A waste of bits and bandwidth

Still busy hiding pr0n but I had a few URL’s I wanted to post. So much easier than an actual entry…

1. del.icio.us has come out with a new extension that makes posting a one click affair. Just like del.icio.us post but a bit more intergrated into Firefox.
2. speaking of Firefox, 1.5 is now out. I’ve been using rc3 for a while now and it’s great on Windows but still a few bugs in the Mac version, even with the Final release.
3. a new site was launched a while ago which aggregates digg.com, slashdot and del.icio.us/popular. If you are a fan of any or all of these sites, have a look at diggdot.us
4. finally, if you’re feeling a bit restricted by your own living situation, have a gander at the Architecture of Density. Your feelings of confinement should pass shortly…

Sunday evening and I’ve finally found some time to post. Normally I have little to say but the past few weeks have been crazy busy. So there you go, my official excuse.

I’ve pretty much wrapped up the site I was working on. Next weekend it goes ‘live’. That’s what people in the business say; “when’s it going live?” It was an interesting project to work on. Not so much the work but working for someone else. There was really no design work; it was just backend grunt work. A theme was selected and I hacked and tweaked it a little. No biggie.

I wasn’t hired to give design input, just to do it and it was odd. I would have done it differently had it been for me but it wasn’t. In any event, the client is always right. Right? With that being said, it was a cool experience and I learned a lot from doing it. Hopefully I can do a little more of this in the future.

While all this was going on, I was continuing to test Flock when I had some time to spare. Flock had taken a back seat to the website but once I had that wrapped up, I was back to it. That also has been a very cool experience and I’ve been learning a lot. Lloyd is all things QA at Flock and he seems like a pretty good guy. I’d love to be on that project officially but I’m not sure about the hours he works. Maybe if I were a few years younger!

With MiHwa due here next week, there are a ton of things to get ready. Clean the apartment, hide the pr0n, make room in the closet and bathroom for her stuff. Things like that… She’ll barely be adjusted before we’re off the the L7 xmas party. So much for the long evenings sitting in front of the computer. Which is a good thing…

Changing XP start menu delay

I found this tip on TipMonkies. You can change the delay setting for the Start menu when it opens. The default delay setting is quite slow, even more so on older systems. This tip will make it so the menu will open faster or slower depending on what you want.

[notmyfault] Editing the Windows registry should only be done if you have made a backup first and you feel comfortable editing the registry. If you bugger up the registry you could render your machine unusable.[/notmyfault]

Here?s how:

* Open the Start menu, click on Run, then type regedit and click OK.
* Find the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop.
* Find the string value MenuShowDelay, then right-click Modify and edit the value.
* The default value is set to 400, you can change this to whatever you like. The lower the number the faster it will open.

I did this registry edit to my own system and set the delay value to 50 on mine and it opens quite fast now with no lag. You should notice a sizable speed difference after this hack.

Now if you are one who is fond of pranks, this hack would work the other way as well?

* select your favorite victim
* set value to 40000
* patiently wait for hapless computer user

It would seem that Uncle Steve has made some changes which cause JHymn not to work with iTunes 6. Use caution if you have upgraded.

First in a series of reposts from the old site. I’m still seeing a lot of people searching for few of the old posts, so these are for you.

JHymn is a handy tool that will strip the Digital Rights Management (DRM) from your iTunes music files.

“The goal of JHymn is to create unlocked files which are indistinguishable from files that you might rip from your own CDs?allowing you to exercise your fair-use rights under copyright law”

The author states out right that this is not a tool to aid in distributing your music to the internet masses.

I stumbled across JHymn after Ghosting my computer before I had de-authorized the music I purchased from the iTunes Music Store. When I tried to play my music on the freshly imaged machine, iTunes prompted me to enter my password as my ?new? machine was not authorized to play these protected files. ?Great, there goes one of my five computers??

While Apple does provide an option to re-authorize the protected content, I wanted to give JHymn a try first. I was thrilled with the results and I think you will be too.

When you purchase music from the ITMS, it comes in the M4P format which is of course, protected. JHymn will back up your original M4P files and convert a copy of them directly to MP3 format at the quality you specify. Now you are free to listen to your music where you want and on any device of your choosing.

There are a detailed set of instructions that you need to review carefully before attempting any conversion of your music library. The actual conversion of your files is a simple procedure that requires very little in the way of configuration.

Tell JHymn where your iTunes Music Library is, choose the new format for the files and decide if you want the original files to be backed up. I would recommend keeping the original files should Apple find a way to make your newly converted files un-playable in future versions of iTunes. In a nutshell, that?s all there is to it.

I didn?t bother to strip the Apple ID or the copyright information contained within the files as this is the default JHymn setting. What this means is that while you have removed the DRM ?protection? from the file, it is still identifiable. Your Apple ID is a part of the meta data as is any copyright information associated with the file. JHymn provides the option to strip these ?unwanted atoms? from the file but as I have no intention of distributing my music, I decided against it.

The files I converted are now in MP3 format, they sound as good as the original M4P files and are free of Apple?s DRM. I?m happy to purchase my music. The artist is compensated, the file is free of viruses and the ID3 tags are consistent and complete. But I really hate DRM. I?m not a criminal but that?s how I feel when I purchase protected music.

Subject: France Elevates its Security Level

As many are aware, the French government recently announced a raise in its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide”. The normal level is “General Arrogance”.

The only two higher levels in France are “Surrender” and “Collaborate”. The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country’s military capability.

As you can see, it’s slow in the office now that Spanky has stopped coming to work. Carry on then…