Pocket Player 3.01 - awesome, again

I installed Pocket Player 3.01 on my DELL Pocket PC, and I have to say that I was pretty impressed by the improvement it has over the sluggish crappy version 2.8.

Most of the problem of the previous version of Pocket Player 2.8 seems to be gone in the version 3.01. For instance, the unresponsive interface problem seems to be gone. Besides the scanning time, the interface was very responsive. Instantly, Pocket Player regain it's status of the best music player on my Dell Pocket PC. In addition, there are several features that totally enhanced my music listening experience to a point which I almost stopped my urge of getting an iPod completely (unless Apple finally release the iPhone or the full 4 inch screen iPod that is).

For instance, the browse interface has the iPod kind of sliding was of easing in the menu. The best of all, though, it's the crossfade feature. I guess the feature was here before, but this time it works very well. And in fact for certain albums, like Beatles' Love album, this feature is such a critical factor to the whole listening experience, since all songs are supposed to be seamlessly blend together. However, I found out that if I choose "gapless", it actually cause some sort of volume jump between two song. So the best setting is actually turn on crossfade, but give it the smallest value you can pick, which is 0.5 second. After setting that, I can enjoy the Beatles Love album in the way that it was supposed to be sounded like.

Vista, VMWare and Network

I am starting to use Vista at workplace (totally under VMWare of course), and found out that I cannot leave Vista is sleep mode inside VMWare, or else the network connection will not be recovered after waking it up.

But then, all the problem can be resolved by reboot Vista in VMWware. At least I even though there's something wrong with the hosting machine but turns out it's just Vista itself.

Alcohol 120% v.195.2918 not working with Vista RTM

Vista even block Alcohol 120% v.195.2918 from running. Damn it.

Maybe I do need the NDS Lite

I was trying to play Final Fantasy III under a cloudy sky, and the experience was pretty bad. Maybe the much brighter screen is my reason to get a NDS Lite. Hmm ...

Glad to see that South Park still have that never-play-safe attitude!

It's been a while since I was being shocked by a TV episode, but after watching the latest episode of South Park (Season 10 Episode 14: Stanley's Cup), I can't help but have to write about it. Thank goodness, South Park! You still have it.

After seeing a unsettling ending, I jumped to the Net and see other viewer's response. As expected, most people HATE it. In fact, many rated this the worst episode of South Park ever. And after I read some of the hater's review, I realized the reason why they hated the episode so much. That before THESE VIEWERS are the exact group of people the writers try to pop fun off: audience who got too used to formulated feel-good sport movies/TV episode. It's like the writer of this episode pull these people out of their cozy warm bed and give them a "gottacha" kind of look and then run away!

But this is exactly the spirit of South Park: challenging the mainstream cliche. The episode poked fun on all the typical sport movie routine, and doing almost exactly opposite to the norm of these genre. Audience almost have to aware of the sarcastic attitude of the writers in order to appreciate or laugh at the those routine. And historically people hate shows that are too smart. Only when you are open minded enough to have courage to laugh even yourself in order to really appreciate this episode.

Most people don't, so the bad reviews.

Hang in there, Trey Parker. Don't let the bad review upset you, cause eventually, you get the last laugh since jokes are really on those nay sayer.

Maybe I do need Elecard MPEG-2 Decoder&Streaming Plug-in

Something strange: my 2Gb RAM machine CANNOT play several video files (1 - [2005.06.21.bshi].ts, 2 - [2005.06.21.bshi][ts].ts , 4 - [HDTV].ts and 5 - [HDTV-TS].ts) even with the KMPlayer installed with codec. I compared this machine with my another slower machine which had no problem playing the files I mentioned, and the delta is "Elecard MPEG-2 Decoder&Streaming Plug-in". So maybe I do need to install this "Elecard MPEG-2 Decoder&Streaming Plug-in" in order to play some of the .ts content.

.ts file playback: man, what codec does it use?

I was testing on the P4 3.2 GHz machine with 2Gb of main memory with the same .ts file I used before (from MOV_050817). I started to wonder if the skipping problem is not because of the codec but because of the video file I used, meaning that the video itself has problem because it skipped at the same spot no matter what player I used.

Another mystery was that on my 3.2GHz machine, I only have the following apps/codec installed, and yet all the .ts files was played back fairly OK (except the skipping problem I mentioned above on that particular file).

- Storm Codec 5.0.7
- PowerDVD 5.5

So maybe these apps/codec are all I need? Still feeling confused.

Revisit the HDTV (.ts file) playback issue again

A while ago I spent some time trying to figure out how to playback .ts (video files usually from HDTV video capture) smoothly. Recently I have access to a new DELL machine with faster graphic card, faster CPU and 2Gb of memory, so I am trying go back to the issue again and try to find a perfect .ts file playback solution. Here is my pervious blog entry in case you are interested.


I came across this forum message and decide to try some of the advices. Stinky MPEG2 codec didn't well at all (on my old machine), and am reluctant to try it on the new machine. KMPlayer seems to work slightly better since it allows me to jump to wherever time on the video I like, but it had some serious skipping problem once 5 seconds, and I was wondering if it's just because of the lacking on power on my old machine. So I will try this KMPlayer on my new machine a while later. Notice that I installed the software, and then uninstall it, trying to see if I can create a green app. But then maybe the codec was still installed. So I don't know if it's the KMPlayer itself that does the magic, or the codec it comes with is simply better.

More later ...

WinFast GF 7600GS AGP

I heard that WinFast GF 7600GS AGP is a pretty darn good graphic card. And for HK$880, it doesn't seen expansive at all. I just wonder if it works with Dual Monitor, and how much faster comparing with my old 5200FX.

Strange Problem with PTBurn Server

I experienced something with the Bravo II Disc Publisher system that I don't quite understand.

I have a series of disc image created using a job file with PTBurn Server. I successfully created 10 disc images without any problem. Then I tried to create a set of discs using this set of image files by using a series of PTBurn job files that basically have the exact same content except that each file reference to a particular one of the 10 image files.

The first 6 burn was completed successfully, but the 7th one got stuck and keep rejecting discs. (And all CDR discs are from the barrel I brought!) The strange part was that when I tried to burn the CDR image with the REJECTED discs directly using PrimoDVD 2.1, they all burned successfully!

This is very strange, because I believe that both PTBurn and PrimoDVD use the same Sonic engine. So how come the PTBurn failed but PrimoDVD successed? In additional, how come the burning was successful in the beginning but failed in the middle? I am a bit concern about the reliability of PTBurn Server now.

Unable to create .iso from VCD?

I was trying to create .iso from a set of VCD that I created, but I couldn't make it to work, and had to resort to "plan B".

Here's what I did. I used Nero 6 to create a set of VCD. They had VCD title screen, in PAL format, and that's pretty much about it. Nothing too crazy. The VCD seemed to be running OK on regular VCD player.

But then I tried the following applications, and they all FAILED to rip to VCD I created into .iso file:
- Sonic
- PowerISO
- LCISOCreator.exe

NOtice that I tried the same disc on several different DVD Drives and on several machines. Still no luck.

I got desperate, because I thought the bulk CD burning device I used only takes .iso. But then I check the documentation and found that the device also support .gi . What is .gi, I thought. And then I found out that .gi is the Sonic disc imagaing format. So I started Sonic and rip. And it WORKED!

So tomorrow I will try and see if the bulk CD burning device I use can turn this .gi image into a playable VCD.

To be Continue ,...

Toad 9.0 not so green

I tried making Toad 9.0 into a green application, but it didn't work out. :-I

Fair use 1, Copy Protection 0

Last night I brought a set of dance VCD videos, and was shocked and pissed to find out that they were all copy protected. They used the trick of adding an extra error track (clearly visible when you look at the disc surface) and causing the to disc to be unreadable by computer. I haven't tried playing it on my VCD player console, but already furious to realize that without the PC being able to read it, I couldn't rip it and put the videos in my Pocket PC to watch on the road.

When the going gets tough the tough gets going. So I spent a whole darn night trying to use Alchol 120% to see if I could find any trick to resolve the problem. NO luck. I basically spent a whole night in frustration (plus watching the new episode of Simpsons, Family Guy and American Dad along the way).

This morning I did some more research and found this discussion. Inspired by the discussion, I tried IsoBuster Pro 1.9.1 and shockingly found out that I can recover 100% of the video, and thus totally awesome. There are certain tidbits that worth mentioning though:

- Make sure that each time you "extract" files form a new VCD, you start by first close and then open the application. Otherwise the application may store the previously setting and thus created some fragmented and messed up result files.
- The successfully rate of extracting data/file depends on the DVD Recorder. For instance, the DVD Recorder on my desktop (NEC brand) has a few files failed extracting, but I tried the same disc on other recorders and they had 100% extract rate.
- I used the setting which extract the data filter my MPEG. I didn't try the other setting, and since it worked, I didn't really care about trying the others.

China HDTV Torrent Site

I wonder how come this HDTV torrent site cannot be viewable properly on Firefox 2.0 browser ... or maybe some of my extension just block it from working properly.

Stress test microSD card and (once again) the Motorola E398 phone

After making sure that the M3 Lite is running, now it's the turn to stress test the KingMax 512Mb microSD card to make sure that it work as expected.

In fact, I went all the way to test my Motorola E398 phone too. I put GBA Roms with Instant Save on the 16Mb microSD card and then use it with M3 Lite, while added some MP3 files to the new 512Mb microSD card and put them in my Mobile phone.

The result?

The 512Mb microSD card seems to be holding pretty well. I did quite some scandisk and copy files and it performed as I expected.

16Mb microSD card works very well with M3Lite. There's no problem at all. Instant Save and Load worked very well. No slow down and what so ever.

512Mb microSD also works with the phone. The phone can access the card properly. But then since the phone sucks, so:
- E398 cannot open JPEG with size bigger than .. well, at least it cannot open my 110K JPEG. It can only open those lame lust 20K JPEG.
- MP3 playback also sucked big time. It has no problem opening those 64Kps podcase like Security Now. But when it played those 192kps MP3 files it continuously skipping, and when playing the 320kps file it simply blows and the audio playback application simply quit. The other people on the Net seemed to have better experience than I do. So maybe it's part of the firmware's problem. And to be fair, I also tried some other 192kps songs like Beatles' "Let It Be" and it worked fine. So I guess if I really want to play MP3 on the E398, I better recompile the files. And actually, comparing with the NDS, the E398 is actually a little loud playback device if playing thru the speaker. Maybe I should use my E398 more at my dance practice. For listening to music ... Nahhh ... I hate wasting time to reconvert files and create playlist whenever I need to listen to a set of songs.


If one day, just one day, that I ran out of things to do, I may use the following links for iTune feature. But the way I see it, the E398 is just a piece of junk.

- Force reboot E398 (In case you really screw up your E398 hack)
- Complete E398 to iTune phone hack guide (really awesome one)
- Motorola E398 Wikipedia page

WiFi BTing sucks

I used my chessy old P3 Compaq Presario 1720US notebook to access as a BT station using WiFi. I tested it for 3 days, and, well, it sucked big time. Most big (300M+) download failed. ONly the small files work. I am now copying all the temp BT files back to my home machine and continue BTing there instead. Seem like my P3 laptop is no good for anything but a simple thin client.

Get Gmail message to Thunderbird locally, and still leave a trace at Gmail

I seem to be able to find a way to satisfy my grave of keep my email offline, and yet able to keep my email easily searchable at Gmail. Here's what I did:

- Make sure in your ThunderBird Server Setting for each of your account, you leave the "Leave messages on server" checked with no other exception case checked.
- Get your email as usual.
- Once you are done, you go to your Gmail account, and you should see that all your messages are still there in the InBox. Select all message and ACHIEVE them instead of delete them.

At least this method works for me.

Found a way to download email at work, but ....

I was originally very happy about the finding a way to download email to Thunderbird 1.5 at workplace, which is being blocked by proxy. Here's the procedure.

Installed all the following extensions:
- web-mail-1-0-13.xpi
- gmail-0-5-4.xpi
- yahoo-1-1-7.xpi
- hotmail-1-0-10.xpi

Now either add new account (be it gmail, yahoo or hotmail), or modify my original gmail account as the following:
- set Server Name "localhost"
- set port to 110
- User Name as full email address, like "thisisgood@gmail.com"
- (o)Never for "Use secure Connection
- [ ]User secure authentication <-- don;t check it.

And boom, I got the message downloaded on my Thunderbird.

Advantages:
- If I use Gmail's direct Popmail access, when the download was not completed it will get stucked, and abort. The worst part is part the message I already downloaded will STAY in the inbox! So next time when I download mail, I will have to download all those mail again. This Extension does NOT have that problem

Disadvantage:
It seems like that the email downloaded thru WebMail plug-in was REMOVED from Gmail completely, and I could no longer search it. Honestly, this is NOT what I want. Guess I need to find a way to work around this.


Reference:
http://webmail.mozdev.org/setup.html



I also found out that sometime a "bad email" can cause the POPmail downloading failed to work. I have to manually go to the popmail account to detail these mails. Very strange.

Eudora 7.1 for Windows does not work with Proxy

It's so amazing how some software craft it's incapability as feature.

Case in point: Apple iPod Shuffle.

I found another example today: Eudora 7.1 for Windows. The software couldn't support proxy, and yet it craft it as simply a configuration issue.

Sigh. I guess I'll just have to forget about using mail client in the office.

Cannot get ThunderBird to work in the office. Why, oh why ...

After try and try for hours and I still could get Thunderbird 1.5 working in my office. Something is funky about the proxy thing ... oh ... why ... oh why ...