Caboose

Also on Caboose: Journeys Antarctica, Kerguelen Islands, South America, Turkey, Cameroon
[Nigeria]Nigerian glossary

2003-03-09

Shiny

Filed under: tech — kevin @ 16:51

I finally gave up on my old mouse this afternoon, the insides had got all gunged up again and were making it very difficult to move the pointer around on screen.

So I nipped out to PC World and got myself an optical mouse (hence the ‘shiny’ title), £9.99 is a small price to pay to get rid of that irritation.

2003-03-07

Mobile phone theft

Filed under: tech — kevin @ 11:07

Phone manufacturers, police forces and various other people have got together to create immobilise.com, publicising the shared database used to lock out stolen mobile phones.

This is a great advance over the previous failure by phone companies to share the IMEIs (the unique identifying number of each handset) of stolen phones.

However this still isn’t a guarantee that stolen phones can’t be used again. With most phones reprogramming the IMEI is trivial — if illegal — and the manufacturers’ attempts at preventing it are usually feeble.

A quick internet search will reveal lots of sites providing information on reprogramming phones. The manufacturers’ idea of IMEI protection often only seems to consist of such advanced techniques as storing two copies, one of them obscured in some trivial way.

2003-02-12

The end of the 3 inch disk?

Filed under: tech — kevin @ 12:42

Soon, the 3.5-inch floppy disk will be nothing but a memory” I doubt many people care all that much, when was the last time you used one?

I always liked the robustness (but very low capacity) of 3 inch disks, as used by a variety of old 8-bit computers, like my Amstrad CPC6128.

2003-01-05

Old Games

Filed under: tech — kevin @ 18:34

This weekend I’ve mostly been playing games. I’ve discovered that one of my favourite games of a few years ago, Dune II, works on Linux with DOSEMU.

The sound doesn’t work, which is a bit of a shame as you lose all the digitised voices warning you of impending attack and providing other useful information. It’s still utterly absorbing though…

2002-12-29

DVD player

Filed under: tech — kevin @ 15:50

On my way back out of town yesterday I wandered into Richer Sounds and bought myself a DVD player.

As it’s hooked up to my little 14″ portable TV I wasn’t all that worried about picture or sound quality, so I just picked the cheapest one there, the Acoustic Solutions DVD 321 at GBP70. As far as I can tell the only difference between it and the more expensive DVD 421 is that it doesn’t have a front panel display, which is pretty redundant anyway.

One thing I really like about it is that it’s so small, a lot of DVD players seem to have been designed to use up spare video recorder casings. There’s no need for them to be that big.

Picture quality seems fine, it’s easy to use and it all seems to work well. I spent most of yesterday watching the box set of Twin Peaks series one I got from my parents for Christmas. The menu system on the DVD is almost as bewildering as Twin Peaks itself!

Update 30/12/02:I’ve found a bit of information on the web about these DVD players and it seems that as well as being able to change region and disable Macrovision you can enable VCD playback (The ‘5001’/’5000′ setting in the secret settings). Nice.

2002-12-26

BMG: you’re rubbish and you know you are

Filed under: tech — kevin @ 23:38

My parents got me a copy of the Foo Fighters album One By One for Christmas, I was a bit disappointed when I noticed it was a “copy protected” one.

In fact the tiny print on the back says: “It is intended fro use only in standard home CD players and may not play on other devices, especially computer drivers”.

This is completely incorrect, computer CD drives (not “drivers”) comply with the Compact Disc Digital Audio standard, BMG’s protected discs don’t. This is why they don’t have the familiar CD logo, Philips won’t let people use it unless the product complies with the standard.

In fact BMG are producing deliberately faulty products, I reckon they’re probably not “fit for purpose” if they don’t play on CD-DA compatible equipment, it’d be interesting to see what Trading Standards think about it.

Fortunately BMG are rubbish and their copy protection system doesn’t work. I ripped the CD to MP3 this evening, so I’ll be able to listen to it when and where I want to rather than where they think I should.

The point is that I’m not going to distribute the MP3s, I’ve made a copy for my own use. The record companies are using technology and new laws to restrict things we’re currently entitled to do. They seem to be succeeding at the moment on a wave of hysteria and poor journalism (the BBC seem to repeat verbatim anything the record companies PR people come out with).
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2002-12-20

Useful information (for somebody out there)

Filed under: tech — kevin @ 20:41

If anybody else out there has an old HP laptop and is installing Linux on it you might want to have a look at Linux on HP Pavilion 3270 Notebook.

Although mine’s a 3250, it’s almost identical and there’s some good information in there. (In Europe it was sold as an OmniBook XE2.)

2002-12-17

Brave or foolish

Filed under: tech — kevin @ 20:55

I decided this that my old HP laptop has become too slow and full of junk, it was time to nuke it and start again.

The slight problem is that it seems the HP recovery CDs don’t work. They create a ‘hibernate’ partition, write the special diagnostics software and then just flash a cursor at you. Not very helpful at all.

Looks like it’s going to be Linux getting installed, I just hope I can find a driver for the wacky built-in modem.

2002-12-02

Space Shuttle videos

Filed under: tech — kevin @ 21:16

Since watching the first Shuttle launch at school I’ve always been fascinated by it, so I just had to watch these videos.

Reminds me of the fun I had wandering around Kennedy Space Center.
Picture of the rocket garden at Kennedy Space Center

Bluetooth Memory Stick

Filed under: tech — kevin @ 20:47

Sony are now selling their Bluetooth Memory Stick in the UK.

I really want one of these as it means I can use my Clié for email and web access without having to balance my phone on a convenient surface (or my knee) and make sure I keep the infra-red transceivers lined up.

On the other hand GBP140 does seem a bit steep.

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