DownThemAll! - The best Firefox add-on

As promised in previous post, I will introduce the best Firefox add-on...for now (I am sure got newer and better add-ons come out everyday, hehe). But for now, this add-on suites my needs.

Introducing "DownThemAll!"

I was looking for something else when I found this add-on. Being curious I install this add-on and went to a blog that provides lots of photos. With a few clicks, this add-on is downloading the photos that I wanted, yeah! I no longer need to open/save the picture one by one. Just right click on the page that links to photos, select the file types you want to download (jpeg, png, html, mp3, you name it), and it will download them all.

DownThemAll! in action!

With this add-on, when ever you click to download a file (zip, exe, etc), Firefox will pop-up the same dialog box to as you where to save it and so on, you can choose to use DownThemAll! to download it instead of the original firefox download manager. I tried it with the snail speed Streamyx 512k line last night, usually it will take more than 10mins to download an 1M file (don't do the math, waste your time only, coz this is streamyx la), but it took less than 1/2 min! I will continue to try download from other website to see if this is consistent, heheh.

Configuration

Some configuration you set for DownThemAll!, but I use the default one, and it works for me. You might want to adjust the number of download concurrently to max if you have a fast broadband, hehe.

Those people that write this add-on are part time only, please donate to them if you think it worth it. I done my part by introducing them, so I guest I don't need to donate kua? :P

p/s: you might notice the pictures are low quality, this is expected since I want to reduce the file size so that they load faster on slow connection. You just want to see see nia, need so high quality mer? :P

Mozilla Firefox 3.5 bug

Last week I came across a web talking about Samsung Omnia2 simulator, being curious (kepo la), I follow the link and look at this Omnia2 simulator. This is really cool, coz it showcase the UI that this Omnia2 has to offer. If I don't have the money constraint, I sure will buy it, coz I heard the hardware also quite hardcore for a ppc. While checking it, I found out the memory on my computer suddenly left very few Meg only. Using Task Manager, I found out this simulator web eat up more than 500M of the memory. No wonder the simulator so nice la, 500M of memory le.

Anyway, this week I found out some people commented Firefox 3.5 got some high memory usage issue. I also experience the same, noticed that Firefox 3.5 could easily use up a few hundreds M when surfing the net. This seldom happen on the maxthon that I use. Not sure about Chrome though, coz I seldom use it nowadays. Although Google is pushing for it, but it is still lack of the features that I found useful on Maxthon and Firefox. Today I found out a very cool add-on for Firefox which works like download manager, but really cool, I hope I will remember to share it in future post. Remind me if you haven't see me share it in 2 weeks time, okay?

Samsung Onmia2 simulator opened on Firefox 3.5 (click to open the full pix):

After closed Samsung Omnia2 simulator (click to open the full pix):

See the memory usage dropped >500M (click to open the full pix)


I just chui sui only la......

Pocket Sudoku

What I did after getting my own pocket PC? Look for freeware/free games. So the first game that I installed on my HTC touch is Pocket Sudoku.



Sometime I play sudoku on news paper, or on laptop. But with this Pocket Sudoku, I can play whenever I want (except driving and bath la, hehehe).

Since there is no left/right click on pocket PC compare to laptop/desktop, the clicking the number of rely on the clicking using stylus (boxes too small for finger). And select number by clicking on right bottom edge to change the number to fill in. You can choose the level of difficulty. you can find out how to play at its help.

It is freeware, so meaning it is FREE la!

pTravelAlarm for pocket PC

The original Alarms that comes with Windows Mobile has some limitations:
1. only 3 alarm settings
2. the snooze button too small (just like task's reminder)
3. I don't like the alarm sound, although there are a few sounds to choose

pTravelAlarm overcome the limitations mentioned above:
1. big display, yea, anybody would need it when try know the time and see if can sleep for another 10 mins or not.

2. big snooze button, yea, I could easily press the snooze button and continue to sleep for another 10 mins (up to you to set it)

3. 10 alarms settings, yea, you could define different wake up hour from monday to sunday and still have 3 more you can use. Also you can have different alarm sound to wake you up for each day.

4. I like one of wave file came with the software - bugle.wav, yea, it sounds like the horn blow sound in military movies.
5. I could adjust the volume of the alarm sound for each alarm setting.


Anyway, today topic is very dry. Compansate yourself by look at the photos on Mr. Dali's blog la, malaysianfinance.blogspot.com, heheh.

Voice commander for pocket PC

I did notice I got this software came with my phone but I didn't understand the usage until after a few weeks after I got the phone when I read the ads about apple iphone 3GS talking about voice recognition somethings. Then I thought, what the hack, I got this thing all this while on my phone! Wau lau eh...... apple, apple, now only you try to bluff people that this is very new thing on iphone. oh ya, this is new to iphone 3GS la, but this thing already exist in pocket pc/smartphone all this while already. But have to recognized apple's expertise in marketing, people will buy it anyway. When you take out any iphone, your friends will say 'wah.... iphone wor.....', or at least they will raise the eyebrow a bit lo. When I take out my phone, people will ask 'what is that? oh...... htc touch/pocket pc, why not buy Iphone r?' :P Anyway, I tend to always chui sui until too far.


Back to the topic, I was playing with this voice commander a bit only, but only know that this is very useful until I got my own outdatedpenanguncle bluetooth headset (will talk about it in near future, hopefully). I dunno is it the bluetooth setting or the voice commander setting (dun ask), but when I press the call button on the bluetooth headset, the voice commander will be activated and asking for my command on the bluetooth headset. This is very useful when I am driving, I don't need to look at the screen of the phone to look for a contact to call (safety safety!), I just need to say "call abc", and it will verify it before it make the phone call. It also can be use to find contact, play music, start an application, check new sms/email, call history and ask for the time. I haven't really got familiar with this software, so sometime it do other things that I said. This happen often when I use it on the old plotong car, but it responded quite accurate in a room. So this must be the glitch caused by noisy sound from the old plotong la.

p/s:
Did I get any incentive from doing the software introduction/review? Not now, but if really got software company want to rasuah me, I might blow blow a bit for them lo. What to do? Money can buy almost everything what...... Hey apple, rasuah me la, a few biji of your stock also can liao. :P

Sprite backup

This is the first software that I installed on my HTC touch by myself.

The shop that I purchased this phone already helped me to installed a few useful and un-useful (:P) software. I will go thru them one by one, hopefully I have time to do that. :)

I know I am going to do lots of funny stuffs on the phone, so backup is the first one I need to install.

Luckily this backup software came with the software CD, so I don't need to pay for it.
You need to install it on your PC/desktop/laptop first then it will ask for connection to your phone and it will install it on the phone. After a few times of rebooting your phone, it will eventually backup important files from \Windows and some others dir (I didn't check, don't ask).

I haven't went to the situation that need to restore from backup, so don't ask the restore. Actually it is very simple only, hook up your phone with PC, select ActiveSync (file access only wouldn't work), start the software on PC, select backup or restore, thats all.

terracrosser - Better than "Google Maps for mobile"

As promised in previous post, terracrosser offer a much better map viewer than google map for mobile. Actually this terracrosser used another program called mapper.exe (which come with the downloaded package) to download the maps from google map and yahoo map on your laptop/desktop. It then compiled the maps into a file that can be read by the terracrosser. The only trick is to copy the map file into your ppc.

This is much much much x12 better than google map for mobile la. why? coz google map for mobile required GPRS data connection. GPRS is very costly in my country (Malaysia). So why bother to make it only works with GPRS only? why not wifi? Why the smart engineers at Google make it such a way? That might be some marketing gimmick. Mobile providers: "You make the program become blood sucker and we share share the profit la"
Goooooogle: "sure, anything you say taukeh"

Anyway, back to terracrosser, you can download maps from google map and yahoo map, and choose the level of zoom. The more zoom-in, the bigger the file size lo. So if you have a few more Gigs to spare on your ppc's external memory card, why not? heheheh.

I have downloaded Penang island, Penang mainland, Taiping, Ipoh and Cameron Highland's maps from google and view them on my HTC Touch after copy the map files into it. If your ppc have GPS then even better, you can use it as a navigator. Syok!

Anyway, remember to read the disclaimer at below of the page before you try out ya, heheh.

Trying out this software......Stay tune......

http://terracrosser.com/
It is a map viewer + navigator. Too bad my HTC Touch don't have GPS, so will be trying for the viewer, downloading map now...... Stay tune for the review.

Create animated GIF

I use the step4 in the link (at end of this post) to create an animated gif for my WLM (window live msgr). Too bad blogspot and plurk cannot support animated gif, else I will putting the gif everywhere, heheheheh. I use GIMP as the tool, it is freeware la, so no need to pay and safe to install on your company desktop/laptop(?).

okay, back to the business:
1. Put all your photos into a dir, make sure you name it accordingly. (It should take alphebetically la)
2. Use GIMP to open first file. (GIMP=freeware, comparable to Photoshop!)
3. Open the remaining files in the dir as layers (File -> Open As Layers). All image in that dir should now as a layer.

4. Save the file as a .gif file and choose to "save as animation", not "flatten image" la.
5. If it asked for crop or not because all the layers not same size, just click "crop" la.
6. Click Export.
7. Then more options come out, make sure to check "loop forever" if you want it to always loop.
8. Change delay between frames, and check "one frame per layer", "use delay entered above for all frames" and "use disposal entered above for all frames".
9. Use your usual photos viewing software to view the gif. Or better use IE/Firefox/etc to view it to see it works per your expectation. If not as you expected, repeat No2 till 8 with some modifications.
10. Don't ask me about all the setting, you go google around yourself to find out la. :P

Adapted from http://blog.ahfr.org/2008/03/making-animated-gifs-with-free-software.html - Thanks! Although I dunno you


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