k9copy

I was searching for a software to convert a DVD9 to a DVD5 just like DVDShrink does. It didn't take long before I saw k9copy which does exactly what I wanted.

The idea was to backup my original DVDs which are usually DVD9 to DVD+R discs which are replaceable. I tried one of the DVD9 and the process took around half an hour or so. However, the result wasn't as fabulous as one would get with DVDShrink. The picture was all pixelated even though the camera wasn't moving during a shot. Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to change some settings before I start using it?

I hope k9copy gets better at this so as to at least give as good a quality as DVDShrink does.

Edgy Eft install for Friend

A friend's system crashed a few days ago. He had to reinstall Windows and also resized his partitions to suit his needs.

• Installing Windows: 70minutes


• Number of reboots for install and post-install drivers, etc : several times


• Reconfiguring Windows install to previous one: 120minutes


• Installing Ubuntu with single reboot: 40minutes


• Ubuntu automatically telling you your mouse needs to be recharged: priceless

And a Happy New Year to all.

Barbara Walters: Heaven

Heaven: Where is it? How do we get there? was re-telecast last night on ABC. I still remember that they showed the same program last year and that too just before Xmas or the holiday season (whatever you prefer). I don't understand why they aired the program again? It wasn't any different than the one shown before! Had they done more research in finding Heaven by traveling to a another dozen places around the earth, it would still be understandable. So I'm still baffled.

What I do know is that one can't find Heaven by asking questions to well known people in a dramatic and sensational way!

Is Winter Here? Finally?

I see a few snow flakes flying around in the wind. Looks like winter is coming here! Or is it? Will have to wait and see.

/me goes to get my winter jacket and boots out in anticipation :)

Bad Vista

Follow the link to get enlightened Bad Vista.

Sleep Patterns

I'm glad to know that its normal to have weird sleep patterns after long flights. Joey is having trouble getting back his sleep patterns after his flight back from Germany. For me the distance was almost double but I'm glad that I don't feel to sleep longer than normal.

I have been going to bed early, and by early I mean really early i.e. around 2100hrs. I start feeling sleepy around 2000hrs but I do drag on for another hour or so. Then I end up waking up after 6 to 7 hours. The major problem I had was trying to keep awake while watching Casino Royale last night. The movie was good and probably the only reason I was able to keep my eyes open. In the end, I was tired of keeping my eyes open and just fell on my bed on reaching home.

On the brighter note, I think working in the early morning might be a bit more productive than late night. I have to test that more and if it is really the case, I will have to stick to a new schedule as I have always been more of an owl than an early riser.

PS: One thing I learnt this time during the flight -> drink lots and lots of liquids during flight. Keeps you hydrated and keeps the digestive system normal too.

Protest: µsoft-Nowell

Ken Hughes (GNU/Linux Debian):

Hey guys you remember Novell. The tall leggy blonde that stayed up at the buffet in every man's face? You knew she was for sell....standing there with all her Yast hanging out! I am glad we stayed away from her! She has caught Mono from a contact with Microsoft! The payback will be greater than she can bare......she will be back to cry on each man's shoulder. Just kick her to the curb. Oh, me? I have a excellent girl named Debian. We just hang out with our friends and work it! Where is my copy of GPLv3 do you know?

Read to be informed and Protest the µsoft-Nowell patent agreement.

Beta is Beta afterall

Blogger Beta has been here for some months now and users are given the option to move over to the new beta if they wish (transitions seem to come for a few users at a time and not all). I have resisted the temptation of using the new features and I think I'm glad that I have waited. I have noticed users not able to publish images sometimes, and often the result is all jumbled up because blogger lost an image while publishing!! The most recent problem I noticed is not being able to comment (for a bigpanda ;) ) and as comment system does not recognize the username and password! Surprising that it is allowing me to post here, but not post a comment :(

On the brighter side, the planetplanet installation I maintain is able to display images users upload to blogger.

Ducklings and Right of Way

Interesting. I hope other places were like this too! Where I am right now, the right of way is decided by the size of your vehicle or if same how loud your vehicle can honk!

Treasure

Keyboard shortcuts are from a whole new world when you shift to a Mac. Today, I found a very important page of documentation about Mac OS X. It will make life easier for those who want to use keyboard shortcuts while using their Macs. It's like I found a treasure today. Although there is one shortcut which I didn't find on that page: ^+Eject (Ctrl+Eject) - my find to get options for Sleep, Restart or Shutdown.

Announcing: Lenny

Just recently announced: Etch + 1 = Lenny

NB: its not a mathematical equality ;)

Italian Delight

A friend of mine, who knows I love Panettone, sent me the link for its history[wikipedia.com]. This season I will enjoy eating the delicious Panettone more than last time. Thanks.

The Name Game

Whats in a name? When the underlying code is same?

Mac + Ctrl + 2 finger scroll

An interesting observation: Earlier on my MBP when I used Ctrl+2finger scroll on the trackpad, it resulted in text size increase in Firefox. However, something changed recently (between the Firefox 1.5.0.x and 2.0 or between 10.4.7 and 10.4.8) and the behaviour results in screen zoom! Nice feature, but I liked the text size change better than the zoom which I almost never need! Anyone know how to do text size change in Firefox 2.0 using trackpad?

Update: Found the solution. Disable screen zoom from Mouse and Keyboard Preferences.

Firefox2 + Edgy Eft - branding bug?

As is common knowledge, Ubuntu's just released Edgy Eft has Firefox 2.0 in it with full official branding. I hadn't used Edgy much except installing it for a couple of friends, and I just noticed that it does not have full official branding. The window icon on the title bar (top left in default theme) is still the old generic globe/world icon (see yellow circle in image). If Edgy is supposed to have the official Firefox 2 branding, should't it be the regular Firefox logo? It seems that Edgy's fox still has some memories left over from the earlier debian based DFSG build and should be considered as a bug.

Money Stinks

In the last two days, I have seen and counted more money than I every saw at once place ever in my life. My only conclusion is: Money stinks and you better have a few bottles of antibacterial hand sanitizer before you start counting it.

Blogger Main Page on Edgy

Is it only me or does the Blogger main page´s javascript uses the processor 100% for Edgy Eft users? This machine is a running Edgy Eft on an AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 2800+ with 512MB of RAM. It seems to work fine on my PIV 2.0GHz based machine with 768MB of RAM. The only difference being that here I have Firefox 2.0 whereas the other machine has Firefox 1.0.7 (Debian build).

Classic Moustache

This is Fantastic!

IE7 and CSS weirdness

I did the windows updates on one of my machines and they included the IE7 update too. As the Ie7 update was tagged as a security update, I installed it. It took a long time for it to do the cleaning, running the malware tool prior to the install, download updates for IE7 install and then the final installation. Another plus point for Firefox: takes just a few seconds to install/upgrade!

So after the install the windows update prompted me to do the customary/necessary reboot ... aah more reason to love the Tux. Rebooted the machine and then thought about testing IE7. I couldn't do the testing for long as the very first weird thing was enough for me to get me to fire up the fox and continue a normal weblife. The weirdness was as follows: The best feature in Firefox and Opera (and other modern browsers) is the ability to zoom. This feature was very limited in IE 6.0. I tested it in IE7 and was delighted that they offered more levels than 6.0. But when you zoom out (<100%) you will notice something quirky on some pages e.g. google.com. Rather than the page to simple shrink i.e. zoom out, IE7 also makes it to go to the left. The page content is supposed to be in the center due to the <center> tag. Firefox and others behave as expected and just shrink the page without anything else. Why does IE7 go and do stuff differently? Is this where a browser can implement the CSS rules as it likes? Or is IE7 just ignoring CSS standards where it wants to?

PS: google could do better than using <center> tags too!

Thanks for Avesta

Did I thank you enough for introducing me to Avesta? It is one of the best restaurants I have been to in the last year or so. And it was a great evening spent with you.

Thanks again