I created this script which will convert a movie to play on a cell phone (.3gp format). It works on Mandriva linux, and uses ffmpeg (because my version of mp4creator didn't work).
If, for some reason your linux computer won't boot, it could be because the bootloader has gotten correupted. If you are using GRUB, a few things could have gone wrong, but I will describe how to do a complete re-install of grub, and then set up the boot menu again. The system I was working on was Ubuntu 6.10. Continue reading
I purchased a D-Link DWL-G122 802.11g USB Adapter to use with my Mandriva Linux based router and was pleased to find that it worked out of the box. (I was also pleased to find a desk dock for USB sticks included in the box.) Mandriva installed a wireless Ethernet device named "rausb0" which worked just as well as my standard eth2 (built in mini-pci prism card). I verified that the network connection worked with both an access point (managed) network and an ad-hoc network. Continue reading
For the last month I have been able to boot and run my laptop's Windows partition from inside a vmware server that runs under my (dual boot) Mandriva Linux partition. This is very useful when I need to run something in windows but don't want to shut down Linux and reboot.
I found the instructions on Scott Bronson's blog to be accurate and complete!
Using the Java Media Framework is an easy way to build java applications that can record, edit, and play videos, but the number of video codec's that it supports is limited. Unless you want to go with a quicktime format, MPEG1 is a good choice (although the files can be a bit large) for portability. When starting with digital video, you can use ffmpeg to convert and encode the video as follows: Continue reading
I received a brand new Motorola RAZR V3xx Phone that is branded by Cingular, and they have set the J2ME (JVM) environment so that 3rd party j2me/java applications (such as Google Maps) are not trusted to use the network. Unfortunately, this means that every time I move Google Maps it pop's up a dialog asking me if I want to let it use the network. This completely ruins the user experience.
One nice thing about the LG CU500 Phone is that BitPim (an application that works on Linux as well as windows) will allow you to edit it's file-system easily. This makes it relatively easy to modify some of the bad things that Cingular has done to the phone.
By default, Cingular locks the phone down so that unsigned Java Apps are forced to ask for Internet access on every single URL they load. Needless to say, this is very annoying when using a network based application such as Google maps.
How to place a Motorola HS 850 bluetooth headset into paring mode:
The headset is now in pairing mode, and you can search for it using your phone. When it asks for a PIN, use 0000.
While transcribing, I wanted to use a Sony FS-85 foot control unit to pause and rewind the audio while I typed.
When plugged into linux it appears as a keyboard and gives various key-press codes when you hit the left or right petal. (The right side gives F10 when you press down, F11 when you release, etc). I was able to make this control Mplayer by adding a ~/.mplayer/input.conf file with the following lines in it:
The Li-Ion battery in my IBM Thinkpad X31 laptop has been getting a bit long in the tooth. Rated at a 4.4 AH capacity new, /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info told me that it was only holding 1.8 AH now that it was a few years old. (This is normal for Li-Ion batteries, which degrade over time, even without multiple charge-discharge cycles.)
A brand new IBM (or Lenovo now) battery costs over a hundred dollars, but by shopping around I was able to find a "compatible" battery for as low as $50. It was only rated at 4.4AH, but that is relatively close to the 2nd generation 4.8AH batteries that IBM/Lenovo sell for twice as much. I started to wonder if it might be cheaper to buy OEM li-ion cells and simply replace the cells (keeping the case, and charge/discharge electronics). The first step would be to determine what type of Li-Ion cells I'd need to buy, so I decided to open up my old battery.