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Saturday, November 10, 2007

Free: 40+ Fonts, music-alerts, Foamee

5 comments

Offtopic: Yes I know there was no freebie post yesterday. The fault lies with Apple as they released 1.1.2 a day early. :P

Over 40 free fonts

Smashing Magazine does it again by bringing you some of the best free fonts you'll ever see this year. In , you'll see a wide range of fonts, including serif and sans serif fonts, award-winning fonts, a handwriting font and even pixel fonts. Designers and font collectors are bound to love this typeface collection. The only snag you'll face is a handy zip file for download convenience. Perhaps someone could step in to fill this void?

music-alerts

music-alerts Too busy to keep track of album release dates? Why not let worry about that? Tell music-alerts about your favorite acts and it'll keep a watchful eye on them. Whenever they attempt to sneak an album past you, your personal music-alerts RSS feed will be updated and you can catch them red-handed. You can be sure you won't fall too far behind as music-alerts' database is refreshed every 3 days with Amazon's latest stock.

Foamee

Foamee What do you get when you mix with beer? Stumped? With , you'll be able to answer some of the most important questions in your life - how many beers you owe someone and how many you're owed. That is, if you remember to send out the message to Foamee...


If you enjoyed this, I guess you owe me a (root) beer. ;) Don't worry, Foamee's root beer tracker is still bubbling. :P

 

1.1.2 Jailbreak & Unlock Status

Comments

Update: .

Offtopic: Reading all the info about the current developments of the jailbreak and unlocking in one go is quite a challenge. In fact, my head is quite ready to explode, if anything new comes in. :D

Current 1.1.2 jailbreak status

Yesterday, we heard that the iHacking community scored another one against Apple . Since the iPod Touch and the iPhone are very similar, we didn't need to wait long before an iPhone runs away from prison.

is just what everyone (except maybe Apple) were hoping to read about. It's a rather lengthy post, but everything can be summarized into a few words - 1.1.2 iPod Touch and iPhone jailbreak succeeded. Currently the process is very ugly and requires downgrading and commands but it'll be refined and undergo noobification before release to the general public.

1.1.2 Unlock Status

The iPhone elite team made several changes to AnySIM and released into the world. Currently it covers only a very specific test case so be very sure to read everything carefully.

NOTES:

1. This version works only with 4.02.13_G baseband version and can be run on 1.0.2, 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 jailbroken systems
2. If your iPhone came with 4.02.13_G (aka 1.1.2) OUT OF THE BOX then do NOT use this unlock yet.
* It hasn't been tested with bootloaders other than BOOT03.09_M3S2
* Some very new U.K. iPhones come out of the box with BOOT04.06_M3S2.
* If you're in doubt, check the output of bbupdater -v or go into minicom and issue at+xgendata

Just so you know, and won't work with UK or German iPhones.

 

Patrick Moberg & Camille Hayton in NYGirlofMyDreams

Comments

With the recent writer's strike and all, television schedules are being messed up and viewers are left staring at a blank screen. Ok, you can almost always catch something on TV, but it seems that unscripted live reality internet drama is where everyone's at.

How it started

While travelling on the subway, a young man named saw the girl of his dreams. Eager to stalk track her down, he created a highly viral website designed to keep us guessing at the identity and appearance of mystery girl.

Enter , which Mr setup to help in his quest for the girl known to him only as Rosy Cheeks.

NYGirlofMyDreams part 1
Rosy cheeks, not insane

A minor setback followed by the revelation

Unfortunately for Patrick, while the sketch was very detailed and informative, his doodling skills aren't quite up to standard. It turns out that mystery girl worked at but it wasn't only until later that . On 11/07/07, 1:18 p.m., .

NYGirlofMyDreams part 2
Found her!


The mystery girl, Camille 'Rosy cheeks' Hayton
The mystery girl, Camille "Rosy cheeks" Hayton


And the rest as they say is history, except that the drama continues as we speak. :)

Follow the NYGirlofMyDreams drama online at



There are probably a zillion other links if you care to look. :) For those that do stumble upon other interesting links, just jump in anytime.

 

Friday, November 09, 2007

The 1.1.2 iPod Touch Daring & Successful Jailbreak!

Comments

Hot off the press: reports that well, I guess the title says it all. :)

So maybe all the was unsubstantiated after all. And just a tip, this jailbreak comes from the folks behind , the easiest jailbreak solution so far, so keep watching AppSnapp for updates.


Edit: With , a 1.1.2 unlock is likely to be just around the corner.

Also see .

Another thread to keep track of - - plenty of info and the was also quietly released to the world. I believe this allows decryption of the 1.1.2 firmware .

 

iNdependence 1.3 beta 2 + Bad IMEI Fix-it tutorial

Comments

Offtopic: Just a quick note about the new iNdependence and a bad IMEI fix-it guide. And in case you missed it, . Like 1.1.1, 1.1.2 is likely to take some time for iPhone hackers to crack, so I'm not expecting much updates for the weekend.

iNdependence 1.3 beta 2

A is out and the main changes appear to be ringtones and integration with the MobileDevice library. Just a reminder: .

The Operator says
1.3 beta 2 is out. Please see the README file with it before you do anything else. In order to run it, you must first copy the MobileDevice library from iTunes 7.4.2 into the application bundle using the iNdependence MobDev Tool. Instructions for this are in the README file. This allows you to have any version of iTunes installed and not worry about breaking iNdependence. The major feature for this release is the MeCCA patch to enable custom ringtones to be placed in the system ringtones directory on the phone. I'll be releasing a standalone patcher application very soon. CHANGELOG for beta 2 is here.

Changes:
v1.3 beta 2 (Big Rock) - 11/08/07

- Added MeCCA patch to 1.1.1 jailbreak process to allow for addition of custom ringtones to the System ringtone directory (/Library/Ringtones)
- Removed the ability to add ringtones to the User ringtone directory as it's too buggy (left in the ability to delete them though)
- Since the version of the MobileDevice framework which comes with iTunes 7.5 doesn't allow for jailbreak, I've added the ability to include MobileDevice as a dylib directly in the application bundle. This makes it so that people can upgrade to iTunes 7.5 (or later) and not have to worry about breaking iNdependence.
- Created "iNdependence MobDev Tool" which allows people to copy the MobileDevice library directly into iNdependence now (removing any dependence on the version of iTunes installed). This is now required in order to run iNdependence.
- Updated the documentation a bit.


Here are the and for iNdependence 1.3 beta 2.

Get .

Bad IMEI Fix-it tutorial

Mark has added a new guide to his ever growing collection of iPhone guides - . Like the rest of his tutorials, there are more than enough pictures for you to enjoy. :)

 

iPhone 1.1.2 - The Good and The Bad So Far

Comments

The much talked about 1.1.2 firmware was just released and adds some features you may want as well as some you probably don't. Apparently iTunes is taking a quick nap today as the only place to download the 1.1.2 firmware (for now) is at . Of course it wasn't supposed to be out till tomorrow, but hey, I'm sure iPhone hackers around the world appreciate the head start they're getting. :)

1.1.2 firmware - The Good

So far the only known extras that 1.1.2 contains are

  • TIFF exploit fix
  • International Keyboards
  • My 4 custom ringtones (1 purchased from iTunes and 3 installed via SendSong) all appear in a separate Custom list.

    Confirmed. The *#307# trick still works. That's the trick that lets you access Safari from an unactivated iPhone with only emergency dialing capabilities.

    Confirmed: Some users have been able to downgrade back to 1.1.1 and 1.0.2. -
  • Speed enhancement? (from , unconfirmed)
  • Update: Custom .m4r ringtones without hacks (from )

which in my opinion, are not compelling enough for you to rush out and update your unlocked iPhone(s), since closes the TIFF hole as well. The TIFF exploit might be worth the 160MB download if you're a goody-two-shoes iPhone user, but that doesn't seem likely. :)

1.1.2 firmware - The Bad

No jailbreaking and no unlocking (at least till someone fixes this bug :) ). If that doesn't stop you, I don't know what will. If you must persist, here are some other anecdotes/articles:

 

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Free: Open Clip Art Library, Meeting Miser, iMapIdle

Comments

Offtopic: still don't seem to work. :(

Open Clip Art Library

Open Clip Art Library Download royalty free clip art at the ! All the high quality clip art on the site can be used in your work without credit or payment to the original author because they're all released into . According to their stats, they've hoarded over 7000 pieces of clip art and added more than 4400 new ones into their collection. In total, that's over 11400 pictures at your disposal, which is very impressive considering these are user-submitted graphics.

Meeting Miser

a fun little widget to show your boss whenever you feel bored at a meeting. Emphasize that the financial impact of the meeting cannot be underestimated and with the proof to back you up, don't hesitate to bring this up when he's about to give his speech. Just make sure you've got an opening elsewhere first.
Meeting Miser

iMapIdle

One of the (biggest) drawbacks of the iPhone is the lack of . Push email gives you email when it's been received by your email server, not when you check it. is probably the closest you'll ever get to seeing push email on iPhones. Like a loyal friend, iMapIdle is always waiting for your email to come, even if your iPhone is in sleep/standby mode. When it does arrive, iMapIdle will notify you through popups or sounds depending on your configuration. SSL and GMail IMAP are now supported in the latest version.


That's it. :)

 

Just Out: AppSnapp 1.1.1, Updates to iDemocracy and iNdependence

Comments

Offtopic: AppSnapp gets more features yet again. Will this trend continue after the big, bad 1.1.2 firmware appears?

AppSnapp 1.1.1

(versioning invented by me) came out not too long ago and squashed quite a few bugs. However, the AppSnapp team has just updated AppSnapp to 1.1.1 (again this versioning is not official) amid the doom and gloom of the new and soon-to-be-out 1.1.2 firmware. Most of the changes seem to deal with (for those who like typing commands) but the most useful one is the one just below this sentence. :)

Changes:
* Resolved issue where certain apps closed immediately after opening after AppSnapp installation.

* Enabled afc2 service for use with iphuc.

* Added the ability to perform simple tasks like kill pid, kill lockdownd, kill springboard, and restart via iphuc. See Services.plist for more information

Get .

iDemocracy updates

Drakenza says
NEW - The iDemocracy 2 Countdown is now available in the Downloads page! It may require .NET Framework 3.0 and higher, and may be inaccurate by a couple of hours if you're not following Pacific Standard Time.

You can get the .

iNdependence updates

The Operator says
I found a way to just copy MobileDevice directly into iNdependence so that, regardless of what version of iTunes you have installed, it will work properly (assuming you copy the version of MobileDevice from iTunes 7.4.x). I've put this into SVN (along with instructions in README.src), but it requires install_name_tool -- which is only installed with XCode. So I'm looking at a way to make a more general purpose solution that everyone can use. Stay tuned...

For those who know what they're doing: The and the .

 

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Free: Drop.io, User Interface Icons, Ten Most Addictive Flash Games

29 comments

Offtopic: Oops forgot about this part. Nothing here today, just enjoy the games. ;)

Drop.io

Drop.io At its very core, is simply a file host. Unlike other file hosts however, Drop.io makes it convenient for users to use their service. For example, registration is not required and a drop (a place to store files) can be created in seconds.

But the part where Drop.io really shines is their drops. Drops can be sorted in three different views - chronological, media and interactive - depending on your preference. And if you need to collaborate with others, uploading of files and sharing of links or notes are also possible in your drops.

If you're worried about your privacy, drops are not indexed unless you explicitly share their location. For the paranoid, drops can be protected with a user password and an admin password. With an admin password, you can retain control over your drop long after it's been created. This allows you to change a drop's characteristics such as disallowing file uploads.

To save you some time, I made a test drop at with a password of asdf so you can see how Drop.io works.

User Interface Icons

User Interface Icons Made by Abdylas Tynyshov, the icons at are free for personal and commerical use. Available in 4 sizes, ranging from 80x80 to 24x24 pixels, there are 560 icons in total in PNG format.

The ten most addictive online flash games ever made

CNET has an article about , which includes one of my favorites - Desktop Tower Defense. Anything that lists is instantly worthy of my time. (Don't forget about .)

Sure enough, there are some games that keep drawing you back in for one last try. But once is never enough. Which is why I'm cutting this short and going back for another attempt. :P


Back to my flash games... More freebies tomorrow... maybe. :P

 

Multiple palette bug in AdSense?

Comments

Ok, so yesterday and decided to give it a try. After all, with the new code, changes to my ads could be made without copying and pasting new code. What did I have to lose?

Normally I'd preview my ads to make sure that everything displays properly and so on. However, after importing and inserting my ad code, I took everything for granted and figured nothing would go wrong. I like to think even Murphy can be wrong at times. :)

Black Ads

This time though, Murphy triumphed over me and while previewing my ads today, I saw this.

Ad gone bad
Ad gone bad


Yes, it's shocking isn't it? After some tinkering and experimentation, I deduced that multiple palettes were the cause for the black ads and switched back to the single palette. I've also sent an email to AdSense. Since I couldn't find anything regarding this on Google, I'm wondering if anyone else experienced this?

By the way, I hope this isn't the new ad theme for . :P

Update: Found in Google AdSense Help Group. Doesn't seem to be fixed yet.

Update: Is talking about this or is it something else?

Update: . Maybe they'll be fixing this bug.

Nov 13 Update: Still seeing black ads if multiple palettes are enabled. Got a reply from a member of the AdSense Team via email. Details of problem sent (again), awaiting reply.

Update: One of their techs is looking into it. Response was swift this time, only took 4 hours.

Nov 20 update: Just received an email from the AdSense Team. They request that only one palette be used while this issue exists and tell me that they hope to fix this some time in the near future. Oh well, guess I'm stuck with one ad color for the moment.

Looks like . But the problem is it requires a "modification" of AdSense code and kinda defeats the purpose of Manage Ads.

Nov 21 update: The AdSense Team recommends using the old ad code as a temporary fix and they think it should be resolved by the end of next week. I forgot it's Thanksgiving this week. :P

 

iDemocracy 2 updates

Comments

Offtopic: Almost all is quiet before the 1.1.2 firmware storm.

iDemocracy 2 updates

iDemocracy 2 Preview
Drakenza has been secretly working on iDemocracy 2 (revirginizer/jailbreaker/unlocker for Windows) and because of this, its official release date is now November 16, 2007 at 6PM (which timezone? :P). One notable feature of iDemocracy 2 is the "automatic revirginizing for 1.0.2 and earlier firmwares" as stated by Drakenza. Another feature, which is quite evident by looking at the picture above, is the inclusion of .

However, Drakenza isn't revealing all just yet, and hints at more surprises to come. The list of new features below can be . You may find some of them familiar as .

Upcoming Features

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

* Now featuring automatic revirginizing for 1.0.2 and earlier firmwares. Confirmed working!
* 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. YET ANOTHER EDIT: The good guys over at MobileStack just rewrote their StackController for iPhone compatibility, which is fantastic news. Now iDemocracy will just load/unload StackController and let it do all the work.
* One-click installation of iDemocracy Wallpapers!! OMG!
* Lotsa bug fixes.
* UPDATE: There will be no new jailbreak method for now (we're sticking with the downgrade way). This is because the tiff exploit method is short-lived. When 1.1.2 comes out it'll be blown away. However, the symlink way might just work for 1.1.2 (though I doubt it). Chances are there will be an update released or something which will support 1.1.2. It's all very conceptual right now.
* And I've got a bunch more surprises up my sleeve... :D

 

So Far So Good For 8 Limbed Girl

Comments

Lakshmi Tatma, the 8 limbed girl, currently in surgery

Remember from yesterday? Doesn't ring a bell? Here's a quick video recap of the girl with eight limbs and the surgery to remove her parasitic twin.



Responding well, so far so good

The surgery mentioned in the video is currently ongoing and so far it looks like everything is going well. A hospital spokesman was quoted saying that "it has been so far so good" and that "she's responding well with an 80% chance of survival".

The first hurdle may have been crossed uneventfully, but the major challenges are just up ahead. Surgeons will carry out the first stage of her 40 hour marathon surgery tonight (in Indian time) and continue on with the second stage tomorrow. The most difficult task appears to be reattaching all the tiny blood vessels and veins, since these are currently shared with her parasitic twin.

Edit: Looks like I can't use the Newsroom articles. Oh well, here's the same article, .

Limbs removed, she's ok

Update: that the operation took 27 hours and she's now recovering in the intensive care unit. Her condition is stable and sound, and the surgery proceeded without any complications.

Video: Marathon surgery a success @ CNN

 

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Free: InterviewUp, Phatch, ServiceBeacon

Comments

Offtopic: Not too late today :)

InterviewUp

InterviewUp Not too sure how to answer interview questions? Bump up your confidence a few notches with . InterviewUp is like , but for interview questions. You can vote them up, share some of your own or comment on others. It's an easy and convenient place to get a leg up in this dog-eat-dog world, just pray your competitors/prospective employers don't find out about it. :)

Phatch

Phatch
is a simple to use cross-platform GUI Photo Batch Processor which handles all popular image formats and can duplicate (sub)folder hierarchies. Phatch can batch resize, rotate, rename, ... and more in minutes instead of hours or days if you do it manually.

They've explained it all. :) But there's one thing I'd like to point out. You know the part about "simple to use"? Phatch is just a tad troublesome to install for every other OS except for Ubuntu, since Python needs to be installed first.

ServiceBeacon

ServiceBeacon Unless you keep a detailed logbook, maintenance is probably the last thing on your mind when you look at your automobile. With , you can let someone else remind you when you should be sending your car for servicing. Some of the cool features I found include service schedule presets and regularly updated (every 3 months) information. There are probably lots more features I'm missing, but first I need a car. :P


Nope, no more freebies. Come back in 24 hours. :)

 

Does Removing NoFollow for Blogger Backlinks Even Matter?

Comments

Backlinks don't work for me :(

First, to understand how I ventured into this topic, you should know that Blogger backlinks (the section called "Links to this post") won't appear on this blog. I first discovered this issue quite a while back after I changed the blog's template to the present one you see now. :)

The problem doesn't seem to have anything to do with my messing around with the template, as I tried out my template on a test blog and it works there ("Create a link" works). As usual, the answer to most of my problems come from Google.

No answer to no backlinks, but what I found instead...

Needless to say, I didn't find any solution to this issue. :P This is fairly irritating because I would have to 1)debug Blogger's compressed javascript (not a trivial or fun task to do), 2)code my own backlinks (less intimidating than option 1 but why reinvent the wheel?) or 3)forgo backlinks altogether (my current less than ideal choice).

However, my issues aren't the main topic here. :) While googling for an answer to my headache, I came across something else instead - removing nofollow for Blogger backlinks. Quite simply, was invented to tell search engines not to follow a link if a link was tagged as such. It also has further implications such as not contributing to the linked page's (a magical number that many people are obsessed with), among others.

What's the big deal?

You may be wondering why I'm kicking such a big fuss over a couple of bloggers removing nofollow from their backlinks. Actually I wouldn't have cared if what they were doing actually worked.

You see, if you read what I wrote earlier, I mentioned that I would have to debug Blogger's javascript in order to find out why backlinks wouldn't work on this blog. The reason for this should be quite obvious - backlinks in Blogger are implemented using javascript.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain that search engines do not even execute javascript. And backlinks only exist if javascript is enabled. Put the both of them together and you'll realize the simple folly behind the idea that removing nofollow from backlinks actually matters in Blogger.

Just in case you need to hear it from an official source, here's a relevant snippet from :
Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.

 

Just out: iTunes 7.5, IPSFCache

Comments

Offtopic: Everyone is waiting with bated breath for the evil combo of iPhone firmware 1.1.2 and iTunes 7.5 to be unleashed. :) Me? I'm just hanging around. :P

iTunes 7.5

Seems made quite a big splash. Some say , but one person there did seem to face a problem. The Operator, , says
Was enjoying the lull before the inevitable storm... as usual, don't upgrade to iTunes 7.5. Looks like Apple removed the private functions needed for jailbreak from the MobileDevice framework. Time to find another way in...

Listening to the author of iNdependence is probably a good idea, especially when .

IPSFCache

A new hope arrives for users. If you recall, , and would have problems revirginizing their iPhones because of this. It appears all may not be lost, as a copy may exist on the iPhone itself.

See and for more details.

 

Google AdSense implements Easy Ad Management

Comments

New: Manage Ads

Over at , the AdSense team mentions that they're currently rolling out a new feature called "Manage Ads" to all AdSense publishers. True enough, when I checked my AdSense account, Manage Ads was just staring back at me, taunting me to click it.

Manage Ads screenshot
Manage Ads: I dare you to click me!


So what do you need to know?

Here's the super quick lowdown on the new Manage Ads feature, cause you have no time to waste. (Time = money, remember?)
  1. Your old Adsense code still works, but . If your AdSense code is not generated directly from AdSense but through an AdSense partner such as Blogger, then you need to stick to your old code.

  2. To use the Manage Ads feature, you must import your old code to the new format. If you generate AdSense code now and you have the Manage Ads feature, then you'll also be able to use it.

  3. You can change an ad's colors, channels or corner styles, but one characteristic you cannot change is the ad's size. A new Ad unit needs to be created to change an ad's size.

  4. You cannot delete an Ad unit, inactive ad units (no impressions for 7 days) will be hidden. Check "Show inactive AdSense units" to display them.

  5. Your ad code is now shorter than before. It may not be important to you, but I prefer shorter code. :)

Managing my Ads

I tried out the Manage Ads feature and was able to get some of my old AdSense code imported. Importing is as simple as stated by Google. Simply copy and paste the entire chunk of old AdSense code, including the script tags, enter an Adsense unit name, click "Save and Get Code" and you're done.

Note: Actually I tried out 2 of my old Ads and 1 failed to import over. I'm not entirely sure why that is so, but the one that failed was recently generated, so maybe that could be a factor.

In case you're afraid of taking the big leap, here are some screens of importing my old Ad code and an Ad unit I just created.

Manage Ads screenshot
Importing my old Ad code, it begged me to convert!


Manage Ads screenshot
Editing an ad unit, very similar to creating a new one.


Manage Ads screenshot
Managing Ad units


Final words

Google AdSense finally gains a feature that many other online advertisers implemented quite some time ago. Will this be a sign of things to come? One can only hope...

 

gPhone announcement becomes Google Android and the Open Handset Alliance? No...!

Comments

gPhone?

Darn, everyone knew Google was going to announce something today. And everyone (including me) was hoping for a gPhone. (While keeping up with iPhone unlocking news is more fun than watching paint dry, :P I'd rather have something solid to work on.)

Nope, it's something else...

Instead . Not a physical phone but an open mobile software platform. Argh! I guess I can't blame Google for this move, since they're mainly a software company. The only consolation is that I have potentially more "open" phones to choose from, as the .

No gPhone, but Android and the Open Handset Alliance instead.

Everything you want to know about Google Android and the Open Handset Alliance

Here are a couple of informative links because I'm too depressed to read through everything. :P




Back to reading up on iPhone unlocking I guess...

 

Operation for the Girl Born with Eight Limbs

Comments

Wow, this story I read at the Telegraph was so amazing and fantastic that I couldn't resist sharing it with everyone. Apparently this two year old girl, Lakshmi Tatma (named after a Hindu goddess that has four arms), has four arms and four legs because her twin did not develop fully during her mother's pregnancy.

Lakshmi Tatma playing with her mum

Because of this, many Indians regarded her as a reincarnation of that goddess and went to get a blessing from her. However, she will soon be undergoing an operation to remove the extra limbs in order to increase her chances of survival.

Lakshmi Tatma's X-ray

As you can see from the X-ray, this will not be a trivial operation and will take many surgeons and specialists. Hopefully, all will go well and she'll be able to lead a normal life.


[Pictures and story from ]

 

Monday, November 05, 2007

Free: Fawnt, FOG - Free, Open-Source Ghost, WirelessKeyView

Comments

Offtopic: Remember, remember, the 5th of November... Oh crap, it's already the 6th. :P

Fawnt

Fawnt Looking for pretty pretty fonts? Fawn over the fonts at . Over at Fawnt, they've done the dirty work for you and collected some of the web's best fonts. With over 50 fonts listed on their site, finding one that you like shouldn't be a problem. The real problem arises when you can't decide which font you like best. :P

FOG - Free, Open-Source Ghost

as its name suggests is a free open source alternative to Norton Ghost. No idea what either Ghost does? In short, they image a partition/drive (make a duplicate) so you can restore the image at a later time when you invariably screw up. ;) Very handy when you trash your computer often. :)

FOG - Free, Open-Source Ghost

WirelessKeyView


recovers all wireless network keys (WEP/WPA) stored in your computer by the 'Wireless Zero Configuration' service of Windows XP and by the 'WLAN AutoConfig' service of Windows Vista. It allows you to easily save all keys to text/html/xml file, or copy a single key to the clipboard.

WirelessKeyView

Ok you can file this under one of those nifty little tools that you can't find when you really need it. But now you know where you can find it. :P


Show's over. Come back tomorrow, different time, same place, for more. :)

 

Exploring Picasa Web Albums - Thumbnails and Other Hidden Options

Comments

Keep up with the times, man! Picasa Web Albums is old news!

Recently I've been playing around with . Yes, I'm well aware that it's been more than a year since it made its debut and about 8 months since its integration with Blogger.

On the fly thumbnailing, baby!

64 Pixels One of the interesting features of Picasa Web Albums is that a photo only needs to be uploaded once and you can retrieve back in several different fixed sizes. I like this feature because
  1. it reduces overhead if you don't need a big picture,

  2. you don't need to create thumbnails if you are embedding a large picture

  3. and it reminds of the write once, use many rule of programming.

Since it's been out for over a year, what are the available thumbnail sizes?

However, while I knew Picasa resizes images automagically, what I didn't know were the fixed sizes that I could actually use as thumbnails. Uploading pictures via Blogger (they're integrated with Picasa) gave me some clues with its ability to specify 3 different sizes, but I wasn't totally satisfied. By randomly testing out multiples of the original 3 values I had, I managed to uncover more valid sizes that could be used and I decided to stop there for a while.

All known Picasa thumbnail values revealed...

After that brief pause, I tried Googling and searching for this particular topic but didn't come up with an official list. I did find several unofficial lists, but I knew they were missing some values because of my previous discoveries. Almost by chance, I stopped by to take a look around. And there it was - the official list of Picasa thumbnail sizes tucked away in .

Size Cropped Embeddable Size Cropped Embeddable
32 Yes Yes 576 No Yes
48 Yes Yes 640 No Yes
64 Yes Yes 720 No Yes
72 No Yes 800 No Yes
144 No Yes 912 No No
160 Yes Yes 1024 No No
200 No Yes 1152 No No
288 No Yes 1280 No No
320 No Yes 1440 No No
400 No Yes 1600 No No
512 No Yes d No No


For some info about cropping skip to the end of this article. And don't worry too much about some of the embeddable values being listed as "No". I believe ALL of the listed sizes (except d) are actually embeddable (you can stick them on a webpage).

Note: The very last value, d, cannot be used. Well, that's my current theory since I haven't found out how to use it. :)

How do you use them?

With this list at my disposal, everything became much simpler and clearer. No more mucking around, trying to second guess if I can use a certain value. Of course, now that you've found this list, it's still useless to you unless you know how to actually make use of it. :) So here's a quick and dirty guide to help you out just cause I'm such a nice person. :P

  1. First, find the Picasa URL of the image you want to resize.
    1. In Picasa, click on the photo and look for the Download Photo link. Copy that download link.

    2. If you uploaded via Blogger however, it'll be something similar to
      http://bp1.blogger.com/_yF4ImO9N_uE/Ry7u3e5sK4I/
      AAAAAAAAAxc/KMDZl9-SydM/s1600-h/2000pixels.gif

      It doesn't really matter what the URL is, whether it's Picasa or Blogger, as long as you have a direct link to your image in the format above.


  2. Next, change the red part to some other number on the list above.
    http://bp1.blogger.com/_yF4ImO9N_uE/Ry7u3e5sK4I/
    AAAAAAAAAxc/KMDZl9-SydM/s32/2000pixels.gif

  3. Watch as a smaller version of your image is downloaded from Google's servers. You can verify this by right-clicking on the image and viewing the properties.

  4. Profit!

Examples/Proof that it works...

32 Pixels 48 Pixels 64 Pixels 72 Pixels 144 Pixels 160 Pixels

Other interesting stuff I found

The maximum image size that you can upload to Blogger is 1600x1600 pixels. Sure you can upload gigantic images taken with your expensive 100 megapixels camera but in Picasa it'll end up as a 1600x1600 image. I tried this only once with the picture you see in this post (which as it says was originally at 2000x2000 pixels) and it ended up being resized to 1600x1600pixels, so don't say I didn't warn you. :) However, when I uploaded directly via the Picasa Web Albums web client, I didn't face this limitation.

I came across some query parameters that can be used in association with your Picasa image URL. These are


Final words

I hope putting this bit of info out in the open was helpful because I spent my precious time writing it. :P If any geniuses out there come up with some useful Picasa tips, feel free to share them here.

And just in case you're wondering, (2 Radiohead "official" covers in different sizes).

 

An AppSnapp Jailbreaking Video

Comments

With the yesterday, it isn't surprising there aren't any new developments today. Still, this YouTube video of the new in action may be of interest to those who aren't too confident of themselves. :)

Made by Mark @ , it drags on for almost 6 minutes, but that's because he was demonstrating every step in slow motion. Doing it normally should halve the time to jailbreak your iPhone. A step-by-step walkthrough for AppSnapp 1.1 isn't out yet, but if you can't do it simply by watching the video, maybe jailbreaking your iPhone on your own may not be such a good idea. :P

 

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Free: Lamont - Golden Daze, Posteet

Comments

Offtopic: Not much posts from me on weekends. It's normal, unless I happen to be bored. :)

Lamont - Golden Daze

Lamont - Golden Daze
Ok, don't get too worried about seeing logo up there. Lamont's debut album, The Golden Daze, is being (MP3/FLAC/OGG) by Lamont themselves. (If you have no faith in me, just visit . :) )

If you're wondering why you haven't heard of Lamont before, it could be because 1) they're a Swedish band (performing in English) or 2) this is their debut or 3) you don't keep your ears open :P. Here's their Golden Daze music video, just in case you can't decide if you should dedicate some bandwidth to them. (It's worth noting .)



My experience with the download can be summed up in one word - speedy. Within seconds of starting the torrent, I had already crossed the 100 kilobytes barrier. Can't say much about the album since I'm still not done yet (a few minutes more), but the 10 files look like they're 320kbps MP3s (from their size).

If you feel guilty about being a freeloader, there's an option to .

Posteet

Programmers/web developers/code junkies normally collect a bunch of coding tricks/tips over the years. But keeping them organized is quite a challenge (not to mention troublesome). This is where steps in and hands you control over your code.

Other than storing your code, Posteet allows you to tag and share it with others, if you wish. And if you're worried about code that looks like a half-done novel, snippets on Posteet come with syntax-highlighting whenever supported. With such a wide variety of code up on Posteet, I wonder if I can find LOLCODE there. :)


Yeah, what can I say? Freebies are scarce on Sundays. :P

 

Just out: CARNAVAL v0.7, AppSnapp 1.1, BigBoss Virginizer Guide

Comments

Offtopic: It's quite interesting today with CARNAVAL, AppSnapp and a virginizer guide. Definitely more interesting than yesterday. :) And it'll get more interesting on Nov 9, when .

CARNAVAL v0.7

The version of CARNAVAL you've been waiting for is here! CARNAVAL v0.7 now installs AnySIM 1.1 (finally!) and leaves your iPhone in the same state as other jailbreaking applications. (If you're wondering what happened to v0.6, there was a bug in it so it's recommended to use v0.7.)

NEW FEATURES:

* CARNAVAL now installs the new version of Installer.app
* CARNAVAL now installs anySIM 1.1 (you can uninstall it through Installer.app after you're done unlocking)
* CARNAVAL now leaves your iPhone in compatibility with iBrickr and similar applications (full jailbreak)


BUG FIX:
* An important line was missing from the latest release's back-up script (v0.6, don't use it). Thanks to Dark_Alex_Tribute for spotting this out! -


Note that some have noted that the BSD subsystem (not installed by CARNAVAL) may be required for AnySIM to work properly. . No one has confirmed all of AnySIM's dependencies yet so you'll have to wait and see.

Get .

Update: .

AppSnapp 1.1

AppSnapp has been updated to whatever newer version it's supposed to be at. :D I'm just calling it 1.1 for my convenience. :P

Updates of note in AppSnapp 1.1 include more reliable jailbreaking, a one-touch aka one click process and a working YouTube.

If you're wondering about planetbeing, see .

* planetbeing became awesome.
*

* Entire process is logged to /var/root/Media/AppSnapp.log and can be retreived with iphuc/ssh.
*

* Added a check to prevent AppSnapp from being ran on devices which are not running 1.1.1
*

* Improved reliability. I am no longer using raw sockets to send the payload files, they are being served back to the phone/ipod via HTTP. This greatly improves the chances you'll actually get it jailbroken the first time :)
*

* Added progress indicator. Now once safari crashes, you'll see a dialog letting you know what's going on.
*

* Updated to the latest version of Installer.app. Now, I install Community Sources by default so you'll see all packages right away.
*

* Made it really one-touch, even for users with unactivated phones.
*

* Fixed issue where the majority of users with unactivated phones wouldn't get YouTube working automagically.


Visit (not such a great idea on your iPhone unless you intend to jailbreak).

Update: .

BigBoss Virginizer Guide

Virginizing your iPhone (unlocked 1.0.2 iPhone -> locked, almost like new, 1.0.2 iPhone) with a bad IMEI (dreaded 0049*) can be quite a hassle. The BigBoss 8-step Virginizer Guide looks easy enough and . Mark at Hack the iPhone also .

See .
See as well.

 
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