Ludolphus' weblog

New blogsite

2012-01-31T17:24:00.003+01:00

Decided to move my blogging activities to Tumblr.com. The content of this blog will stay here and are also imported to the Tumblr blog

Charice iPhone App updates to version 2.4

2012-01-16T09:58:00.004+01:00

Charice Pempengco App, All the news about the famous singer / actress from The Philippines. Apart from news, you can check her Twitter feed, Facebook wall posts, read lyrics of songs she performed, check out her latest photos and last but not least you can watch popular videos of Charice. And all this in one fantastic iPhone App!

To view the videos, tap a video image and the player will start the video. To view the photo slideshow, go to Photos and tap a photo, next tap the play button or if you like to view at your own pace, just swipe left or right.

When reading the News, tap the title to show a snippit of the article, tap the snippit or the date/source line and you will be presented with the original website that reported the news.

When reading Twitter or Facebook feeds, tap a Tweet or Facebook post to see the original on either the Twitter or Facebook webpage. You can also swipe a Tweet or Facebook post, this will give you sharing options: tweet, post to facebook, email and more!

We are updating the information on a regular basis. You can use the reload buttons to reload twitter, news, videos, photos, lyrics and facebook.

Push Notifications are send when there is news about Charice or new videos, photos or lyrics are available.

new in version 2.4:

Added Spotify support, tap the action menu button from the main screen and choose 'Charice Songs'.

new in version 2.3:

Bugfix for re-sharing Twitter and Facebook messages (when you swipe a tweet or Facebook message)
New App icon
Bugfix for weird notification badge text

new in version 2.2:

iOS 5 ready

new in version 2.1:

bug fixes
Improved support for iPhone 3G
Improved support for devices running IOS 3.1

new in version 2.0:

Push notifications for news, pictures, videos and lyrics
Rearranged Tabs to more logical order
Small fixes in the user interface
Fixed crash bug on closing and saving tabs
Saving tabs in user specified order works again

How to get to your iDisk after move to iCloud

2011-10-14T10:23:00.005+02:00

If you are wondering where your iDisk went after the move to iCloud, go read Apple's support article

But what if you do not see your iDisk in Finder ? Well that's easy, open Finder and press ⌘K and enter 'https://idisk.me.com/yourMobileMeName' as the Server Address. Without the quotes of course and yourMobileMeName should not include @me.com, just your name. Click the Connect button and your iDisk will open, it might ask for your credentials first.

iOS Apps

2011-07-02T12:55:00.005+02:00

Check out my iPhone and iPad Apps that I have been creating the past 2 months.

Charice Pempengco^©15 juni 2011

versie 1.0

Charice Pempengco App, al het nieuws over de beroemde zangeres / actrice uit de Filipijnen. Afgezien van nieuws, kun je haar Twitter-feed, Facebook wall posts bekijken, songteksten van liedjes die ze heeft gezongen, bekijk haar nieuwste foto's en last but not least kunt u kijken naar populaire video's van Charice. En dit alles in één fantastische iPhone App!

Om de video's te bekijken, tikt u een videobeeld en de speler zal de video starten. Om de fotoslideshow te zien, ga naar foto's en tik op een foto, vervolgens tikt u op de play button of als u de foto's in uw eigen tempo wilt bekijken, swipe links of rechts.

Bij het lezen van het nieuws, tikt u op de titel om een snippit van het artikel te tonen, tikt u vervolgens op de snippit of de datum / bron dan zal originele webpagina die het nieuws gemeld heeft, getoond worden.

Bij het lezen van Twitter of Facebook-feeds, tik op een Tweet of Facebook post om het origineel te zien op Twitter of Facebook. U kunt ook de swipe gesture over een Tweet of Facebook post doen, dit geeft de opties voor delen: tweet, post naar Facebook, e-mail en nog veel meer!

De informatie wordt op een regelmatige basis bijgewerkt zodat u altijd beschikt over het laatste nieuws over Charice. U kunt gebruik maken van de reload buttons om Twitter, nieuws, video's, foto's, teksten en Facebook te herladen.

Nassen^©31 mei 2011

versie 1.0

Nassen is een App om lekker eten in de vorm van recepten te vinden en zelf te bereiden. Met de Nassen App kun je recepten van andere gebruikers bekijken en deze natuurlijk zelf bereiden. Handig met een iPhone of iPad, die leg je zo naast je op het aanrecht om het recept te volgen. Van een uitgebreid hoofdgerecht tot een eenvoudig ontbijtje of lekkere hapjes, u kunt het allemaal vinden met de Nassen App.

U kunt de recepten delen via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter en nog vele andere sociale netwerken.

Heeft u zelf een recept van een lekker gerecht, ga dan naar www.nassen.nl, meldt u aan en plaats uw recept met foto's en deel het met anderen. Uiteraard is het recept direct zichtbaar in de Nassen App.

Kwaaak^©25 mei 2011

versie 1.0

Kwaaak^© is een spel voor jonge kinderen. Ze zien 20 plaatjes van dieren en objecten. Door het plaatje aan te raken, wordt het geluid van het object gespeeld. Maar dat is niet alles! Swipe naar links en er verschijnen nog meer plaatjes met geluiden! U hoeft het maar één keer aan uw kind te laten zien en hij of zij heeft door hoe het werkt.

U kunt zelf 5 foto's uit uw eigen foto bibliotheek toevoegen en daarbij via de iPad microfoon geluiden opnemen. Deze 5 eigen foto's en geluiden zijn op het eerste scherm te zien en te kiezen. U kunt de foto's en geluiden in het instellingen scherm kiezen, u navigeert hier naartoe via het instellingen icoon rechtsboven in de Kwaaak^© App.

Het instellingen scherm kan beveiligd worden met een pincode zodat uw kind niet per ongeluk allerlei instelling kan veranderen. Vergeet de pincode niet, want dan kunt u zelf niet meer bij de instellingen komen. Bent u uw pincode toch vergeten, dan kunt u de app opnieuw installeren op uw iPad door deze eerst te verwijderen en vervolgens via iTunes sync weer naar uw iPad te kopiëren. Of als u uw opgenomen geluiden en gekozen foto's wilt gehouden, stuur dan even een mailtje naar info@yellowdice.nl dan helpen wij u graag met een oplossing.

I am now IPv6 Certified Guru !

2011-01-03T22:07:00.003+01:00

Hurricane Electric IPv6 certification

Soon the world will be out of IPv4 addresses. The IT world is busy working on solutions to make sure the internet will not come to a halt. One of those solutions is implement IPv6. Because of my interest in networking, I started reading about IPv6 and tried to setup the basics for IPv6. I'm in the process of IPv6 Certification and are now at the IPv6 Certified Guru level. One more step to go to become IPv6 Certified Sage. But I need IPv6 glue records for this at my DNS provider but they do not support it yet.

What I have running at the moment (as test for now) is Apache2 on IPv6, Bind9 on IPv6, Postfix on IPv6 and the Ubuntu 64bit server is pingable (ICMP) on IPv6. I used Ubuntu 10 Server edition with the Ubuntu dekstop environment installed to configure the whole IPv6 stack and the mentioned applications. The server is running in a virtual machine hosted by VirtualBox 4.0, which in turn is running on OS/X Snow Leopard. That made things a little bit more complicated :) but not too much, afterall I am a Guru ;).

My internetconnection is through a cable provider. Cable modem is a Cisco 3925. I turned on DMZ mode forwarding 'all' traffic to an internal IP address, that of the Ubuntu server (duh!). This als forwards (apparently, nothing the Cisco documentation) Protocol41 which you need for tunneling IPv6 in IPv4. Regular port forwards configured on the Cisco 3925 just forward over IPv4, so I can have my IPv4 webserver running on port 80 as well as have the IPv6 webserver running on port 80. Nice!

I use a IPv6 tunnel provided by tunnelbroker.net.

Starting Nmap 5.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2011-01-03 13:47 PST
Interesting ports on [REMOVED].tunnel.tserv11.ams1.ipv6.he.net (2001:470:[REMOVED]):
Not shown: 997 closed ports
PORT   STATE SERVICE
25/tcp open  smtp
53/tcp open  domain
80/tcp open  http

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 29.85 seconds

WatchTREK XBMC Add-on now available through a repository (YaarFX)

2010-12-12T22:55:00.006+01:00

Repository created for WatchTREK XBMC addon, now allows for automatic updates of the addon.

The Star Trek episodes are not hosted by me, but on the site mentioned. This script just does some website scraping to make the episodes viewable in XBMC. Give it a few seconds for an episode to start.

Check out the repository here at YaarFX

To add the YaarFX repository to your XBMC install, first download zip archive located at http://yaarfx.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/repository.yaarfx.xbmc-plugins/

Then go to XBMC / System / Add-ons / Install from zip file. Browse to the location where you downloaded the YaarFX zip file and click OK. The repository should now be available under XBMC / System / Add-ons / Get Add-ons / YaarFX Add-on Repository. From there you can install the WatchTREK add-on. If in the future updates are made to this XBMC add-on, you will see a notification in the XBMC Add-ons menu and will be able to update by simply choosing the Update option there.

In the future I will add new add-ons to the YaarFX repository.

The wiki at http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Add-on_Repositories helped a lot on getting this to work, especially the automatic updates part.

WatchTREK add-on for XBMC (watch Star Trek episodes)

2010-12-04T23:57:00.009+01:00

XBMC Video add-on for WatchTREK (allstepisodes.com)

The Star Trek episodes are not hosted by me, but on the site mentioned. This script just does some website scraping to make the episodes viewable in XBMC. Give it a few seconds for an episode to start.

download link

Update 0.3
Changed the way of packing the addon to a zip file, it seems that newer versions of XBMC Dharma do not allow more than one directory in the root of the zip, also files are not allowed in the root. Just the directory name naming the plugin should be in the root. Now on version 0.3, the previous version did not work with the 'install from zip file' XBMC option. (how to package / zip / distribute xbmc addons).

Please help me test this add-on, I did not have the time to test all Star Trek episodes (28 seasons!) yet. This means that the script could have some errors still, the episodes I tested play just fine. Sometimes it might happen that you will see a 20 second video displaying a notice that the episode has been watched too many times. Unfortunately I have no influence on this, as the Star Trek episodes are not hosted by me but on a third party website.

Tested on XBMC Dharma RC2 (SVN-35567)

Please leave your comments on what you think about this XBMC add-on and also please inform me of episodes that might not work so I can make some improvements to the script. Thanks !

XBMC 9.11 beta 1, Introducing Confluence

2009-11-23T17:48:00.004+01:00

Confluence is the new theme for XBMC. Version 9.11 is still in beta, now at beta 1. It seems like maybe a small update, but this theme is more than just nice! It's fabulous and makes operating XBMC that much more easier. I am running it on my AppleTV and it works great already for a beta. Just having some trouble getting the movie/tv library up to date with all movies on my storage. I'm doing something wrong for sure.

Read all about the new XBMC 9.11b1

Virtu-Al VESI & PowerGUI PowerPack

2009-11-04T19:47:00.001+01:00

As you can see from the screen shot on the left, this is a first attempt at providing most of my scripts in one PowerPack and adding to the already great management that VESI and PowerGUI give you.

So what do I need to do to install this ?

Install PowerShell V1 or V2 (if you do not already have these installed) V2 Recommended
Install PowerCLI
Install VESI or PowerGUI (VESI Recommended for Virtualization management)
If you have PowerGUI installed you will need to add the ‘VMware Infrastructure Management’ PowerPack which can be downloaded from here.
Click the download button at the top of this post to download my latest PowerPack, and rate the PowerPack while you are there if you like !
Import the PowerPack into VESI or PowerGUI

Car Finder Uses Augmented Reality to Find Your Car

2009-11-04T19:40:00.001+01:00

Car Finder is an iPhone application that uses augmented reality to find your vehicle.

You can use Car Finder to locate your car anywhere you are. Once you load the application it uses the camera viewfinder to see an overly of where your car is, the direction it is located, and how far away it is.

The application uses the iPhone camera and compass and thus an iPhone 3GS running at least 3.1 will be required.

You can purchase Car Finder for $.99 from the App Store.

Get it in the App Store

AppleTV 3.0 installed with patchstick applied

2009-11-04T15:50:00.006+01:00

Yesterday I installed the 3.0 upgrade for AppleTV. After that I used the patchstick I used last time, containing SoftwareMenu frappliance. Unfortunately SoftwareMenu does not work yet on 3.0. But ssh is available again, so installing NitoTV, XBMC and Boxee was straight forward. To install XBMC and Boxee I needed to install Launcher first. Installing XBMC and Boxee via Launcher somehow doesn't work for me so I copied the apps to AppleTV and then created a symbolic link:

ln -s /Users/frontrow/Applications/XBMC.app /Applications/XBMC.app

So far everything works and the new AppleTV interface looks nice again, it's sort of a mix of the 1.0 and 2.0 GUI.

Sadly, AppleTV still does not support renting/buying movies and tv show in The Netherlands and a lot of other countries all over the world...

Couchsurfer 0.4 for AppleTV 2.1 firmware

2008-07-24T22:04:00.004+02:00

Yeah, although not officially announced yet, it looks like a new version of Couchsurfer that works with the 2.1 AppleTV firmware is available. Check here for the download, you will want the file called couchsurfer-0.4-2.1-bin.tar.gz. I tested it and so far it looks like it is working just fine. With the 0.3 version I had crashes and the bookmarks & history did not work. That's all fixed. What I did not test yet is add the flash plugin, but I guess that will work also (will update you on that later).

Update: installed flash (and other plugins), tested youtube.com and as expected it works.

What does your iPod touch / iPhone home screen look like

2008-07-13T22:15:00.003+02:00

Thought it would be nice to share my iPod touch 'desktop' or home screen. What I did is try to group functional apps next to eachother:

You can make your own screenshot this way:

hold the 'Home' button
press the 'Power' button
the screen will flash
screenshot is saved in Photos

Put a link to your home screen in a comment if you like.

AppleTV 2.1 update - patchstick applied

2008-07-12T19:42:00.008+02:00

Yesterday Apple released the 2.1 firmware of AppleTV. Like many others, I have my AppleTV patchsticked (jailbroken, hacked, or whatever you want to call it). So I hasitated to do the update (was still running 2.01). But after reading at the awkwardtv.org wiki I thought to give it a try.

The updated went just fine, within about 10 to 15 minutes the new firmware was downloaded and installed and working just fine. The biggest new features are MobileMe support and the new remote control from an iPhone or iPod Touch support. I had already updated my iPod Touch (grrr no iPhones left yesterday in my store) to the 2.0 software, which enables it to use applications from the App Store. On of the apps there is the 'Remote' app by Apple and its free. What this does is give you the ability to control your AppleTV or iTunes on Windows or Mac machine. Really cool and for AppleTV very nice to listen to music without having to turn on your TV.

Now for the patchstick part. I had a USB stick still lying around with the patchstick software on it, just a simple one that installs sshd (secure shell access). That worked just fine and after the patch I restarted it and everything is ok. Now ssh is available on to installing the plugins nitoTV, ATVFiles and Couchsurfer. Had to do the first two by hand and Couchesurfer installed through the nitoTV 'install software' menu. Also did all the other nitoTV installs (perian, mplayer codecs, kext load, smartUpdater). What's missing is afp. Had to install to that throught the commandline. The patchstick did some wrong copying of a Kerberos framework, so had to fix that. Setup the mounts to my movies, music and tv shows (hosted on a linux server running netatalk which gives you afp access to linux).

But not everything is working for the moment. nitoTv already issued an updated version for the 2.1 release which runs perfectly. But Couchesurfer and ATVFiles have some problems. Couchesurfer crashes a lot when leaving the page you're viewing and my bookmarks and history don't show up. ATVFiles works for music, but when starting a movie (m4v h.264) or a tv show (divx/xvid) the Finder restarts. So for now I have to use nitoTV to watch this type of content. For TV shows that's fine, but for movies there is a little problem still in nitoTV. When a m4v file has an ac3 stream (and that's how I convert all my DVDs) you loose the AC3 output when you pause or skip through the movie. On startup it's outputting AC3 just fine. This did not happen in ATVFiles on 2.01 and also does not happen when playing through AppleTVs own 'Movies' menu (using synced content).

Hope this little article helps some of you. Leave a comment if you have any questions, maybe I can be of help.

update: The ATVFiles problem has to do with AC3, if you turn off AC3 passthrough in the settings movies will play fine, but without the nice dolby digital sound track of course. Found the problem description in the AwkwardTV forum.

update 2: Good news on ATVFiles, the developer is working on fixing the AC3 crash problem, there's already some new code checked in, now we wait for the compiled update :-).

update 3:I fetched ATVFiles from svn (build 440) and compiled and installed it. The AC3 problem is fixed with that build. The official release for ATVFiles 1.1.1 is not there yet, but it looks like this will be the one.

update 4:ATVFiles 1.1.1 for AppleTV 2.1 has been officially released. Build 444 is the one being released.

iPhone arriving at Rotterdam late night

2008-07-11T00:08:00.006+02:00

It's 12:00am in The Netherlands and there comes the truck at the Rotterdam T-Mobile store:

http://twitpic.com/3h7l

http://twitpic.com/3h7t

http://twitpic.com/3h7v

And this is the guy that got the first one:

Hope I can get mine tomorrow during normal daytime hours :-)

List of Firefox 3 (working) extension I use

2008-06-17T23:11:00.002+02:00

Here's my list of extension I use in Firefox 3. I can confirm that they are available and working properly:

Adblock Plus 0.7.5.4
Answers 2.2.48
ColorZilla
DownloadHelper 3.0.4
Firebug 1.2.0b2 (see my post on this)
lori (Life-of-request info) 0.2.0.20080521
MeasureIt
Password Exporter 1.1
StumbleUpon 3.18
Twitterfox 1.5.5.2
YSlow
Web Developer 1.1.6

List of extension I would like to have for Firefox 3:

del.icio.us
foXpose
Paste and Go
PicLens
zoomFox (although this one has no real use anymore because of the tremendous new zoom feature available in FF3)

Firefox 3, the missing link...

2008-06-17T23:11:00.000+02:00

One thing I found missing from the new release of Firefox is a button for the toolbar that allows you to easily send the current webpage as a link. I got used to this functionality when I was still using Flock.

I found an extension that adds a Send Link button and it works just great. Maybe the final release of Firefox 3 will have the send link button included, but I don't expect it to be because release candidates normally have all functionality that a final release will have.

Get it at the Mozilla add-ons web site.

iPhones everywhere now, including The Netherlands

2008-06-09T22:58:00.003+02:00

Good news today for people waiting everywhere to get the iPhone in their country, or waiting for a version with 3G (or UMTS/HSDPA whatever you want to call it) internet. But that's not all, it will also have a built-in GPS, nice! And for us here in The Netherlands finally legally for sale at T-Mobile shops, wonder what the price will be for the phone and the subscription plan... But I for sure want one, have an iPod Touch now and that's already great. To have internet everywhere independent from (open) Wifi networks would be very nice.

At the t-mobile site you can sign-up for a newsletter informing you on any news they release about pricing and availibility (which will be july 11).

Serious web developers use Firebug

2008-06-04T22:23:00.006+02:00

Really, as a serious web developer coding in (X)HTML and CSS you can't really do without the wonderful Firebug extension for Firefox (also works with Flock).

I just switched from Flock to RC1 of Firefox version 3. Wow that thing is fast, rendering, start-up, memory usage; everything got faster and better! But a lot of extensions are not yet ready for FF3, so you will have to do without them or wait until they come available.

The one extension I really need is Firebug. A quick search learned that there is a beta version (1.2) of Firebug available and it works with FF3rc1 ! Though it is still in beta, you have to be a bit careful maybe, but who really cares: you're developing, so your code is not perfect yet either, right ;) ?

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. Download / install Firebug 1.2beta from official site.

The unofficial Google shell

2008-06-03T15:02:00.003+02:00

Saw this very cool website (if you can still call it that) coming by on twitter: a command line interface for Google called goosh.org.

Screenshot (click it for larger version) of the site and the available commands:

This google-interface behaves similar to a unix-shell. You type commands and the results are shown on this page.

Couch Surfer 0.3 Released

2008-04-12T11:59:00.002+02:00

AppleTvHacks.net writes:

Good news. Brandon has just released Couch Surfer 0.3. Just in time for us to relax and surf the net on our big screen TV getting ready for the weekend.

Here are some new features of Couch Surfer 0.3

* accelerated scrolling holds up and downi
* improved Bookmark support now with support for adding current page
* History support
* Back menu
* USB keyboard support for text entry dialogs.

The best part is that once Couch Surfer 0.3 is installed, USB keyboard feature is available to all other plugins.

Thanks again, Brandon. You da man!

If you have NitoTV installed and the previous version of Couch Surfer, you can upgrade through the NitoTV install software menu. After installation the AppleTV menu will be restarted automatically. What I noticed is that I lost my bookmarks. The Bookmarks.plist file is still in the /Users/frontrow/Documents directory, so maybe the layout changed. Will have to check this to see what happend there.

My browser is better than yours...

2008-03-22T12:04:00.002+01:00

Come on now, this has to stop already! Now the browser 'war' starts again. Because Apple is now offering Safari 3.1 on Windows through its 'Apple Software Update', people are getting mad.

Why is this a problem when Apple (or whoever) uses their auto update to distribute software. Microsoft does this all the time: SilverLight, DreamScene, soon Internet Explorer 8. Yes sure these are 'part' of Windows and they it's ok ? Microsoft has been pushing the world for years to use Internet Explorer. I think it's time someone else starts showing people there is an other way to surf the internet. Mozilla should do the same thing: if you have Thunderbird, use auto update to 'push' Firefox and vice-versa. Isn't Safari part of iTunes anyway already, for use within the iTunes store?

My OS is better than yours...

2008-03-19T20:56:00.006+01:00

Sigh... the never ending discussion about which Operating System is better and people getting mad when you say you use this or that. They start telling you that you should use 'their' OS, but most of the time just bashing on the OS you have and why it so bad.

The idea for this article came to me today when a friendly neighbour sent me an e-mail saying that now even Apple OSX (Leopard in this case) also has security issues. So I made a short reply saying that of course Apple also has this, it's software and all software has problems, bugs, leaks, etc.. The fact that my neighbour thought that OSX is/was save is that so many Apple users always say that. And of course we know that when you say that your software (in whatever form) is save, it will be hacked within 15 minutes.

Right, so I continue my argument with my neighbour and say that another reason why OSX is less interesting to hackers (especially the criminal kind) is that OSX has a much lower market share than Microsoft Windows. But I gave up on this endless discussion about which OS is better years ago. However, there are people that still try to have that discussion with me. So it's difficult for me to even talk about anything else than Windows otherwise I get that comment again 'ah you with your -fill in the blank OS-'.

At this moment I have the following OSes in house: Linux as server (running dhcp, dns, mysql, apache, squid, samba, etc...), Windows Vista because I have to keep up-to-date with this technology and for about 6 months now a shiny new iMac with OSX Leopard which I use as my main computer now to do my work at home (mainly develop in PHP and Objective-C). Also have a PocketLoox running PocketPC 2003, but not using that so much anymore.

In the past I have used and presently am still using a multitude of operating systems: ZX81 (that's where the trouble began, lol), MSX (I was getting good with assembly by then, can still read the Z80 hex code), DOS (lot's of versions), OS/2 2.0,3.0 and 4.0, OS/2 Warp Server (even got certified for that 9 out of 10), PalmOS, Windows 2.x, 3.0, 3.11, Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2000,2003,2008, VMware ESX 3.x. They all have their problems, trust me..

But what is the concern of the average day computer user? Usability! That's what I think, the thing should just do what you want it to do at the time you need it. Just like a television set, if you turn it on you want sound an vision right. And when pressing that almost used up zap button you want it change the channel to something better. If computer will ever be that simple to operate... I think they will, but that will take some more years of development and trying out new creative things.

As computing power will increase even more - yeah I know the new Core2 chips from Intel are insanely fast compared to my first Z80 but still not enough - operating a computer will become easier or at least it will be possible to make it easier. Somebody still has to make some software to for example make a computer do what we tell them (yes speech, but not like the simple voice recognition we have now) or maybe even do what we think. Why am I still typing this story on a keyboard (ok it's a nice aluminum Apple keyboard, but still..). I mean, the whole story is already in my head, now it takes me half an hour to type it out and some more time to reread it for mistakes. Touch screens, gesture interfaces and true speech recognition, like I saw Lorn Green doing in Battlestar Galactica when I was 10 years old, that was cool with that sound it made when the words appeared on the green monochrome monitor. The movie Minority Report comes to mind...

But still all this will of course be just software including the bugs, programming errors, unforeseen user interaction, etc... Unless somebody invents a piece of software that is so intelligent that it can find these problems, do something about it and prevent that they are exploited. Not talking about 'simple' anti virus / spyware solutions here. These are not enough and can be bypassed.

Enough talk about this now from me. I got to get some coding done, not the stuff I talked about here, but just some more of that software containing bugs :-)

A good programmer is someone who always looks both ways before crossing a one-way street. ~Doug Linder

I installed the Apple iPhone SDK

2008-03-12T22:33:00.004+01:00

So, yesterday I installed the Apple iPhone SDK. Kind of strange to do that, because I only have an iPod Classic at the moment :). But thinking of getting an iPod Touch or wait until Apple and some telecom company will finally start selling the iPhone in The Netherlands. But I like programming, so I just had to install the SDK. First tried the sample application of course, running in the Aspen iPhone Simulator. Wow, that's a very cool simulator!

And now for the hard part: learn Objective C and get to know the SDK. Since I have not yet created anything ever for OSX, I guess I have a lot to learn. I do have C and C++ knowledge, so that should be a good start. But a first quick look at objective C, most part looks like C, but also some 'strange' [[ ]] stuff. Have to find a good book explaining the basic language rules.

Then after learning all that stuff, find some ideas to make into nice applications, tools and/or games. Things I saw during the iPhone SDK event were very impressive, makes me feel the way I felt when programming for MSX long time ago (in the 80s) :-). I made some great stuff on the MSX back then (if I may say so myself).

Web Thumbnails

2008-03-10T20:26:00.001+01:00

PicoShot Thumbnails allows webmasters to easily display thumbnails of sites, and best of all they are FREE. Give your website a more professional look with minimal effort. Pico Shot is perfect for blogs, directory sites & search result pages, site bookmarks or anywhere a quick visual picture of another site is needed. This can help increase click thru rates and increase return vistors to your site. Not sure? There is no cost to use or requirement to sign up to start genearting free web thumbnails for your site.

Download the new SqueezeCenter 7.0

2008-03-09T20:41:00.002+01:00

SqueezeCenter powers the Squeezebox, Transporter and SLIMP3 network music players and is the best software to stream your music to any software MP3 player. It supports MP3, AAC, WMA, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, WAV and more!

SqueezeCenter 7.0 is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. Perl source code is also available for all platforms.

Denon intros RF-capable universal remote system

2007-07-25T22:32:00.000+02:00

"Logitech Harmony universal remotes not good enough for you? Home Theater Master doesn't quite match your AV receiver? You're in luck, because yesterday Denon announced a high-end universal remote with the same sort of PC programmability as those clickers. With the purchase of a special base station, Denon's remote can use radio frequency (RF) to control components through walls and around the house. Both ship in August 2007.

The RC-7000CI ($299 list) itself does seem a lot like the Home Theater master units (like the MX-800), with a monochrome LCD screen and device-centric design, as opposed to Harmony's activity-centric scheme. Denon's press release claims its USB-connected PC programmability incorporates one of the world's largest remote control code databases, but as with any universal remote, the design and ease of programming is paramount. We'll wait to see how Denon's software stacks up against Harmony's."

Samsung intros its first dual-format, high-def player

2007-07-25T22:26:00.000+02:00

"Samsung Electronics has expanded its line up of high-definition optical disc players, with the launch of its first dual-format fully-featured high definition player that plays back both HD DVDs and Blu-ray Discs -- model BD-UP5000 -- scheduled for delivery to retailer store shelves in the 4th quarter 2007. At the same time, Samsung is also introducing their new BD-P1400 Blu-ray Disc player, BD-P2400 Blu-ray Disc player and, as well as the first HD Home Theater solution featuring Blu-ray disc (BD) playback.

According to Samsung, home entertainment aficionados can enjoy the closest experience to going to the movies in their own home. Building on the success of Samsung's BD-P1000 (the first Blu-ray player in the US Market) and the second-generation BD-P1200, the all-new lineup quenches consumers' thirst for not only the best video possible, but also high quality audio in a hi-definition disc player."

Beginner Builds Theater for $8K

2007-07-25T22:22:00.000+02:00

"When some people want a home theater, they pick up a phone. Kevin Johnson picked up his tools. About 18 months later, he had a home theater.

Sure it may seem like a long time, especially in this “I-want-it-now” world, but Johnson has a day job, so he could only do work on nights and weekends.

It all started with a trip to a friend’s house—isn’t that always the way? Johnson was instantly bit by the theater bug. “I pushed the wife on this subject for a week or so before I went ahead and ordered our first projector [a Sanyo PLV-Z2],” Johnson says.

After discussing a few locations with his wife, Johnson decided to use one of the six bedrooms in their home. It wasn’t too tough a decision. The walk-in closet was a perfect spot for equipment, and it was the only bedroom not attached to a bathroom (although how cool would that be?). It was actually “the only room she was comfortable losing,” he says."

LinuxMCE 1.0 launched

2007-03-24T16:23:00.000+01:00

LinuxMCE is a free, open source add-on to Ubuntu including a 10' UI, complete whole-house media solution with pvr + distributed media, and the most advanced smarthome solution available. It is stable, easy to use, and requires no knowledge of Linux and only basic computer skills.

Download here (torrent link).

Watch the LinuxMCE v1.0 demo video (google video).

Media & Entertainment

3D alpha-blended GUI optimized for displaying on a TV and using a remote control
Media browser presenting all content on all devices in the home on a 3D rotating cube
Plug-and-play detection and aggregation of network storage and DMA's
Built-in NAS providing centralized backup and whole-house media server
"Follow Me" Media, each family member's media follows him/her through the house
Automatically controls all existing av devices, like TV's, Stereo's, etc.)
Many control options: mobile phone, webpad, pda, phone

Smart Home

Home Automation: Control lighting, climate, security, camera surveillance, and more
Communication: Phone system with auto-attendant, voice mail, call forwarding/routing for VOIP and POTS lines
Security: Uses your existing home alarm, surveillance cameras, lights, phones and tv's to notify you on your mobile phone of any security alerts with the option of reseting the alarm or broadcasting your voice in the house over the tv's

Gezien: Blood Diamond

2007-03-12T17:24:00.000+01:00

Blood Diamond gaat over de handel in diamanten, voor het rijke westen, en wapens, voor de Afrikaanse rebellen. Een enorme, roze diamant verbindt de levens van een eenvoudige visser, een integere journaliste en diamantenhandelaar. Regisseur Zwick wilde een avonturenfilm maken vermengd met politiek commentaar. Entertainment met een boodschap. Dat is gelukt. Alleen raakte de balans zoek. De personages zijn stereotypen, in dienst van een overol pamflet.

Leonardo DiCaprio speelt de hoofdrol in Blood Diamond, over de wijze waarop de diamanthandel warlords in Afrika in het zadel houdt. Superster DiCaprio kiest graag voor dit soort films. 'Het is prettig met iets wezenlijks bezig te zijn.'

Televisie kijken én opnemen via een usb-stick

2007-03-10T22:44:00.000+01:00

Nu sinds afgelopen december de drie Nederlandse publieke televisiezenders via DVB-T* te ontvangen zijn, komen er steeds meer producten op de markt om draadloos televisie te kijken op uw computer. Pinnacle, bekend van hun videosoftware, komt eind maart met een kleine usb-flashstick die u zo in uw pc of laptop kunt pluggen.

Handig is dat u geen aparte software nodig heeft, want een (digitale) TV-tuner is al op het flashgeheugen geïnstalleerd. 'Plug and watch', dus. De Pinnacle PCTV DVB-T Flash Stick - zoals de volledige naam luidt - heeft een capaciteit van 1 GB en is naast de tv-tuner ook voorzien van geïntegreerde PVR-software. Om tv te kijken plaatst u de PCTV Flash Stick in een usb2- poort van de pc en na een eenmalige (automatische) kanaalscan is hij klaar voor gebruik. (info fabrikant)

Kef: nieuwe FiveTwo serie

2007-03-10T22:37:00.000+01:00

Hoeveel mensen willen wel 5 kanalen horen, maar geen 5 luidsprekers zien? Talloze. Muziekliefhebbers die reeds een goede receiver en DVD-speler bezitten, bijvoorbeeld.

Voor hen is de nieuwe KEF Fivetwo serie een oplossing. Want dit zijn rechttoe-rechtaan KEF Uni-Q kwaliteitsluidsprekers die als paartje geschikt zijn om 5 kanalen weer te geven. Aansluiting op elke 5-kanaals receiver of eindtrap is makkelijk, want de luidsprekerkabels worden meegeleverd. Luidsprekers die niet alleen mooi zijn maar er (in 2- of 5-kanaals) ook naar klinken. (info fabrikant)

Wat is Digitale radio?

2007-03-10T22:31:00.000+01:00

Digitale Radio wordt vooral een concurrent van FM-radio. Is FM-kwaliteit al een hele verbetering ten opzichte van die van de middengolf, de digitale uitzendingen maken opnieuw een kwaliteitssprong mogelijk. DAB-uitzendingen hebben absoluut geen ruis en muziek heeft bijna CD-kwaliteit. Er zijn zelfs plannen om er ook surround sound aan toe te voegen.

Daarnaast kan met de radiosignalen aanvullende informatie worden meegestuurd. DAB-ontvangers zullen standaard voorzien zijn van een klein scherm waarop bijvoorbeeld uitgebreide verkeers- of programma-informatie is te lezen. Ook is de ontvanger te programmeren op de eigen voorkeur voor nieuwsberichten. De radio selecteert dan bijvoorbeeld al het sportnieuws en toont dat eens per uur op het scherm. Een logische toepassing in omroepland lijkt tenslotte ook het versturen van een elektronische programmagids, waardoor videorecorders automatisch het juiste programma kunnen opnemen. Wie DAB wil ontvangen heeft echter wel een nieuwe radio nodig.

De techniek
Een DAB-zender maakt geen gebruik van de analoge FM- of AM-golven, maar van digitale signalen. In plaats van een gemoduleerde geluidsgolf worden er datapakketjes verzonden. Het zenden zelf gebeurt nog wel draadloos via een zendstation op aarde. Dat is meteen ook het grootste verschil met internetradio, waarbij ook digitale datapakketten worden verstuurd, maar dan via een internetaansluiting.

Bijna CD-kwaliteit
De belangrijkste stukken technologie achter DAB zijn het audiocompressie-schema Musicam en de digitale modulatie-techniek COFDM. Musicam is eigenlijk een broertje van MP3 en brengt de benodigde bit-stroom terug met een factor 7 à 10. Die bit-stroom ligt dus veel lager dan de 1,4 megabits per seconde van een audio-CD, maar uit psycho-akoestisch onderzoek blijkt dat de meeste luisteraars geen verschil horen tussen het origineel en de gecomprimeerde audio. Het is dus geen echte CD-kwaliteit, maar tenzij u gouden oren hebt, zult u het verschil niet merken.(lees verder)

Audio DVD Creator

2005-01-15T13:46:00.000+01:00

Audio DVD Creator is a revolutionary tool that changes the way you listen to your favorite music. You can create DVD disc compiled from normal Audio CDs and MP3 files, and play it on any DVD player since it's DVD-Video compliant. You can choose the audio format from high quality (up to 6 hours PCM 48kHz/16bits) or high quantity (up to 45 hours AC3 192kbps).

I did a small test with this software and it looks great. What I did is put 3 directories with mp3's in the tool, set some theme and hit the create button. Converting the mp3 audio to AC3 2.0 192kbps, adding menu's for each directory (album) and a top level menu. I noticed that the maximum number of songs shown on the album menu is 10, but the rest of the songs are there, just let it play after number 10 or use your remote control to skip to them. Using the AC3 audio setting is good enough if your source is mp3, but if you want to convert your CD collection to DVD you should realy use the PCM audio setting. The default for PCM is 48KHz/16bits, but you can even set it as high as 96KHz/24bits! Pay attention that you probably need an amplifier and/or dvd player that can handle such high sample rates. The settings for AC3 range from 2.0ch at 96kbps to 5.1ch at 640bkps.

Site link: Audio DVD Creator

Recensie: Cold Mountain

2004-08-08T22:06:00.000+02:00

Prachtige film gezien. Cold Mountain speelt zich af ten tijde van de amerikaanse burgeroorlog. Het begin lijkt even op een oorlogsfilm met een geweldige explosie. Daarna echter begint een lange tocht van een man die op de weg terug is naar de liefde van zijn leven. Terwijl hij bezig is om allerlei tegenslagen te weerstaan, probeert de vrouw van zijn leven zich staande te houden op haar boerderij. Ze krijgt daar hulp van een pittige dame. Al met al een heel mooi verhaal en ook bijzonder mooi in beeld gebracht.

Schitterende rollen van oa Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger (zij kreeg een Oscar voor haar rol), Jude Law, Donald Sutherland, Natalie Portman en vele anderen. De film was genomineerd voor nog eens 6 Oscars, maar het bleef bij die ene. Renee Zellweger won nog een hele reeks aan prijzen voor haar (bij)rol: Golden Globe, Bafta Award, BFCA Award, DFWFCA Award, SDFCS Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, SEFCA Award.

Aanrader!

Recensie: Barbershop 2

2004-07-31T21:30:00.000+02:00

Leuke comedy dacht ik toen ik de trailer van Barbershop 2 had gezien. Maar zoals vaak met trailers blijkt het vaak anders uit te pakken. Zeker leuke momenten in deze film, maar supergrappig? nou nee. Ergens ver weggestopt in het verhaal zit een goede moraal, het opkomen van de gewone man voor de gewone man. Helaas mocht het niet baten tegen het einde, of toch wel? Dat ga ik hier niet verklappen, dat zul je zelf moeten gaan zien. Kortom een beetje het bekende verhaal: groot bedrijf wil oude pandjes in een oude wijk opkopen en daar flitsende geld verslindende en opbrengende gebouwen neerzetten. Wat in ieder geval prettig was om naar te kijken, was de actrice Eve, zij speelt kapster Terri in de film. Verder is de muziek heerlijk, R&B en rap, dat doet mijn oren altijd wel goed.

De DVD (US versie) is OK. De menu's zijn mooi gemaakt, met hier en daar een motion menu dat toch altijd weer even net iets fraaier is dan zo'n eenvoudige statische bitmap en 2 knoppen. Wat me opviel bij de ondertitels is dat ze soms niet helemaal synchroon aan de tekst zijn: ondertitel al verdwenen zodra de 2e zin nog gesproken moet worden. De extra's op deze dvd zijn flink aanwezig: deleted scenes met divers commentaar en acteur introductie, bloopers, 2 muziek video's, 'behind the scenes' foto's en de film zelf is te bekijken met commentaar van de regiseur, maar ook met een aantal acteurs. Zo hoort een dvd te zijn, lekker compleet.

Ik ga geen cijfers geven voor films, het verhaal, de uitvoering, de dvd, de muziek, de acteurs, etc. Gewoon een verhaaltje van wat mij bijgebleven is.

Openlucht bios Rotterdam

2004-07-30T21:54:00.000+02:00

Klinkt leuk, zojuist gelezen op de blog van Locuta. Slechts een paar van de films die genoemd worden ken ik:

Mystic River (uiteraard goed vanwege The Clint !)
Pirates of the Caribbean (sjonnie dep in een prachtrol)

Kijk dus snel naar de blog entry van Locuta. Nog meer info over dit openlucht festijn vind je hier.

Digitale radio in Nederland

2004-07-30T21:52:00.000+02:00

Op Nozema.nl was 2 weken terug het volgende persbericht te lezen:

Op maandag 19 juli zijn de DAB-zenders in Hilversum, Haarlem, Den Haag en Rotterdam in bedrijf genomen. Hiermee zijn via een DAB ontvanger, de zenders: Radio 1, Radio 2 en 3FM, Radio 4, 747AM en de Concertzender te ontvangen. De Publieke Omroep biedt daarmee DAB-ontvangst in de hele Randstad. Nog voor het eind van 2004 zal 70% van de Nederlandse bevolking DAB kunnen ontvangen. In opdracht van de Publieke Omroep zendt Nozema sinds eind februari Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), de digitale opvolger van de huidige FM radio, uit. DAB heeft belangrijke voordelen boven analoge radio. Maar wat is DAB nu precies? Wat zijn die voordelen van DAB? Waarom is DAB een oplossing voor de frequentieschaarste en welke frequenties worden er voor DAB gebruikt? Zijn er wel DAB radio's te koop?

Nu nog de commerciële stations op DAB anders gaat het nooit wat worden denk ik zo. Interessante ontwikkelingen allemaal toch wel. Let dus bij de aanschaf van een nieuwe autoradio, tuner of receiver of zelfs wekkerradio op de aanwezigheid van een DAB ontvanger. Deze zijn te herkennen aan het DAB logo.

Er is al wat langer digitale tv in (bepaalde delen van ) Nederland te ontvangen. Hier heb ik echter de nodige negatieve geluiden over gehoord en gelezen. Ten eerste zijn niet alle zenders te ontvangen (bijvoorbeeld geen BBC, België en Duitsland). Ten tweede, omdat het digitaal is en er uiteraard door 'atmospherische' omstandigheden wel eens een bitje kan omvallen, kan het gebeuren dat het beeld soms wat van die welbekende blokjes vertoont (die zijn overigens soms op de gewone kabel tv ook te zien bij commerciële zenders vanwege het feit dat deze via satelliet bij de kabelmaatschappij binnenkomen). Maar wat met beeld kan gebeuren, kan uiteraard ook met geluid gebeuren en dat kan vervelende tikken en kraken op je speakers tot gevolg hebben. Zoveel kwaad kan het niet, maar je schrikt je wel rot natuurlijk en dat terwijl je niet eens naar een spannende film zat te kijken...

Ben benieuwd of DAB ook dergelijke 'problemen' kent. Maar deze wegen wellicht op tegen de veel betere (beeld en) geluidskwaliteit in vergelijking met het ouderwetse analoge radio (en tv) signaal.

Ludolphus' weblog

New blogsite

Charice iPhone App updates to version 2.4

How to get to your iDisk after move to iCloud

iOS Apps

Charice Pempengco©15 juni 2011

versie 1.0

Nassen©31 mei 2011

versie 1.0

Kwaaak©25 mei 2011

versie 1.0

I am now IPv6 Certified Guru !

Hurricane Electric IPv6 certification

WatchTREK XBMC Add-on now available through a repository (YaarFX)

WatchTREK add-on for XBMC (watch Star Trek episodes)

XBMC 9.11 beta 1, Introducing Confluence

Virtu-Al VESI & PowerGUI PowerPack

Car Finder Uses Augmented Reality to Find Your Car

AppleTV 3.0 installed with patchstick applied

Couchsurfer 0.4 for AppleTV 2.1 firmware

What does your iPod touch / iPhone home screen look like

AppleTV 2.1 update - patchstick applied

iPhone arriving at Rotterdam late night

List of Firefox 3 (working) extension I use

Firefox 3, the missing link...

iPhones everywhere now, including The Netherlands

Serious web developers use Firebug

The unofficial Google shell

Couch Surfer 0.3 Released

My browser is better than yours...

My OS is better than yours...

I installed the Apple iPhone SDK

Web Thumbnails

Download the new SqueezeCenter 7.0

Denon intros RF-capable universal remote system

Samsung intros its first dual-format, high-def player

Beginner Builds Theater for $8K

LinuxMCE 1.0 launched

Gezien: Blood Diamond

Televisie kijken én opnemen via een usb-stick

Kef: nieuwe FiveTwo serie

Wat is Digitale radio?

Audio DVD Creator

Recensie: Cold Mountain

Recensie: Barbershop 2

Openlucht bios Rotterdam

Digitale radio in Nederland

Charice Pempengco^©15 juni 2011

Nassen^©31 mei 2011

Kwaaak^©25 mei 2011