Fun with Wine on Ubuntu

// January 15th, 2009 // 66737 Comments »Fun+with+Wine+on+Ubuntu2009-01-15+09%3A54%3A21Paul // Uncategorized

CABwiz for CAB generation running using wineconsole in Ubuntu, very cool! The more I use linux, the more I like it!

Worthy of note is that using the standard Ubuntu Intrepid repositories, wineconsole wouldn’t play nice… it’s only when I added the WineHQ repositories and installed Wine that way would it play nice (e.g. do TTY output properly, as required for SSH!)

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The incredible journey…

// December 29th, 2008 // 543,188 Comments »The+incredible+journey...2008-12-29+21%3A34%3A30Paul // Random

Not a bad day’s driving eh…. view the tracker map (courtesy of CamerAware)!

A long day, a lot of miles, but effortless on those lovely French roads… 65 Euros of tolls not so good! The benefit – short journey up from Geneva the following day and hello Avoriaz and the slopes! Yay!

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previewscreensnapz001

This is officially my new favourite emoticon…

// December 22nd, 2008 // 51529 Comments »2008-12-22+20%3A34%3A02Paul // Uncategorized

\o/

’nuff said!

P

UPDATED: Boarding heaven = Snow chain hell!

// December 22nd, 2008 // 451,822 Comments »2008-12-22+09%3A44%3A24Paul // Uncategorized

The Scenario

Skiing, Avoriaz, New Year 2008 / 2009

The Car

Mazda 6 MPS

The Problem

So this year we are going snowboarding, as we do, and this year we’re going to Avoriaz, a resort in France. Now, in the past we’ve either seemed to end up in hire cars (sometimes with snow chains) or in our own car (generally naughtily without snow chains) and got away with such foolhardiness because we’ve been a) going to a lower altitude resort and b) lucky. This year we figured that since we’re going to a higher resort, we’d do the right thing and get snow chains for the mazzy. Simple enough right?

Not so much.

The solution (in theory)

First step was to phone the Mazda dealer. Upon requesting information about purchasing snow chains for the car, I was greeted by the response “Mazda doesn’t make snow chains available for any of their vehicles (at least in the UK)”. WTF? Helpful!

The next step was to scour the interwebs for info. This showed that, sure enough, the 6 (and particularly the MPS / Mazdaspeed) isn’t very accomodating when it comes to snowchains – due to limited clearance with a bar behind the wheel (see image). I did however come across a company called SCC-Chains which makes chains for limited clearance vehicles, chains that have been used succesfully by a number of 6 owners, so problem solved!

The next step was to order said chains. Being US based, I took advantage of a Seattle trip in December to order the chains from Amazon for delivery to my hotel. Genius! At 50 quid including shipping for the SZ129s (quoted model for 215/45/18 tyres), they weren’t cheap, but they weren’t hideously expensive either. They took up a bit of suitcase room and added a bit of weight, but being a bloke i’d packed light, obviously (V – ssssssshhhhhh!)

Being the sensible (very occasionally) person I am, I figured it’d be a good idea to test fit the chains before having a go halfway up a freezing mountain in a blizzard. Sunday morning comes round, and just before cleaning the car, I set to work.

The problem (2)

After struggling for a (long) while, they don’t bl00dy fit!

I should say first that the chains are a great design, very well made, compact etc. etc. and if (like in the video / guide) there had been appropriate slack in the inner cable, then fitting them would have been a piece of cake. And therein lies the problem, there was NO slack in the inner cable, not even enough to do up the last clip. ARGH! I even tried jacking up the car, driving it back slightly (as in the picture) to see if this helped, but all to no avail. I had to give up in the end which I REALLY do not like doing!

The current state of play

I’ve mailed SCC-Chains pleading for assistance, so i’ll post here with what response I get. In the meantime, I guess i’d just hope for clear roads on the way to Avoriaz…

Problem shared is a problem halved so they say?

P

EDIT: The Update

The european office of SCC-Chains have been in touch, and have let me know that they do indeed seem too small, and they would be happy to send me the next 2 sizes up. I could then see which fits, and return the 2 that don’t. What great service!

Uploading from iMovie ’08 to YouTube HD

// December 22nd, 2008 // 351,251 Comments »2008-12-22+08%3A54%3A54Paul // Uncategorized

Since YouTube announced they are now hosting HD videos (YAY!), i’ve been playing on my Mac with getting the optimum settings for high quality uploads. As a heads up for those also setting out on the HD adventure, i’ve used these settings with great results from my Xacti HD 2 and Flip Mino HD.

Hope this helps someone!

Export using QuickTime menu

Input a name and select Quicktime Movie, then edit settins

This is what it should look like

Match these settings!

Match these settings

One word of caution – even on my quad core beast, these settings take a little while to encode! The end result is worth it though, and seems to be free of the sound sync problems i’ve experienced with other configs.

If you have any better settings, let me know!

P

Problem with my ball…

// November 21st, 2008 // 31751 Comments »Problem+with+my+ball...2008-11-21+15%3A30%3A07Paul // Random

Over the past few weeks, the little scrolly ball on my Apple Might Mouse has been misbehaving.

It has gradually got to the point it was at today, whereby scrolling up / left / right works, but down doesn’t. Huh.

After reading around on the web I discovered that this is actually quite common, but there are a whole load of weird and wonderful possible solutions suggested. Incredibly, Apple suggest you hold your mouse upside down and roll the wheel around. Unsurprisingly, that alone didn’t work!

So here’s what I did…

- Get a sheet of blank paper

- Wet the ball of the mouse very slightly

- Hold mouse upside down and roll it around firmly and in all different directions on said piece of paper

Chances are you will see small flecks of dirt on the paper. After doing this, all should be well! It worked for me!

P

PS Probably worth turning the mouse off before you do this, or your machine will probably go a bit crazy…

Dashwire dedicated application for your Mac

// October 29th, 2008 // 241,109 Comments »2008-10-29+16%3A22%3A31Paul // Software

I like Dashwire, the cool mobile to online sync tool for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices.

What is a bit annoying tho with all these ‘cloud applications’ is how they appear as ‘just another browser’ tab, and you therefore can’t speedily switch to them like regular applications in the dock. Ah ha, but now you can!

Courtesy of Mozilla Prism, img2icns and EasyDMG, i’ve created a standalone web application, with a lovely icon (especially if you’re using a Sony Ericsson X1) and in a nice easy to use DMG format!

You can download it from this link – http://content.modaco.net/Dashwire.dmg.zip – enjoy! Please post a comment if you use it!

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How fast do you go in reverse?

// October 15th, 2008 // 76,134 Comments »How+fast+do+you+go+in+reverse%3F2008-10-15+09%3A12%3A31Paul // Random

OK, so it’s not a question everybody will have asked… but i’ve often wondered what speed you actually end up doing when you’re driving in reverse.

I remember hearing a story once about how Saab 9-3 Turbos used to still engage their turbo in reverse (and end up being a bit mental) and i’ve often meant to fire up CamerAware and have some fun!

Well, the Civic Type-R i’m driving at the moment has a digital dashboard, and I discovered the other day that it registers the speed in reverse too!

Cool!

Of course, having thought about this a bit more (yes, pointless I know) I have a bunch more questions…

- How quick CAN you go in reverse?
- Does i-VTEC cut in >5k RPM in reverse?
- Does the MPS turbo cut in >2.5k RPM in reverse?
- What are the acceleration times in reverse?

Good job i’m old and sensible now, honest…