Post regarding facebook, good one!

http://ahsiangboringdiary.blogspot.com/2009/12/haha-i-just-like-this-post-about.html

Validate your phone!

Normal people like me consist of 90% of the population that hold 10% of the wealth of the world. While the other 10% hold 90% wealth of the world. So by saying that, most of us want to buy phone (handphone/cellphone/ppc/smartphone/etc) with cheap price but want it to be original (not flashed or fake or 山寨*). Now you can take the IMEI number (can't be fake 99%) and check it at this website:

http://www.numberingplans.com/?page=analysis&sub=imeinr

*note: made in China, not fake, but similar hardware, just the quality might sucks, depend on your luck!)

p/s: how to find out your IMEI:
http://www.gsm-technology.com/gsm.php/en,unlock,subpage_id,free_codes.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Find-the-IMEI-Number-on-a-Mobile-Phone
For ppc, Start -> Settings -> System -> Device Information -> Identity

How to capture/download/save files from IMEEM/YouTube/etc

You want to listen to a song, but you don't want to pay for the money to iTune (coz Apple is too rich already), or some other paid song downloading website.

But then you scare of the virus you might catch on your computer using torrent search website (it is true, 1/2 of them could be virus/malware/Trojan/etc).

You want to use Thunder (迅雷), but it is in Chinese only (got people translate for that, but it is just too Chinese :P) and also the website that provide Thunder links are almost all in Chinese.
You might also already tried eMule (or whatever Mule), but then some of the time the file you looking for is not there anymore (too old or too rare) or too few people share it (takes you months to download a mp3, by that time you might have forgotten it already) or the file is a porn video but named the same name of the mp3 you wanted (that's true, I tried to download Baby Einstein video for my baby, but the video turn out to be a porn, luckily I checked before show to my baby :P)

And then you turn to Imeem, you can listen to endless songs there, and most of the time the quality is quite good. One problem, you want to put this song into your ipod/iphone/whatever phone or keep in your computer so that you can listen to it whenever you want. There are some websites that help you to download it from Imeem, but Imeem keep on improving what...... Sometime back I found out that you can search the flv file in your browser cache, the trick is it is to look for file named .gif. It will works for sometime, but recently when I checked the cache for FireFox, the .gif is not in there for anyhow, so Imeem did keep on improving, heheheh.

Okay, so I tried to record it on the fly, but the cheapskate sound card/driver only allow record from microphone (HUH?). So google around found that the RIAA people bully everyone so that we can't record music on computer. Unless you get a SoundBlaster, there is not way to get it working. I can use wired the phone output to the microphone input, but I bet the quality still sucks!

Oh wait, I found one software to get it around, Virtual Audio Cable. This one can route the output of computer back to input virtually, basically is make the computer to works like you have a cable connect from phone output to microphone input. But but but (huh?) you need to pay for it la...... You get free trial, but you have to pay for full working version. Aiya...... Also it works for sound only, no video.

Then I found this one: PIAFCTM.
This powerful software monitors whatever traffic go through the network port on your computer (oh... it can be use for spying people lo......). So no matter how smart the Imeem people la, they still have to transfer the file to your computer before the song can be play on your computer. So this PIAFCTM can save all the files to your preferred directory. And yes, of course you can apply filter to save .flv/.mp3/etc etc files only, otherwise you get all the junks, including data by MSN/skype/whatever IM. I have tried it for Imeem (get the .gif file, with a few Meg of size), YouTube (get the .flv/mp4), both of them works!

For .gif from Imeem, rename it to .flv and then convert it using flv -> mp3 software. I like SUPER the most, coz it is free and handle almost all the audio/video format. The only thing the SUPER website I don't like is you have to click and click and click to get to the download page (it still worth it, since it is free!), heheheh. As for the .flv from YouTube, SUPER also can handle it.

I only use PIAFCTM at YouTube only if keepvid.com does not works. Keepvid still is the primary method to save the video from YouTube, but recently a lot of attempt failed.... I like to watch YouTube when I am free, but I don't always have internet access (also the 3G/data plan in my country still burn the wallet, not a hole only :P).

update Dec15, 2009: I just found out that this PIAFCTM also can monitor the traffic through USB ports as I was synchronizing calendar and email between laptop and pocket PC. Cool!


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MS office tips

For those using MS office a lot!

Some tips for you:
http://www.beinetworks.com/pubs/beinetworks/Tech_Tips_for_End_.cfm


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DO NOT INSTALL la!

Nowadays thumb drive (or some call it USB drive/flash drive/some drive la) just very cheap these day. Well although it is not as cheap as hard disk per GB, the price is damn cheap compare to the day I bought my 128M thumb drive (it is M, not G).

Anyway, the main topic today is not thumb drive, but portable software. We no longer need to install the software that we want use every time we go to another computer/laptop/etc. Some nice people out there just too kind to create the portable version of the software (some might piss off the original author though :P). What you can do is to download and unzip them into your thumb drive (and some need to tweak a little bit maybe, depend on how portable it is), and you can bring it anywhere with you.
So when you see your friends don't have a software on his/her laptop/computer that you want to use, you can just plug your thumb drive into the USB and you are good to go!

So here are some of the web sites that provide the portable software:
1. http://portableapps.com/
This web is super fast with the updated version of the software they have it there. I got most of the software I wanted at here. All of them are legal to be portable (I think).

2. http://www.portablefreeware.com/
More choices here, but update is slower. But it still a good source of portable software, in fact this is the most portable software I could find so far. Not all are legal to be portable (I think), just be careful.

3. http://devrexster.googlepages.com/mmk
Only Microsoft Movie Maker. I just found out this one after I was frustrated the way you have to go through to download this Movie Make from Microsoft website.

4. http://www.opera-usb.com
Only Opera (web brower). The people at Opera are kind enough to give out free version of portable Opera. So this one is legal one lo.

5. Torrent
You can find all sort of pirated and portable at the same time software at some torrent site. I wouldn't tell you, but you know how to find them la...... heheheheh.

"Install" this word going to be disappear some day, I hope the sooner the better. YEAH!

Stop and relax for a moment

I found this site by accident and it is kind of fun to play with it once in a while. Try it la.

Making your own tone by clicking on the boxes. Click at same box for 2nd time to clear it.
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix

Running IE8/7/6 or Firefox3.5/3/2 or Safari4/3 or Google Chrome or Opera10/9 without installing them

Running software without need to install is getting more popular, well, at least I like it, very much, very very much. Because there will be no hassle or worry if want uninstall it. Sometime some software are too stubborn to be remove even though you use the “legal” uninstall process that come with the software. I have been using some software that just can be run from a thumb drive, it is kinda cool coz I could run them on almost all desktop/laptop as long as the OS support them. :)

I found this thing call “Browser Sandbox”few days ago. It actually available since Q1 2009 by a company that famous in virtualization technology called Xenocode. It is not 100% no-installation yet, you still have to install the sandbox for the first time, so that you can launch the browsers from the webpage.

What you need to do is to go to the webpage (link at below), click any of the browser you want to use, install the sandbox for the first time. (I think there was 2 stuffs you need to install, but I might be wrong). After sandbox being install, it will start to load the browser from the server. So it will depend on the network speed, I would not do it at my home, because I am OutdatedPenangUncle that uses the very famous (and always down) Streamyx and the most I get is 512k (actually is 64kbytes, coz 512k is in bits)…… Okay okay, I am too stingy not to upgrade to 1M or 2M, 512k is enough for normal surfing.

The process:

Anyway, I can run IE8, IE7 and Opera10 at same time with the sandbox. I have these below installed, so don’t bother to try on the sandbox:
1. The very outdated IE6 that came with the Windows (many links in my company still have to use this guy)
2. The very updated Firefox3.5.3 (the most use)
3. The long time no use Safari4 beta (coz I fall in love with Firefox…ooppssss, Honey, this kind of love is not the same love that I have with you ya :P)
4. The long time no use Chrome (this guy is too slow, going to uninstall it)
5. and yes, Maxthon (this guys is not a real browser, it just use which ever IE engine in your window, the usage come back up due to a web that still have to use either IE6 or this)

Opera10, IE8 and IE7 in action, the background is the sandbox webpage:

Why need to open so many type of web browser you might ask, because I am a geek, I just want to try out. But I don’t want the trouble to uninstall them in case I don’t like it. Also IE6/IE7/IE8 wouldn’t co-exist if you choose to install any of the newer version.

Oh ya, not to forgot the link to access the page to launch it
http://spoon.net/Browsers/