Google Maps Street View in Cape Town
Spotted in Voortrekker Road
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
SkypeIn now available in South Africa
Good News for South Africans is that SkypeIn is now available in South Africa! SkypeIn allows users to have the own personal number. People call you from a phone or cell phone and you pick up the call with Skype.
Via MyBroadBand website:
Local Skype users can now get their own SkypeIn number and can make unlimited international calls for R 102 per month
Voice over IP (VoIP) provider Skype recently announced that it has extended its SkypeIn service to South Africa. SkypeIn provides Skype users with their own unique number on which they can receive calls on their computer from regular landline and mobile phone users.
“An online number (SkypeIn) is perfect if you have friends, family or business colleagues who don’t use Skype. Anyone can dial your online number from any phone or mobile and hey presto, your Skype rings and you pick up the call – wherever you are in the world,” the Skype website explains.
“You buy an online number and your friends, family or business contacts can call that number and only pay for a standard rate call (if they are in the same country as your online number) – the online number uses the internet to route the call and so saves them money. It makes absolutely no difference wherever you are, you can pick up the call at no cost to you wherever in the world you are logged into Skype.”
SkypeIn numbers cost US $18 for 3 months or US $60 for a full year. This translates into R 141 for a SkypeIn number for three months and R 471 per number for a 12 month period.
Unlimited International calls for R 102 per month
SkypeIn complements the company’s existing products like SkypeOut and Unlimited flat rated calling. Apart from standard SkypeOut credits, South Africans can purchase South Africa 400, World 400 and Unlimited World packages providing discounted call rates to fixed lines.
South Africa 400, priced at $ 14.95 (R 117), gives subscribers 400 minutes of calls to landlines in South Africa per month. World 400, which costs $ 17.95 (R 141) per month, offers 400 minutes of calls to landlines in South Africa and over 40 countries per month.
The most attractive deal is however the company’s Unlimited World service which at $ 12.95 (R 102) per month allows for unlimited calls to landlines in over 40 countries worldwide. These countries include Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the UK and the United States. Calls to South African landlines are however excluded.
Weekend Hiking Pics
Starting from Constantia Nek, we went up to Devillier’s Dam and past Camel Rock
De Villier’s Dam
How Car Companies are Suffering
Though I’ll share this email I got.
THIS ILLUSTRATES THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE ECONOMY
now you know why car companies are losing money or close to it…
Nissan has announced plans to cut its Sunderland workforce by 1,200. Thousands of unsold cars are stored around the factory’s test track
SWFRIP – Rip Resources in SWFs
SWFRIP is a Macromedia Flash resource extractor and editor. It can save resources in various formats, including SVG conversion from the flash vector format, decompile ActionScript, and remove the protect tag from SWF files.
Works with WINE on Linux (which others couldn’t) and is FOSS!
Getting InnoDB on Xampp for Linux
I’ve already posted on how to get innodb on xampp for windows. Here’s the instructions for linux assuming Ubuntu.
Open a command line and enter:
sudo gedit /opt/lampp/etc/my.cnf
Find the line that says:
skip-innodb
Add a hash (#) in front of that so that the line looks like:
#skip-innodb
Restart MySQL and you should have InnoDB enabled!
XDebug on XAMPP for Linux
As usual, I could have got this right first time if my brain registered better. Assuming you have the latester version. First of all, you NEED the Xampp Development Package. Go to the download page at: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-linux.html#374
You’ll find:
- Xampp Download Version 1.x.x
- Xampp Upgrade Version
- Xampp Development Version
You’d never guess how long it took me to find this. The next step to remember is:
- Xampp Development Version is an ADDITIONAL package, not a replacement package. You still need to download the full version if you are doing this for the first time, and do not remove your existing version if you have one. Would be wise to back up though – just in case.
Once you have uncompressed the archive, you’ll have access to phpize that you need. From there, you can proceed to install from source – see http://xdebug.org/install.php. For some reason, the PECL installation didn’t work for me.
Gnome vs KDE – doesn’t matter
Gnome vs KDE is a stupid debate. Usually the choice is based on what programs are available for GNOME vs KDE. Choose the one with the most programs.
THe good news is that this doesn’t matter with Ubuntu and if you use Synaptic. let’s say I’m running GNOME and want Kivio which is like MS Visio and only runs under KDE (supposedly). If you install it via Synaptic, Ubuntu will install Kivio + some of the KDE libraries it needs to run Kivio – and this under GNOME nogal.
I can’t believe how useless the GNOME vs KDE debate is. BTW, I prefer XFCE, it’s faster, and I like Thunar over Galeon
Cortado Ogg Video Applet – The missing documentation
Trying to better integrate Ogg Vorbis Video in Chisimba’s file manager, I found this applet called Cortado from Flumotion. But the documentation is non-existent, and worst of all, the experience is shocking based on the structure of their website.
Before giving you the solution, I’m going to note this experience given my inclination for usability, and as a personal lesson on how NOT to do thing.
On their website, they say: You can download the source, or the pre-compiled Java applets. I don’t know how to compile, so I choose pre-compiled.
But look what this gives you:
cortado-mmjs-0.0.1.jar 30-Nov-2004 13:50 34K
cortado-mmjs-0.1.0.jar 24-Dec-2004 18:15 43K
cortado-mmjs-0.1.2.jar 22-Apr-2005 16:08 46K
cortado-mmjs-debug-0.2.0.1.jar 14-Sep-2006 16:55 104K
cortado-mmjs-debug-0.2.0.jar 19-May-2006 15:38 103K
cortado-mmjs-debug-0.2.1.jar 14-Sep-2006 16:55 104K
cortado-mmjs-debug-0.2.2.jar 26-Oct-2006 17:28 113K
cortado-mmjs-stripped-0.2.0.jar 19-May-2006 15:38 103K
cortado-mmjs-stripped-0.2.1.jar 14-Sep-2006 16:55 104K
cortado-mmjs-stripped-0.2.2.jar 26-Oct-2006 18:10 88K
cortado-ot-0.1.0.jar 28-Dec-2004 12:59 93K
cortado-ot-0.1.2.jar 22-Apr-2005 20:01 97K
cortado-ov-debug-0.2.0.1.jar 14-Sep-2006 16:55 198K
cortado-ov-debug-0.2.0.jar 19-May-2006 15:38 197K
cortado-ov-debug-0.2.1.jar 14-Sep-2006 16:55 198K
cortado-ov-debug-0.2.2.jar 26-Oct-2006 17:28 208K
cortado-ov-stripped-0.2.0.jar 19-May-2006 15:38 197K
cortado-ov-stripped-0.2.1.jar 14-Sep-2006 16:55 198K
cortado-ov-stripped-0.2.2.jar 26-Oct-2006 18:10 151K
cortado-ovt-0.0.1.jar 30-Nov-2004 13:50 163K
cortado-ovt-0.1.0.jar 24-Dec-2004 18:15 172K
cortado-ovt-0.1.2.jar 22-Apr-2005 16:08 175K
cortado-ovt-debug-0.2.0.1.jar 14-Sep-2006 16:56 254K
cortado-ovt-debug-0.2.0.jar 19-May-2006 15:38 253K
cortado-ovt-debug-0.2.1.jar 14-Sep-2006 16:56 254K
cortado-ovt-debug-0.2.2.jar 26-Oct-2006 17:28 264K
cortado-ovt-stripped-0.2.0.jar 19-May-2006 15:38 253K
cortado-ovt-stripped-0.2.1.jar 14-Sep-2006 16:56 254K
cortado-ovt-stripped-0.2.2.jar 26-Oct-2006 18:10 193K
Now WTF. Do I download ALL of these, or am I supposed to choose one. Which one?
So my next step is to search the Internet for examples, and see what others are using. I came across this site, which came me another dillema:
< archive=”cortado.jar” code=”com.fluendo.player.Cortado.class”>
Here again, it only refers to cortado.jar, doesn’t tell me which one to download. BTW, this site does not allow you to copy and paste (JavaScript), just to give me more grief and delay progress.
It is also at this point that I realise that apart from this site, there is NO other documentation on how to USE the APPLET – - TOTALLY DISGUSTING!!
So the next step is to get hold of the applet code (remember the site wouldn’t allow me to copy), and download one of the applets (cortado-ot-0.1.2.jar) – which still didn’t work – which led me to search for a new applet – which led me to JOrbis – which also still didn’t work
Finding Answers:
Just see how ‘brilliant’ Open Source Developers can be:
The website says: Cortado currently include Java decoders for Ogg Theora, Ogg Vorbis, Mulaw audio, MJPEG and our own Smoke codec.
Once I re-read this and start to think about it, I realised that there are different applets for different decoders/formats. Why didn’t they tell me that in the first place AND tell me which applet to use. The cortado-ot-0.1.2.jar was for Ogg Theora which is audio (learnt something new).
The one we should be using is: cortado-ovt-0.1.2.jar. Cool, first step solved.
Now comes an even more atrocious part. Where is an example of the applet code and parameters, the one on top clearly didn’t work. And don’t expect the code to be in the demos, because the applet is in an iframe. Another classic example of Open Source Brilliance.
Back on the page that didn’t allow me to copy from it, it says: Documentation taken from current Read Me file contained within the Cortado source code. This isn’t brilliant. It is F*CKING F*CKING F*CKING BRILLIANT. To learn how to use it, you should download the entire source code as well, which you won’t use or know how to use, but you just need one file in the archive!
The Solution:
To use the Cortado applet to present Ogg Vorbis Video files:
- Go to the pre-compiled applets page at http://www.flumotion.net/jar/cortado/, and download the latest cortado-ovt-###.jar applet. The latest one for me was cortado-ovt-0.1.2.jar.Avoid the debug or stripped version. I don’t know that this means, and don’t have the time to find out.
- To embed the applet in your page, add the following code:< code=”com.fluendo.player.Cortado.class” archive=”cortado-ovt-0.1.2.jar” width=”352″ height=”288″>
< name=”url” value=”http://localhost/tests/ogg/tuesday_1150_gaming.ogg”>
< name=”local” value=”false”> < name=”keepAspect” value=”true”>
< name=”video” value=”true”>
< name=”audio” value=”true”>
< name=”bufferSize” value=”200″>
< /applet>Note: There are spaces between the <>
The entire Readme.txt file on how to use the applet can be found here: http://www.tohir.co.za/Cortado_README.txt
Preview Photoshop Brushes – Free Tool
Here’s a cool tool i found on the web. This piece of software allows you to view the brushes in a .abr file. It’s called ABR Viewer:
There are lots of wonderful brush sets for photoshop in the web… too many to install them all just to see what they look like! now you can have the preview of a set without having to install it… without having to run photoshop! You can even adjust thumbnails size and you can have the preview of the actual size of the brush… you can also try it out!
people who publish brush sets on their personal websites need to provide users with previews. This software is able to generate images for every single brush and can also generate the general image from the panel of the thumbnails you have visualised. I think it’s great, don’t you?
Download at: http://abrviewer.sourceforge.net/. BTW, it is free.
I'm a Web Developer living in Cape Town, South Africa. Interests include: PHP, JQuery, ExtJS, Adobe AIR, Linux, Ubuntu, WordPress, Human Rights, Usability, Multimedia