MacOS Driver for serial Wacom Tablet

Here I found a MacOS Driver page for those old serial Wacom Tablet. All is well except that it does not work with x86 environment. Oh well, one can always dream.

Finally the cheap HK$19 USB keyboard saves the day

This morning I suddenly have an urge to tryout the USB keyboard I brought 2 months ago when I brought it assuming that the x86 version of Mac OSX requires a USB keyboard. I found out later that the PS/2 keyboard was recognized by the Intel OSX, and found myself a bit silly spending the money on the keyboard. But today, when I bootup the OSX, the PS/2 keyboard was not being recognized, and it was the USB keyboard which allows me to continue my work on the Mac. very strange indeed. But then it's computer. Always expect the unexpected.

Toom Boom Studio 3.0 not working, and so was 7-zip

Software started working against my will today. To think of it, this is not the first time. Seems like everytime I started to do some real working, software started to behave. These are the two misbehaving software I dealed with today:

Toon Boom Studio 3.0
For some mysterious reason, ToonBoom Studio 3 stopped working on my machine. Ironically, 2.0 works prefectly fine. The most irritating thing is that the program still not working after I reinstall the application. Sigh.

7-zip
I used 7-zip at home and at work a lot, and usually I found it a good alternative to winrar, but more and more I found out that a lot of .rar files failed with 7-zip, but works fine even with the old Winrar 3.0 . So I guess I need to give up 7-zip for a while until it catches up.

Easy to use MPEG 1 video cutting and handle huge file well

I encountered a problem about video: I need to extract some files from the MPEG 1 video recorded by my external video capture device. The problem is that the file is 4Gb huge, and VCDCutter4.x has problem recognizing it. So I need to find another tool that does the job.

Thanks to VideoHelper, I found a list of tools that may do the job, and here's my finding:

* SolveigMM_AVI_Trimmer_1_0 - REally useless. Big disappointment.
* AVCutty - Keeps yepping for money. Does not seem to work anyway.
* MPEG2Cut - Looks so damn primitive, does not satisfy my ease of use requirement.
* Cutterman - Only works for the video stream part of the MPEG file. Well, it may have it's usuage, but .... not for now .... Plus it requires dot net framework 1.1 .

I finally settled with Womble MPEG-VCR. It seems to do the job, but of course I will have to wait for a day in order to put the app to the test since I just stupid enough to have the 4Gb testing file deleted :-<

Not impressed by the lastest SuperCard firmware update

I installed the new SuperCard firmware update (1.54 firmware with 2.44 conversion program). Well, I really don't find it such a big deal. I mean, the most significant feature is Restart. But, damn, what's the big deal. The way I see it, the most important thing is fixing the menus of the conversion program. Now that's somethihg I can use.

Still, it's nice to have a device that was constantly updated. So that's not too bad.

Set up a machine for my friend

My friend got a old Pentium III 866 computer and asked me to set up for him. I know that when I set it up, I need to keep the following factors in mind:

- He doesn't know much about computer, and yet got a lot of crazy spyware and stuff while surfing the Net.
- He doesn't have much money, so I need to install items that makes him productive and yet keep the cost low.

I originally planned to install Windows 98 SE on his machine, which is the OS that comes with the machine. But the Win98SE is just too crappy in today's standard:

- No USB native support.
- Unstable and doesn't support true multitasking.
- No need update from Mircrosoft at all.

The machine is a Compaq Desk Pro EN866 with 20Gb harddisk, CDR Recorder, 4xx Mb memory. Not the greatest, but should be very much enough for daily usage.

So here's what I did, step by step:
1. Reformat the 20Gb harddisk.
2. Use a Windows 98 boot disk to add system in the harddisk by "sys c:"

- Install Windows 2000 Professional Traditional Chinese edition

3. Use the Windows 98 boot disk to boot up with CDROM Support. Make a directory called setup2k on C: drive. Copy the complete i386 directory to the setup2k directory.
4. Go to C:\setup2k, run WINNT.
5. Install Windows 2000 Professional.

- Windows 2000 is gonna be the only paid software on the machine. I was thinking of installing the latest CEntOS instead but ... nah ..... . I choose Windows 2000 Professional because it is the latest OS that DOES NOT HAVE ACTIVATION built into the OS. So it won't bitch for licence, and my friend can always able to do the latest update without being nagged by Microsoft.

6. Install the missing drivers: video, network and audio.
- This is the most annoying part, because I only got the machine and nothing else. And I found that in HP web site under Compaq DeskPro EN866 driver section, there are multiple possible video, audio and network setting possibility. AFter tons of trial and error, I found that my friend's desktop actually has the following hardware:
* Video: Intel 82815 Graphics controller (Need graphics driver for Intel 810/810E/815/815E Chipset) --> SP16518.exe
* Audio: SoundMax Integrated Digital Audio --> SP21180.exe
* Network: Intel Pro/100 VM Network Connection--> SP14707.exe

After installing all the drivers, it's time for security items.
7. Install the following software:
* Windows 2000 SP4 (Traditional Chinese)
* Windows 2000 SP4 Security Rollup 1
* Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 (which will update the build in 5.0 browser to 6.0)
* Spybot Search and Destory 1.4
* AdAware SE 1.5
* SpywareBlaster
* ZoneAlarm
* AVG Free Edition (Great antivirus software)
* Rootkit Revealer (in case Sony strikes)

After all secruity tools installed, updated, patched the whole system to the MAX (meaning, all tools are uptoday, and the OS has NO critical security update need to apply), it's time for application software:
8. Install the following application software:
* OpenOffice 2.0 (great free M$Office alternative)
* Firefox 1.5 (much better web browser than ...err ... you know)
* Flash Player for Firefox

9. Modify the name for the shortcuts of the installed application so my friend who doesn't know computer stuff knows that Firefox is a Internet Explorer alternative, and OpenOffice Write is an alternative for Microsoft Word.

10. Finally I use ACronis Disk Director 9 boot disk to create a security zone and a back up of the OS partition, just in case my friend screw something up, and I can simply rollback the whole setup to the current status.


There are a few more action items that I need to do after my friend brought home the machine:
- Set up password. Right now the administrator password is blank. Not good.
- Learn some basic computer security knowledge, like how to scan virus and spyware, no to put stupid crappy Sony audio CD in the computer (damn rootkit).

Have enough with Nero Ultra 7 Suite

I got so annoyed by Nero Ultra 7 Suite that I uninstalled it today and reinstalled back the Ahead Nero Burning ROM v6.3.1.13.Ultra.Edition. The Nero 6 was much cleaner without all those stupid player and stuff.

I was tried to use the Nero 6 Express that comes with my DVD Writer, but it doesn't support DVD Video burning, so I skipped it.

Still, no matter which version I use I still need to deal with the hassle which the installation program detect the "Language for non0-unicode Program" system setting, and use it to determine what language to use for installation and for the languagae to use in the installed app. Thus I have to set it to English, install Nero, and then set it back to the traditional Chinese one.

My First Nintendo DS WiFi Experience

I wasn't awake of the fact that I indeed have WiFi access at home (provided by my brother). So I turned on my Nintendo DS with Mario Kart, and sure enough I can access the Nintendo WiFi Network. Within minutes I was starting to playing Mario Kart Ds with people at another place in this world. Pretty awesome.

Then I tried Animal Cross. The connection was success, but I didn't have another one to connect it. So I called it off.

All in all, this is so awesome. Looking forware to try out other Nintendo DS games with WiFi!

Pocket DVD-Studio stopped working ... for a short while

I was a bit nervous for a short while today when I found out that PocketDVD Studio on my desktop failed to recognize Real Media files. Eventually I have the problem resolved by reinstalling the Storm Codec. Still don't know why it happened but at least I have a solution next time.

Tons of online comics, but download unfriendly

I found this site full of Chinese version of Japanese comics, but unfortunately the site is so Teleport Pro unfriendly. So forget it, for my web connection is too slow for fast instand online viewing.

www.sys-con.tv not Podcasting friendly

I visiteed http://www.sys-con.tv/, hoping that it can become my daily dose of podcast alternative to all Microsoft technology based podcast and video I watch and listen go everyday. But instead the sys-con.tv site use the Flash 8 video technology which makes it impossible to copy and move to my Pocket PC . So screw you, Sys-con.

Obssess in making "portable" 3D apps

I have to admit that I have a very strange obsession in making all the software I use "portable friendly". When I say portbale friendly I am talking about setting up an application so that it can be run from a removable harddisk without going throught any installation.

I have a lot of success with 2D graphic applicaiton. But when it comes to 3D graphic, I encountered failure after failure.

I tried to make the following applications portable and the attempts were all failed.

2D graphic tools:
- Macromedia Dreamweaver 8.0
- Macromedia Firework 8.0
- Macromedia Flash 8.0
- Adobe Illustrator CS 2

3D animation:
- Maya 7.0
- 3D STudio Max 8

However, Modo 1.0.3 works very well, so I guess I will start using it to do modeling.

To Find the perfect bible for Pocket PC

After my Pocket PC crashed a while ago, I didn't have time to restore the bible on my Pocket PC. So there was a brief amount of time that I don't have bible on my bag all the time, which is bad consider that I am the kind of person who loves to do impulsive things, including reading bible.

Today I finally got some time so I started to rebuild my Pocket PC and in the meantime try to find a or several bible software.

First I have to say something about a bible that I DO NOT LIKE. I don't like Pocket e-Sword big time because:
- It's traditional Chinese Bible does not do linefeed, which makes it very painful to read.
- When I try to uninstall it, it keeps telling me that several TrueType font files (Doulos SIL Regular.ttf, GalSILR20.ttf, SILEOT.ttf) cannot be removed and thus the uninstallation is failed. What a bull. I have to connect the PPC to my PC and manually removed those three TrueType files on PC (with PPC connected) in order to complete the uninstallation process. Big thumbs down for this software.

I give a big thumbs up for Laridian NIV Bible. The UI is clean, easy to use, and it does the job well.

And finally, for Chinese bible reading, I use OliverTree Bible Reader for CE 3.0. Not the best bible app in this work, but at least this is one Traditional Chinese bible that actually works.

Perfect way to split Divx (or any avi) video

I was trying to find the best way to spilt a divx movie I downloaded from www.mininova.org. I tried several ways, including the old school VirtualDub way, but was annoyed by the audio out of sync problem.

While I was going through the list at Divx Digest, I came across a shareware called Easy Video Splitter 2.01, and I was impressed by how easy it works. I tried and experienced video sync problem that I had with VirualDub. I highly recommended this done to everyone.