Mobile Air Mouse is an iPhone/Touch app with software that runs on your computer. The phone/touch then acts as a remote control/keyboard for your computer.
Very useful as a remote for your HTPC, and the app is only $1.99
Archive for the ‘Computer’ Category
Mobile Air Mouse
Friday, January 15th, 2010Guest Mode for Windows
Thursday, March 26th, 2009Windows 7 will be building this functionality in, but it is currently available for XP and Vista.
Microsoft has made available SteadyState. This program allows you to create a user, and control what they have access to. It also allows the user’s changes to be rolled back when they logoff.
Great for the kids, or guests that want to use your machine to check their email, but you don’t want them making any accidental changes to your system.
DVD and Video conversion for the iPod
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009Updated Mar 19, 2009.
I’ve found a very good donateware program for converting video for the iPod. It’s called iPodMe, and it works very well. Select videos you want to convert, select a profile and screen size. Can add additional files to be converted while it is currently converting.
Well worth checking out
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I recommend DVDFab for ripping DVDs. Just download the installer, and when it starts, it will ask which version you want to run.
A 30 day trial to the full-blown version, which has built-in functionality for splitting and merging dvds in various ways. There is also an option that never expires that allows for copying of the dvd to your hard-drive. Either then entire DVD or just the main title.
Once it’s on your hard drive, you have to convert it.
If you have Nero, Nero Recode is very good for taking a dvd and converting it to iPod format. Also works for most data files.
I imagine Roxio has tools that are similar to this, but have no personal experience.
If you don’t have Nero, then Super is a very good free converter. It doesn’t handle dvd files ‘elegantly’, but works very well for everything else. The interface is a bit tough to work with initially, so expect a learning curve.
Super will convert DVD files, but a movie is broken into 1GB files on the DVD. So, you’ll end up with 4 or 5 files/movie, instead of one file.
I haven’t looked for other free options that will convert a DVD nicely, so don’t have any suggestions.
Also, if you do decide to purchase Nero, don’t buy it directly. Right now, the Nero site is showing $79.99 US for download, but you can buy it boxed at Future Shop/Best Buy for $69.99.
If you’re really comfortable with computers, then Super will work, and there are likely programs around that will convert a DVD nicely. If you’re willing to invest a little money to have an easier to use experience, I would suggest Nero or Roxio.
Also note that this conversion is very CPU intensive. If you have a relatively new dual-core computer, expect the conversion to take about 1/3 of the length of the movie. i.e. a 1 hour movie would take 20 minutes to convert. If you have a really fast machine, it will obviously be faster.
For television shows, I recommend uTorrent for downloading, and EZTV for finding show downloads. If you’re interested in this as well, I can provide more specific information.
Icon Editor
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008IcoFX appears to work very well. Allows one to extract icons out of exe and save as ico or a regular image (jpg, gif, bmp, png) format for usage elsewhere.
Digital photo recovery – ZAR image recovery function
Thursday, May 15th, 2008Image and file recovery tool. Comes highly recommended by users on LifeHacker.
Uninstaller application
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008Revo Uninstaller does a better job than the built-in one. Also includes a startup manager.
Also, it’s free!
File and Directory usage tool
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008WinDirStat works very nicely. Looks like Explorer, but with details about file/directory usage in it. Can easily and quickly see where your harddrive is being used.
PhotoRescue Home Page – PhotoRescue Wizard, PhotoRescue Expert, PhotoRescue Advanced
Thursday, November 29th, 2007If you ever have a corrupted memory card, check this software out. Download and run the demo. It will show you what it can recover. If it can’t find anything, you don’t buy it. If it finds your photos, buy it and have your photos back.
PhotoRescue Home Page – PhotoRescue Wizard, PhotoRescue Expert, PhotoRescue Advanced
Subversive Eclipse plug-in problems
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007If you get the “file location specified incorrectly” error when trying to use Subversive on a local file:/// svn repository, ensure you are using either the JavaKit or JavaHL are being used. Otherwise it doesn’t work
Looking for a font?
Sunday, August 5th, 2007Checkout Font Freak.
Additional Firefox config options
Wednesday, May 9th, 2007If you’re doing any javascript work, consider turning on the firefox options:
- javascript.options.showInConsole
- javascript.options.strict
Firefox will then show more detailed information.
DIM: Digital Image Mover
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007A freeware program for moving images off your camera and onto your hard drive. Allows for many levels of customization to control the directory structure and file naming that will be used.
Firefox – about:config settings I like
Monday, October 30th, 2006browser.tabs.closeButtons [Integer] – 2 so no close buttons appear. Use middle-click on tab to close it
browser.urlbar.hideGoButton [Boolean] – true. I never use it, so why have it taking up space?
keyword.URL [String] – ‘http://www.google.com/search?&q=’ . When set to this, typing something that isn’t a URL into the address line automatically goes to google and does a search.
browser.tabs.loadFolderandReplace [Boolean] – false. When open a group of tabs, won’t replace tabs already open in browser.
TweakGuides.com – Firefox Tweak Guide
Tuesday, October 24th, 2006Setup for Firefox 2.0 and how to completely clean it out. Also some info on using about:config to change Firefox settings.
TweakGuides.com – Firefox Tweak Guide
Firefox extensions – latest list
Wednesday, October 18th, 2006My list of Firefox extensions as of today.
Tab Mix Plus – Gives much better control over Tab appearance and functionality, as well as including a Session Manager. Well worth the download
FireBug – For all your web page development tasks. CSS, Javascript, Ajax development. Layout problems etc. Well worth checking out and installing if you do ANY web page development with CSS or Javascript.
Download Manager Tweak Extension – Allows the download manager to be opened in a tab, and a few other minor enhancements.
Image Zoom – for zooming in and out on images.
Feed Your Reader – Will re-direct RSS feeds to your favourite reader. I use this to ‘feed’ them to Feeddemon
IETab – If you want to open a window in Firefox, but it really needs IE, then this extension is for you. Used the IE control inside a Firefox tab.
CSE HTML Validator – if you use the CSE HTML Validator, this plug-in lets you use it on a loaded page. Can have it validate all pages you load, or only when you do a View source. Note, the plug-in works with the free version too.
Old:
Web Developer Extension – Essential if you do any web development. Allows for quick selection of information, and selective control over stylesheets, cookies and other items related to web page design.
Disabling Windows built-in Zip function.
Thursday, September 28th, 2006Ever wanted to disable Windows built-in Zip handling?
regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll
I find it much faster now, as sometimes Windows takes forever to show a directory that also contains a large zip file.
To re-enable, do the above without the /u
Courtesy of Windows XP FAQ Frequently Asked Questions – Bootstrike.Com
Archos player and Divx Converter
Thursday, August 31st, 2006Update: I’ve started using Dr. Divx instead. I’ll put up a new post soon with details. It has many more options, and will do MPG/VOB conversion without having to buy anything extra. It’s free, and available from Divx.
I will be getting an Archos video player of some sort. Deciding between 504 and 604. Same price, so have to decide if want 10GB extra or 5mm less (the 504 is a 40GB vs 604 30GB, but 604 is 5mm thinner).
Anyhow, this is about using the Divx Converter to create avi files for playing on the Archos units. Divx Converter is part of Divx for Windows. It has a 15-day trial of all the components, and after the 15 days, only the basic codec and the Divx Player still work.
It isn’t too expensive, and in my experience, it works very well. It’s $19.99 USD for the Converter and Pro codec. If you want to convert MPG2 or VOB (i.e. DVDs), you need an additional plug-in for $9.99USD.
For burning files from the web (i.e. downloads via bittorrent), first try it on the Archos. If it’s a divx file with mp3 audio, it will most likely play without any conversion.
To burn files, copy them onto the Converter. I was using the portable profile for conversion. Select the view list option and then edit the entries. For 4:3 entries, make the height 272, and accept the width. For widescreen entries, set the width to 480 and do the conversion. You’ll notice that 2.35:1 movies end up being 496×208, and this is because that is closer to 2.35:1 then 480×208 is. The restriction is that MPG dimensions have to be a multiple of 16 pixels, so end up with ‘weird’ dimensions. It’s close enough to the Archos screen dimensions that you won’t notice.
For burning DVD’s, I recommend using DVD Converter (I’ve provided the file here as it isn’t easy to find on the web anymore). Rip the DVD in IFO mode. This means you’ll have to rip each ‘piece’ individually, but it makes it easier to convert in Divx as you don’t have to know the aspect ratio of the file in order to convert it. Also, Divx recommends installing AC3Filter as volume levels can be low otherwise. They have links on their site to it, or you can search the web. You can try doing a conversion without it and see what it’s like. I found the levels were on the low side on the Archos, so I installed AC3Filter.
Divx also provides a utility that sets the configuration in AC3Filter to be compatible with Divx. Basically, the settings boost the volume a little from default, and ensure that SPDIF out is disabled. For burning to the Archos, you have to ensure that it only burns stereo audio. Otherwise the Archos can’t play it.
Copy all the VOB files onto Converter (all files starting with VTS_xx_*.vob), and it will recognize that it’s one item, and it will join them. It will display the options dialog, so set the width to 480, and leave the aspect ratio locked! Don’t worry that it isn’t 1.85:1 or 2.35:1. Divx will do the right thing for the output file.
Unfortunately, Converter doesn’t provide an option for overriding the saved file name, so you’ll end up with the same name for output (something like VTS_01.divx), so you’ll have to remember what it was and rename it after the conversion is done.
Have fun with this, and feel free to leave a comment to ask questions. If I know the answer, I’ll update this post to reflect it.
Firefox – IETab extension
Tuesday, August 29th, 2006For opening pages in Firefox that require IE.
Web Developer Extension
Sunday, August 27th, 2006Looks like a great tool for web page development. Allows for instant mods to current page to test it under various conditions, or analyze information on the page.
ATI Remote Wonder driver problems!
Tuesday, August 15th, 2006Had problems after doing a clean install on my machine. Couldn’t get the ATI Remote Wonder drivers to install correctly. This process is time consuming, but it definitely works.
- Find all x10* files and delete them. I also have BeyondTV and uninstalled the Firefly Mini item it installs.
- Uninstall Remote Wonder drivers if you have any
- Unplug the receiver
- Install the Remote Wonder drivers and reboot as recommended
- Once reboot, check Task Manager and stop atirw.exe if it’s running.
- Plug-in your Remote Wonder receiver. If windows recognizes and installs the driver, you’re good to go.
- If not, point the device wizard to c:\program files\ati multimedia\remctrl\drivers. It should install it correctly now.
- Start the ATI Remote Wonder program from your start menu and your remote should now work.
Additional notes:
ATI SAYS:
(my solution is further below because this didn’t work for me):
(I can’t link to ATI-AMD support files so if you need the files go to support.ati.com and click on TV TUNER->Remote Wonder link for the file links to mfc71.dll and msvcr71.dll) Also, all old MMC software is available on the site. 9.15 encoder will not work if you have an Nvidia GeForce card like me so you’ll have to use 9.14… Or if you prefer, some of the older stuff probably works better…
737-22118 : Error 1904 *.dll failed to register messages with Remote Wonder Software Installation
The information in this article applies to the following configuration(s):
Remote Software Version 3.03
System without Catalyst Control Center or ATI Multimedia Center
Windows XP, Windows Media Center Edition 2005
The following error messages may occur when installing Remote Wonder Software 3.03 without Catalyst Control Center or ATI Multimedia Center installed.
Error 1904 x10net.dll failed to register
Error 1904 ATIRW.dll failed to register
Error 1904 AtiSServ.dll failed to register
To workaround this copy these files and perform the following steps:
Uninstall the ATI Remote Software from Add/Remove Programs
Restart the system.
Copy the files mfc71.dll and msvcr71.dll to C:\Windows\System32 folder
Reinstall the ATI Remote 3.03 software.
To ensure you are notified of updates to this article, please register your product. Once the product has been registered and you have an ATI CustomerCare account, click “sign-in” in the top right hand corner to log into your account, then click “subscribe to topic” on the right side of the article to be notified of updates to the article.
E160031
737-18838: ATI Multimedia Center 9.06 or higher – “ATIMMC.exe encountered a problem and needs to close” error message when launching application
The information in this article applies to the following configuration(s):
ATI Multimedia Center 9.06 or higher
REMOTE WONDER Software version 2.5.x or earlier
As of ATI Multimedia Center 9.06, REMOTE WONDER software version 3.0 or higher is required. Should you have an earlier version of the REMOTE WONDER software installed on your system, the following error message may occur:
“ATIMMC.exe encountered a problem and needs to close.”
To correct this issue, install the latest version of REMOTE WONDER Software, available for download from the ATI Customer Care website.
**************************************************************
IF ABOVE DIDN’T WORK FOR YOU (AS IT DIDN’T FOR ME), THEN HERE IS MY SOLUTION:
**************************************************************
Well, I have XP SP2 and I have an ATI HDTV wonder and the new version 3.04 software from ATI’s website wouldn’t work.
I got the error message (just like everyone else near the end of the install)…
Error 1904.Module C:\Program Files\ATI Multimedia\RemCtr\ATIRW.DLL failed to register. HRESULT -2147220473. Contact your support personnel.
I did figure out the answer though and I finally fixed it so I figured I’d contribute to the community here just in case anyone was still interested and found this useful. I did not find this fix anywhere on the net and the information that is available has been incorrect thus far. This works however.
The x10net.dll file FAILS to register during the install because of read-only permissions on the registry keys that are created! Turns out that one or a few of the registry keys created by the install program have a permissions bug in which they are read-only despite the fact that my user account has admin privileges on my computer so I was scratching my head as to why this occurred but it did.
WARNING: BEFORE DOING ANYTHING IN THE REGISTRY, MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP YOUR REGISTRY FILE JUST IN CASE AND/OR DO A RESTORE POINT ON YOUR MACHINE USING SYSTEM RESTORE. TO Backup your registry, go to START->RUN and type in regedit and then go to the File menu and choose EXPORT and save the registry using a name you can remember in a location that is easy to find. (like the root of C: just in case you need to restore it)….
FIX FOR ATI HDTV REMOTE WONDER V3.04 (latest version found on AMD-ATI site)
——————————————————————————-
In any case, the fix is that you need to find those keys and change their permissions and then after that’s done, you need to run the following command at the START->Run prompt:
regsvr32 “C:\Program Files\ATI Multimedia\RemCtrl\x10net.dll”
If you receive a failure notice to register the dll, go into regedit and search for “X10COMMAND” and you will find a bunch of keys grouped together as shown below that are all READ ONLY.
Here are the keys I changed permissions to FULL CONTROL on on my currently logged in username (you must have admin status to change permissions in the first place though so make sure the account you are logged in on has administrator privileges first — if not, log in using the admin account or another account that does have those permissions)…
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\X10CommanderFile
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\X10CommanderFile2
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\X10net.X10Control
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\X10net.X10Control.1
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\X10net.X10Interface
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\X10net.X10Interface.1
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\X10net.X10ServerInterface
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\X10net.X10ServerInterface.1
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\X10net.XButton
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\X10net.XButton.1
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\X10CommanderFile
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\X10CommanderFile2
You’ll know they are read only because you right click and go to Permissions and you’ll see that you need to change them to “FULL CONTROL”. Make sure however that you change them to FULL CONTROL but on either your account or the Administrators/Admins USER ACCOUNT (just make sure you’re an admin and in this group). i.e. Select your username on the permission screen to match your current login and then click the checkbox next to FULL CONTROL.
Go through all keys shown above and change them to FULL CONTROL on your user account or the admin user account as long as you’re an admin and then exit the registry editor and then try to register the DLL again using the above command and once it goes through, make sure your USB receiver is UNPLUGGED, and then either log out/log in or reboot your machine. Then plug in your USB receiver and walla!, you should see the ATI REMOTE WONDER TRAY icon and your remote should now work properly!
As for ATI’s software, I got version 9.15 working by wiping my system of all the old software by using add/remove to remove all the entries I could including DAO (some would not remove however) and then manually deleting all directories under program files related to ATI (ATI Multimedia and ATI Technologies) and then using a registry cleaner (ABEXO free registry cleaner off Download.com) to clean out all the remaining ATI registry related entries.
Then I rebooted and installed per ATI’s instructions in this exact order,
1) the DAO file v 9.15,
2) then the DVD Decoder file 9.15 — you need your original cd in the drive to install the decoder,
3) then the ENCODER file v9.14 (9.15 would not install on my machine because it didn’t like my Nvidia Display adapter and would give an error saying I didn’t have the right hardware/software for the install– so I had to use the MAY 2006 9.14 encoder file instead which you can find on the support site since they have all the BACK drivers available for download)
4) then the 9.15 MMC
5) And then LAST I installed the 3.04 Remote Wonder Software using the permissions fix detailed above.
Sometimes the TV tuner will still crash once in awhile however I have gotten everything working fairly stable now. ATI DVD won’t work for some reason. Splash comes up and then exits. So instead I programmed the “A” button to load Intervideo WinDVD which works great anyways and is still controllable with the remote! Not sure if the Easylook is working 100% properly with my primary nvidia adapter but as long as I can control the TV and Intervideo with the remote along with the basic volume, channel, and DVR functions, I’m happy. It’s not perfect and this software could be WAAAY better. Also, my hard drive is slow and so it causes jittery playback sometimes. Says DMA isn’t on, but I’m pretty sure it is. If everything crashes, it’s most likely because you need to wait till the end to install the 3.04 remote wonder software and/or you didn’t remove the old ATI installs properly to begin with — absolutely have to delete all add/remove entries and old directories manually and use a reg cleaner. The USB driver tends to crash everything. Had to reboot an extra time since the receiver hung the system the first time I put it back in after all the installs but then it worked fine.
Hope this helps someone.
Take care and thank g-d for the net eh?
-One Big Yahoo (Shame on ATI for not fixing this issue and their time consuming and flaky software! Good hardware and crappy software = crappy everything!!! I’ll be looking for a better HDTV tuner soon — hopefully a better company with better programmers who actually beta test properly before releasing garbage!)