Category Archives: Review

All reviews of everything

Programmer tools of the trade

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Tools of the trade for a Programmer are many. Everyone thinks of the computer, the language, various frameworks, and possibly an IDE. Fewer think about the keyboard and pointing device they use, and even fewer would consider the desk or chair they’re using as tools of their trade.

But think about it a moment. We’re in front of our computers at least 8 hours per day. Are your back, posterior and fingers not worth considering?

I’ve been complaining about the chairs my employer provides for several years now. Every time, I was told the chairs were fine, as long as they were adjusted correctly, and besides, I was the only one complaining. I had spoken with several co-workers, and they either had no opinion (the minority) or also felt the chairs provided are inadequate.

Recently, I had the opportunity to use the infamous Aeron chair for several months. Here was the proof I was looking for that a good chair is not only available, but much nicer and more relaxing to use on a daily basis. As I recently returned to my employer’s office, I had a decision to make live with the chairs, or buy myself a chair.

Of course, I once again started by requesting a better chair, but once again, my request fell on deaf ears.

So, I purchased a chair for myself. I considered the Aeron, but a new chair from the same company has been released, so I wanted to try it first. I found a local store that carried the chairs, and after 15 minutes, I was convinced that the new design was definitely a step forwards.

I have been using my Embody chair for the last 2 weeks, and have no regrets about the purchase. Yes, I could have gotten a used Aeron for significantly less, but I honestly think the Embody is that much better. Also, as the chair has a 12 year warranty, I expect I will still be using it 20 years from now, so amortized over that amount of time, the chair isn’t that expensive.

The difference is surprising. Just today, I sat in one of the company chairs, and couldn’t believe it took me this long to get a better chair. Well worth investigating, and investing.

Archos player and Divx Converter

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Update: 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.

Budget LCD Roundup April 2005 : lcd, review, dell 1703fp, nec lcd1770nx, planar pl1700, samsung 172x, 710n, 915, viewsonic ve175, vg710

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A very comprehensive discussion of monitor technology, and LCDs in particular. Reading the article, there is no doubt DVI is the only way to go with an LCD. Well worth a skim, if not a comprehensive read.

Budget LCD Roundup April 2005 : lcd, review, dell 1703fp, nec lcd1770nx, planar pl1700, samsung 172x, 710n, 915, viewsonic ve175, vg710

Image Zoom

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Allows for easy zooming of images. Firefox (and other browsers) allow ‘zooming’ on text (i.e. making the text larger) via the view menu, and this extension provides something similar for images. Now you can zoom in on an image to see it larger. Obviously if you zoom too much, the quality degrades, but I find this feature handy.

The homesite for this extension is here

Tabbrowser Preferences

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Provides even more level of control over how new windows will be created. Firefox 1.0 added some of this by allowing you to tell it to create new windows as new tabs instead, but Tabbrowser Preferences takes it to the new level. I have it set to open all new windows as tabs instead, in the background and have Firefox hopefully not take focus from the program that sent it. This allows me to click on links in email newsletters without having Firefox come to the front, but also without having to manually create a new tab for each one. I can now open all the links I’m interested in, and read them later.

And here’s the link.

Taking a movie for your CD equipped notebook

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I’m going to Florida in January with my daughter, and am trying to plan ahead so she doesn’t get bored. I don’t have a notebook with a DVD player in it, or a portable DVD player, so I thought about converting some of our DVDs to SVCD. This format can be burned to a CD, and played back on a computer with the right software (and a number of DVD players will play it too. Did some searching and found this very useful web page. Provides guides to convert movies into VCD, SVCD and DIVx format. Decided against DIVx as it requires a lot of computing power to play, which my notebook doesn’t have, and which also will kill the battery very fast.

DVD Ripping Guides by KalEl

Just worked my way through it and it went fine.

The SmartRipper installer dialog is in German, but the program dialogs are in English. Just change the directory to where you want SmartRipper put, and push the right most button to extract. It doesn’t have an installer per se, so whatever directory you put it in is where it will be run from.

SmartRipper took about 15 minutes to rip a 1:40 movie. Not bad time.

DVD2AVI again isn’t intuitive (Thank goodness for this guide), but it worked quickly. About 5 minutes to create its index. The one thing I forgot to do the first time was set Audio to Encode to Wav format.

For TMPEng, some of the interface has changed since the guide was written. No show stoppers, as the functions are the same, just some of the text has changed. I did run into a problem taking a widescreen movie and outputting it to SVCD. The result ended up being a full screen movie, and I couldn’t quite tell if it was stretched or cropped.

To overcome this, I modified the settings on the Advanced tab so that the Video Arrange Method was Center (Custom Size) and set the size to 480×320. This seemed to fix it up so the movie filled the output width and was the correct height (or at least close enough).

This portion takes a looong time to do, even on a quick machine! It took almost 5 hours (I took the 2-pass VBR option) for this movie.

For my purposes, I didn’t burn it to CD. I just copied it from the harddrive of my machine to the notebook (via my local LAN). Much easier to carry the notebook than to have 3 CDs per movie, and the notebook had enough space on the HD for this (although 30GB doesn’t go very far anymore)

EAC – Exact Audio Copy

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An excellent program for ripping music from your CDs. EAC – Exact Audio Copy (EAC)

Having purchased an iPod, I want my music available on the go. I needed a program that pulls the information from the CD accurately, and lets me know if it has a problem doing it. I’ve used programs like MusicMatch before, and they do a reasonable job, but they occasionally produce glitches in the output. Thus far, EAC has not produced an MP3 with any problems.

One downside is it doesn’t contain a built-in MP3 encoder. It does contain a good tie-in with one of the better MP3 encoders, namely LAME. It is an Open Source encoder and it’s main page is at sourceforge. The site I have linked to is providing a compiled binary download (i.e. an executable that anyone can use). The official project only provides source code.

To install EAC, first install LAME (unzip the download to a LAME directory). Then install EAC, and EAC will search for a LAME install.

EAC isn’t the most intuitive program to use, but it is very powerful and works very well. It has even been able to read ‘copy protected’ CDs that I have so I was able to get the songs into MP3, and also make a copy for use in the car (I never use originals in the car. Too susceptible to damage or theft).

Far Cry

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Bought it a couple days ago, and WOW!!! It lives up to its reviews. The opponents are smart and accurate. They certainly don’t mess around.

If this is what it’s like to be a Ranger/Seal, I don’t want to be one!! Definitely worth a buy if you like FPS.

Snapstream Beyond TV

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Downloaded the trial of Beyond TV 3 recently, as they now have TV listings for Canada. Was very impressed, but decided that until my VCRs die, I don’t really need it.

It installed without a hitch, got the listings downloaded no problem. Allows for defining recordings for all episodes, 1 episode or only new episodes of a show. Can also do remote recordings via their website. Didn’t test this out but appears you can tell their servers to record a program, and then can download it later to your machine.

Another nice feature that I didn’t test is setting a recording remotely. Supposedly you can use a web browser and define a recording on your machine. Of course you have to have your firewalls defined to allow the correct port communications through…

The software works very well, and is well defined. The online guide is easy to read on a tv. It allows for recording one show and watching another, or watching a show while it is being recorded (i.e. starting to watch a show that has already been recorded for some length of time, but from the beginning). The Multimedia Centre that comes with ATI cards doesn’t allow multi-tasking.

It remembers if you’ve started watching a show, so when you request to watch it again, it asks if you want to start where you left off or at the beginning.

Builtin commercial advance. After recording a show, it analyzes the material for commercial breaks and inserts indices. Then when you’re watching it you can skip to the next index mark when a commercial starts. Worked very well on the 6 shows I used as a test.

Two weaknesses at the moment. Currently, it only supports one tuner, so you can’t record more than 1 show at a time. Snapstream states this is a planned enhancement.

The other weakness is defining a custom recording period. I couldn’t find a way to do this, and it was very annoying. I like to watch Daily Planet on Discovery, but it’s on 3 times a day. My only options with Snapstream were to record all episodes (I don’t need to record 3 copies/day) or only new episodes. Unfortunately all episodes of Daily Planet are listed as repeats in Snapstreams guide, so none would be recorded.

Overall a very good product.

ATI Remote Wonder II

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Finally received my Remote Wonder II from ATI. More modern appearance, and a few extra buttons in comparison to the Remote Wonder that came with my video card.

Had troubles installing it, but finally got it figured out. Have to use the drivers from the CD that came with the AIW 9600 Pro, or else it won’t work. Also, mine came with dead batteries, so I had to put some batteries in it first.

As far as the extended range, I haven’t done any extensive testing yet.

I have my pc in the basement, and use the remote in the living room. I’m about 20 feet away. I find that sometimes the remote won’t work, but if I move it 1 inch to the left or right, it does work. Not sure why that is, but…

Photo Organization

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Started looking at various methods of organizing photos. I want a program that allows me to categorize my images, archive them to CD if required, and generate a web gallery. I want to have total control over the output from the Web Gallery.

Looked at a few. Adobe Photo Album, JASC Photo Album, and a few others. Decided to buy IMatch by photools.com.

I decided to go with IMatch because of its flexibility. It isn’t the prettiest, or the easiest to use (not that it’s hard), but it is very powerful and customizable. The scripting language allows you to do most anything you want, and the user community is also very good. It uses scripts for generating web galleries, so I was able to customize it to fit my web page requirements. Now I can generate the pages for my web gallery and not have to do anything to them afterwards.

Very well setup for categorizing images. Supports IPTC and EXIF information. User-defined properties for associating whatever information you want with an image. And a reasonable price too ($49.95 US right now).

It also recognizes and displays the various RAW formats used by the manufacturers, and he’s quick to provide support for new cameras.