter

Convert between 12 different formats, including UTF-8, UTF-16, HTML and Javascript with . It's coded in Javascript so no page reload is needed for each conversion, unlike some of the other converters I've seen. Very useful and handy for web developers.

EZTV

EZTV Do I need to introduce to you? Ok... here's the explanation for those of you surfing for the first time. :) EZTV is a directory of TV torrents listings. They recently moved to their new home as you can see from the different URL. That was easy. You don't know what a torrent is? Here we go again...

Bundle-Fu

packages all your javascripts and css files into 2 files so your Web 2.0 site doesn't take ages to load. The sweet part is that it's terribly easy to install (2 simple steps!). The sad part is it looks like Bundle-Fu is for Ruby on Rails (I'm not too familiar with Ruby) and it is definitely server-side code, which means I can't use it here.

EasySponsorship

EasySponsorship
is the easiest way there is for you to collect sponsorship money from anyone from anywhere in the world.

Just to be clear, I didn't say that, they did. :) But yeah, it looks like it's dead simple to setup. At least, the registration form is very short, though the captcha isn't too user friendly. Anyone want to sponsor me (I know where to go to now!) so that I can get an iPhone? :)

Hulu

Hulu I remember way back when it hadn't even launched yet. Now is still not out yet, but you can enjoy its videos already at or . If you're in the US, you get to watch many TV shows for free online. (Not very high quality or HD, but hey, free is free!) Oh and also remember to .

[via ]


That sums it up for now. You may be interested to know I updated to include the AOL and MSN sites I mentioned so you can search for Hulu videos with . :) Stay tuned tomorrow for more freebies!

 

AppSnapp - Native Jailbreak (No computer required) & iDemocracy updates

Comments

Offtopic: Almost forgot to mention that this is the daily iPhone update. :) A very interesting development today. Just waiting for someone to package everything together for a full unlock solution. :D

AppSnapp

Remember the ? (Ok, I added the part about it being one click in.) Well, here it is, except it isn't by the Dev Team (I think), not that it matters. :)

Who made AppSnapp?

(don't click this unless you want to jailbreak your iPhone :) ),

the easiest way to enable third party applications on your iPhone or iPod Touch running the 1.1.1 firmware

was made by

metasploit, rezn, dinopio, drudge, kroo, pumpkin, davidc, dunham, and NerveGas.

Greetz to the iPhone Dev Team and Nullriver Software.

What does AppSnapp do?

Now that the makers of the software have been established, what does AppSnapp actually do? From , AppSnapp

1. Jailbreaks iPhone/iPod Touch on 1.1.1

2. Patches Springboard to load third party apps

3. Activates non-AT&T iPhones automatically, while leaving already activated phones alone

4. Fixes YouTube on non-AT&T iPhones automatically, while leaving already activated phones alone

5. Installs Installer.app v3.0b5 on the iPhone/iPod Touch

6. Fixes Apple's TIFF bug, making your device MORE secure than it was without AppSnapp!

The best part? No hacking required!

For those intending to go down the AppSnapp route, the site is quite helpful as it provides an , and . However, I think you would be better off with the following set of steps I found at Hackint0sh, as you DON'T

. :)

Better set of AppSnapp instructions

1. Dial *#307# and press call
2. Erase the numbers previously typed then Dial '0' and press call
3. iPhone will ring, pick up and put on hold.
4. iPhone will ring again, decline the call.
5. Go to contacts, create a new contact and add the following url:
prefs://1F
http://jailbreakme.com
6. Selecting the first url will allow you to go to Preference screen to select a wifi network to connect to.
7. Selecting the second url will bring you to the jailbreak page in mobilesafari

once you get the installer.app on your springboard, upgrade it to the latest version then add community sources and http://rep.frenchiphone.com

install bsd subsystem and anysim 1.1

remove at&t sim and insert your choice of sim. run anysim and unlock. - mercilessly stolen from

If you need pretty pictures to guide you, I humbly suggest . You can skip part of step 2 and all of step 3 if you're using AppSnapp.

Does it work? Where to get help?

Users report that it works. See or for user reports and possibly to receive help.

Get (don't click this unless you want to jailbreak your iPhone :) )

Final word

Did you realize that AppSnapp makes it possible for you to unlock your iPhone without any PC involved? AppSnapp is a native iPhone app that installs Installer.app (allows you to download and install other iPhone programs). With Installer.app on your iPhone, you can install AnySIM 1.1 to unlock your iPhone.

Update: .



iDemocracy updates

Drakenza has announced that
iDemocracy will not have a 1.2 version... Rather, we're jumping straight to 2.0!! Why would we do that, do you ask? Because it's going to be so full of new features that we have to call it a major release.. Here's a little little taste: we're officially announcing that we're integrating the mobilestack project with a one-click installation procedure! (See YouTube for more info on this great project).

See or just . :)

 

It's Bigfoot, Bro! (Pics)

Comments

What Bigfoot, bro?

Having just caught wind of a Bigfoot sighting in Northwest Pennsylvania (news reports put the location at RIDGWAY, Pa. er... Ridgeway, not sure why they shortened it... My bad, is correct.), I set out to investigate this . (That's International Herald Tribune for those of you who don't read the news. Actually neither do I, not IHT anyway, but that's besides the point. :) )

So this so-called Bigfoot was caught on camera by a hunter named Rick Jacobs and was submitted to for verification or whatever it is they do. :P (Not to nitpick with the news folks, but it is actually called Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, not Bigfoot Research Organization. A simple Google search told me so. I've highlighted this fact because I'm not sure how a 4-word title became a 3-word title.)

And so my journey began...

Can't find pics, bro‽

To cut a way-too-long story short, I couldn't find the pictures they were talking about. No photos/images of supposed Bigfoot at all! There were tons of words and words and more words, but no graphics. That is sad, bro. Just sad.

There is hope, bro!

Of course that isn't totally true. I knew where the pictures of the Rick Jacobs Bigfoot, as it is known now (seems it's also called Ridgway Pa Bigfoot and Pennsylvania Bigfoot, but I think calling it after the discoverer is more appropriate. Heh, I like this one - Jacob's creature.), were located - at the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization website. Naturally it is swarmed with people and as expected their server isn't holding up too well.

But I (you) want to see those pics!!!

Bigfoot pics, bro‽

And so, I downloaded those photos from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization website for you to examine in detail. Yeah, they aren't the puny resolution types, they're at 800x600 pixels. Ok, so that can't match the , but the last time I checked, 16 billion pixels can't fit on your computer screen.

Word of warning, bro.

You're about to see Bigfoot in action! (Not as exciting as you think.) This Bigfoot has been named the
Rick Jacobs Bigfoot, Ridgway Pa Bigfoot, Pennsylvania Bigfoot or Jacob's creature.
Any other names, bro? Let me know, bro!

It's Bigfoot, bro!

Click on the last three images to be rewarded with a larger picture. Credit: , taken by Rick Jacobs


Closeup of Rick Jacobs Bigfoot. Is Bigfoot bending over?
Closeup of Rick Jacobs Bigfoot. Is Bigfoot bending over?



Evil glowing eyes of Bigfoot, or maybe it's just the err... effects of the night vision camera.
Evil glowing eyes of Bigfoot, or maybe it's just the err... effects of the night vision camera.



Attention, Bigfoot spotted us! Bigfoot spotted us! He is escaping!
Attention, Bigfoot spotted us! Bigfoot spotted us! He is escaping!



Oops, false alarm. Bigfoot is just having a stretch.
Oops, false alarm. Bigfoot is just having a stretch.


What say you, bro?

Sasquatch? Bigfoot? Bear? Alien? Let me know, bro! (Err... gals welcome too. :) )

An update, bro.

Now that the is up (at least for me), the black object you see in the last three pictures is a black plate and a mineral block. Just in case anyone was hoping for some fancy UFO or something else. :)

The area in the foreground was baited with a deer attractant mix and a mineral lick block. In the first image (the one with the bear cubs) the mineral lick block can be seen sitting on a large black plastic plate. One of the bear cubs is apparently licking or sniffing the mineral block. In the two subsequent images the black plate is turned over and leaning against the mineral block. - from


And you can join in the discussion over at BFRO's dedicated . There are polls, image enhancements/analysis and plenty of talk going on there. More than enough to make it into a subject you can get a degree in. :)

 

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Free: Computer Books, Guerrilla Mail, DropBoks

16 comments

Offtopic: If you saw an empty post with just a title named "Free:" just now, I accidentally hit enter. Yeah it happens. And I'm late. Again. :)

Free Computer Books

Free Computer Books The title says it all. What? You actually thought I'd leave it at that? Well then I will. Or not. contains links to a diverse range of IT-related books. The only downside to Free Computer Books is that it is a tad confusing to navigate thanks to the irritating javascript and frames on the site. Seriously. A bit of organization would be also great.

Guerrilla Mail

Guerrilla Mail is yet another disposable email service. Disposable email addresses are temporary addresses that you use when you don't want to use your real email, eg shady sites that may spam you, etc. Each temporary email address at Guerrilla Mail lasts 15 min and you can request for more time by clicking on the "Give 15 more minutes" link. Pretty standard stuff. By the way, Guerrilla Mail is , so if you're feeling rich, be my guest. :P

DropBoks

DropBoks is a secure online file storage utility. It uses HTTPS to secure the connection once you're logged in so your files should be quite safe from prying eyes. An account at DropBoks gets you 1GB of free space, with a 50MB single file upload/download limit. Bandwidth limits are not specified so you'll have to , which by the way, also lists DropBoks updates.


Aidos amigo/senorita! Hope that's correct, I'm just typing it off the top of my head. :) Be back tomorrow.

 

Google Chat Emoticons - How They Work & The Complete Listing (includes some you have never seen before!)

96 comments

Offtopic: Don't even ask me why I got into this topic, because I will tell you all about it. :P

I was investigating how to convert emoticons/smilies found on this blog (this is quite simple and I already knew what I needed to do, but stealing pre-made scripts is far easier :) ) when I had a bright idea (in retrospect, it's probably a dumb idea). Knowing that in GMail converts your smilies on the fly, I decided to see how the smart folks at Google did it.

Google Chat emoticons are actually what...‽

That was a bad idea. First off, the smiley javascript is compressed (whitespace trimmed, single letter variables and functions), which makes it a pain to read.

Secondly, Google doesn't implement emoticons like other (normal) people. What do I mean? Well, you'd expect the images of emoticons to be in the .gif format, right? (Most smilies I see are in gif or Flash.) At Google, that would get you nowhere. Google Chat smilies are actually .png files.

Why Google? Why?

I suspect the reason they did this is to make them animated when your cursor hovers them. This is accomplished with some clever javascript being executed when your cursor hits a smiley.

The smiley is first trapped in a 12px high image tag. A script manipulates a smiley's y-position (vertical position) values via the background-position attribute. It starts from 0px and increments by 1 till (the height of the image - height of smiley image tag, which is 12px), thus simulating an animation.

Or at least that's what I think is happening. :) I don't think there's any way of replicating this effect with gifs unless they're reloaded, although it's possible with Flash (Flash plugin required though).

No Full List of Google Chat Emoticons‽

The third reason why I shouldn't have gone the Google way may interest some of you. You can't find the full listing of available Google Chat Emoticons. Believe me I tried googling for it. I came across and some unofficial ones (which more or less list the official ones) but no full listing.

The Unofficial Full List of Google Chat Emoticons

This is why I've decided to make an unofficial full list of Google Chat Emoticons that you can use. It probably serves no purpose at all besides giving you a chance to try all of them out and admire how they look in Google Chat. (Update: )

To start off, I ripped the official listing and placed them here. :)

Emoticon
Key Combination

Heart/Love
<3

It's a monkey!
:(|)

Rock out.
\m/

Shocked
:-o

Grin
:D

Frown
:(

Angry
x-(

Cool
B-)

Cry
:'(

Equal Grin
=D

Wink
;)

Straight Face
:-|

Equal Smile
=)

Nose Grin
:-D

Big nose wink
;^)

Nose wink
;-)

Nose smile
:-)

Slant
:-/

Tongue
:P


Here are the rest of the smilies that are missing from the above list.

Emoticon
Key Combination

Cowbell
+/'\

Crab
V.v.V

Devil
}:-)

Equal sad
=(

Equal slant
=/

Equal tongue
=P

Nose sad
:-(

Smile
:)

Wince
>.<

Nose tongue
:-P


What now?

After spending more time than I actually wanted on this whole smiley issue, I have come to a conclusion that ripping off Google smilies is not practical and will probably copy someone else's work. :)

 
Google
You could also try tk Social Bookmarking Search or tk Video Search!