Mobile Weekend Fun !

This past weekend I finally realized how much the mobile entertainment industry has changed the way we enjoy content. I was at the Porto Carras Hotel in Halkidiki Greece and I managed to enjoy all my favorite content at the time I found most appropriate, all this thanks to my iZak and my iPAQ ( lot’s of iSomethings nowadays, don’t you think ? ). Anyhow, all I wanted was to show off these two great pictures I got from the event. Next week, the actual beach and the fun around the premises, or not..

Wanna try Linux without getting wet ? ( installing anything that is .. )

This is my second posting regarding the Knoppix Live Linux CD based on Debian GNU/Linux and I must say I was quite surprised with the idea of running Linux without installing or partitioning anything on my computer. As it turns out one of the main reasons behind the release of this CD is exactly the one mentioned above.
I never really planned on running Linux on my PC and after a quick session with Knoppix I am having some second thoughts. If I will buy a new machine in the future ( something that is bound to happen ) then my old one will turn into a Linux box for sure, if not a MythTV one.
I am quite glad that this alternative OS exists and even more glad that enthusiasts and great programmers keep on adding features to it.
On another note the European Software Patent directive should NOT PASS 'cause open source software is the best thing that happened to both Windows and Linux running machines, and if some cheap bastards over at moneycentral software county want to stop open source's chance of survival then they should rethink their future sales 'cause such a move would piss all the tech savvy ( the one's that influence the industry ) people off. Being a Windows user myself I find that more than 40% at work and 80% at home of the software I use is open source. If the European bill passes and extinguishes this kind of software then I would consider dropping out of the tech industry altogether, it would be as rotten as the entertainment industry has turned out to be, the executives not the performers that is.
Seems like the globalization that the activists are fighting against is all about decisions like this one gathered together to form a negative climate over our everyday lives like the one the major industries are trying to force down our throats ( calling people pirates with every chance they get).
Trying to get filthy rich is what drives this planet to doom. Damn, I'm totally off topic..

Knoppix Live CD and Bart's Preinstalled Environment live CD are the top recovery tools to consider.

I recently had yet another Hard Disk failure ( well it was a complete crash to be exact ) so this time around after having to setup Windows for the 3rd time in a few months I got my act together and decided to have a look around for solutions. Two of the best are the Knoppix Linux Live CD , a bootable cd that loads a full Linux installation along with major products like the open office suite and such. The second more popular to Windows users solution would be the Bart's Preinstalled Environment bootable cd. The later needs a Windows installation disk and using that it creates a bootable cd that loads a windowed environment along with most of the popular recovery utilities ( as long as you have them installed on your original machine and transfer them to the installation directory of the app ).
I suggest you give both choices a try and see which one fits your needs.
What I expected to find with my search was a utility like Norton Ghost that would make a bootable DVD that would copy my recent state of Windows to a new hard drive if my current one stopped working. This procedure can be done through Ghost as long as you have the Symantec Recovery CD but I still have my doubts if it can be done with a new different hard disc than the one used to make the backup.

Are you absent-minded all the time? Get an ipaq! Period.

It’s been 9 days since my birthday and on that very day I received a wonderful present from my girlfriend, well you guessed it, an HP ipaq (handheld computer).
I am a forgetful person, not as in I don’t pay attention to things but I have a seriously small attention span and I keep forgetting things, mostly to-do stuff.
All that has changed with the arrival of this little gadget. I find myself more productive at work; I manage and organize my projects more fluently. I always remember my home tasks and I actually get to do them. I program my time more efficiently, I manage my expenses, hell just 10 days later I wonder how I managed to get by all this time without it.There’s an interesting survey over at Lifehacker on how most Americans never seem to organize their time, especially at work where it’s most needed.

Happy birthday to me! I'm turning 31 today..

I almost forgot to mention this one. It's true I am turning 31 today folks and for most people birthdays are fun, for me on the other hand my birthday usually makes me frown since it's that specific day of the year that makes me realize my life passes by and I haven't managed to do anything worth mentioning in human history. My guess is that 99.999% of all human activity falls into that category so I guess I should cheer up.
I hope this year I will keep receiving the love and attention of my friends and family and especially my girlfriend and I wish everyone I know good health and happiness, all the rest is easily bought.

DVDDecrypter is no more.

According to this news page from CDfreaks LIGHTNING UK! the creator of DVDDecrypter was contacted with a cease and desist letter from an unnamed company ( rumor has it that Sony might be the one ) and he was asked to deliver all his source code and his website to that company and to stop all development of his famous software. Truly a sad day for all DVD enthusiasts and a day that fair use is crippled.
My guess is that a new tool will pop out but on the other hand MPAA's actions to stop the so called piracy seem to work, all they had to do was turn the planet against them in order to do that. Sometimes you have to loose some in order to win, you should take a lesson from Microsoft's products, if they weren't pirated that much would it be number one today ?

Sometimes a chkdsk is all it takes.

As I've reported earlier my main Windows setup managed to freak me out today since it appeared to have been wiped out from my hard disc. The only thing I could find in that drive was an empty Windows folder. Apparently one of my hard drives decided to f*&^ around with me and found a pretty nasty way to do that since a simple scandisk from the prompt made all the files in that Windows folder magically reappear, something about orphaned files was all I could read from the error report.
Should I trust that hard drive and continue working off of it or should I go for yet another Windows setup on a new drive I have on standby. Such is the magic of machines based on Windows.
What I tell most of my customers every day is that if they switch a PC on and it works flawlessly throughout the day, they should start to worry.. I guess I should be thankful that I managed to avoid yet another setup just by running a simple chkdsk.

Windows folder completely wiped ?

I've been experiencing some issues with Windows over the past few years but this one is well over the top. I switched my home computer on today and I got no response at all, it wouldn't boot from my primary windows setup. I happen to have another setup on a secondary drive just in case something like this would happen so I booted from that only to find out that my primary windows folder of the first setup was completely empty.
If anyone has any suggestions on how something like this could happen please post a comment. I have Kerio Personal firewall and AVG antivirus on that machine so an Internet attack seems less likely than possible.
I am as confused as I could ever be on how something like could happen..

Do you forget where you park your car? Here’s a tip..

I never seem to remember where I park my car so a few months ago I came up with a pretty easy solution to this major problem. If you happen to have a cell phone with voice recording capabilities all you have to do each time you park your car somewhere is record yourself stating the exact location. One thing you should take notice though is that this procedure should become a reflex otherwise if you forget to erase the previous spot or to record the new one, you end up frustrated because your cell says that it’s there while you end up looking around for it yet again.
The voice recording way is the easiest one I could come up with ‘cause my first try involved writing the location on a cell note. Later I found the whole procedure boring so I stopped it, then I thought of taking pictures and the downside was that a mobile usually doesn’t have a flash so night shots were out of the question. So take my word for it and start recording, you might thank me some day..

this WEEK in TECH podcast makes the whole experience worthwhile.

I've been reading so much hype on podcasting that I decided to give it a try myself. For those of you who don't know what a podcast is, well it's a radioshow, mostly talk radio, that you can download and sync with your mp3 player, mostly ipod, hence the name, and listen to it whenever you feel like. The whole process is automated so all you need is a program that does the whole thing for you. A great start would be iPodder, it's open source and quite easy to use, all you have to do is choose which shows you want to listen to and just let it do it's job. You have to have broadband of 'course since most of these shows are about 40Mb and I believe they will get bigger as more listeners tune in.
A show that made me realize what a great thing a podcast is happens to be tWiT aka "this WEEK in TECH", it's funny and informative on all the major tech news of the week, plus a slew of quests ( that joined through Skype ) make it quite enjoyable, an all round great show if you're into tech stuff that is.
A good starting point for podcasts would be Podcast Alley where you can find listings of podcasts in categories.
Well that's all for now, I'll keep you updated with my favorite shows once I hear something interesting.