The Wikipedia Game

My friend Nikki brought this up as something she'd done from time to time, and I thought, "How have I not done this before?!"

You see, I can spend HOURS clicking through Wikipedia, going from one random article to another to another. How did I not see the potential game involved! Here are the rules, but let me quickly explain:

You click a "random article" on Wikipedia, jot that down. Click the "random article" link once more, and manage to find a path from the two articles ONLY using hyperlink clicks. If you're doing this in parallel, the winner is the one who does it the fastest and/or the one who finishes first.

Here's one I just did:

Begin: North Branch Correctional Institute
End: Brazilian science and technology

My Path:

1. North Branch Correctional Institute
2. Maryland
3. National Institute of Standards and Technology
   
4. United States Department of Commerce
5. International Trade Administration
6. World Trade Organization
7. Brazil
8. Brazilian science and technology

Enjoy!

LED LCDs Explained

Thanks to Gizmodo for the great explanation!

Command-line remote windows restart/shutdown

If you're running a windows machine and would like to restart (or shutdown) a remote windows machine, just type the following at your command line (Start-> Run -> "cmd" [enter]):

• shutdown -r -m \\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

where '-r' reboots the machine (remove that to just shut down the machine) and replace the xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the remote machine's IP address.

Alternatively, you may connect to the machine through Remote Desktop Connection, and run the following from the command line:

• shutdown -r -f

You can also obtain a list of commands by typing the following from any windows command line:

• shutdown -?
  

Access to Royalty-Free Images.... Legally.

Also wanted to share this link, knowing all too often we snag images from Google or various parts of the Internet -- and that can end up getting you into trouble. It's unlikely, but if you wanna be sure you're using some images legally, there are a few options...

The one I like to use is: iStockPhoto.

A few things:

1. They have Photos, Illustrations, Vector-Formatted images, Flash animations, Audio files, etc.
2. Pricing is pretty reasonable -- you can download a small image for around a buck. And that gives you pretty much free reign on use. Unless you wanna print it an indefinite number of times.
3. If you do some digging yourself, you'll find that the images are pretty easy to search for. For instance, if you search for something like "Computers Green" you'll get quite a few images, most of them all with computers and with a large green component... So if you're trying to match stuff, it could be pretty easy.
   

I recently spruced up my website on campus, and my own blog with a few images -- and it was so cheap. :-) Guaranteed not to get a letter from someone's lawyer down the road, "You need to stop using those images..."

Email Aliasing

In an attempt to reduce spam... and because I'm tired of giving out my regular Gmail email address, I stumbled across this site.

LiquidID

Seems to work pretty well; though I'm gonna try out a couple other sites, and see how I feel.

Macbook iSight green light issues -- EASY FIX!

That is, if it's not actually broken.

So, I was really freakin' out for a moment when my Macbook's iSight froze up for the 2nd time. The green indicator light (which says the camera is on or broken) came on as the computer booted, and then when I tried to open an application that uses the iSight, it gave me a black screen.

The first time, I just removed the battery for a few hours, and upon reboot, it was just fixed. I thought it was some fluke.

This time, I began to worry -- why was this some kind of recurring issue? Well, seems like you can pretty easily fix the issue by resetting your PRAM (parameter random access memory) and your NVRAM (nonvolatile random access mem). There's an apple.com post here describing how to do just that.

Wheew!

They've got an app for that!

Can I just say... why are there so many cool apps for the iPhone?! I mean, I know there are some awesome ones for the Android phones, but ... come on!

http://lifehacker.com/5256519/

Like most inventions and ideas, it makes perfect sense once someone's come up with it. This one lets you see what's going on "through" the phone (using the phone's camera) while you're typing out emails or text messages... Multitasking at its best!

But, I still don't advocate texting while driving!!! Infact, it's illegal in many many states!

Rebranding: Give Nokia back their phone!

For those of you who may not know, I am a bit of a good golfer. Being a nerd as well, I wanted to see if I could somehow meld the two. GPS location for different landmarks on each hole seems like the best way to do this.

I found a couple of apps for my phone, and I have a bluetooth GPS unit, so it was pretty easy to get the pieces. After installing the software I quickly found that my biggest hurdle was yet to come.

Q: What was it?
A: T-mobile

When I attempted to connect my GPS unit to my phone, it worked just great, the pairing happened in a flash. After launching the application, I was notified by my phone that the application was not allowed to access any external data sources (like bluetooth or the internet). This frustrated me, so I went where I always go: Google.

After Googling for a bit, I found that many others were having similar issues, mostly with Google Maps Mobile, Gmail Mobile, and Opera Mini. They all said the same thing, "go to the applications menu, and select the application and give it access."

And they all had the same response: "the menu item for granting access is grayed out" -- which was true for me.

A bit more digging, and I found that this was referred to as a "security measure" by T-mobile. They did not allow unsigned applications (applications which ran with certificates that were not installed on the phone and approved by T-mobile) to access the data sources.

At first glance, this seemed reasonable (albeit frustrating)...but then I found something interesting. All of these suggestions to "give the application access" had to come from people who were able to do so, how were they able to do it? The answer to this ended up being unlocked phones. I didn't have an unlocked phone. I didn't want to kill my warranty, and possibly end up with a brick by trying either.

But wait...T-mobile said it was a security measure. Why do people with unlocked phones get to get around it? How secure is it if some people are still allowed to do it?

T-mobile's stance began to make less and less sense.

Finally, after much more searching, I found that there are actually 2 levels of "unlocking" for a phone like mine (Nokia 5310 XpressMusic Orange):
1. Full Unlock
2. Rebranded

Full Unlock indicates that you can do whatever you want with the software, you can even run Windows 3.11 on it if you want.

Rebranded means that it is no longer T-mobile's software on the phone, but Nokia's.

Since fully unlocking was alot of work, required special equipment, and could break my phone, it was out.

Rebranding on the other hand turned out to be pretty simple:
1. Update my phone's firmware to the latest T-mobile firmware.
2. Run NSS and change a number inside the firmware (easy*).
3. Re-update my phone's firmware. This time the phone update software let me choose a newer version because it was looking at firmware from Nokia instead of T-mobile.

*Note: I think I used the code for the blue 5310 instead of the orange 5310, because the themes I have now are all blue, and they used to be all orange...oops!

Viola!

Now I have a Nokia-branded 5310. I can use whatever applications I want, and connect to whatever I want from inside those applications.

The GPS did not lend itself like I wanted, so I wrote my own app for my Nokia N810. It has built-in GPS, so it's much better. (More about that in later posts.)

I have a scorecard application that I use now. See it here at Wireless18.

It lets me keep score, and post my score during my round, so you can watch my score live as I golf!

Cooliris

So, I stumbled across this while creating a gallery for my other blog today...

Initially I thought, "OK, I'll try it out, but it's likely that I'll uninstall it."

I haven't uninstalled it just yet. I've been kinda pleased with this app actually.

Cooliris claims that their software takes 2-D images and videos and makes a 3-D environment for you to look through them. What's cool is that Facebook (and now my own blog), Google Images, Youtube, all include the plugins to activate this feature when you're feeling adventurous.

Anyway... If you've got some spare CPU processing and a few minutes to install it, you may think it's worth it.

Logitech and XBMC

I recently picked up a Logitech Harmony 520 remote for about $40. It is FANTASTIC!
I highly recommend it.

Anyway, I have been getting it working with my devices, which took about 2 minutes, except for the Xbox, which took a little bit longer because I have a modded Xbox with XBMC.

With a little Googling, I found this site, which got me all straightened out.

Man this stuff is cool.

Somebody's Listening...shhh...

If you were looking for a better way to listen in on something in another room, this might be your answer.


If you're not, I suggest you check out that link anyway, just in case someone wants to spy on you.

Just remember: think before you speak.

Tinfoil Boosters

Got any wireless devices that need a little boost?

Tinfoil may be your friend.

Here's how to extend the range of a wi-fi router.

Here's how to extend the range of a remote control.

Have fun, be safe, and think before applying power!

Convert Docs => ...Other formats

Here's a great tool for converting documents to other (50+) formats.

Automated File Transfers

Here's one way (not my preferred way) for automating file transfers.

I prefer to use rsync over SSH.

What do you think?

3...2...1...Shutdown!

Looking for a way to run programs or perform other actions at specified times?

Here is your answer!

This one's for the Kids!

Got any old PCs lying around, and maybe some children too?

Here's a harmless OS for kids that lets them play without messing anything up! Best of all, it only requires a 400MHz processor with 256MB of RAM and no harddrive space if you want to run it from the CD!

Let me know if you give it a go!

Run Linux Inside of Windows

Here's how you run Ubuntu inside of Windows:

Please let me know if you try it, I haven't yet, but it looks AWESOME!

Interestingly Valid C Code

Here's a snippet of C that I did not know was valid:

int a;
int b;
a = 5;
b = 7;
a +- b;

Apparently it is the equivalent of a NO-OP.

TweetDeck

So I came across this the other day; and it may just be the saving grace to keep me using Twitter.

I've been conflicted, because I already use Facebook more than I should -- and I really only used Twitter to update my status on Facebook through my phone. That's one bad thing about T-Mobile, well they don't work well with Facebook.

Anyway, here it is if you've not seen it yet. http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/

*insert witty cupcake reference here*

I was at a restaurant yesterday and playin' with my G1, and some guy walked up and asked if I had the new Cupcake 1.5 firmware... Kinda cool :) Nerds unite!

Anyway, I'm waiting for my update; but I'm slightly disappointed with the 1.5 update: yes, it's fixing some really pressing issues with the phone and the OS -- but COME ON.

1. When the hell are we gonna get a flash-based browser?
2. Am I going to have to try to put together a hack/program to get wireless tethering (or bluetooth tethering for that matter... God, I'd be happy with USB even!) through my phone without root access?

Those are my big complaints.

Aside from that, I really do love my phone; I'm keeping my eyes peeled.