Recent Posts

376

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: File Extension Seeker

« Last post by Mark0 on January 21, 2008, 12:47 PM »

Thanks for the info, will take a look!

Bye!

377

General Software Discussion / Re: recover data from a bad floppy disk

« Last post by Mark0 on January 18, 2008, 12:35 PM »

Much time ago ('94!) I coded a DOS tool to copy some copy-protected floppy disks.
It later proved useful for recovering at least part of the data for some bad/damage/mostly unreadable disks too.
In try to read a track at once; if any error surface, it then try to re-read sector x sector, various times. It can be used to copy a disk to another (fresh formatted) one, or to a disk image.

Feel free to try and see if it can be of any help: http://mark0.net/soft-twin-e.html

Bye!

378

Living Room / ASUS eee PC - Any owner?

« Last post by Mark0 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!

379

Living Room / Re: Did dual-layer recordable dvd discs ever make it mainstream?

« Last post by Mark0 on January 17, 2008, 05:06 AM »

Naahh... serious video consumers just stream!

BTW, I completely agree on the DVDShrink thing. DL support always costed way more than two Single Layer, so there never wasn't much convenience in them.

Bye!

380

Living Room / Re: What should I do with my audio CDs?

« Last post by Mark0 on January 16, 2008, 06:04 PM »

You could use WiFi multimedia devices to play audio and video through your TV/Home Theatre/HiFi systems - I am thinking of going in this direction as it seems stupid to have stuff on my PC (esp. video) that I have to burn to a DVD if I don't want to sit in front of the computer to watch it.

-Carol Haynes (January 11, 2008, 07:17 PM)

Have a look at the Logitech (now, they acquired them some times ago) Slimedevices Squeezebox.
Probably the Best streamer around - with a great community & lots of free software behind it.
Now there's also the new Duet that's very interesting (more intelligence in the remote, basically).

I think though I will wait until these devices start to adopt 802.11n standard because I don't thing b or g format provides sufficient bandwidth or coverage - especially if other people are using the network at the same time for other purposes.

Bandwidth isn't really a big problem. Uncompressed Stereo 16bit PCM audio take about 150KB/sec.
So it's about 15KB/sec. if you stream/listen in MP3, or 80-100KB/sec. if you go lossless.

Bye!

381

Living Room / Re: Why I left Apple

« Last post by Mark0 on January 16, 2008, 05:27 PM »

Wow! I remember that name / he from the first times on the Jabberdev mailing list.

382

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you use a light or a dark background in your editor for programming?

« Last post by Mark0 on January 16, 2008, 05:09 PM »

Light, on Windows / Mac, let's say in any GUI environment.
In the DOS days, it was light gray (that is, dark white) on blue.

383

Living Room / Re: Any old Amiga users among us?

« Last post by Mark0 on December 08, 2007, 02:38 AM »

I do miss the old AmigaDOS, it was a fine operating system for the times.  Hard to believe MicroSoft wrote it.

-Tinman57 (December 07, 2007, 09:19 PM)

Yes, and in facts they didn't!
If I remember correctly, Just the Amiga BASIC was from Microsoft (and it shows, I have to add!).

Bye!

384

Living Room / Re: Any old Amiga users among us?

« Last post by Mark0 on December 07, 2007, 05:10 PM »

Even more mandatory!



 

385

Living Room / Re: Any old Amiga users among us?

« Last post by Mark0 on December 07, 2007, 04:51 PM »

Mandatory pic:



 

386

Living Room / Re: Any old Amiga users among us?

« Last post by Mark0 on December 03, 2007, 01:38 PM »

I had - wait, I still have it! - an Amiga 500, with the usual 512KB+clock expansion, and a 2nd 3.5" drive.
Certainly the computer that I had most fun with!

387

Living Room / Re: Laser Graffiti Video

« Last post by Mark0 on November 29, 2007, 04:38 PM »

I just found-again this thread after searching around for something other laser-related.
Always very cool to see!

For anyone interested, here's some background & details on how the system operate:
Muonics.net blog - GRL Laser Tag Rotterdam - how to and source code

Bye!

388

General Software Discussion / Re: BitmapRip - Bitmap Ripper

« Last post by Mark0 on November 29, 2007, 02:23 PM »

also, thanks for your patience Marko

-tomos (November 29, 2007, 02:20 PM)

No problems!
I'm just sorry that the tool wasn't really useful with your file, in the end.

Bye!

389

General Software Discussion / Re: BitmapRip - Bitmap Ripper

« Last post by Mark0 on November 29, 2007, 01:35 PM »

You first need to open to open a Command Prompt:

[Win]+[R]
CMD [ENTER]

Bye!

390

General Software Discussion / Re: BitmapRip - Bitmap Ripper

« Last post by Mark0 on November 29, 2007, 05:46 AM »

When you have spaces in the path/filename, you must use quotes, yes.
So, first change directory:

[Select]

cd "\program files\bitmaprip"

And then you could run the tool:

[Select]

bitmaprip F:\TIFFs\ASI\ASI_CorkVol5\MAP0100.pdf

391

General Software Discussion / Re: BitmapRip - Bitmap Ripper

« Last post by Mark0 on November 29, 2007, 05:19 AM »

Oh, I see. You need to change to the folder where you unzipped/put the bitmaprip.exe file.
So, assumed that you unzipped the package in a c:\bitmaprip folder, you need to do something:

[Win]+[R]
CMD [ENTER]
(a Command Prompt window will open)

There you'll type:
CD \bitmaprip
bitmaprip F:\TIFFs\ASI\ASI_CorkVol5\MAP0100.pdf

Bye!

392

General Software Discussion / Re: BitmapRip - Bitmap Ripper

« Last post by Mark0 on November 29, 2007, 05:01 AM »

It should work both specifying just a filename or path+filename.
What's the specific problem? It give out some errors, or don't find any bitmap to extract?

Bye!

393

General Software Discussion / Re: OpenDocument Foundation dissolves - what is the future of this format?

« Last post by Mark0 on November 15, 2007, 04:52 AM »

Note that the OpenDocument Foundation wasn't directly involved in the development of ODF (the format).
It was an association found by a small number of person, with a "big name", but with no official affiliation with the ODF Alliance (witch is very active, as always).

It's like if me and you created a DonationCoder fan club, promoted and spread the word about this site for some months, and then decided to close the club!

Bye!

394

Living Room / Re: Pet Peeve: I will never buy a rechargeable mouse again for as long as i live

« Last post by Mark0 on November 08, 2007, 08:02 PM »

They've got some fancy touch sensitive doodad so even though it has no left/right buttons it senses which side you are clicking -- except when it doesn't which is about 40%of the time.

-nontroppo (November 06, 2007, 03:27 PM)

So true!
I have mine put back in the box from... too much months! I always forget to try to put it on eBay!

Bye!

395

Living Room / Re: Anyone know of software to remove station ident from TV recordings

« Last post by Mark0 on November 08, 2007, 10:56 AM »

If you alter a frame in any way, it have to be reprocessed/recompressed; and not only it, since modern lossy movie codec relying on differences from frames to frames. The only thing that can be simply "direct streamed", without any reprocessing, is the audio track.

Bye!

396

Living Room / Re: Anyone know of software to remove station ident from TV recordings

« Last post by Mark0 on November 08, 2007, 10:24 AM »

VirtualDub with the DeLogo filter from here should do the job (here are some samples from the docs).

Bye!

397

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: File Extension Seeker

« Last post by Mark0 on November 05, 2007, 05:54 AM »

A new update!
I added a dump of the typical first bytes / header for filetypes that come from my TrID.
So now, searching for example for the CAB extension, this is what come out:



Bye!

398

Living Room / Re: Coders' Watches

« Last post by Mark0 on October 28, 2007, 02:42 PM »

Here are a couple of links about the Timex Datalink USB:

Datalink Wristapps - Virtual Datalink - Lots of tools & info, including a Virtual watch with debugger!
GlennMoller.com - Timex Data Link USB Watch #T5C291 - A review on a blog, with lots of photos

399

Living Room / Re: Coders' Watches

« Last post by Mark0 on October 28, 2007, 01:33 PM »

nothing like Dimmu Borgir: Purithanical Euphoric Misanthropia: Sympozium to get me started in the morning

-f0dder (October 28, 2007, 01:16 PM)

 

We've had at least one thread about watches in the past, btw

Ops! Didn't see that. Maybe a mod can move / split this one to that.

Bye!

400

Living Room / Coders' Watches

« Last post by Mark0 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!