I wanted a speedometer mount for my bicycle but I am too cheapskate to buy an proper attachment and can’t be bothered to mount it up, so I went to eBay and bought a mobile phone mount for my Samsung Galaxy S2. After all, a smartphone can do more than just displaying me the speed stats. All I need now is an app and I found this nifty free app called MapMyRide. Not only it has all the basic speedometer and statistics tracking features, it also records my rides/journey/workouts using GPS. Arming with the app, I recorded my first 10 kilometres workout  Here’s my route info.

Of course with that punishing workout without warming up myself, my back hurts again. My physiotherapist is not going to please to hear about this, but it was worth it. : )

P.S Oh, one of its cool features is letting me to capture images with my mobile phone’s built in camera and uploaded along with my route info. But the shots are not rotated when they are shot in portrait mode.

Apparently there’s this nifty method to access every single settings in my Windows 7. It is called God Mode

1. Create a new folder on the desktop
2. Name the  folder as GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
3. The folder icon will change into a Control Panel icon.
4. Click into it to access every available settings from A to Z

I found out this little feature from G+ but the link was lost. Anyways, here’s a link which shares the similar story

P.S. If you are using Windows Vista 64 bit, be a little careful though. The comments in the post (the link above) said those peeps who are still with Wondows Vista 64 bit will crash if they turn on this “god mode” feature. You guys are warned ; )

After ‘googling’ (a geeky term huh?) around, I’ve found some users who have similar problem like mine, except some they might have different translators (FTP, ASP,etc)  in the error message. Apparently a  dat file is corrupted somehow and needs to be corrected. And so, what they suggested was renaming or deleting a particular WinFileCache configuration *.dat file in the user settings folder.

The steps:

1. Close down the Dreamweaver application
2. Locate this WinFileCache file. I’m using Windows 7 so it’s in C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS4\en_US\Configuration
3. Find a file called ‘WinFileCache-xxxxxx.dat‘ (I think the xxx codes might be vary from different user, operating systems, dreamweaver versions, etc). Anyways to play safe, I renamed mine instead of deleting to ‘WinFileCache-xxxxxx.dat.bak‘  in case something screws up.
4. Restart the Dreamweaver and try to open a file (any)
5. And hoooray, everything goes back to normal! *Cheers*

This is an interesting discovery. I usually install an app to screen capture my Android mobile or use the app that comes with Cyanogenmod. Apparently the Samsung Galaxy S2 has its own built in screen capture application; hence no need to install additional apps or root it.

All it needs is just the Home button and Power button pressed together and that’s it.

The screenshot is stored in a folder called ScreenCapture

(Click to enlarge)

Checking the codes reviewed nothing much but a poorly constructed HTML and trying to reach their main site returns an HTTP 403 Forbidden response. Now I do not recall there’s a courier or a shipping facility provider calling themselves ‘extremegoodies.com’ and judging from the way they present their ‘website’, it is obviously a fake. A fake package-shipping-tracking-site. Not sure why they pull out a half-bake effort into such a site, perhaps they are trying to offer a false sense of security to the buyer?
Good thing I bought an item that has a negligible value from these people. If I don’t receive it within 2 weeks, boy I’m contemplating to give a negative feedback.

A gripe for me is that I can’t minimise the Messenger into the taskbar anymore  like it used to be under Windows 7 but that doesn’t mean it is the end of the world. There is always a workaround method. All you need to do is to run the Messenger in a campatibility mode as Vista (I chose Vista Service Pack 2) and voila, it minimises into the task bar!
[Minimising Messenger to Taskbar]

It’s pretty frustrating especially for a newbie like me who do not know how to judge a picture preview via the camera LCD or reading the histogram. So I always ended up realising of bad photo capturing only when I got home, copied to my desktop and viewed on a computer monitor. Precious moments are wasted and there’s nothing I can do.

There is no way a poor employee like me (sad cue coming in…) to afford software like Nikon Camera Control Pro or Mac Aperture 3 to manage my photos live in real time. Like the saying goes, “When there’s a will, there’s a way” and with much perseverence, I found some nifty applications/workaround for free. DIYPhotoBits  has provided a script that lets you tether the DSLR with the laptop via USB cable on Windows. Now I can easily preview my images on a larger screen instead of the camera LCD and manage my shots. And yes, Mac has  an application for tethering too; Sofortbild.

And oooh, I’m so tempted to tether my DSLR with the iPad via this method but it will cost a bit of investment in both hardware and software. More fun times ahead

I guess I have to upgrade it through the manual way and it’s a pain. Will do it when I have the time.

Samsung Galaxy S so far was the quickest and easiest to upgrade. Less than 5 minutes and poof, it was ported Android 2.1 to 2.3! Also, rooting was easy too! Hurrah!

[Upgrade with Odin]
[Upgrade with Clockworkmod recovery]
[Root Samsung Galaxy S]

Learning from those bitter experiences, I’ve grown up. I’ve learned to uphold the good old saying, “If you want to do it, do it yourself” and have decided to invest my time, my finance and my own effort to get things done (of course I have to watch out my budget and monetary constraints unless trading dirt and old clothes are expensive commodity out there now). I’ll pay and I’ve paid my own training and equipment. That’s that!

So how does it feel? Satisfied, yes. A dent in my pocket, definitely a yes but it was worth it. Knowledge is priceless and they can’t take it away from you, unlike a company mobile phone; it’s not like I’m entitled to one anyways. ; )

Alas, not everything is perfect. The mod OS drains my battery faster than the stock. It even drains faster when my 3G radio is on. I’ve tried ways to knock down the power consumption but so far no success. The stock camera is acting up too. It froze after taking a shot. For now I’m relying on a third party app.

Ok, aside from those  gloomy whinges, there are brighter sides as well. It’s faster, less rebooting to flush over-gorging of memory and better apps memory handling. And yes, I can install apps to the SD card (Motorola stinged on Milestone internal memory, bah).

I’m still waiting for a newer release that will follow up the issues and hopefully addresses them.

But at the end of the day, it’s frustrating but it is still worth it. I happy with it….for now : )

It’s a good thing the recent WordPress provides an automated upgrade of a defunct version to a new one. I remember those days I had to turn off each plugin one by one before I FTP’d the latest files to my blog. Oh, I must not forget to backup the database too!

Also, the theme I’m using is not as versatile with the new 3.xx. It was mean for the earlier versions. Sigh, more work.

One of many frustrations we IT professionals have to face is miscommunication or misinformation. The outcome has a ripple effect; small insignificant misiplaced information will tend to produce a big crack in the project. It gets worse if the crack starts from the begining of the project life cycle. And yours truly have the honour to experience such eventful moments once too often. There’s this scenario with a recent project I was dealing with may not sound like a huge project that cost a lot of money but nevertheless, time was wasted.

It goes like this. According to the manager after a meeting with the sales team, they wanted a button (manager’s favourite term for anything that is clickable which sends you off to somewhere) that is attached to marketing emails which allow potential clients to download it onto the desktop like an application icon. Double clicking it will then trigger a web browser and navigate itself to a specific CMS website. The manager stated specifically, the button must have the company’s logo in it. In an IT nutshell, it’s a URL shortcut with a customised icon.

Sounds pretty simple enough huh, except a few critical areas he’s not aware of. As email technology advances, a lot of unfavourable things catch up as well. Virus, trojans, spam, you name it are used to attack users via emails. Attaching a URL shortcut is one of them. Antivirus/Spyware/Malware/Spam filters are very edgy and alert on these attachments and very likely they will be filtered as spam or blocked. Next bright idea (and also unfavourable) is attaching an executable file. That will definitely sound the alarm louder. Another problem is different OSes the clients are using. In the manager’s ideal world, M$ Windows is assumed the OS clients engaged with (loved it when a debate ensures with a ‘What’s the percentage of insert-operating-system-here that our clients are using?). Okay, let’s ‘assume’ every client is a Windows freak, what’s a quick workaround solution? Zipped it up, he said and pray the anti-virus will not find it.

Personally, I do not agree to such attachments (regardless a zipped or non-zipped executables/URL shortcut) but then again, I’m just a small voice in the organisation that only listens to themselves. A better solution was suggested: Tell the clients to bookmark the URL site, for goodness sake. It’s not rocket science to teach but it’s possible. It’s better than opening an email, download the attachment, unzip the executable file/URL shortcut onto the desktop and doubleclick the file. Simple keyboard shortcuts vs dozen steps instructions. Geez.

Having discover that I was totally against the idea of such attachments, the idea was apparently put off and quietly delegated to another person without my knowledge. Note: This incident happened within the period of two weeks. The graphic designer was assigned to this (I don’t know why) and the bitter cycle of trying out customised icons with an executable file via emails happens again. I caught the wind of it when the dude was trying to test it out by sending the attachment to my email via a zipped file!

During one lunch hour, a sales team personnel joined us and from the casual chitchat, we popped the question of the little project the manager brought up. That 2 minutes conversation cleared up a lot of things and it was a totally ‘OMFGWTF’ moment. What the sales team wanted is not an application/URL shortcut/executable file with a customised icon to be downloaded from emails onto the desktop. What the sales team really wanted is a GIF or JPEG of a web banner with a company logo in it so they can send these images to partner clients to use, say embedding the banner as a weblink in their website.

I’m not pinning blame to anyone (though subtlely I do lean against the management), but the point of this scenario is we could have save the time and effort if the needs of the person who requested it, is properly verified and confirmed. Man, epic fail.

Installing a custom rom for an android mobile phone is quite a challenging move for me. It took a while for yours truly to take a big step forward and whack the Android mod rom into the mobile phone. I have a Motorola Milestone, running on a Motorola branded Android 2.1. All is fine and dandy until the lacking of disk space for my apps irritated me.

It took me two days to read in various forums/websites and figured out what to be done. I rooted my mobile sometime ago with SuperOneClick prior upgrading the Android OS. I don’t think I need to repeat what the instructions these seasoned dudes (here and here) have provided.

Note: Before you ever start rooting or installing a custom rom, please research properly and know what you are doing or else you might brick/mess up your mobile phone. I’m only passing my own personal experience of installing one and will not take responsibility of your actions.

What I did to mine was basically :

1. Copied the custom rom and Google apps into the SD card
2. Boot to OpenRecovery 3.3
3. Backup the current rom (in case anything happens)
4. Wipe  (davlik cache, cache, data)
5. Install the CM7
6. Install Google apps

I ran into a hiccup somewhere in step 5 when I came across with an error “E:EOCD marker occurs after start of EOCD E:signature verification failed”. Apparently, I have to fix the vulnerable recovery issue before I can proceed with the installation. That was where I almost pulled my hair out.

Anyways, I did manage to install everything  and it was worth the effort. Did I tell you it’s faster now? Hurrah…

Oh, to boot into system recovery mode, I read there’s various ways. Some said holding down Power Button and Camera Button and some said holding down Power Button and the ‘X’ key on the keypad. For me it’s the latter . It all depends the version of the bootloader your mobile phone has.

When the PS3 arrived, I checked the firmware version. It was 2.76, an old system. Woohoo! Score 1 to Modding PS3. The thing to do is to buy and replace the oldie 40Gb into a bigger 500Gb hard disk (HDD). I decided on  a Seagate 500Gb Momentus 5400rpm which I got it for 50 bucks.

I read the online forums/articles and watched the videos of replacing hard disks and I thought it was an easy 15 minutes job. Boy, I was wrong. I have had a series of troubleshooting that took me the entire night to figure it out before I finally replace the dang HDD.

• The hatch that host the hard disk was totally different – searched for videos of how to remove it safely
• PS3 won’t reformat the HDD – unable to find the firmware on USB drive. So I thought the older firmware doesn’t recognise large HDD so I upgraded the firmware to 3.41
• PS3 still wont reformat the HDD – still complaining about missing firmware. After hours of reading posts after posts in the forums, I found out I need to stick the USB drive (with the 3.41) firmware to allow the PS3 to reinstall all the core files into the HDD. &*#@^*&!^#!
• I can’t remember how many times I had to swap the HDDs in between to test if the new HDD is faulty. Gah!

When the reformatting HDD ordeal was over, I thought everything went well. But nooo, the PS3 was acting up again; it was extremely sluggish and slow when booting up or shutting down. Spent another long hour to figure it out. Somewhere in between the irrevelant posts, someone mentioned that PS3 is unable to sync well with the new SATA HDD that runs at 3Gbps. I had to tune it down to 1.5 Gbps by setting the jumper. *slaps forehead*

The PS3 finally worked with a headache.

And this is not over yet. I’m still waiting for the programmable USB dongle to load the PS3 games and since it’s Christmas month now, I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything with my PS3 any time soon. I hope the USB dongle is not going to give me another headache.

After watching the youtube video below, I’m sold! I’m replaying Doom…

[News]

Lady A: “Good morning, XXXX. This is Lady A speaking”
Me: “Good morning, I would like to make an appointment.”
Lady A: “I’m sorry sir; you are in Sydney. We’re based in Melbourne.”
Me: “Um, I am residing in Melbourne.”
Lady A: “Sir, but your number is in Sydney.”
Me: “Oh, I’m using a VOIP phone. Think it points the call from Sydney.”
Lady A: “Huh?”

This is classic. Anyways, I managed to make that appointment after clearing up the confusion.

Will take some time before the migration takes place. : )