Simkin.Org

Category: Tech stuff

  • More Apps

    Getting apps can be addictive.

    Movies, Formula1.com, Sky+ TV Listings, Blurb, etc etc

  • My first iPhone App Grab

    So what have I downloaded so far?

    BlogWriter – easy access to this blog

    LinkedIn – Business networking
    Facebook – Social networking
    Bump – contact sharing

    Logmein – remote control my PC
    Telnet – terminal access
    iSSH – secure terminal access
    VNC – server remote control
    Subnet Calc – because it has been years since my CCNA

    Tube Map – A map you can pan and zoom
    National Rail – Train times
    Google Earth – Oooh Ahh!
    Google – latitude, etc
    iMapMyRide – To er.. map my bike riding

    Sky+ – TV listings and remote record
    Links to BBC News and BBC Sport as well…

    iHandyLevel – You never know when you need to straighten something
    Shazam – Find out what that tune is that is playing on the radio
    MonkeySwing – for the kids. Honest!
    Yahtzee Adventures – MY wife told me to get it.

  • Make your own iPhone Ringtones

    It is easy….

    1. Choose your favourite track

    2. Use an audio tool (I use Nero Wave Editor) to cut out no more than 40.00Seconds that you want to use. It may be worth adding a fade-out bit to the last 3 seconds but that is up to you.

    3. Save the file as MP3

    4. Add the file to iTunes

    5. Right-click in iTunes and choose CONVERT TO AAC. (If it says “CONVERT TO MP3”, change your import settings EDIT > PREFERENCES > GENERAL > IMPORT SETTINGS  to be AAC. Remember to switch back to MP3 later…)

    6. Delete the MP3 file from itunes

    7. Locate the AAC file (Right-click, GET INFO, look at the line that stats “where”)

    8. Rename the file from xxx.m4a to xxx.m4r

    9. Remove the entry from itunes (it won’t work now anyway)

    10. Drop the m4r file into the RINGTONES folder

  • Star Trek comes a little bit closer thanks to Apple

    So watching Star Trek Next Gen you get to see these little data pads that everyone carries around. No more bits of paper. An electronic pad to see the information you need from a variety of sources. Instant access without having to lug a heavy laptop around or needing to sit at your desk. Apple finally couldn’t stop themselves from making one.

    So why will this work and the previous tablets didn’t? Well firstly it is a “must have” home accessory because of the badge. If you just want to surf the web and occasionally email, it is ideal. Secondly it is rammed with Apps from the iphone. Thirdly it looks pretty. Fourth – Google. Load up Google Apps and you have your whole life laid out on a glass and plastic pad in front of you. Documents, Calendar, Mail, Apps. Job done.

    Have a look at the accessories. This is positioned as a light laptop/netbook, an ebook reader, personal movie player and (thanks to the accelerometer) a gaming platform. Drop it into a folder and it will not look out of place in a meeting.

    Will I get one? I don’t really need one. But feel free to buy me one for Christmas!

  • Sky Player under Windows 7

    If you are a Sky subscriber, you will really like “Sky Player” under Media Cente in Windows 7. You will however find installing it to be a pain in the rear.

    Two things to remember:
    1. Apply the registry patch first. Copy and paste this into a file called “sky_player_fix.reg” and run it:
    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\ProgramGuide]
    "strCountryCode"="GB"

    2. Find the installer here.

  • Mac Mini 9400M drivers

    I recently bought a new Mac mini 2009 (nvidia chipset) to replace my trusty old Media Centre. My plan was to Bootcamp it and drop Windows 7 onto it and then transfer the handful of save games etc. over. Trouble was, Apple don’t yet support Windows 7. (Bigger problem was doing this one-handed but that is another story).

    There are instructions on how to get started but once Windows 7 boots up, the problems start.

    Following the first start, wireless networking is good, graphics is vga and most other things are struggling. Ignore Windows update and don’t put in the OSX DVD and try installing drivers. If you do, expect a Blue screen of death (BSOD). Instead, create a restore point and go fishing for the nvidia chipset drivers and the beta 9400M drivers that actually work:

    15.35_nforce_win7_32bit_international_whql.exe – install the chipset drivers before you do anything else, set a restore point and restart. If you are lucky your wired networking will now work.

    195.55_notebook_winvista_win7_32bit_international.exe – these BETA video drivers will work. Use these instead of the Bootcamp ones or the ones suggested by Windows Update. Again, restore point before restarting.

    On the wired networking side, I found performance a bit poor until I turned off priority a vlan in advanced settings as well as dropping ipv6 support. You may not need to or a different approach may get better results but that worked for me.

    So how did it all go then? Well it is now a small, quiet, stable Windows 7 machine and I am very happy with it. The onboard graphics set handles the Lego games that my boys play and WMC easily chews up the DVD rips on my NAS as well as being a nice little DVD player complete with optical (mini-TOS) output.

    I also recently blew up my trusty nvidia 7600GS and traded up to a GT240 in my main Athlon x2 4200 PC. (My wife fitted it for me.) Which means graphically, Win7 scores it a 6.5 with a CPU of 4.9 whilst it hums away in the full ATX case beside me. So surely the Mac Mini won’t be that good? erm…….

  • Windows 7

    My pre-ordered Windows 7 has arrived. I should ideally vaporise this PC and install it clean. That is a lot of work though. Do I use the Easy Transfer tool instead? mmm

  • recovering iphone contacts from a backup

    So your iphone died and it killed your contacts list? It is not easy to recover it but not impossible either:

    Find your last backup file: c:\users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup and look for your contacts file called 31bb7ba8914766d4ba40d6dfb6113c8b614be442.mdbackup which is a plist file containing sqlitite v3 encoded content stored in xml.

    For the lazy people, there is a useful tool to extract the content as plaintext: http://insend.de/ or http://www.reincubate.com/labs/iphone-backup-extractor-how-extract-files-iphone-backup-windows/#/res/i/labs/iphonebe/3_wizard.png

    If you export from sqlite to Excel and use and dated fields, this query is vaery handy:

    select strftime(‘%d/%m/%Y %H:%M’,1257961471, ‘unixepoch’);

    Alternatively, get Excel to do the work (Converts to GMT):

    =(((A1/60)/60)/24)+DATE(1970,1,1)   [taken from this site]

  • Vista Slow after SP2

    It seems Microsoft enables auto-tuning of network settings under Vista Service Pack 2. This can cause networking to grind to a halt if your router at home does any firewalling – which it should. Chances are, you will thus be running excruciatingly slow under Vista.

    Click this link to fix it.

    (more…)

  • Florence & the Machine Lungs won’t play

    At least that is what my trusty Pioneer DVR110 was saying. Lots of ch-chunk noises and nothing else. Luckily it was just a firmware issue. Firmware 1.22 didn’t work but 1.41 did. Upgrade was painless and easy. I recommend you flash your drive to the latest build if you own a Pioneer….