Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

Vista is now out for consumers. Are you going for the upgrade? Before you do, you may want to read this excellent piece by Peter Gutmann about the true cost of Windows Vista. It factors in the software, hardware, and even system performance and stability cost. Vista may not be as worth while an upgrade as you think. Read and learn!

Burn a video to be played on TV

Burning a video file onto a DVD to be viewed on a TV can be a rather confusing task. Here is DVD Flick, a simple but powerful DVD Authoring tool that will let you burn video files to a DVD. Supported codecs include DivX/Xvid and MPEG-1/2/4 formats. Should be a pretty useful tool. It's also free.

Lifehacker has a howto on the usage of DVD Flick which is handy.

Grab tunes off Pandora

Pandora is an excellent music software that you can use to find new music. But how are you gonna keep those music that you hear? You can use this app called Pandora Downloader. Using it, you can save the music that you hear as MP3 files. It is certainly handy way to get new music, but I'm quite skeptical about the legality of this thing. Also, seems like Pandora has blocked the saving of music using this method, but you can count on the developers to find a way round it.

LED and Resistor Circuits Sex Positions

Some things are just strange. Like this gallery of photos depicting a bunch of LED and resistor circuits getting it on in various positions. It's just slightly disturbing to see that the electronics in your appliances getting some of the hot action.

Minor revamp

If you do read my blog, you'd have noticed that I've done some upgrading to this blog. I've migrated to Blogger Beta (actually it's already out of beta). With the migration, I've also changed the templates. All in all, it's a pretty painless process and kudos to Blogger for making it quite easy to change the elements on the page. I still have to deal with a bit of HTML but otherwise, it's quite simple to do.

I've placed everything on my sidebar back to where they are. The new element that's there is the inclusion of a Twitter badge. I've just started using Twitter and it's actually quite fun to use.

I've also added a new Stat Counter because my last one was broken. So my pagecounts is starting from ZERO.

Predicting your preferences with LikeBetter

This website called LikeBetter is like a game. It presents to you two photos, and you click on the one that you "like better". After a series of clicks, it will then try to state your personal preferences and even personality. The more photos you go through, the more it tries to figure you out. Sure, it's a fun way to waste your time, but the predictions are quite accurate. It predicted that my politics tend towards the liberal rather than conservative, which is quite right. It also said that I like spicy food, which is spot on. Certainly interesting to know what kind of algorithms it uses to do that. They also have a "cousin" called HateMore, which of course asks you to state which photo you "hate more". Try that out too!

Share files with Senduit

Want to send a huge files to someone? It's quite easy to set up your own FTP server, but it's maybe more convenient to use a online service like Senduit. Using it is pretty straightforward, just upload the file and set an expiry date. There's a 100MB file limit so it can come in pretty handy.

Zip it all with ALZip

Although the zip format is a pretty common compression and archiving format, the WinZip software for Windows is not free for everyone's use. So if you're looking for a free zip app, you should check out ALZip. This is a zip software that handles the zip format pretty well. With support for a total of 36 archive formats, this may be one zipping app you want to check out. Also check out 7-zip if you want another alternative.

IP address lookup

Need to know where a certain IP address comes from? Use this resource this find out where in the world a certain IP address is from. It will also indicate the location using Google Map. Nice.

All the disc covers you want

Do you need to replace that cover of the game or DVD that you bought because your dog chewed on it? You can now head over to this site to print your replacement. They have a whole load of covers of DVDs, games, and even Karaoke discs!

College Saga-Real Life RPG spoof

This guy called Mark Leung has shot a full 40-plus minute film called "College Saga" that is basically a spoof of RPG computer games such as Final Fantasy. The character walks around campus just like in a CRPG, picks up stuff, and even battles enemies just like you see in CRPG battle sequences. All the quirks of a game are also shown, such as a character repeating the same phrase no matter how much you talk to them, and people randomly walking in the background... Cool and fun.

Switching to the iPhone?

Okay. Apple Computer Inc, now having dropped the "Computer" part of its name, has announced the highly anticipated iPhone. It's probably everything that you can expect from Apple and then some. The big question here for a Treo user like me, it that is it attractive enough to make me switch?

I have to admit that the design of the phone is pretty sweet. In fact, it's so sweet that I would love to lick it like a candy bar. Seriously though, Apple's design ethos is clear in the design with the clean look, use of on screen UI, single button concept, everything is just very... zen. Compared to the Treo 680 that I'm currently using, the iPhone wins hands down.

I guess for me, the main things to consider is my usage pattern. I use my Treo for scheduling, taking notes, reading ebooks on iSilo, getting info (such as number/currency conversion), reading Bible, tracking passwords and other info in a database, etc. If the iPhone can replace all these functions, then I don't see why I won't "switch". But from the looks of things, it seems that you can't really install apps on an iPhone, so it is unlikely that one will be able to do those nifty things on an iPhone. If my main use for a device is for listening to music, watching movies, occassionally surfing the web, then I guess the iPhone is more suitable, but for now, it seems that the Treo is a beter device for me, especially for the use of reading ebooks.

But who knows? My usage pattern might change. Then again, the iPhone will need to get ebook reading capability before I can rely on it as my sole device. I a sense, I feel that's one reason why the iPhone is not in the truest sense a "smartphone".

As for surfing the Net, the iPhone is really a suitable device with the use of Safari and its inclusion of Wi-fi. For now, I can live without Wi-fi on my phone, although it would be a good thing to have. The one thing against the iPhone is that it is not even 3G. That will make it more attractive.

Regardless, the announcement of the iPhone will mean that mobile makers will have to look at design from a different perspective. Considering that the iPhone will only be expected to reach the hands of Asian users in 2008, I'm not going to be too hard up on this thing. A lot of things can happen between now and 2008. In fact, hopefully Palm can come up with something that is as attractive... we can only hope, and wait.

Alternate uses for everyday objects

This is a link to a gallery of pictures showing interesting uses for everyday things you have lying around. For example, you can turn a handheld egg whip to a container for holding cotton puff, or cutting a tennis ball to use as ear muffs. It's a bit like the book which looks at useless Japanese inventions. Here, some of the things can actually be quite useful. Great for tree-huggers.

A Periodic Table for Visualisation Methods

Everyone student knows what the Periodic Table of Elements is. What if the style of the Periodic Table is used for other things? On Visual-Literacy.org, there is an attempt to place the method of visualising ideas, such as tables, timelines, concept maps in a Periodic Table format. When you mouse over the elements in this Periodic Table for Visualisation Methods, an example will appear. Also, you can find a paper (in PDF format) that describe the table. Really useful and interesting stuff if you're interested in methods to do with presentation of ideas.

Make your own mosaic posters

Remember those mosaic-type posters made up of tiny photos? With today's technology, you can make those pretty easily. Using this tool called Mosaickr, you can create such pictures using the photos you have on Flickr. For a low-res version of the poster, it's free, but if you want one to hang on your wall, you'll have to fork out some shells for it.

The Apple Mini

AppleMini
Originally uploaded by Philapple.

An iPod Mini on a real Mini!

New media in Singapore: A 2006 review

The Online Citizen website has a good summary of the major political events that happened online in the Singapore new media-sphere in 2006. Key events mentioned included the Mr Brown affair and the "Elite Face" comment. Interesting read.

List of Web 2.0 sites

It's 2007, and if you're any respectable sort of geek, you'll know what Web 2.0 is. But if you still do not know what Web 2.0 is, well, the best way is to try out the various Web 2.0 sites yourself and experience what this thing is all about. The Web 2.0 Magazine site has a list of Web 2.0 sites that you can check out. For the rest of us, this is a great list as reference to see what other Web 2.0 sites are out there to try out.

Newspaper clipping generator

Indie Games of the Year

Almost all major game publications/websites have named their Game of the Year. And surely, games like Gears of War and Okami can be found on most of those lists. But games development doesn't just belong to big developers. In fact, there are plenty of independent game studios making great games. Game Tunnel has therefore listed their top 10 indie games of 2006 with titles like Kingdom Elemental and Master of Defense. Never heard of these games? Well, neither have I. That's why these are indie games. But it seems that these are great games and worth checking out if you are looking for something that's off the mainstream.

Hidden games in Mac

The Mac OS has the Emacs text editor included. It seems that if you issue certain instructions using Mac's Terminal, you can execute some games that are part of the emacs code. Neat. The link includes videos and instructions on how you can get your game on using emacs on a Mac.