Posted in IT, Software on June 30, 2007| 2 Comments »
Yod’m 3D is a small application that turns your desktop into a 3D cube. I have used this application in one of my presentations where I could switch to different programs with STYLE 😉 It’s also a good thing to show to your friends who uses Linux and Mac …although the effects are not as good as those on Linux.
Official website: htt://chsalmon.club.fr/index.php?en/Yod-m-3d-about
Download: http://fileforum.betanews.com/sendfile/1177637346/1/yodm3D.zip
Posted in IT, Photography, thoughts on June 30, 2007| Leave a Comment »
I was at the Oamaru Fuji Film a few days ago, helping my friend to put all his 2007 schedules on his Google Calendar so he can share his Cal with his customers and let them know when he is free. (more…)
Posted in Apple, IT, Software on June 29, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Right now its just hours away from the launching of Apple’s iPhone. Apple updated its iTunes software to support the iPhone…the new version also have some updates related to Apple TV. Here is what’s new:
What’s New in this Version
—Activate your iPhone service
—Sync iPhone with your music, movies, TV shows, and more
—Wirelessly share digital photos from any computer in your home with Apple TV
Download links:
Posted in IT, Software on June 29, 2007| Leave a Comment »
The latest version of Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS for short) just came out two days ago. If you are a big Kaspersky fan and you want to try the latest beta products…why not give the latest beta a try 😉
From my experience, KIS is quite “aggressive“, so normally I don’t install all the components of the package…also you need to “tweak” the software before you use it, or else your system will become a little slow 🙂
Download: http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Kaspersky_Internet_Security/1110196590/1
Posted in IT, Software on June 29, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Just noticed that there is a new version for Flashget. The latest one is 1.9.0. For some reason, the latest versions doesn’t work very well on dial up, the speed indicator doesn’t show you the right speed. I will download the latest one and see whether they have fix the problem. Or maybe they just let people who use dial up to use the older version (1.73).
Anyway, here is what’s new:
FlashGet Version 1.9.0 (2007.06.29)
* No MAX jobs limit for BT Torrent file.
* Fixed bug in certain situation that popped up Add New Download window when clicking on torrent file
* Fixed bug regarding category management that could create categories which enabled not to conform Windows name criteria.
* Fixed bug regarding category management that enabled to create same categories.
* Fixed bug that called FlashGet when closing eMule module and clicking eMule link.
* Other improvementshttp://www.flashget.com/en/whatsnew.htm
Posted in Apple, IT, thoughts on June 28, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Just had a look on apple.com this morning and discovered that Apple had two new videos on iPhone. There are also news (from Appleinsider) that people have started to queue up for iPhone:
Good luck to the guys who queue up since Monday (iPhone is out on Friday), and hope they will get what they want 🙂
The man in the photo is called Greg. here is his blog: http://firstinline.wordpress.com/
Anyway, here are the two videos:
keyboard: http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/2007/keyboard/iphone-keyboard_848x480.zip
Activation and Sync: http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/2007/activation_sync/iphone-activation_sync_848x480.zip
Posted in IT, Microsoft, Software, thoughts on June 28, 2007| Leave a Comment »
I was checking out the new software on neowin.net (also one of my favorite sites for new software) today and found that they had a post with all the links to the newly released Vista updates! It’s really handy for people (like me) who wants to update their friend’s computer as well. It also saves you time when you reinstall your system. You could use things like AutoPatcher, but they take a few weeks before they can release the latest one with the new updates.
http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=41177
This week, Microsoft released some “important” updates for its newest operating system. If you have something against the Windows Update client built-in to Windows Vista, here is a compilation of the download links you need to grab the latest updates for your computer.
Update for Windows Vista (KB931836)
February 2007 cumulative time zone update for Microsoft Windows operating systemsDownload: x86 | x64
Update for Windows Vista (KB932406)
The Windows desktop may stop updating correctly after a Windows Vista-based computer has been running for an extended period of time
Update for Windows Vista (KB935652)
June 2007 Cumulative Update for Media Center for Windows Vista
Update for Windows Vista (KB937077)
A high definition audio device may no longer work after you resume Windows Vista from hibernation or from sleep
Update for Windows Vista (KB937123)
When running Windows Vista, the 802.1X network authentication times out, fails and network connectivity can not be established.
Update for Windows Vista (KB938637)
In Internet Explorer 7 on a Windows Vista-based computer, you cannot enter user-defined words that are added to the Microsoft IME user dictionary
Update for Windows Vista (KB929824)
Windows Vista cannot connect to any off-link addresses when the default gateway is configured to be the same as the client IP address
Update for Windows Vista (KB930627)
The private data of the DEVMODE data structure may be corrupted when you use raw mode to print a document in a 32-bit application on a computer that is running a 64-bit version of Windows
Do checkout neowin.net if you are looking for newly released software.
Posted in Apple, IT, Photography, Software on June 28, 2007| 4 Comments »
Adobe Lightroom and Google’s Picasa just got updated recently. If you are a professional photographer, you might want to check out Adobe’s product:
Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom™ software is the professional photographer’s essential toolbox, providing one easy application for managing, adjusting, and presenting large volumes of digital photographs so you can spend less time in front of the computer and more time behind the lens.
And here is whats new:
NEW! Lightroom 1.1 now available
The update includes flexible image management for multi-computer workflows, improved noise reduction and sharpening technology, Windows Vista™ compatibility, and more.
Lightroom 1.1 trials:
Windows: http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/lightroom/win/LTRM_WWE_win.exe
Mac: http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/lightroom/mac/LTRM_WWE_mac.dmg
If you don’t want to pay for the software and wants something free…check out Picasa from Google. It’s a great FREE replacement for software like ACDsee 🙂
Picasa 2.7 Build 36.60:http://dl.google.com/picasa/picasaweb-current-setup.exe
Posted in Software on June 27, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Just found the new version of the DX9 runtimes, if you are serious about gaming on PCs and you want to stay up to date, you should check out: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b406cf67-d926-463b-99e8-27199d6626b5&DisplayLang=en
I am not a gaming person myself, but I do try to stay up to date for things like this 🙂
Posted in Software, thoughts on June 27, 2007| Leave a Comment »
QQ可以说是中国最普及的通信软件。 QQ的版本很多，我也试过好几种，其中飘云给我的印象不错，非常稳定。 前阵子他们刚刚推出了最新版（4.1):
飘云 4.1
1.增加IP信息字体自定义颜色的功能
2.增加自动去除聊天窗口侧边栏的功能
3.修改IP信息字体,更美观
4.修正首次登陆有可能出现崩溃的问题
5.升级到纯真IP数据库06.20
如果你觉得你的QQ不是太稳定 / 版本有点旧 / 想试试新东西的话，不妨下载飘云QQ来试试 😉
Posted in IT, Software, thoughts on June 27, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Are you the kind of person that uses the computer regularly? Do you care about the new software that comes out everyday? If you do, then you can check out: http://fileforum.betanews.com This is one of my favorite website for new software. Instead of spending a lot of time checking which software of yours has been updated, just sign up on the website, create a watch list and you will get an email when a particular software is released. For instance, I added K-Lite Mega Codec Pack to my list, and every time they have a new version comes out, I will get an email notice…its really simple and it does save you time if you care about new software like me 😉
Anyway, below is the new version of K-Lite Mega Codec Pack (version number: 2.2.5) from FileForum:
K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and DirectShow filters. Those components are needed for encoding and decoding various audio and video formats. This Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files.
K-Lite Mega Codec Pack combines the contents of two packs: K-Lite Codec Pack Full and Real Alternative.
Latest Changes:
- Updated ffdshow to revision 1320
- Removed DScaler5 MPEG decoder
- Removed MainConcept MPEG decoder
- Removed Ligos MPEG decoder
- Removed MainConcept MPEG audio decoder
- Removed Cyberlink MPEG splitter
- Removed MainConcept MPEG splitter
- Removed Ligos MPEG splitter
- Removed Elecard MPEG splitter
- All the removed MPEG stuff is still available in the K-Lite MPEG Pack. That can co-exist perfectly fine alongside the regular KLCP
- Fixed bug with Gabest MPEG splitter sometimes not installing properly
- Updated Codec Tweak Tool
- The MPEG-2/DVD decoder will now be deselected by default if nVidia PureVideo is detected as installed. The pack already did this for other popular decoders
- Improved file association creation/backup/restore
- Minor changes
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/KLite_Mega_Codec_Pack/1080441198/1
K-Lite Mega Codec Pack solve most of my codec problems, hope it solve yours as well 🙂
Posted in IT, Software, thoughts on June 26, 2007| 1 Comment »
Never thought the Google Toolbar could be something that is useful…but I changed my mind today. Here are some of the key features:
🙂 It can save your bookmarks online so you can download them when you use another computer somewhere else
🙂 It can check your Gmail for you
🙂 It can let you preview your Google Calendar
🙂 You can check your page ranking for the page that you are currently on
🙂 You can specify what to search (e.g. Images, Groups, News etc)
🙂 It can do AutoFill
🙂 It has spell check
🙂 It can high light your search result for you
These are the ones that I found useful, you can add more features to your toolbar by adding more “buttons“. If you want to give it a try, feel free to visit:
Google Toolbar for Firefox: http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar/FT3/intl/en/
Google Toolbar Button Gallery:
http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=toolbar&cat=all
If you think Google Toolbar is a bit waste of space since your screen resolution is not very high…then you can change the layout of the toolbar. There are 3 layouts that you can choose from. I normally use the last one when I want to save space 🙂
Posted in Apple, thoughts on June 25, 2007| Leave a Comment »
I have been searching for the download version of WWDC. Steve Jobs is really good at doing presentations…it would be nice if I can find all the WWDC / MacWorld so I can learn from him. I gave up the search after an hour or so because Apple only offered the streaming option…you can’t really download it from Apple.com. I could stream the whole WWDC…but not too sure how long it will take on a dial up.
In the past few days, I have been able to find some torrents of the WWDC 2007 video…but I am just wondering why didn’t Apple release the download version of video themselves? You can’t really stop people from downloading the stuff that they want these days…even the Leopard beta that they gave to developers during the WWDC this year…you can find it on some of the torrent sites already. I don’t really understand why Apple only have the streaming option…I mean…for a start…its a form of advertisement for the company. Maybe….maybe its a marketing strategy. If you can get what you want straight away…you won’t treasure what you have. But if you want something and its not there…and you have to spend some time and effort to get it…you should pay more attention to it then usual.
I remembered I use to have the “Guangzhou Morning Post” (An English newspaper published in Guangzhou) delivered to my house everyday…after some period of time…I started to ignore the paper because I am getting too lazy to read it. However, if I have to go a long way to get it and actually pay the money for it, I will read the whole thing because I know how hard its to get it. Maybe Apple is doing the same thing…maybe…who knows what Steve is thinking right now…
Posted in thoughts on June 25, 2007| 2 Comments »
I went back to Oamaru this afternoon. The weather in Dunedin was quite bad when I left. Lucky I left early, or else they might close the road soon. I txt my friend this morning and he told me a website that tell you whether the road has been closed or not: http://www.aaroadwatch.co.nz/
I also met a friend in the restaurant this afternoon, he is working full time as a PHP programmer. He gets around 40,000 a year…which sounds great to me because he is just graduated not long ago. But then again, my lecturer said you won’t get much pay raise in jobs like this. However, if I love the job that I am doing, I won’t really mind the paid…because I also getting happiness from the job as well as the money.
Tomorrow is a busy day for me, lots of things to sort out in Oamaru, I am also planning to do some readings in the library if I have time 🙂
Posted in Microsoft, NZ Imagine Cup 2007, thoughts on June 24, 2007| 2 Comments »
A few of my friends ask me why I sold the XBOX 360 that I got from the Imagine Cup Competition…its such a awesome console and a great multimedia center. Well, there is a reason behind it…and I hope you will understand my choice:
The prizes given by Microsoft were great, I love the XBOX 360,but I really can’t afford to spend my spare time playing games. For a start, I don’t have much spare time next semester (also this semester as well); I am going to start my internship in the library (no pay, but do get a lot of working experience), and I got some papers that I want to spend more time in (My friend said: if you don’t know much about the concepts of C++, you won’t get things like WCF, WPF etc). Secondly, I don’t have much money to buy games (the fancy camera I use is a gift from my relative), and if I have the money, I would rather get a few books on C++.
My Comp Sci department here doesn’t have any courses on .net stuff. After the competition, it really amazes me what you can do with WCF and WPF. Also there are many jobs out there that is “.net related“, it would be great if I got some .net skills before I graduate so I can have more chances of getting a job. It would be even better if the prizes for this competition are Microsoft books (e.g. on WCF, WPF, MCDA / MCSA) or training sections on .net languages so we can further “polish” our knowledge of the Microsoft development platform. I have say that selling the XBOX is not the best move, but I can use the money to buy books so I can learn more (especially Microsoft stuff, Windows is everywhere) before I graduate. I am in my third year now, its not fun and game anymore; without some sort of skills or experience, its very hard to find a job out there. The job that my friend has got now…I applied for it before him, they even sent me an email and ask me whether I am free to do an interview, but once they knew my friend…its all over for me. If they can find someone with the experience and skills, they will not spend the time and money to train someone from ground up (I can understand that). By now, I hope you will understand why I made this choice 🙂
Posted in thoughts on June 24, 2007| Leave a Comment »
I am suppose to go home (Oamaru) tomorrow, but one of my friends told me the weather will be quite bad on Monday 😦 So I googled “Dunedin weather” and found a great page by Yahoo NZ: http://yahooxtra.net.nz/weather/0,,14788-0-Dunedin,00.html
I love the flash animation they did, and I think I will use this site to checkout the weather from now on. There is actually quite a lot of info packed in this page, but the flash animation made it easier for people to navigate and get the information they are looking for.
The weather forecast for tomorrow: Snowing. Highest 5, Lowest 2 😦
Posted in Apple on June 24, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Apple posted quite a few iPhone videos on their website recently, if you are interested in the iPhone, you can take a look of the videos below:
A guided tour:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/2007/welcome/apple-iphone-welcome_848x480.zip
New Ads:
Surprised (YouTube on iPhone): http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/2007/ads/surprised/apple-iphone-surprised_848x496.mov
iPhone tour:
YouTube:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/tips_tours/2007/iphone_tours-youtube_20070619.mov
Multitouch:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/tips_tours/2007/iphone_tours-multitouch_20070619.mov
Mac OS X:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/tips_tours/2007/iphone_tours-osx_20070619.mov
Accelerometer:
Proximity:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/tips_tours/2007/iphone_tours-proximity_20070619.mov
Safari:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/tips_tours/2007/iphone_tours-safari_20070619.mov
Mail:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/tips_tours/2007/iphone_tours-mail_20070619.mov
Maps:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/tips_tours/2007/iphone_tours-maps_20070619.mov
Widget:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/tips_tours/2007/iphone_tours-widgets_20070619.mov
Calls:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/tips_tours/2007/iphone_tours-calls_20070619.mov
Voice Mail:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/tips_tours/2007/iphone_tours-voicemail_20070619.mov
SMS:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/iphone/tips_tours/2007/iphone_tours-sms_20070619.mov
Posted in Software on June 24, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Remember I said JkDefrag gets updated quite often? Well, they just updated their app (application) and now its 3.16. The changes are:
JkDefrag v3.16 (June 22, 2007)
Changes:
– Changed the message in the docs about the screensaver under Vista, it works if User Account Control is turned off.
– Bugfix in “-a 3” (fast optimize). It would not use Perfect Fit for gaps that were larger than all the data already processed.
– Bugfix in “-a 6” (move to end of disk). Files in zone 1 would not be moved.
– Added some translations of “Program Files” to the build-in list of SpaceHogs:
Archivos de programa (Spanish)
Arquivos de programas (Brazilian Portuguese)
Ohjelmatiedostot (Finnish)
Program Files (All others)
Program (Swedish)
Programas (Portuguese)
ProgramFiler (Norwegian)
Programme (German)
Programmer (Danish)
Programmes (French)
Programmi (Italian)
– Fixed a typo in the “System Volume Information” string in the SpaceHogs.
– Fixed the displaying of the zone number, should have been + 1.
For programmers:
– Changed the “makefile.bat” script, “JkDefrag.exe” does not need to be linked with “JkDefragScreenSaver.res”.
If you are not familar with JkDefrag, you can take a look of my post earlier:
Posted in Microsoft, NZ Imagine Cup 2007, thoughts on June 23, 2007| Leave a Comment »
One of the photos I took turned out to be quite good (at least that’s what I think) and I used it as my wallpaper ever since I took it. If you like the photo and wants to use it as your wallpaper, feel free to drop me an email or leave a comment so I can send it to you through email 🙂
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| From Trip to the I… |
Posted in Microsoft, NZ Imagine Cup 2007, thoughts on June 23, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Just came back from Auckland yesterday at around 21:30. We managed to get the 2nd place in the final. The team from Waikato got the 1st place; the team from AUT got 3rd.
We began our trip to Auckland at 8:30 on Thursday morning. Mark took us to the airport in his car.(thanks Mark) Our plane took off at 9:45 and arrived in Auckland at 11:45. Microsoft arranged a taxi for us in the airport, it cost more than 70 to get to the Microsoft NZ headquarters! Thanks to Microsoft, everything is covered 🙂 We had pizza for lunch in Microsoft, and we met quite a few people there including Mike and Nigel, who were our judges in the NZ semi-final. We then took a tour of the Microsoft NZ headquarter; their working environment is really relaxing. We then spent the afternoon testing our application, before heading off to dinner at the Vivace. Vivace is a very fancy restaurant at the Auckland City Center. They have lots of candles everywhere in the restaurant. The food was one of the best I have tried so far, not too sure about the price though…… After dinner, Chaks and I spent the whole night testing (I had a nap before the sun rise) and debugging our application, making sure its ready for the final presentation. We ordered two bows of shoestring at 4 in the morning. They cost 7 dollars each, and 5 dollars for the delivery fee!!! The hotel we stayed in was quite nice, the room was huge…the view is great…but we didn’t have time to enjoy the things they offered. Our team went back to the Microsoft Headquarters at around 8:30in the morning where we had a “Microsoft Breakfast“. Since our presentation is at 10:10, we didn’t have much time to practice. The conference room where we did our presentation was full of guests from the industry and academic field(around 50 of them). Our presentation was quite smooth, but we didn’t manage to show the video that we have made because we ran out of time. After the presentation, we had an hour to spare, so we went to the harbor and took some photos. The result was announced at around 12:30; they announce the 2nd place first…which was us, then the 3rd place, and then the 1st place. We were very pleased about our prize (each of us got: XBOX360 + a game + Vista Ultimate + Office 2007 Standard Edition + 1 year of MSDN subscription), but also a bit disappointed because we didn’t get the 1st place. After the announcement, we had a phone interview with Otago Daily Times, then we head off to the Sky Tower in the ciy. I didn’t go up to the top because I was having a chat with my friend from my high school in China. Since we got a taxi waiting for us at 15:30, we didn’t spend too much time walking around in the city. Our taxi driver even rang us up because there was a traffic jam on the motorway, so we walked back to Microsoft as quickly as we could to pick up our bags. The whole trip ended as our taxi drove away from Microsoft. The first thing we found was that the XBOX360 was actually quite heavy…a lot heavier than what I thought.
I learnt a lot during this competition…specially about the .net platform and what it could do. After this competition, I am certainly going to spend my spare time learning the .net languages (especially C#). I also had a taste of what it was like to be working in a team…this is something that I couldn’t learn from the textbooks.
Finally, I want to thank Microsoft for providing the opportunity for us to take part in such a great competition. I want to thanks my team mates for all their hard work; I learnt a lot from every single one of them:) Also I want to thank my Uni, the University of Otago for giving us so much help. I hope the Otago team next year can win the NZ and world final.
Here are our photos of the trip:
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David's logbook 
