Topics

26

General Software Discussion / Waze - crowd sourced navigation

« on: March 21, 2010, 07:48 PM »

Anyone used Waze?

http://world.waze.com

What are waze drivers building?

Waze is a social mobile application providing free turn-by-turn navigation based on the live conditions of the road.
100% powered by users, the more you drive, the better it gets. Join the community of drivers in your area today!

Here's also a video introduction: YouTube - Waze guided tour

It's a free navigator, with free map, traffic and warning info. The cool thing is that the map is dynamic, and one could actually contribute to it simply driving around, tracing new roads, or going to the online map editor and fixing things (only on the travelled routes).

They started in Israel some time ago, and now they claim to have the best map & traffic data for the region. On some countries they start providing a base map obtained trough some parteners, while in others they start with a blank canvas (like in Italy, currently).
I looked at it time some months ago and my zone was basically clear. I retried the other day, and found many streets around here, including some recent features / modifications that haven't showed up yet on the cartography from the usual suspects, Tele Atlas and Navteq.
Some friends from major cities (like Rome, or Milan) say that they are actually already using it for their commute, since the reaction times on changing traffic conditions are very good.

The actual navigation application is available for Android, iPhone, WM and Symbian (not sure for BlackBarry).

27

General Software Discussion / ICU64 - C64 emulator hacking tool

« on: November 17, 2009, 06:05 AM »

You just have to see this one:

YouTube - ICU64: Real-time Hacking of a C64 Emulator

It's awesome in so many level: the realtime seamlessly zoomable memory map, the Mathematica interface... 

Here's the project's homepage, with even more videos / samples: ICU64

28

General Software Discussion / 10/GUI

« on: October 13, 2009, 08:01 AM »

Just seen a link on reddit about this. It's an idea about a new take on windowing systems and general interaction with computers.
Take a look at the video / demo:

http://ignorethecode...g/2009/10/13/10_gui/

Bye!

29

Living Room / DIY - Home made in-car camera mount

« on: October 04, 2009, 12:59 PM »

Maybe this can come handy for someone...
The story: 1 day before a trip in the Dolomiti mountains, I tought it would be a nice thing to make one of those time lapse - accelerated video, with a digicam shooting a photo every second or so.
But I didn't have any suitable camera mount for the car, so this is what I come up with:

Basically it's just two plastic tubes, hold together with two screws, that get closed around the headrest support.
Two neoprene strips make for a better fit and suppress some vibrations.
On the tubes then any suitable support can be attached: I just used a flexible Gorillapod that I bought some time ago.
Considering the quick & KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) approach, I have to say it worked quite well: at least, the camera didn't fall to the floor!
As for the digicam, I used a simple Canon A570is, with the CHDK firmware and an intervalometer Lua script.

Here's the resulting video:
YouTube - 3 mountain passes in 3 minutes
(next time I'll remember to double the shoots x sec.; too much sharp turns on the mountains roads!)

And a log of the trip (with stats, altimetric profiles, some geo tagged photos) courtesy of EveryTrail (a great web service, IMHO):
EveryTrail - Raduno Montano Hybrid Synergy Forum    - Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy

And a photo (of another friend) that sum it up:

And the 1 month old camera car:

Bye!

30

Living Room / aNobii

« on: January 22, 2009, 09:18 AM »

Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

aNobii is a social networking site targeted to worldwide booklovers. The idea behind aNobii is simple: create an online platform for avid-readers to share reviews, recommendations, and most important of all, find other similar-taste booklovers.

Privately launched in August 2005, aNobii is among the earliest Web 2.0 sites in Hong Kong. However, aNobii soon grew beyond Hong Kong and now has been translated into ten different languages.

If you never heard of or used it, it's really worth a look: http://www.anobii.com



Bye!

31

Living Room / eBook readers

« on: January 08, 2009, 07:40 AM »

I had always being interested in this kind of eInk devices, from the first time I read about the "venarable" Sony Librie (around 2004).
So, after much time I got a Cybook for Christmas, thanks of an especially good offer from an UK reseller (thanks also from the favorable GBP / Euro ratio!) and a friend that got one there for me and taken it bake to Italy.

After some days and a couple of book read on it, I can say I'm very satisfied by the device from Bookeen. The readability really is something special: after a very brief time, one just forget he isn't reading a real book.

Still, it's not a device for all kind of reading. Documentations or text in PDF format isn't very suited for this kind of readers with a small screens, for obvious reasons. Also, since the user interface is minimalistic, and the screen refresh is somewhat slow due to the current eInk tech, quick "skimmings" between the pages to locate some specific content isn't very practical.

But for simply reading (e)books / novels, one page after another, it's just perfect. It's portable like a small paperback, even if you are reading a 1500 pages novel. The font size is always the one you prefer & choose. Refresh on page turn isn't an annoyance at all. You can take tens of book with you on vacation in a fraction of the spaces.

Here are some images of the Cybook from Flickr: http://www.flickr.co.../?q=cybook&w=all

A very nice reasource about eBook readers: http://www.mobileread.com/

Any other eInk users here?

Bye!

32

Living Room / The eyeballing game

« on: October 13, 2008, 11:10 AM »

Check this cool game / test:
http://woodgears.ca/eyeball/index.html

I tried a couple of times and I made a not so good 5.04 and then 3.70.

Bye!

33

Living Room / Servo Park

« on: September 08, 2008, 06:34 AM »

Compared to complex and still not much effective current auto-parking, a simple an low tech 5th small wheel on an idraulic piston really make a difference:

YouTube - Servo Park - with credits

 

34

General Software Discussion / Tip of My Tongue

« on: September 05, 2008, 01:08 PM »

A nice web tool by Chirag Mehta:



Tipo Of My Tongue - Find that word that you've been thinking about all day but just can't seem to remember

 

35

Living Room / Down for everyone or just me?

« on: July 06, 2008, 03:25 AM »

A quick way to check! For example:

http://downforeveryo...ww.donationcoder.com

 

Bye!

36

Living Room / The last time your AntiVirus saved you!

« on: May 22, 2008, 10:47 AM »

Seriously.
Can you tell when it was the last time your resident (as in actually intercepting file open / executing, etc.) AntiVirus fired up a big red warning and / or stopped some kind of virus / trojan / malware to actually take over your system?

Bye!

37

General Software Discussion / Trinity Rescue Kit

« on: April 23, 2008, 08:43 AM »

Here's something that I had the occasion to use recently, and found quite handy & useful.
It's basically a live Linux distro, that can be burnt onto a CD or run from an USB thumb drive.

It have various data recovery tools, and multiple antivirus scanners. It also support a wide variety of hardware out of the box. It's also very easy to use, with some useful features ready with a 1 key press.



For example, simply booting from it and choosing 10 or 11 will make all partitions files available trough Samba, and so network accessible from any PC, in a matter of seconds.
Option 6 instead will download all the latest updates for the free antivirus ClamAV and run a totally automated cleaning process on all partitions (this is very handy especially when guiding persons that aren't too PC savy "Just download this file, burn, boot from the CD and hit 6").

Off course is possible to boot to a normal prompt and do even more sophisticated things, or simply mount a NTFS partition and run a couple of other differents AV (ClamAV, AVG, F-Prot, BitDefender and Vexira: all the engines apart ClamAV are downloaded on the fly, installed in RAM and updated before starting).

For example, to do a scan with AVG:

Boot with option 2 (TRK running from RAM)
At the prompt, mount all partitions with corresponding File Systems:

[Select]

mountallfs -g

A partition list is shown. Just check to see what's the one you are interested in, to be sure:

[Select]

ls /sda1

Run the AV:

[Select]

virusscan -a avg -d /sda1

Contrary to similar Win based tools (usually derived from BartPE), this don't need any additional software (for example an XP installation CD).

Bye!

38

Living Room / Vista source code leaked!

« on: April 05, 2008, 06:57 PM »

Here it is:



 

Bye!

39

General Software Discussion / What kind of free license for a library?

« on: April 04, 2008, 04:43 PM »

I have just released TrIDLib. It's a library that wrap the feature of my TrID tool, to add filetype recognition to an app in a quick & easy way.

N.B. The webpage is a work in progress, as the docs. But there are some code samples that should already provide the basic info to get some work done.

But back on the topic. I intend this release to be a free edition, and I was hoping that there's already a known license (I mean, like GPL, LGPL, BSD, etc.) that I could publish this under, without having to write some convoluted semi-legalesuqe text!

My requirements would be:

• the DLL will have to be distribuited along a brief txt file (ex. TrIDLib.txt)
• a notice of the use of TrIDLib & me as its author will have to appear on the about box, docs & website (where applicable) of the app/tool/plugin that will use it
• Just personal, educational, research but not commercial, not business, not for profit use

The rational is that I would like to see it used and spread around (someone for example coded a Total Commander plugin using TrID), and then if someone would see an use in a "money-making" project he would get a "full" version.

Any suitable license come to mind?

Thanks,
Bye!

40

Living Room / ASUS eee PC - Any owner?

« on: January 17, 2008, 02:06 PM »

The eee PC will be available here in Italy too in the next days.
I have to admit that it sparked my interest as soon as I read about it in the first news some months ago.



Is there any eee owner here, willing to share some usage impressions?

Thanks,
Bye!

41

Living Room / Coders' Watches

« on: October 28, 2007, 12:37 PM »

And now for something completely different!

Just out of curiosity: what kind of watch did you wear usually/now?

Personally, I always had inexpensive digital watches. There were always a new low-end Casio whenever the last one stopping functioning - usually because the battery reached the end of his life, and a new cheap watch's cost was about the same as a new battery.
For me a watch is just a tool, and I think that if I had a more expensive one on my wrist I would always be worried about scratching it, damaging it and so on. 

I bought my last watch 3 weeks ago, and got someting a bit better. I had this fascination with radio controlled / atomic clock synced watches, so after some researches on line, I end up with one from the G-Shock like of Casio. This way, I still haven't to worry about destroying it, since it can resist to a good amount of physical stress! Since I don't like watches that are too big, this is also the thinner of the line. As a bonus it have an accumulator that is continuously recharged trough a photovoltaic cell, so hopefully there will be no worries about dead batteries.

Here it is: Casio G-Shock GW056A-1V - A batter pic here.

Another interesting watch - from a coder point of view - would be a Timex Datalink USB, since you can code things for it in Assembly. There's a lot of documentations around, including a Yahoo Groups of developers, additional tools, etc. 

Another thing: watches prices here in Italy - at least for this brand - were about 2x to witch I end up paying for this, trough a eBay shop from Germany (the watch off course is brand new, with perfectly sealed packagin, warranty, et all)!! 

What's about your watch?

Bye!

42

Living Room / LLOOGG invites available

« on: October 03, 2007, 12:52 PM »

I have some invites for LLOOGG.
It's a free web stat / counter that can show a lots of info about visitors, in near real time. I'm using it by some times (in addition to StatCounter, best free web stat service, IMHO) and it's quite nice & informative.

If you want an invite to try it, just post or PM a suitable mail address to witch to send the invite.

Bye!

43

General Software Discussion / Is this EXE "malformed"? A question about PE header structure

« on: July 15, 2007, 06:11 PM »

This is about an issue that come out various times in the past on PowerBASIC's forum, and briefly resurfaced recently. Specifically, some (me included) believe there is something strange on the majority of EXEs produced with PB compilers previous to version 4.x and 8.x (Console and Windows versions respectively). Nothing dramatic, off course, but worth noting, IMHO.
Here's a sample output from my simple PEDu tool, analyzing the compiled EXE of one of the PB Console Compiler samples:

C:\Tools>pedu \PBCC\Samples\COM\Excel\ExcelAp2.exe

PEDu - PE Entry point Dumper v1.40b - (C) 2003-07 Marco Pontello

Binary type: Win32 Console - Target machine: Intel 386

Alignment: Section 1000h - File 200h - Base of code 1000h

Data directories            Size
 1 Import Table             2020
 5 Base Reloc. Table         464

Section   V.Offset   V.Size   R.Offset   R.Size
.text        1000h    4969h       400h    4A00h
.data        6000h     724h      4E00h     400h
.link        7000h     7E4h      5000h     800h
* Real address overlap with previous section by 512 bytes!
.rloc        8000h     1D0h      5800h     200h

Entry Point RVA: 16D0h
Code dump      : 55 8B EC 53 56 57 BB 00 60 40 00 66 2E F7 05 00
                 1F 40 00 04 00 0F 85 08 01 00 00 6A 00 FF 15 64
Comp/Enc/Pack  : PowerBASIC PB/CC 3.0x

As you can see, the link & data section overlap by 512 bytes.
This is detected as strange enough by UPX, for example, that stop with:
CantPackException: superfluous data between sections.

Also, a tool like PE Explorer say this, when analysing the EXE:
Warning! Section <.data> extends beyond the raw file offset of section <.link>.

Note that, if I manually edit the EXE and set the data section to the correct (non overlapping) size, the EXE work correctly, and UPX is able to pack it without any problem.

PB basically maintain that there's no a problem at all, since the Microsoft specs don't explicitely say that there can't be any overlapping (?!), and more than that because of the evidence that Windows can, in facts, load & execute the EXE without any problem. Recently they asked for an "adequate demonstration" of this "alleged problem", but then my posts with this findings have been silently ignored. Off course, like some of you may be aware of, things like this are... a bit difficult to be calmly discussed on PB forum.

But I'm not convinced of the previous "explanations". IMHO, the docs can reasonably omit to say that, because it's obviously a strange / erroneously situation. And Windows can load it without complaining because, as it's usual for us coders to do some sanity checks on input, and correct where possible, I believe that the Win loader can be simply clamping the section header to the correct / reasonable size, for example.
Also, the fact that newer major versions of the compilers don't sport this quirks, make me tend to believe it was some sort of oversight on the compiler's part.

So, I'm asking the opinion of anyone who have the necessary knowledge of the PE header structure & Windows loading process inner workings, to shed some light on the subject. What do you think?

If you need some EXEs to analyze, you can find many, obtained from various versions of the compilers, here (just search for "compiled executables"):
http://www.powerbasi...oads/all%20files.htm

Thanks,
Bye!

44

Found Deals and Discounts / DivX Pro free for a limited time

« on: June 08, 2007, 06:12 AM »

http://www.divx.com/...ndex.php?version=win

Here's the link for the Win version, but the Mac one is also available.

Bye!

45

Living Room / Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git

« on: May 18, 2007, 05:08 PM »

If you never heard Linus "live", this is a great speak IMHO to get a some bit of Linus's way of doing things:

YouTube - Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git

It's also a lot of (geek) fun! 

46

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / File Extension Seeker

« on: May 17, 2007, 05:48 AM »

File Extension Seeker

This on line tool let you query a BIG list of file extensions & corresponding descriptions across various file extensions sources (mainly FILExt & FileInfo, ad the moment, in addition to my own data coming from TrID file identifier data base). I got permission from the above mentioned sites to crawl their pages to keep my data always up to date.

Complex queries can be made on the file extension, but also on the file type description. Keyword match is by whole word, but an asterisk can be used at the start or at the end of a word, to match anything before or after.
So you can very quickly see what can be a .DAA file, for example, or get the list of all filetypes that contain the word 'document' but not 'microso*'.

All the results all clickable and will jump on the corresponding page of the listed website, to gather the whole details that any site can provide.

The layout and some other details are still be worked on, but the basic search functionality is up & running, so I hope it could be useful to someone.



Also, there's an integrated and autodiscoverable Firefox search engine on the page. Just click on the Firefox search engine combo, and select "Add File Extension Seeker" to add it to your search engines list. Then it will be possible to quickly search for a file extension directly from FF search bar.

Bye!

47

Site/Forum Features / Top banner weight

« on: November 05, 2006, 09:49 AM »

I just noticed that the (beautyful!) top banner is an over 80KB PNG:



Isn't that a bit too much? I checked because I noticed it downloading when going to the homepage. I had probably cleaned the web cache, and saw it appearing nearly row-by-row.

So, I tried to come up with a couple of more lighter JPEG versions, without sacrificing too much quality:

(30KB)
(20KB)

What do you think?

Bye!

48

Living Room / GeoURL - Find your web neighbours

« on: November 04, 2006, 01:01 PM »

From the site:

GeoURL is a location-to-URL reverse directory. This will allow you to find URLs by their proximity to a given location. Find your neighbor's blog, perhaps, or the web page of the restaurants near you. GeoURL is listing 516,559 sites.

To be added to the geo-index, one just need to add a couple of meta tags on his homepage, and then tell the server to crawl that URL. Then, one can discovers websites or blogs within a certain range from his location, setup an RSS feed to be notified about new near websites, etc.

Link: GeoURL (2.0)

Bye!

49

Living Room / Helloween masks

« on: October 26, 2006, 06:19 PM »

The scariest one:



Subnetmask XP!

Bye!

50

General Software Discussion / MiniDumper - a little hexdump utility

« on: October 24, 2006, 09:49 AM »

N.B. I hope this is the right section for posting this, instead the the "Announce Your Software/Service/Product", since it's such a small & free utility. Eventually, my apologies and feel free to move it.

MiniDumper is a very small tool that come out after seeing the many posts on FILExt's forum made by users that try to discover info about certain, unknown files. It's only purpose is to make an hexdump of the header (first 256 bytes are usually enough) in an easy way. The dump can be copied to the clipboard with & already formatted with the proper UBB code with a single click, ready to be posted on a forum to ask for assistance.
Single 20KB EXE file, no installation needed.



Sample output:

[Select]

MiniDumper v1.02 - (C) 2004-05 By Marco Pontello

File name: c:\windows\media\onestop.mid
File size: 39KB

0000: 4D 54 68 64 00 00 00 06 00 01 00 11 00 C0 4D 54  MThd..........MT
0010: 72 6B 00 00 00 EE 00 FF 03 08 4F 6E 65 20 53 74  rk........One St
0020: 6F 70 00 FF 02 1B A9 32 30 30 30 20 4D 69 63 72  op.....2000 Micr
0030: 6F 73 6F 66 74 20 43 6F 72 70 6F 72 61 74 69 6F  osoft Corporatio
0040: 6E 00 FF 01 0D 44 61 76 69 64 20 59 61 63 6B 6C  n....David Yackl
0050: 65 79 00 FF 01 01 0A 00 FF 58 04 04 02 18 08 00  ey.......X......
0060: FF 59 02 00 00 00 FF 51 03 08 F9 CB 81 40 FF 51  [email protected]
0070: 03 0B 4D 85 B4 48 FF 51 03 0B 4D 85 98 00 FF 51  ..M..H.Q..M....Q
0080: 03 09 27 C0 C2 00 FF 51 03 08 07 EC B0 08 FF 51  ..'....Q.......Q
0090: 03 05 0E E4 B4 38 FF 51 03 06 C8 1C 81 38 FF 51  .....8.Q.....8.Q
00A0: 03 0B 2A 3B 84 1B FF 51 03 0C 0B E2 45 FF 51 03  ..*;...Q....E.Q.
00B0: 0E 15 C5 44 FF 51 03 10 F4 47 29 FF 51 03 13 12  ...D.Q...G).Q...
00C0: D0 33 FF 51 03 0E D3 8C 95 00 FF 51 03 16 E3 60  .3.Q.......Q...`
00D0: 81 40 FF 51 03 06 5B 9B 99 40 FF 51 03 07 A1 20  [email protected]..[[email protected]...
00E0: B4 40 FF 51 03 13 E7 1C 81 40 FF 51 03 0B 2A 3B  [email protected][email protected]..*;
00F0: B1 48 FF 51 03 12 AF 2A 83 38 FF 51 03 0B 96 C6  .H.Q...*.8.Q....

Link: MiniDumper

Hope it maybe useful in some occasions.
Bye!