geek

After a flurry of activity on Live Writer last year there has not been any movement on Windows Live Writer and seems like it is dead? Anyone got any updates on when (or if) when this will move forward?

Well this is quite old news but it is new to me - running IE on Linux - how cool is that. Click on the screenshot to see IE running on Ubuntu at one of the machines at home. If you would like to run IE 7 on Linux, then check out this link . <p> <img src="images/IEonLinux.png" alt=""/> </p>

I had been thinking of writing a program which will allow be to dial a number using Vonage especially being the fat-butter-fingered-lazy-ass that I am. . Although I wanted to do this for a while, I could only get around to writing it over the holidays. The program is fairly simple to use as shown below. <p> <img src="images/vonagedialer_thumb2.jpg" alt=""/> </p> Enter your User Name and Password Click on Connect This will connect to Vonage and authenticate your user name and password....

The new version of VMWare 6.0 is out in Beta and it has some exciting new things. In addition to the new features listed below (from their email), it also supports x64 and up to 8 gb of RAM! Support for Windows Vista - Use Windows Vista as host operating system Multiple monitor display - You can configure a VM to span multiple monitors, or multiple VMs to each display on separate monitors....

There are a couple of new Vista based remotes coming out in the next few months, which incorporate SideShow - sure looks sweet. <p> <img src="images/3383_large_ricavision1_thumb2.jpg" alt=""/> </p>

If you are running Vista x32 or x64 and want to play the usual set of audio and video files (such as mp4) you might need additional codecs . The one which has worked with me on Vista x64 is called the K-Lite Mega Code Pack v1.61; however as I said in my previous post , it might have caused an issue in DVD playback though I am not 100% sure of that....

As you can see the links on this blog now show a preview, this is using Snap Preview and it can give you a preview of the link before you click on it and is quite cool. You can signup for free with nothing to sign up or anything, just add the script tag and away you go. If you want to add this to your CS implementation, the easiest way is to follow the following steps:...

If you are like me and are running Vista x64 and are having some driver issues and would like to use the XP x64 drivers in Vista, but cannot because Vista expects the drivers to be signed, well then you can disable that. Disclaimer: please use common sense and back up your data and don’t blame me if this breaks stuff. Note 2: Using signed drivers is the recommended practice! I would resort to this only as a desperate measure (till all the drivers are released) or if you want to use it in a development scenario....

This certainly has to excite your geek molecules - digg in 3D (use your mouse to navigate around) ( Thanks to Chris for the link)

I guess, Dheera did not like the faculty entering his dorm room at MIT, so he had to fix the situation I suppose . . If I ever get to own a house with a basement (which would be my “hang out” area), I am sure to get one of these. Writing the PS/2 keyb driver seems simple enough and the code unlock door code is straightforward as well (however, you might want to format it to make it readable)....

[Update: Once published the maps were askew, so fixed that] Now that I have had a chance to use Live Write for a bit, I thought I’d post my feedback so far. What do I like? Overall, I like it - its so far been the best tool I have used of its kind. I tried using Word 2007, but for me that never worked and it gets stuck in a loop - and keeps asking me for a credentials, which even after entering the correct one does not go work....

BBC is reporting that a new file sharing darknet (what is that?) service called Relakks has launched in Sweden. I think they have been a bit overwhelmed lately, if you check their website , you get the following message. 😉 We have been completely overwhelmed by the interest in our services. Whilst we are extremely happy about this, our vpn-servers aren’t. Neither is our banking partner. Both are having an extremely hard time keeping up with the interest....

Troltech will be releasing a open linux based mobile phone next month which has a user-modifiable linux OS and is a working mobile supporting GSM and GPRS. The phone will be available as part of a SDK and will be available in a candy-bar form. Troltech are hoping the “spirit of innovation” will help it be a success and will be marketed as the “first open Linux mobile device for application developers”....

Thanks to Karan for pointing this one to me. But instead of blocking everyone out of your wireless, if you got bandwidth to spare then why no have fun? Which is exactly what Pete Stevens did with this upside-down-ternet and secured his wireless in an alternate fashion. I think of these these days I’ll try this out – although I would have to scale down the speed as I need the a significant chunk because of VPN and VOIP....

There is an excellent selection of google mash ups in the Part 1 and Part 2 at google map mania. Below is an excerpt for some of those are listed (but make sure to check those links for the complete list). Nearby - Nearby.org.uk is a site with heaps of UK (and Ireland) location based information. They have taken this information and created a customisable mashup application with a huge list of on-demand information layers you can overlay from various UK sites....

If you use a RSS feed then you might not have seen this, but if you browse to the blog you would see that I upgraded to Community Server 2.0. I was running a modified version of .Text 95 and the upgrade to CS was a bit painful, mostly due to the fact that I did not want to lose all this data and there was not upgrade path from ....

Since my previous post , I have made some improvements to this - mostly around the installer and also the fact that there might be machines out there in the world who do not have Microsoft Ink installed. (duh!). If you have a Tablet PC or one of the SDK’s installed which give you the Ink bits then continue using ClickOnce - I would recommend to upgrade to the newest bits....

If you are a Sudoku fan, then check out my slightly modified version of the one published by Microsoft . I have it up using ClickOnce , so unfortunately you would need to use IE for the best experience. It might work with Firefox (I have not tried it yet). Also you will need .NET Framework 2.0 - if you don’t have it - the installer will point you in the right direction on how to get it....

telnet to “ascii-wm.net 2006” (without the quotes of course), 10 minutes before kick off and you should find a live “video” stream. (from the inquirer ).

I was looking at something else, and stumbled across the wall of Ribbons , pretty interesting. :)

So, if you rejoiced with the release of Boot Camp and were now going to head out and buy a Mac, then hold on a minute. Many users have reported a serious issue with the beta version of Boot Camp, where they have not been able to switch back to OS X and are stuck running Windows. Now, if you are anything like me, you won’t see anything wrong with that, but if you are not like me, then you would need to do a complete reinstall of OS X to get around this....

I currently have two small NAS’s - Ximeta&rsquo;s NetDisk (120 GB) which have been running well without any issues (except a little slowly when there is a lot of traffic), but I am getting close to exhausting that space and was looking for something beefier. A couple of options that do seem very promising. One is the Buffalo Tera Station , which while I know a few people have used this and are happy with it, my issue being I cannot upgrade the drives as easily....

I first read about the Spam Cube , in the paper a few days ago , and was intrigued by what it offers. But at the same time I am skeptical, it seems to be promising a lot – and like many similar attempts before this have failed. There is a limitation of four computers , but then they mention you can use up to six , so not sure that the limitation is and why - though I can possibly speculate its probably how fast it can process stuff....

I have finally bitten the bullet and plan to transition over to a Windows Mobile phone from my current Sony Ericsson (I have a P910i). The HTC Hermes is the phone I would be moving to, the ability to get email on the fly (blackberry style) is the main motivation. HTC Hermes (also know as i-mate JASJAM) is going to be released in a about 2-3 months and is ideal for my needs....

I had very seriously considered getting a Mac Mini - the new ones with the Intel CPU’s. But now that Microsoft has announced that there won’t be any EFI support in Vista , I am not so sure of getting a one now. I am a Wintel guy, and the reason for getting a Mac was from a pure geek-value in the short term, but in the longer term was to install Windows and use it as another machine....