Here's a little tip of how to launch Applications really quickly on your Mac. This makes use of the Spotlight feature to search for the application you want to launch, which saves you all the work of going through the finder and searching for the launch icon.
Tip: Hold the 'apple key' and press 'Space' this is really easy as they're next to each other and can easily be done with your left index finger and thumb. This opens the spotlight searchbox, now start typing the applications name. Within a couple of letters it should have selected the app you're after, so just hit Enter to open the app.
eg: 'Apple key' 'Space' 'i' 't' (searches and selects itunes and enter opens it straight away!
Monday 21 September 2009
Sunday 6 September 2009
Seventh Day - Skate Video
This video was made circa 2006 and reminds me of the time I spent living in Cornwall and riding long boards for the Christian Skate clothing label - BelieveClothing.
Particularly happy with capturing my 360 on film (at 17:21 mins)
A video about Skate-boarding in Cornwall. With a focus on long-boarding and downhill sliding.
The video documents a group of Christian Skaters as they reach out to young people of Falmouth Cornwall. I am both in this video as well as helping film for it. This video was edited and produced by David Renyard - davidjdesigns.me.uk
Thursday 3 September 2009
WD500 External Hard Drive Stopped Working
Recently my Western Digital 500GB external drive stopped working. Fine one day, then no power the next.Symptoms: No Power at all, no noise or spinning. The power unit itself will light green when not connected to the drive, but as soon as it's attached the green light goes out. If connected the power light will stay light for 1 second, then no power.
This seems to be a common fault with this drive and it would seem obvious that the power supply has failed. However following through the problems these guys had, it would seem it's not the power supply, but the external casing that's causing the drive to fail.
Solution: Rest assured your data is probably still safe, as the hard-drive itself is likely to be fine. You have a couple of options:
- Buy a new external hard drive casing/enclosure, this costs around £20-30
- Fit the drive in you Desktop PC as an internal drive.
Seeing as you can buy a new 500GB for under £50, I didn't want to spend £30 on a case. So went with the internal drive method. It's easy to do and if your PC's not too old it'll probably have everything you need inside the case!
First take your external drive to peices, just strip off the outer case until you've freed the drive. It's a standard 3.5" SATA HDD. It has two connectors on the back, the smallest is the SATA DATA connection that connects it to the motherboard, and the longer connector is for power.In your desktop you'll probably have a spare power socket on a ribbon cable behind your existing drive, you can also use the small SATA cable to connect it to the motherboard.
Boot up your PC and your away! The drive will be recognised in the My Computer window. If your PC's a bit older it may only have IDE connectors, but all is not lost, you can pick up an IDE to SATA converter that'll allow you to connect it up.
I bought a SATA and Power connector from Maplin for just under £4.
Good Luck!
Friday 21 August 2009
HTML Form input boxes clear when clicked
Here's a quick tip on clearing the default text from text boxes in a form.
First of all you can add the default text to a input box by declaring a value:
Now we can add an 'onfocus' event that will delete this value when the box is clicked, essentially by replacing it with nothing.
note: where it states the second this.value they're two single quotes ' ' and the statement is wrapped in double quotes. The two single quotes with no space between is for the value zero.
So now the text box appears with the tag 'Enter Name' inside it but when the user clicks the box the text disappears. This also works really well for search boxes eg- 'Search my site'.
First of all you can add the default text to a input box by declaring a value:
<input type="text" value="Enter Name" />
Now we can add an 'onfocus' event that will delete this value when the box is clicked, essentially by replacing it with nothing.
<input type="text" value="Enter Name" onfocus="if ( this.value=='Enter Name' ) { this.value = ''; }"/>
note: where it states the second this.value they're two single quotes ' ' and the statement is wrapped in double quotes. The two single quotes with no space between is for the value zero.
So now the text box appears with the tag 'Enter Name' inside it but when the user clicks the box the text disappears. This also works really well for search boxes eg- 'Search my site'.
Friday 7 August 2009
Div containing floating divs collapses
After about an hour of trying to work out why the spacing between my posts was working in Internet Explorer but not in Firefox, I stumbled upon a common issue.
If a Div contains floating divs it will not resize the height to contain the floating divs. So adding padding to the containg div has no effect. This is how floating divs are supposed to behave. IE ignores this and contains them anyway, but most other modern browsers follow the rules and let the inner divs float 'uncontained'.
The simple solution to this problem is to include and empty div after the floating divs and within the container. This empty div must not have a floating property and must be set to clear the floating divs. This gives the container div something to wrap around. The code will look something like this:
So the magic bit is
If a Div contains floating divs it will not resize the height to contain the floating divs. So adding padding to the containg div has no effect. This is how floating divs are supposed to behave. IE ignores this and contains them anyway, but most other modern browsers follow the rules and let the inner divs float 'uncontained'.
The simple solution to this problem is to include and empty div after the floating divs and within the container. This empty div must not have a floating property and must be set to clear the floating divs. This gives the container div something to wrap around. The code will look something like this:
<div class="container">
<div class="float-left"> </div>
<div class="float-right"> </div>
<div style="clear:both;"> </div>
</div>
So the magic bit is
"<div style="clear:both;"> </div>" just insert it just before you close the container div.
Tuesday 14 July 2009
apt-get install sendmail fails
I was getting an error message when trying to install sendmail on a linux server.
Using the command sudo apt-get install sendmail i was getting the following error:
press 'y' and let that install, then type:
and it'll install fine this time! hope this helps someone else out too!
Using the command sudo apt-get install sendmail i was getting the following error:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
sendmail: Depends: sendmail-bin (= 8.13.8-3) but it is not going to be installed
E: Broken packages
Easy fix, just type:
sudo apt-get install sendmail-bin
press 'y' and let that install, then type:
sudo apt-get install sendmail
and it'll install fine this time! hope this helps someone else out too!
Wednesday 1 July 2009
Create Strings from XML using PHP.
This code uses the simplexml function included in PHP 5.
It's purpose is to create string variables from XML.
It only works properly as long as every xml tag is unique, if a tag is repeated it will overwrite and be useless to you.
here's an example of what it does,
Sample XML:
the code would create two variables $username and $password, each containing the values from the XML, so print $username would display "John Smith"
Here's the PHP -
this code is presuming you've stored the XML data in a variable called $data. If the XML is a file you can replace the first line with this:
to load your external xml file.
It's purpose is to create string variables from XML.
It only works properly as long as every xml tag is unique, if a tag is repeated it will overwrite and be useless to you.
here's an example of what it does,
Sample XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<newsignup>
<username>John Smith</username>
<password>p455w0rd</password>
</newsignup>
the code would create two variables $username and $password, each containing the values from the XML, so print $username would display "John Smith"
Here's the PHP -
$xml = simplexml_load_string($data);
foreach($xml->children() as $child)
{
$Name = $child->getName();
$$Name = $child;
}
this code is presuming you've stored the XML data in a variable called $data. If the XML is a file you can replace the first line with this:
$xml = simplexml_load_file("test.xml");
to load your external xml file.
Tuesday 23 June 2009
Speck See-thru Satin case for Macbook Pro
First thing i bought for my Macbook Pro was this Speck case!They do it in two finishes and lots of colours, the normal case has a very shiny 'plasticy' finish to it, where as this model (Satin) has an almost rubbery-like texture, making it feel a lot more durable and resistant to scratches.
It's a couple of mm's thick and clips around the aluminum uni-body perfectly, the clips hold it in place and there's absolutely no gaps, they've perfectly shaped it the the macbook's dimensions. There's small rubber feet inside the case that hold it in place so it wouldn't scratch your aluminum finish but it fits 'like a glove'.
They've carefully allowed access to all the side ports, so even awkwardly fitting plugs will still attach without any issues, and the same goes for the cd slot. These were the important factors for me:
- the Fit - it fits the macbook perfectly and yet can be easily removed.
- the Feel - a soft grippy finish, almost like a hard rubber finish.
- Access to ports - all ports are fully accessible, even the test battery button, although the press button built-in to the case looks a bit weak.
- Heat Dissipation - the macbook pro expels air out the back slot, the case is in two parts for the screen and body, meaning this vent is completely clear, and the monitor has full flexibility. The downside is it makes the screen a little heavier and tilting the screen backwards too far will cause it to slowly fall open. There's been no noticable heat build up during normal use and watching video, and if you were goin to do some rendering and were concerned you could always unclip the case for a while. There's also small vent cut outs in the base, to let out any trapped hot air.
for more info check out the Speck Website and i bought mine from Play.com
Sunday 21 June 2009
Castle Crashers Review
I filmed a review of Castle Crashers from the xbox arcade. Backed by the Behemoth, they gave me some DLC codes to give away and the usual Caps4Stix giveaway as well!
Update: The competitions been drawn now im afraid and the prizes sent out, more giveaway's with the next podcast so check back soon!
Saturday 20 June 2009
Switched to Mac!?
After years of criticizing people who buy macs, i've made the switch.
I've never understood why anyone would pay so much more for a machine that essentially does the same job as a PC, and yet for some reason i caved in and last week went out and bought myself a Macbook Pro.
Why? well, now i'm working as a full-time php developer i spend all day building solutions to problems and so when i get home i just want to use my laptop quickly and easily without having to deal with any issues. My acer laptop had begun to overheat with normal usage and would frequently freeze up, so i decided to take the plunge.
So far i'm extremely impressed! the quality of the build and the functionality builtin to the hardware are exceptional, little things like the light senstive backlit keyboard are just stunning.
Of course i'll contine to use my Windows Desktop machine, mainly for editing podcasts as it's geared up to handle my HD video, but for day-to-day usage i'm goin to be using my macbook.
Expect more posts on switching from PC to Mac, and web development!
I've never understood why anyone would pay so much more for a machine that essentially does the same job as a PC, and yet for some reason i caved in and last week went out and bought myself a Macbook Pro.
Why? well, now i'm working as a full-time php developer i spend all day building solutions to problems and so when i get home i just want to use my laptop quickly and easily without having to deal with any issues. My acer laptop had begun to overheat with normal usage and would frequently freeze up, so i decided to take the plunge.
So far i'm extremely impressed! the quality of the build and the functionality builtin to the hardware are exceptional, little things like the light senstive backlit keyboard are just stunning.
Of course i'll contine to use my Windows Desktop machine, mainly for editing podcasts as it's geared up to handle my HD video, but for day-to-day usage i'm goin to be using my macbook.
Expect more posts on switching from PC to Mac, and web development!
Wednesday 17 June 2009
PHP setcookie overwriting problem.
I've just found a tiny error in how I've been taught to create cookies in PHP. So thought i'd share it incase it was driving anyone else crazy too.
Symptoms: cookie data is overwritten or not passed properly.
Solution: Firstly lets make sure you're writing cookie's properly.. (time is set to 30days)
It's likely this php may sit in a header file or a page template so to make sure this cookie isn't overwritten if it appears elsewhere in the site write it like this..
Now this is where i started having strange results, basically if the cookie is initially written on a second level page eg. hilikusOnline.co.uk/podcasts/theshow then it could be overwritten or unavailable on a root level such as hilikusOnline.co.uk/home
to make sure the cookie is set at root level, you must include "/" as a cookie variable. So the correct code now looks like this:
That's it!
Symptoms: cookie data is overwritten or not passed properly.
Solution: Firstly lets make sure you're writing cookie's properly.. (time is set to 30days)
setcookie('name', 'value', time() + 3600*24*30);
It's likely this php may sit in a header file or a page template so to make sure this cookie isn't overwritten if it appears elsewhere in the site write it like this..
if(!isset($_COOKIE['name']))
{setcookie('name', 'value', time() + 3600*24*30);
}
Now this is where i started having strange results, basically if the cookie is initially written on a second level page eg. hilikusOnline.co.uk/podcasts/theshow then it could be overwritten or unavailable on a root level such as hilikusOnline.co.uk/home
to make sure the cookie is set at root level, you must include "/" as a cookie variable. So the correct code now looks like this:
if(!isset($_COOKIE['name']))
{setcookie('name', 'value', time() + 3600*24*30, "/");
}
That's it!
Sunday 14 June 2009
Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org or Drupal?
Choosing a CMS can be difficult, here i'll take you through the basics and hopefully help you decide which is best for you.
I've always been a fan of wordpress. Starting with no experience of PHP and just some basic HTML and CSS skills, wordpress enabled me to create a dynamic site very quickly!
First off, there's two versions of wordpress. Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org
.com is a free online blogging tool, hosted by wordpress.com, you can quickly and easily sign up and have a basic site running in minutes. The downsides are the limitations they put on you. You can only load themes and plug-ins that are part of their approved directory, you have no ftp access, so can't create your own custom theme and the default url you will be given will be username.wordpress.com. The Url isn't a huge problem as you can easily just buy a domain name and point it at username.wordpress.com, but just looks a little less professional.
So the second option here is Wordpress.org. With .org you host the wordpress installation yourself, this gives you endless control. You can now load whatever themes you can find or fairly easily create your own (i'll post links at the end on how to do this) and the same goes with plugins! This is ideal for blogs, has a really nice looking user interface and is very easy to use. It also goes quite deep and with some PHP knowledge you can start dreaming up how you'd like your site to perform and build your own solutions.
Wordpress.org is primarily known as blogging software, but is beginning to be recognised as a serious CMS (content management system) with web developers using it for much bigger projects. For eg. theLostnFound use it to power their site, providing them with a blogging platform, video podcasts and users can sign in and post the their forum. So for small sites i'd happily recommend Wordpress.org providing you don't want users to have their own content on the site.
Right so where does Drupal fit in? Drupal is a beast of a CMS. Allowing you to do pretty much anything you can imagine. The only problem is your going to have to work out how. It has a steep learning curve, but if your willing to put in the hard work you can begin to harness the power Drupal has to offer. First major difference is the interface. Drupal will actually use your websites theme as an admin user interface and with tonnes of admin options it's easy to get lost in their menus at first.
After working with Drupal for 8 weeks now, i love it and when building a community website, would recommend it every-time. It worth learning how to use it, as it's goin to be around for a long time and once learnt can be a very useful tool. Some of the benefits of Drupal are users can have their own profile pages, upload sections for photos/files, and even their own blog page within your site. Drupal will scale up to meet whatever demands you throw at it, so if you see your project growing, it's probably goin to be best to put in the extra work at the beginning and learn Drupal.
The only downside with Drupal is it's complicated! If your not a web developer and don't understand PHP then stick with wordpress. With drupal even the most simple tasks aren't straight forward. For eg. you'll have to install three plugins to get a workin WYSIWYG editor that you can upload images into your posts, where as with wordpress this is provided straight away as standard.
Summary
So as a quick review...
Wordpress.com: startup time 30mins - quick easy online blog, up and running in minutes
Wordpress.org: startup time few days - an excellent blogging platform and suitable for small scale websites with limited membership options for users signing up
Drupal: startup time few weeks - a complex Content Management System capable of creating huge sites with endless functionality.
links
- Create your own Wordpress theme
I've always been a fan of wordpress. Starting with no experience of PHP and just some basic HTML and CSS skills, wordpress enabled me to create a dynamic site very quickly!
First off, there's two versions of wordpress. Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org
.com is a free online blogging tool, hosted by wordpress.com, you can quickly and easily sign up and have a basic site running in minutes. The downsides are the limitations they put on you. You can only load themes and plug-ins that are part of their approved directory, you have no ftp access, so can't create your own custom theme and the default url you will be given will be username.wordpress.com. The Url isn't a huge problem as you can easily just buy a domain name and point it at username.wordpress.com, but just looks a little less professional.
So the second option here is Wordpress.org. With .org you host the wordpress installation yourself, this gives you endless control. You can now load whatever themes you can find or fairly easily create your own (i'll post links at the end on how to do this) and the same goes with plugins! This is ideal for blogs, has a really nice looking user interface and is very easy to use. It also goes quite deep and with some PHP knowledge you can start dreaming up how you'd like your site to perform and build your own solutions.
Wordpress.org is primarily known as blogging software, but is beginning to be recognised as a serious CMS (content management system) with web developers using it for much bigger projects. For eg. theLostnFound use it to power their site, providing them with a blogging platform, video podcasts and users can sign in and post the their forum. So for small sites i'd happily recommend Wordpress.org providing you don't want users to have their own content on the site.
Right so where does Drupal fit in? Drupal is a beast of a CMS. Allowing you to do pretty much anything you can imagine. The only problem is your going to have to work out how. It has a steep learning curve, but if your willing to put in the hard work you can begin to harness the power Drupal has to offer. First major difference is the interface. Drupal will actually use your websites theme as an admin user interface and with tonnes of admin options it's easy to get lost in their menus at first.
After working with Drupal for 8 weeks now, i love it and when building a community website, would recommend it every-time. It worth learning how to use it, as it's goin to be around for a long time and once learnt can be a very useful tool. Some of the benefits of Drupal are users can have their own profile pages, upload sections for photos/files, and even their own blog page within your site. Drupal will scale up to meet whatever demands you throw at it, so if you see your project growing, it's probably goin to be best to put in the extra work at the beginning and learn Drupal.
The only downside with Drupal is it's complicated! If your not a web developer and don't understand PHP then stick with wordpress. With drupal even the most simple tasks aren't straight forward. For eg. you'll have to install three plugins to get a workin WYSIWYG editor that you can upload images into your posts, where as with wordpress this is provided straight away as standard.
Summary
So as a quick review...
Wordpress.com: startup time 30mins - quick easy online blog, up and running in minutes
Wordpress.org: startup time few days - an excellent blogging platform and suitable for small scale websites with limited membership options for users signing up
Drupal: startup time few weeks - a complex Content Management System capable of creating huge sites with endless functionality.
links
- Create your own Wordpress theme
Thursday 26 February 2009
LOVEFiLM to stream Movies to Xbox - UK! (maybe)
America's streaming movie service provided by Netflix has been a huge success!
The Xbox LIVE service seems really unfair, if you read MajorNelson's blog (xbox developer), how often to you read his new announcement folowed by (US only).
and with the currency exhange at the minute, we are paying a lot more than our American friends, for what is a much more limited service.
They pay $38.99 (which is £27.35)
We pay £40.00
But there's not a lot we can do bout it... I've asked MajorNelson bout it, but he refuses to respond.
I asked him why they don't make a similar arrangement with LOVEFiLM to provide a streaming service in the UK as well, and whilst he didn't respond, interestingly LOVEFiLM would reply to the same question.
Their response:
"It's something we're investigating and definitely and area that we'd like to explore."
so there's hope for us yet eh? Lets hope they get round to sorting this, before Netflix entend their coverage to the UK, surely there's a huge un-tapped market for both to grab at?
Lets face it, until you can stream movies for a membership fee of £5/month like they do in the States, we're not paying to rent movies from XBOX LIVE.
Monday 23 February 2009
Far Cry 2 Review
Here's our latest podcast for theLostnFound, Me and Xane review *cough* preview Far Cry 2.It's in HD so hit that FULLSCREEN button, sit back and enjoy!
Stop Xbox Pirates! Report them!
Important: this is just my opinion, and as far as I know, no such system is in place. However if there is such a system, tell me and I'l promote it!
Ok so everybody knows you can crack your xbox 360 so it'll play games from copied discs.
It's cheap, it's Scummy and it happens... alot.
With general hacking there's a 'COOL' element, where we stand in awe at what could be achieved by taking something to bits, flashing the firmware, or installing mods, that's kinda in our nature.
But when that comes to the XBOX 360, it's a big NO!
The Xbox 360 has something, all other gaming consoles lack, do you know what it is...? answer="community"
Whatever games your into, chances are at some point you've played online, and if you've played online more than once you'll probably already have people on your friends list ready to share your favourite games with.
It's open to all people from all over the world and so of course you get a few idiots, but in general you can build up a healthy list of new 'friends'.
Outa this shared gaming experience comes a level of respect for each other, you've all chosen to invest your hard-earned money into this company, and enjoy sharing the experience together. The problem is, we're not all paying are we...?
So yeah we all know the prices are jacked up skyhigh! Especially here in the UK, where games are released around the £50 mark (sometimes more!) so on minimum wage your goin' to have to work for more than 10hours to pay for a game! crazy but that's the climate we live in at the moment.
One of the reasons the prices are so high is that a large percentage of people aren't paying for their games, and so the rest of us have to foot a much heftier bill to pay the way for these idiots. Of course this is illegal, and generally frowned upon, but what is really being done about it? Sure police might catch a few of the major re-sellers who make a living outa burning copies of games and selling them on at £5 a disc, but what about all the people sat at home playing their cracked Xbox's.
I can only afford to have a couple of games at a time, so when i want a new game.... first i have to wait for it to come down from £50 to around £30 (takes bout 2 months) then sell my old games on ebay and use the cash to subsidies the cost of the new game. It really doesn't seem right that people with Cracked Xbox's have every new game, as soon as it's released, pay nothing, and sit their happy that they'll never get caught.
The Solution? .... well I've been thinkin about this issue for years, i guess there are privacy laws stopping Microsoft from spying in on everyone's machines without a reason to be suspicious, and then how do they detect the crack?
So far the best solution I can come up with is why not have an official Microsoft site, where gamers can submit the gamertags of people they know who have a cracked xbox?
I think they under-estimate how many people know someone who has a hacked box, and the general feelings towards the people who don't pay. It's not like we'd have to get personal about it, the submissions could beanonymous and they don't have to submit the persons name or details, just punch in their gamertag and hit submit. Surely Microsoft have all the info they need to take it from there, with every gamertag linked to a MSN passport, and if the account has been live in the past they'll have their address too!
Whatever happens, i really feel something should change, as the current attempts to pursue piracy are falling short, and people aren't scared enough of doing it, as no-one is getting caught.
till i have any new ideas, thats it for now...
any of you guys have suggestions?
Ok so everybody knows you can crack your xbox 360 so it'll play games from copied discs.
It's cheap, it's Scummy and it happens... alot.
With general hacking there's a 'COOL' element, where we stand in awe at what could be achieved by taking something to bits, flashing the firmware, or installing mods, that's kinda in our nature.
But when that comes to the XBOX 360, it's a big NO!
The Xbox 360 has something, all other gaming consoles lack, do you know what it is...? answer="community"
Whatever games your into, chances are at some point you've played online, and if you've played online more than once you'll probably already have people on your friends list ready to share your favourite games with.
It's open to all people from all over the world and so of course you get a few idiots, but in general you can build up a healthy list of new 'friends'.
Outa this shared gaming experience comes a level of respect for each other, you've all chosen to invest your hard-earned money into this company, and enjoy sharing the experience together. The problem is, we're not all paying are we...?
So yeah we all know the prices are jacked up skyhigh! Especially here in the UK, where games are released around the £50 mark (sometimes more!) so on minimum wage your goin' to have to work for more than 10hours to pay for a game! crazy but that's the climate we live in at the moment.
One of the reasons the prices are so high is that a large percentage of people aren't paying for their games, and so the rest of us have to foot a much heftier bill to pay the way for these idiots. Of course this is illegal, and generally frowned upon, but what is really being done about it? Sure police might catch a few of the major re-sellers who make a living outa burning copies of games and selling them on at £5 a disc, but what about all the people sat at home playing their cracked Xbox's.
I can only afford to have a couple of games at a time, so when i want a new game.... first i have to wait for it to come down from £50 to around £30 (takes bout 2 months) then sell my old games on ebay and use the cash to subsidies the cost of the new game. It really doesn't seem right that people with Cracked Xbox's have every new game, as soon as it's released, pay nothing, and sit their happy that they'll never get caught.
The Solution? .... well I've been thinkin about this issue for years, i guess there are privacy laws stopping Microsoft from spying in on everyone's machines without a reason to be suspicious, and then how do they detect the crack?
So far the best solution I can come up with is why not have an official Microsoft site, where gamers can submit the gamertags of people they know who have a cracked xbox?
I think they under-estimate how many people know someone who has a hacked box, and the general feelings towards the people who don't pay. It's not like we'd have to get personal about it, the submissions could beanonymous and they don't have to submit the persons name or details, just punch in their gamertag and hit submit. Surely Microsoft have all the info they need to take it from there, with every gamertag linked to a MSN passport, and if the account has been live in the past they'll have their address too!
Whatever happens, i really feel something should change, as the current attempts to pursue piracy are falling short, and people aren't scared enough of doing it, as no-one is getting caught.
till i have any new ideas, thats it for now...
any of you guys have suggestions?
Friday 20 February 2009
Create Your Own G1 Android Wallpaper!
Ok so if like me you have invested in the world's first Google phone, chances are sooner or later you'll be wanting to change your wallpaper.
Of course there's plenty of free wallpapers out there, but if you want to make them yourself here's some info you might find useful.
Resolution
the G1 display is 320x480 pixels (portrait mode), but then of course you have three desktop screens to slide between left and right.
These screen are not side by side though, they overlap.
The overall wallpaper size should be 640x480.
Here's a visual representation of how the desktops overlap
Click it to view this Jpeg in full resolution. You may find it usefull as a guide when making your own wallpapers to see where they'll overlap.
Alternatively you can download the Photoshop Template i built here Photoshop G1 wallpaper template.
When you've built your wallpaper, save it as a jpeg and email to yourself at your Gmail account.
Easily pick up the email on your phone and save the attachment, it'll save by default to your pictures folder.
that's it, Have Fun!
Of course there's plenty of free wallpapers out there, but if you want to make them yourself here's some info you might find useful.
Resolution
the G1 display is 320x480 pixels (portrait mode), but then of course you have three desktop screens to slide between left and right.
These screen are not side by side though, they overlap.
The overall wallpaper size should be 640x480.
Here's a visual representation of how the desktops overlap
Click it to view this Jpeg in full resolution. You may find it usefull as a guide when making your own wallpapers to see where they'll overlap.
Alternatively you can download the Photoshop Template i built here Photoshop G1 wallpaper template.
When you've built your wallpaper, save it as a jpeg and email to yourself at your Gmail account.
Easily pick up the email on your phone and save the attachment, it'll save by default to your pictures folder.
that's it, Have Fun!
Friday 13 February 2009
Extra stuff in the Box - G1 (UK Feb'09)
I just got one of the latest released G1 phones exclusive to T-Mobile.
I say latest release because they've started including a couple of extra things in the box.
I chose the Black one (even though the White one came out after), and was pleased to find that they'd bothered to re-package the black phones too.
The three things i found in the box that i hadn't seen on previous unboxing videos, was:
- a cleaning cloth (like you get with glasses)
- a screen protector, a thin piece of plastic to peel off and stick over your screen, although it wasn't sticky at all, more like it was held in place by static, saying that i got in prefectly lined up (second attempt) and it hasn't slipped despite me draggin my fingers across the screen, it won't budge.
- Headphones/Handfree adapter, the phone used to come with a pair of headphones with their unique usb plug on (not the normal 3.5mm headphone jack) but i got an adapter with the usb connector on one end and ended with a mic pod with the standard headphone socket in (plus the pair of crappy headphones that come with it, like will most likely stay in the box), and a small button, i guess when using the headphones if your phone rings you can press the button to take the call using the handsfree.
I'll come back and add some more pics once i've had chance to take 'em. (pic taken on my G1)
I say latest release because they've started including a couple of extra things in the box.
I chose the Black one (even though the White one came out after), and was pleased to find that they'd bothered to re-package the black phones too.
The three things i found in the box that i hadn't seen on previous unboxing videos, was:
- a cleaning cloth (like you get with glasses)
- a screen protector, a thin piece of plastic to peel off and stick over your screen, although it wasn't sticky at all, more like it was held in place by static, saying that i got in prefectly lined up (second attempt) and it hasn't slipped despite me draggin my fingers across the screen, it won't budge.
- Headphones/Handfree adapter, the phone used to come with a pair of headphones with their unique usb plug on (not the normal 3.5mm headphone jack) but i got an adapter with the usb connector on one end and ended with a mic pod with the standard headphone socket in (plus the pair of crappy headphones that come with it, like will most likely stay in the box), and a small button, i guess when using the headphones if your phone rings you can press the button to take the call using the handsfree.
I'll come back and add some more pics once i've had chance to take 'em. (pic taken on my G1)
Friday 6 February 2009
6 ways to improve your Xbox Experience!
Hi Guys, finally got the new Podcast Online!
I know some of this stuffs pretty basic, but hopefully there's something in there you didn't know about.
Although it's small on the page, it is in HD so feel free to hit that FullScreen Button!
Hope you enjoy it!
Tuesday 27 January 2009
Dual boot Vista and XP? #Fail!
K so I had two major problems with my Vista Desktop.
- Mainly my Wacom Bamboo, won't work properly, despite the advertising that it supports Vista. The guys at Wacom told me i had to disable all the features in order to get any functionality out of it, which kinda defeats the point right?
- Secondly (not vistas fault) but my video editing software conflicts with itunes, and obviously i need to be able to run both, not at the same time, but at some point i'll wana change the tunes on my ipod.
So i thought i'd found the perfect solution reading a tutorial on dual-booting Vista and XP on the same machine. I've got 1TB HDD so thought i'd set up the XP side for editing and Vista for normal day-to-day stuff. i was wrong!
I partitioned the drive and installed XP, well i tried.. the problem is that the Vista machine only wants to boot into Vista, and for XP to install it reboots itself halfway through then continues to set up windows.
I found and excellent piece of software called EasyBCD which handles the boot options for different Operating Systems. As XP installs it puts it's own bootloader in, then reboots and fails.
So i get stuck with 2 operating systems, none of which will boot. I have to boot with a partition disc, format the drives, re-write the bootloader and reinstall Vista from a recovery disk. Phew tried that bout 3 times now...
So i've been sat thinkin of an alternate method of getting the same results...ah VMWare.
VMware will let me have a virtual XP environment on my Vista machine, I can just run the Video converter that conflicts with iTunes on he virtual machine (all editing will be done on Vista, with VM closed to get the best render times possible.)
and the Wacom... would you believe it.... once I'd recovered Vista to the factory settings with the backup cd, I installed the tablet driver and it worked - PERFECTLY!
- Mainly my Wacom Bamboo, won't work properly, despite the advertising that it supports Vista. The guys at Wacom told me i had to disable all the features in order to get any functionality out of it, which kinda defeats the point right?
- Secondly (not vistas fault) but my video editing software conflicts with itunes, and obviously i need to be able to run both, not at the same time, but at some point i'll wana change the tunes on my ipod.
So i thought i'd found the perfect solution reading a tutorial on dual-booting Vista and XP on the same machine. I've got 1TB HDD so thought i'd set up the XP side for editing and Vista for normal day-to-day stuff. i was wrong!
I partitioned the drive and installed XP, well i tried.. the problem is that the Vista machine only wants to boot into Vista, and for XP to install it reboots itself halfway through then continues to set up windows.
I found and excellent piece of software called EasyBCD which handles the boot options for different Operating Systems. As XP installs it puts it's own bootloader in, then reboots and fails.
So i get stuck with 2 operating systems, none of which will boot. I have to boot with a partition disc, format the drives, re-write the bootloader and reinstall Vista from a recovery disk. Phew tried that bout 3 times now...
So i've been sat thinkin of an alternate method of getting the same results...ah VMWare.
VMware will let me have a virtual XP environment on my Vista machine, I can just run the Video converter that conflicts with iTunes on he virtual machine (all editing will be done on Vista, with VM closed to get the best render times possible.)
and the Wacom... would you believe it.... once I'd recovered Vista to the factory settings with the backup cd, I installed the tablet driver and it worked - PERFECTLY!
Thursday 22 January 2009
Friday 16 January 2009
Windows 7 - Vista's Replacement
So Windows 7 will be the new OS from Microsoft, and finally we get to replace that horrible Vista package.
I'm really hoping that they'll have listened to what people want from an OS and have addressed the issues we've all had with Vista. My main machine at home came with Vista pre-installed, but at times I've really considered just formating it and clean installing XP instead, there's just been problems installing stuff, drivers, programs etc just dont support Vista properly.
Anyway... Windows 7... what to expect? Well why not find out for yourself?
Microsoft are providing the Beta as a free download! but don't get to carried away, with dreams of free software. Some things to keep in mind are, it's only the first Beta, so still has alot of problems, the whole point of releasing the Beta is that we will all install it and tell them what problems we find.
In return we get a glimpse of what the new operating system will be like, i say 'a glimpse' in order to make something very clear, you are not gettin Windows 7 for FREE. In fact i've recently heard that the beta will end in August.
Whilst it's a nice idea that the testers would get it for free, can you imagine the effect this has on their initial sales. On the first day the Beta was available the servers crashed cause so many of us went there looking for our free copy.
Well with all that said, if you're still interested in testing the Beta for Microsoft you can head here to download it.
Warning: Don't install this on your main pc, chances are you'll blank your computer and end up with a buggy version of Windows that'll only last till August. If you've got a spare pc, burn a disc and give it a try.
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