November 2007 Archives

Creativetechs.com helps when you accidentally type the same PID into two computers. Basically, you have to delete the files:

/Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office/
- OfficePID (normally an invisible file)

Users/[Username]/Library/Preferences/Microsoft
- Carbon Registration Database
- Office Registration Cache
- Microsoft Office Settings

Then Mac Office acts like it has been reinstalled and you can reenter the registration information and serial number without have to reinstall. You can also find on the web an OfficePID file that also takes care of this problem which you just copy into the /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office directory.

This clever utility lets you find invisible files that aren't visible like the magic OfficePID file in /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office

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The rumor is that in January (Christmas just a month late) at Mac Expo, we'll see the new ultra-portable that I'm already drooling over. The big give is that it won't have an optical drive. This used to be a big deal for me when I thought I would watch lots of DVDs on airplanes, but lately, almost everything I watch is actually a .avi file and I don't carry DVDs, so it is probably OK.

The rumor is that it will have a bright LED-based screen like the MacBook Pro that I love but weight half (e.g., more like 2.5-3 pounds vs. 5-6 pounds) and use a 13.3" screen which is just great. Also it won't have a hard drive, but use Flash so it should be more reliable and battery life should be amazing.

it's the machine of dreams. Makes my recommendation for hardware go back to get a monster desktop that you can game and do lots of video editing with 1-2TB of disk and dual core and a ultra-portable for the road trips. Can't wait!

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Well, the iPod Touch is much like the iPhone but there are compatibility issues. The best site that covers this seems to be ipodtouchfans.com. The main thing is that there are now repositories all over the web that let the Installer.app put things on the iPod touch and the list.

Overall ipodtouchfans has a great compatibility Wiki to tell you whats functions. The big ones that don't work are Customize sometimes

Here are ones that are for iPod Touch and here are sources that you can include:

Touchrep.com/repo.xml is the official ipodtouchfans repository
iphone.org.hk/repository.plist is the simplified chinese input repository
repo.us.to has iPhone 1.1.1 Apps for iTouch and also iPhone 1.1.2 Apps for iTouch for you to install (see touchdev.net for more information) or applerepo.a.la if the repo.us.to site is down.

this last one is particularly important because Apple to differentiate the iPhone from the iPod Touch arbitrarily removed all the communications applications including Mail, Stock, Notes, Weather and Maps, so this gives them back to you.

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Chinese input is not officially supported yet in any release of software for the iPhone or the iPod Touch, here is how to get a bootleg version to work for the latest jailbroken and unlocked iPhone (currently 1.1.1). Thanks to the posts at iphone.org.hk for explaining the 1.1.2 trick and also to iphone.org.hk for hosting all the software. Also to the engadget for the pointer

1. Assuming you have a iPhone or iPod Touch at virgin 1.1.1 go to jailbreakme.com and this will unlock the phone when you install Appsnap Installer at the bottom of the page
2. If you have an iPod Touch, you can then go onto 1.1.2 which has more complete chinese localization (for instance in 1.1.1, the icon titles are not localized, but in 1.1.2 they are), to do this, after the jailbreak, connect to itunes and have iTunes update the system to vanilla 1.1.2, then download the zip file from conceitedsoftware.com that has a .jar application you run from your PC, this jailbreaks 1.1.2
3. After a reboot, the iPhone will have a new icon called Installer
4. Click on Installer and go to the Sources tab
5. Click on Add to add a new location for applications that can download over Wifi to the iPhone (you need to be in Wifi range)
6. Enter the address http://i.unlock.no into the list and choose save and refresh
7. Click on the Install tab of the Installer and there will be a new category called Unlocking Tools
8. Click on the new application called "Enable International menu" and this will enable international support that is available in 1.1.1 but not turned on
9. This gets you to the point where you can input Japanese, but they don't support Chinese (argh)
10. Go back to the Sources tab and and Add another source called "http://www.iphone.hk.org/repository.plist" which is where the code that hacks the Japanese input method to accept Chinese
11. Hit refresh and you will see a new category called "Localization (1.1.1)" and click on the application called NewCN4.2 and install it
12. Now go to the the Settings menu and General and you will see a new section called International. Set the keyboard to Japanese
13. There is a new application called NativeCn, go to it and select input method 3 (simplified chinese input)
14. Unintuitively, when you type in pinyin, it will show both Chinese and possible Japanese katakana as well

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OK, to get the terms straight. Jailbreak means that you can access the whole files system on the iPod Touch or iPhone. This comes from the fact that what actually happens is that you are "chroot jail" in Unix terms. That means that the root, or the top of the file system also called, "/" is set in a subdirectory so the user applications on these devices can't see the system at all. Jailbreaking means breaking this so you can see all the files.

The net is that a jailbroken phone can have third party applications loaded and complete customization. If you have firmware 1.1.1 this is amazingly easy because Safari, the browser, has a bug (called the TIFF exploit, this means that if you send the right kind of TIFF file to Safari, it ends up in root or super user mode and you can jailbreak) so if you just browse jailbreakme.com then you can install applications. It's that simple, browse and you are there for version 1.1.1.

To get to 1.1.2 firmware, there is additional step that you need which is to run a batch file that you can get from Conceited Software that lets you take vanilla 1.1.2 and jailbreak it (assuming that you are upgrading from a 1.1.1 jailbreak). The exact process is take a 1.1.1 vanilla from the factory, use jailbreakme.com to get to 1.1.1 jailbroken, upgrade to vanilla 1.1.2 and then run the magic batch file to get to 1.1.2 jailbroken. Got it?

Unlocked means that the firmware in the iPhone's GSM chipset only has been changed so that you can put any SIM card in. Right now, you take 1.1.1 and jailbreak it and then you can install and run a program called AnySim that will unlock the phone. When you jailbreak, you get an iPhone applications called Installer that let's you install, well just about any third party application.

The web is a little confused right now, but I believe that if you have an iPod Touch you can get to 1.1.2 jailbroken, if you have an Iphone, you have to stay on 1.1.1 because no one has figured out how to jailbreak and unlock a 1.1.2 iPhone. That's too bad since 1.1.2 apparently have chinese text input which I would dearly love to have!

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We haven't used our Sony SR-100 in quite a while. It is a hard disk camcorder that records standard definition into MPG (that is MPEG-2 format files). It is actually quite hard to crack this format, so if you have bought Sony Vegas Movie Studio then it is pretty easy, but I keep forgetting how to do it.

Here's a reminder

# Plug the camcorder into any USB port and select HDD emulation so it appears as a hard disk to Windows
# Copy over the files in the MP directory, where there are a load of .MPG files
# Open up Vegas Movie Studio (or the older Nova Video Explosion or Sonicfoundry Vegas if that is what you have)
# Use the File explorer to find all those .MPG files and double click on them to get them into the timeline
# You probably also want to create a movie, so edit to your hearts content
# When you are ready to take each piece of the soundtrack out (like from a kids concert), click on the audio track so it is highlighted
# Choose Tools/Render in New Track and in the dialog box choose Save Type as _MP3 Audio
# Select Custom (since the default template is 44.1KHz 256Kbps which is a bit much), I normally click VBR and select a quality of 80
# Type in the name of the new track, something like "Concert - 01 - First Song.mp3"

Someone asked me, what if you want to just send a fax these days. Well, like most things, the question is complicated. There are the really low end and ugly thermal fax machines, but with all-in-one printers just $180, it is not clear why you'd want one. So the house that has everything really needs three devices that should all be networked:

1. a really fast laser printer for most printing, while expensive the HP 4250tn is pretty amazing and it networked. Works really well with Macs and with Windows after you download 130MB worth of drivers :-(
2. a really nice high performance color printer. Right now Epson and Canon are battling it out, but the Canon Pro9000 at $500 is a remarkable 13"×19" A3+ printer. Once you print a photo with it, you'll never go back. The main problem is that it isn't networkable, but most of the time before you print you'll want to have a color correct computer to check the colors.
3. an all-in-one or multifunction scanner, fax and copier. Ideally this one should be networked as well. There are lots of choices, but again Canon seems to win most of the reviews.

Here's a compendium of reviews. In sum, they aren't too expensive at $200-400 each and the best ones have an ethernet connection to use with mulitple laptops, color printing, scanning and faxing. Quite a disappointing stuff, but basically, users don't seem to be too happy with the highest rated units even though they have all the apparent features:

1. MX700 which lists for just $250 and is very basic. It is color, networked and small. Cnet says that it has good quality print and copy and is pretty fast at 7.4ppm, but is slow at scanning at 5ppm and best of all print quality across everything but photos was excellent (you should really use a dedicated printer like the Pro9000 for that IMHO). Not much data on usage though although some folks at Cnet reported that it doesn't have duplexing and seems to jam. It is also big at 18.2"×18.9"×9.4" and 22.3 pounds.
2. HP L7680 It has got great reviews from PC Magazine and PC World, but Amazon, PC Magazine Cnet users just hate it. Say it is unreliable and so forth. It is also big at 20.9"×15.8"×14" and 35 pounds!

So if you go monochrome without color, then you can try the:

1. Canon ImageClass MF4270 which is basic monochrome at $300 but does some with an ADF, networking and duplexing. Its somewhat smaller, although not much at 15.4"×17.4"×17.9" and 27.6 pounds. Big issue is that you can only scan to the USB connection while printing works through Ethernet.

Finally if you don't need faxing (which is a big requirement still, then you can try):

1. Canon Pixma MP970. Several reviews said the previous model, the MP960 was actually better in print speed and quality, etc. It has networking but no faxing and is just $300, but it is big at 18.5"×15.6"×8.4" and 25 pounds. Main issue appears to be the print quality according to Cnet. Amazon reviewers are just five folks but they seemed to like it for Mac support and they liked the print quality. PC Magazine UK did a review and they seemed to like its print quality so go figure.

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Someone was asking me what they could do about a car that doesn't have a $3,000 GPS in it and what if they don't want to buy a car just to get one. Well, TomTom, Garmin and Magellan are in a fight to the death to offer just such a portable unit. They plug into the car charger and they mount in the middle of the dash. GPS Review seems to be the best unbiased source of reviews. At the top end for $600, you can get just about every bell and whistle although PC Magazine just recently did a quick review. The long and short of it is that if you don't need real-time traffic (you are lucky!) then get the TomTom GO 720, if you do need it, then the Garmin nuvi 760 is probably the ticket today.

• TomTom GO 720. It has a nice user interface and is just $350 street. The traffic data is an additional $130 and is an annual subscription. PC Magazine gave it four stars.
• TomTom GO 920T. This is the absolute top of the line for TomTom. It has one feature which is real time traffic data that you really want and another, European maps, which I can't imagine anyone needing very much. Has a 4GB internal hard drive. The main positive is a really nice user interface. The main drawback is that the real time traffic receiver is a three wires and very unwieldy. Amazingly, it claims that the voice input for an address actually works! TomTom by the way is now the second largest seller of GPS, so user interface does make a diference. It is about $700 becasue the traffic thing is expensive! There is a $100 rebate going, so that drops it to $600 for this christmas.
• Garmin Nuvi 760. This model is like the 720, while the 770 has the European maps. The best thing is that the FM TMC traffic antenna is built into the power adapter. Its user interface isn't as nice as the TomTom, but the traffic integration probably bests that. About $700 street according to Pricegrabber so it ain't cheap. It also doesn't have voice input, but frankly none of those systems have ever really worked for me. Garmin is #1 in consumer GPS, but TomTom is probably the ease-of-use leader. PC Magazine rated it 4.5 stars and gave it an editors choice, so it competes well with the TomTom, but it is really expensive, so the 720T is probably the value leader in that respect.

If you want something that looks decent, you might try the TomTom AVN2210p which is a wordful for a double DIN thing that acts like a stereo too. It does cost $800 too and of course once it is in your car, won't look particularly matched and you can't move it to another car either, so that's the big tradeoff.

As a dark horse, you might consider the Magellan Maestro 4050. this is the equivalent unit that you can consider. It has voice recognition and also the traffic features. PC Magazine said it was OK with 3.5 stars.

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Hey Apple is actually offering discounts on the day after Thanksgiving. Small, but makes some difference, the new iPod nano is $138 and $10 off on iLife to $68 from $79. One cool thing is the very sleek Apple Bluetooth headset is now $108 from $129, although I think the uglier Jawbone sounds way better.

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Legoland is something younger kids like. 8 is about the perfect age. The cost of the place is simply amazing at $60 for an adult. Fortunately, Mousesavers has some amazing discounts. Right now, you can get $7 off with just a coupon.

Or book with Costco to get 25% off or if you trust them, Ares offers a whopping $28 price for kids or adults. That's 50% off for adults and 35% off for kids.

Arrgh, this is so complicated. I love the small resorts like Sun Peaks and who likes the fact that the US dollar is now less than the Canadian dollar, so prices are 30% higher, still the kids friends are all going up there, so I have to follow them. Here are some relative bargains up there:

• EDGE card. This gives a small discount but more importantly you don't have to wait in the ticket lines which are enormous there.
• The Map. This resort is so large, that you really need a mega map to get it. The long and short of it is, that if you stay in Whistler Village, you are trendy, but it is a walk to get to the lifts. Upper Village and Creekside are the two ski in and ski out places really. Blueberry Hill works but you have to take the shuttle to get there. So the best places look like Creekside if you only want to stay on the Whistler side or Upper Village if you like Blackcomb. You can use the really cool interactive map if you want to see where things are. This is really a gigantic area. 9000 acres and in December 2008, they are going to put in a mountain to mountain gondola. In contrast, Crystal is 1500 acres and has just grown to 2500.
• Packages are where it is at given lift tickets for four folks can be $150 per day. Right now, the promotion is that you get a 4 skiing days for 5 days overnight plus two fresh track (wake up early and ski) tickets. Its a pretty good deal.
• Trip Advisor seems to have the best list of good hotels. The Aspens comes out well as a budget hotel

There are also other services that get you into condos

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Playing different video formats on the Mac is a real pain. Animemusicvideos.org has a nie list of, if I need to play a format, here is what I need to do with the short answer that beside Quicktime, the main thing you need is VLC:

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Many sites are now tuning for the iPhone and also TUAW does a good list of free downloads from iTunes. Many are from foreign countries, so what you have to do is to logon and then you have to buy a gift card and enter an address from that country.

Unfortunately, these downloads are keyed by day, so you need a link for every day of the week, so there is actually a site, itsfreedownloads.com that keeps great track. eMusic also has a free download page.

Itsfreedownloads.com is a great site with links to all free videos, short videos and audio books

As an aside you can monitor with a widget and widgetbox.com has thousands of free widgets.

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Alex and Calvin are both learning to program. Here are some geat modern ways (as opposed to Basic that I learned):

• Alice. This is a 3D programming environment that is used to put people into the graphical world. EA is underwriting the development and will use Sims 2 characters for instance will be used with characters to learn it. Wikipedia has a good explanation of this software from CMU. It is mainly for graphics programming.
• Phrogram. This is the second edition of KPL and is also a fun language. This is more general purpose programming language.

One fun early game to learn is Lunar Lander. There is even simple source code out there for people to look at like JDLunarLander

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Well, 1.1.2 is out and that means hacking begins, the main feature for all us Chinese users is that it "finally" has Chinese input. Ryan tells me it is buggy though, so beware. In any case, 1.1.2 appears mainly to be a language release and of course it closes off the TIFF exploit used to jailbreak previously.

Conceited Software has just released its jailbreak software or see Jailbreakme.com. The instructions are pretty simple if you have a 1.1.1 jailbroken iphone then you need to:

1. Launch installer.app on your iphone and scroll down to _Tweaks (1.1.1)
2. Select OktoPrep
3. Click on install
4. Connect your iPhone to your computer and start itunes and click update and pray!
5. Close itunnes and reconnect your device, with Mac you double click on osx and on Windows on windows.bat and follow the instructions

I just wish that they would fix Contacts so it can gracefully handle 7,000 contacts. There i for instance now way to do a text search, if you want to find "John Zagula" you get to scroll down 7000 messages!

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It's been a year since the original Blackberry Pearl came out, so of course its time for an update. The new Blackberry 8120 and 8130 finally gives you a 2 megapixel camera that is on the Curve.

Also there is the 8120 that is launching in the UK. The big changes seem to be that it is now blue (whoopee!) and most important, it has Wifi access and now it has stereo Bluetooth as a standard 3.5mm headset like the Curve. So don't get the old 8100 that is still being sold by AT&T et al, go for the 8120 or the 8130. Right now the 8130 is available from Verizon, Sprint and Alltel so only for CDMA, no GSM yet...

Net, net, the 2 megapixel camera and the Wifi access is just great for fast email and web access like the iPhone or iPod touch. With Wifi just about everywhere, its a great choice.

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Why the name Chicken of the Sea?

In the "old days", fishermen referred to the white albacore tuna as "chicken of the sea". It was called this because the white color and very mild flavor reminded them of chicken. The founder of the company thought this would be a unique name for a brand of tuna, and the Chicken of the Sea brand is now known worldwide.</blockquote

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