geek technique :: get your geek on!

4 April 2005, 22:43 by mark hoekstra

ripping with itunes

Well, my MP3-collection got stale anyway… but then again, I lost them… all ;-( (Due to a month old harddrive which decided to retire very quickly). (and since I copied them all to a brand new harddrive I thought I could live without a backup for a while… don’t ever think that)

Sooooo, it’s a coincedence I installed itunes just a day before, which made me think (and discover) that ID3-tags and such can be handy and ripping with itunes is a breeze, really. (My MP3-collection was far from consistent, some with ID3-tags some without, different bitrates and such…). I must say itunes is one nice interface to a massive MP3-collection(even without an ipod, like me), I don’t like the interface of Windows Media Center one bit to MP3’s (it’s brilliant for watching TV though) so why don’t they make an itunes-interface/plugin for Media Center? Or do the people over at MS really think people with ipods are going to synchronize that with WMP10? (I don’t know if it’s even possible but I’m sure they thought of that.)

Anyway, maybe there’s a bigger plan here, cause would I rip all my CD’s again if I still had them as MP3-files? Don’t think so… (I’m an optimist, aren’t I?) ...in the end, all will be better… :-)

and here’s another one.

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4 April 2005, 19:59 by mark hoekstra

HOWTO: Make a weblog a gopherlog

George Hotelling’s April Fools’ Day prank was converting his blog to a gopher site—gopher being a text-only, menu-driven precursor of the Web (“gopherlog, or rlog for short”). In so doing, he created some scripts to simplify the process. He’s posted them online for anyone who wants to convert her or his blog to a gopher site.

HOWTO: Make a weblog a gopherlog

April Fools Joke or not, somehow, I like the idea… I mean, in some sort of ‘less is more’-kinda way… Maybe I should… naaaaaaah!

On the other hand… ;-)

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3 April 2005, 18:25 by mark hoekstra

DD-Live on a card, finally...

It looks like there’s finally a manufacturer who’s smart enough to bring a card to market with a Dolby Digital encoder:

But what I don’t get is, that it’s a PCI-card and not a PCI-Expresscard. I mean, if this thing is possible on a PCI-card, what has kept the ‘main’ manufacturers of PCI-soundcards for so long? I thought DD-encoding wasn’t possible on a PCI-card and therefore only possible on motherboards (hence the Soundstorm-motherboards and now Intel HD-audio) until now, since we have PCI-Express around. So I was searching for a PCI-Express-DD-encoding soundcard but to my surprise I found this one… Hmmmmmz….

To emphasize why we all need DD-encoders in our HTPC’s I can only copy this text (which actually describes Soundstorm…) :
“this audio processor has the unique ability to encode any Windows sounds (including the positional/EAX audio in games) into a positional Dolby Digital 5.1 stream so that a PC can be connected to a surround sound receiver digitally via S/PDIF and not have non-DVD audio sources fall back to PCM (stereo) mode, this has the added benefit of only one cable is needed rather than 6 RCA cables.”

found here (the whole guide is excellent BTW.)

In other words, without a DD-encoder, you need a home-cinemareceiver with multi-channel input (which is rare) and then you still have to connect it analogue, not digital… Otherwise only your DVD’s will be surround, everything else will be 2-channel PCM… So, if you want surroundsound in your games or other non-DVD-sources and not 6 RCA-cables running to your home-cinemareceiver (if it has 6 channel input) then you need DD-encoding. Personally I still love to see nVIDIA bring out some sort of SoundStorm2/chipset-combo for on a (Asus) socket 939 board…

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3 April 2005, 00:40 by mark hoekstra

gmail on my phone!

I don’t know, but today it just struck me, I have this great phone (Nokia 7610) for a couple of months now but only when I travel by train (that’s maybe 3 times a year…) I’m motivated enough to go and fiddle with it and trying to configure some services for it…

So, tonight I thought it was a good idea (with nothing better to do) to go and configure it a little and tada! I now can access gmail through the Opera-webbrowser(for which a licensed version is on the 7610) on my phone! I should stop now, before I become some kind of gadget-junkie! (...and yes, I already had the availability to use SSH on my phone :-)).

BTW, I’m sure there will be a proper mailclient that does POP3 over SSL for Symbian phones any time, but I couldn’t find one…

I’ve got some more pics, here, here and here.

ADDED This is something else than this, that explains how you can forward certain messages from gmail to your phone, what I do is just check all my messages on gmail, just to make sure I can be missed for some time while on my way :-)

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2 April 2005, 02:26 by mark hoekstra

Allright allright allright...

My ‘cease-and-desist-letter’ was an April Fools joke… :-)

Oh, and was does Steve has to say about this?

...even better, it seems he likes the iNO...

Allright, and now let’s go on with some more serious geeking, shall we? This weekend I’ll be continuing work on my encrypted fileserver, so expect some news there… (the least I can do is make a proper projectpage for that machine, now can’t I?...)

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1 April 2005, 18:56 by mark hoekstra

Mac Mini & PSP... watch them!

I have posted before that, imho, this column of Robert X. Cringely (which is an excellent read) contains a lot of things that can become reality, and will, if you ask me…

So, today, this comes around:

Sony wants an ‘iTunes for movies’(BBC News)

So, again, mark my words… Sony & Apple are up to something, something big… (and I don’t mind at all) :-)

They do make an excellent couple, now don’t they? Just add a big-ass TV (preferably Sony, I guess) to connect to your Mac Mini and a proper download-service for your movies and tada!

In that column Robert also writes “And the proprietary content will be video encoded in AVC H.264, which will be supported first in OS X 10.4, promised for the second quarter of this year. So Apple can’t announce that it is in the movie distribution business until 10.4 (code-named Tiger) is available.”

Well, what can we read at appleinsider.com?

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger build declared gold master

...and about that H.264, that is the constant factor in both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD... but it seems this hush-hush Apple/Sony-thing will be hitting the market (remember, the hardware is already on the market now ) before there’s a standard in discs… how about that? :-)

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1 April 2005, 01:36 by mark hoekstra

uh oh, a cease-and-desist letter from Apple!

Well... let the e-mail speak for it self...

Subject: NOTICE OF INFRINGEMENT/Urgent
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 11:30:33 -0800
From: "Copyright Admin." 
To: [geektechnique]
cc: [Above Net]

*Apple Confidential*
-NOT FOR POSTING OR REDISTRIBUTION-

Re: http://geektechnique.org/projects/iNO.html

It has been brought to our attention that you have posted an article on
the above referenced web site that infringes Apple's proprietary rights.
Apple attempted to contact you yesterday, and subsequently contacted
your ISP, in an effort to resolve this matter amicably. However, the
information is still posted on your web site.

Apple has never authorized the material to be disclosed or published 
and your continued display of the material could result in your company 
being held liable for violating Apple's proprietary rights. Your 
continued dissemination and use of this material is in violation of 
Apple's statutory and other rights.

We believe, in good faith, that the material posted is being used in a
manner that is not authorized by Apple and that the information contained
in this email is accurate. Apple believes that this is a very serious
matter. Therefore, Apple demands that you cease and desist from
disseminating the material posted at the referenced web site immediately,
including any hyperlinks to other locations where the information may be
available from all web sites and servers under your control.

Please note that we are also sending a copy of this letter to your
internet service provider.

Please immediately remove the offending material, and reply to this email
in writing that you have removed the material, from your web site. Apple
reserves its right to seek immediate equitable and other relief,
including damages claims, should you fail to remove this material.

Thank you for your courtesy and immediate cooperation. I can be reached
at (408) ***-**** should you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Sue Runfola
Apple Computer, Inc.
Legal

THIS TRANSMISSION MAY BE PRIVILEGED AND MAY CONTAIN CONFIDENTIAL
INFORMATION INTENDED ONLY FOR THE PERSON(S) NAMED ABOVE. ANY OTHER
DISTRIBUTION, RE-TRANSMISSION, COPYING OR DISCLOSURE IS STRICTLY
PROHIBITED. IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS TRANSMISSION IN ERROR, PLEASE
NOTIFY ME IMMEDIATELY BY TELEPHONE OR RETURN E-MAIL, AND DELETE THIS
FILE/MESSAGE FROM YOUR SYSTEM.

...geez... that's all I can say...

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31 March 2005, 23:25 by mark hoekstra

Shove that server up yours...

Well, actually, really…

they just did that, for real… (I should have a category gross I guess)...

G4TV meets Jackass

it could be a hoax, but it’s possible for real, so even if it is a hoax, expect it for real anytime… you never guess where I’m pinging from… aaargh! ;-)

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31 March 2005, 22:48 by mark hoekstra

600673

Since the google-guys seem to think of anything , am I surpised it exists? Noooooo, but well… it exists, with appropriate ~~domainname~~, euhm, domainnumber! impress your friends and set google-haxor as your main page now!

they own 466453.com also but the reason for that is said to be ‘for users who are accessing google via mobile phones that don’t have T9 text entry.’... via

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30 March 2005, 01:48 by mark hoekstra