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iPhone 4S, Should I Or Shouldn't I?

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 14:39:00 +0000

The day before Steve Jobs passed away, the iPhone 4S was announced, the unlikely, unwanted and certainly unwelcome successor to the iPhone 4. I've heard the same words mentioned about Tim Cook, the successor to Steve Jobs. But, come on? What's with all the hate?

Many people expected the iPhone 5 to be announced on October 4th, but instead they heard the words "iPhone 4S", emphasis on the S please. This made them unhappy, but why?

The 4S is a better phone! The antenna is better, the camera is superior and the processor is awesome. On paper it may not be the technically most advanced phone, but it is certainly easy to use, the App store, though locked down, has an almost endless library, and it's not ugly. OK, the looks are certainly subjective, but then so is choosing a phone. Most of the people going on about how terrible the iPhone is and how good their Android devices are would never buy an iPhone. Obvious really, but the iPhone is not for you! Don't buy it, but then again please stop telling me your phone is better when you see mine.

Originally, when the iPhone first started becoming popular, it was the Apple boys who started conversations saying "you MUST get this phone, it's better than sliced bread!". Annoying I know, and I can understand the resentment from everyone else, I don't want to be told to buy an iPhone, a Mac or an iPod. If I wanted one I would buy one. But that wasn't good enough for them. The one time I did find time to answer back was when I started telling a lovely iPhone owner that he really shouldn't have that stereo, and that mine came with x, y and z and was far superior to his in every way, and it was shiny. He didn't find it funny.

But moving on with the times we now have those same people who hated (maybe too strong a word) the Apple fanboys talking about everything Apple, continuously talking about the greatest invention ever: Android.

OK, so maybe it's not everyone, or even a majority, but I can't believe it ever was with the Apple boys either. So just let it rest, please. A phone has come out that is better than the previous model, the previous model is still available for you to buy at a cheaper price, so be happy. If you don't like the phone don't buy it! Simple as that really.

Ah well, I'm off to count the pennies ready to buy my iPhone 4S...

Disable Right-Click in Blogger (Unsavable Pictures)

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:52:00 +0000

After the post on Unselectable Text in Your Blog Posts many people have asked how to make the images unsavable too. As before, there are always ways around this if a user really wants, but again, let's make it difficult for them!!

After trawling the internet and trying out every code I could lay my hands on there was only one which I particularly liked. There are others dedicated to just images but they did not work as well as I thought they should. In short, the best way is using JavaScript to disable the right-click function of the mouse completely on your site.

NB This completely disables the right-click for everything. We will come back to this later when explaining how to allow people to open a link in a new tab/window without this funtion.

To add the JavaScript on Blogger we must do this in a new Gadget. So click "Add a Gadget" somewhere at the bottom of your Design page and from the options presented click on "HTML/JavaScript". Then simply paste the following code:

<script language=javascript>

</script>

Near the top of the code, you will see a line that says var message="xxx"; Type your own message that will pop up when a user right-clicks here inside the quotation marks.

I suggest that this is a great place to mention to people the alternative method of opening a link in a new tab/window. For example use the following:

"Right-click has been disabled. To open a link in new tab: [1] hold CTRL + Left click for Windows, [2] hold COMMAND + Click for Mac"

This way you can give instructions to users unfamiliar with browser shortcuts.

I recommend you not to add a title to leave the gadget invisible on your pages. Unfortunately an invisible gadget still takes up vertical space. so I suggest you put this gadget at the very bottom of your blog near the Attribution.

The last thing you must do is to remove the hyperlink from each image you upload that links to the picture. Feel free to change the link to another website, but if you leave the link to the image they can click to open it, and then save it easily!

I hope this helps, any comments or suggestions, please feel free to get in touch.

New Dynamic Templates for Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 18:17:00 +0000

Having had a quick look at the new dynamic templates for Blogger during a work break, I was initially quite impressed. HTML5 is nice, and the guys at Google have certainly done a good job. BUT, there seems to be a lot missing.

Where are the options to change anything? And I mean anything.

I am sure that at some point they will see that they must add this functionality, but why not from the start? I can't change the menu colour, what pages appear in the menu, or even the favicon! At least I couldn't find the options in 10 minutes (which is that maximum amount of time it should take).

If you can find these options, or the way to change the HTML and not just add custom CSS please let me know. I really want to play with this!!

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:56:00 +0000

Less than two months to go before Skyrim hits the shelves. So plenty of time to finish Oblivion one more time before you get to "continue" the story! Check out the latest videos below.

The Elder Scrolls Chapter II: Daggerfall

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 14:01:00 +0000

For those of you waiting for The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim to be released, here's a freebie. Get yourselves the second in the series for free here. 15 years old today. A bit of nostalgia for those of you old enough to remember the roots, a quick glimpse of the past for those of you who were never initiated.

Click here to go to the download page

Bose Computer MusicMonitor: You Got Cash?

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 14:39:00 +0000

Do you like to travel? A lot? Think you've got your weight limit sorted? Laptop packed? Films on the hard drive? Speakers? What, no speakers? Well think again..

I'm a big traveller, whenever I can, I move countries with my job. But this means that I am limited to 30kgs of baggage (including the girlfriend's shoes). But I like my music, I like watching movies, and I love playing games. The problem I always had was with the sound quality, laptop speakers just don't cut the mustard, even with these fancy "subs" they are claiming to have.

I saw these little speakers on the internet a year ago and actually listened to the reviews and let them go by. Then, by chance, I heard them at my friend's house. I was in love. He'd had them for 3 years, they'd been thrown around in Australia, France and Japan, and they still sounded awesome.

These are no powerhouse speakers. They will not fill your lounge with sound. They will not shake the foundations of your house. If that is what you are looking for, buy a new pair of speakers with sub in every country, and then sell them before you leave. If you don't want to do that, these are the perfect simple solution.

Movies sound great, music sounds big, and the size is small. For viewing films in your small apartment with a few friends, or having a small house party I have not heard any better coming from a 1kg package.

At $300 they may seem a little expensive, but I have to say, after the one year and 3 houses I have had them, they are definitely worth the dollar a day I paid.

Nuclear Free Blog!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 11:52:00 +0000

Is yours a Nuclear Free Blog? Let everyone know with this banner:

600x313 pixels

185x193 pixels

150x157 pixels

I drew this banner after the events in Japan on March 11th 2011. Living there at the time, I was immediately thrown into the unknowing desperation of all the locals as to whether the food and water would be safe. It still isn't. Show your support for alternative renewable energy sources by flying your flags high!!

(right click on the image to save and please link back to this blog!!!!!)

Unselectable Text In Your Blog Posts

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:51:00 +0000

A lot of people want some of the text in their blog to be unselectable. This can be achieved, but as always with anything on the net, nothing will stop a willing person from finding a way around, or just retyping what you wrote. But that's no reason not to make it difficult for them!! For example, try selecting the orange text above. Not so easy is it. Here's how I did it...

EDIT: For images click here.

First, in your post write out everything you wish as per normal. No change here. Next click on "Edit HTML".

Here you have to decide if you want to make the whole post unselectable, or just a paragraph. It's up to you. I opted for just the first paragraph in this post. To make it unselectable I simply surrounded the desired text with a "div" tag and added some simple code (shown in orange below).

Important note: Once you have added this you will NOT be able to edit your text in the "Compose" tab, only in the "Edit HTML" tab.

Here is what I used:

<div ondragstart="return false;" onselectstart="return false;" style="-moz-user-select: none; -webkit-user-select: none;">
A lot of people want some of the text in their blog to be unselectable. This can be achieved, but as always with anything on the net,<b> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #ff9900;">nothing will stop a willing person from finding a way around</span></b>, or just retyping what you wrote. But that's no reason not to make it difficult for them!! For example, try selecting the orange text above. Not so easy is it. Here's how I did it...</div>

In the example above I showed the "div" tags surrounding just the paragraph, but I actually surrounded them around the picture below as well as a test. This means you could use the tags surrounding the entire post to make all the text unselectable. The pictures can still be saved with a right-click. A post for later...

This may not be the perfect code, but while I keep searching for a better method for Blogger, it'll do.

Logitech G19 Keyboard: Who is it for?

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:59:00 +0000

I used to have the Logitech G15 Rev. 1 keyboard. With 18 custom assignable macro keys, a monochrome screen and built in USB 1.1 ports. It also sported 2 brightness settings for the blue backlit keyboard while also being fully usable with the lights off in full daylight. The key action was the best I personally had ever used for gaming and it was seemingly indestructible. So after having to sell it (many reasons…) I have always been on the lookout for something better.

The Old Logitech G15 V1

I really got used to the separate LCD panel, using it to monitor stats within games and also as a system monitor, with the large clock being very useful to make sure I got to work on time, so for me the replacement was going to have to be another Logitech as other companies (quite rightly you might say) don’t see the need for a screen on a keyboard. The other day I got to play with the G19 in a shop.

What was this thing? The keys on my old G15 were something that felt more natural than anything I had used before, or since. The new G19 keys are narrower on top and tilt back and forth a little under use. I’m sure I could get used to this but why should I have to when they had it perfect before? The option to change the backlight colour scheme to anything I want is nice, but they have done away with the 2 brightness settings. Now if you want to reduce the brightness you have to change the colour scheme to a darker colour altogether. Not impressed. And if you want to turn the backlighting off? You have to turn the screen off too (at least I didn’t find a way to keep the screen on).

Yes, the screen is full colour, has its own operating system (so hundreds of programs can be written for it down the line), and can be used to watch films while playing games, but it is also power hungry. To use this keyboard as intended you need to plug it into the wall. I have never heard of something so ridiculous. In an age of USB powered monitors this seems a major oversight. Surely they could have done away with the full USB 2 powered hubs and used 2 USB plugs to power the keyboard?

I’m unconvinced. I don’t understand who needs this keyboard. I love gadgets and toys but even for me this seems like an over the top novelty keyboard. I would much rather have a cheap plastic normal keyboard and spend my money on the G13 Advance Gameboard. In actual fact, I may just get back on eBay and buy my old keyboard…

Mini Mod: Project Hand Baggage

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Sun, 22 May 2011 15:53:00 +0000

After the tragic breakdown of my laptop I was left with no computer for my travels around the world. I was about to leave for Turkey and I needed some form of PC to keep me entertained and to stay connected to the world. Back in 2004 I bought myself a computer with an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ and ATI X800 GPU and was thinking that maybe that could be brought with me as hand baggage. I went back to my parent’s house, where it was stashed, and saw the size of the case I had bought for it. The Cooler Master Centurion.

It was just far too big. I needed something smaller. While thinking of a solution to this I was also thinking of how to improve on a Socket 939 motherboard without spending too much money. After asking for advice on the Bit-tech forums I got an X2 3800+ and a new graphics card. They told me to get an ATI 5450 but I got a 1GB GDDR5 5670 from a friend for next to nothing.

So new bits, still no case. On returning home to Italy my girlfriend told me she still had a computer that she bought in 1996 and that I could use that case. Ignoring the looks of the case, I measured it up and realised that it was perfect for flight hand baggage allowance. Awesome. So here is the beige goodness:

Just as ugly as I remember computers being back then. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers so time to take it to pieces.

Wait a minute, what’s that? A fold out removable motherboard tray? A removable hdd caddy? I could not believe what I was seeing, I really did not know that this was available in a case from 1996! It seems that the Millennium Bug really did have an effect on computers, cases got better paint, but worse management. Anyway, here it is in more pieces:

That’s two removable side panels, a fold out removable motherboard tray (with holes), the case and the HDD caddy. Time to do some cutting.

I picked up a 180mm fan for another mod idea I had but now that I’m moving again a desk mod doesn’t seem too clever, so time to give this case a real intake fan. First up was cutting the front plastic panel to accommodate the fan:

I also cut a smaller hole for a usb/firewire/audio front panel that I took of the Cooler Master case. Now the test fit:

They fit perfectly! OK, I’m not surprised. To get this I was outside filing and cutting for 5 hours. This being my first time doing this properly and wanting a perfect fit I worked very slowly, but in the end I am very happy with the results.

Next up was thinking of a new place to put the power plug. I also took another part off the Cooler Master case, the power button section which also included the reset switch, and power and HDD activity LEDs.

And a rough mock up with the buttons inside:

They actually fit perfectly, another two hours of work. The other holes are for the fan speed controllers. The Scythe CPU cooler I am using has a fan speed knob as does the 180mm front intake fan, so they will be fixed here. The piece of plastic used for this was one of the 5.25” bay covers and it will be positioned in the middle of the three available slots. Between a DVD drive and a Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS breakout box.

I found some paint in the garage that was a nice red and decided to paint the side panels. With only two coats at this point look at the awesomeness:

Very Italian, especially with the beautiful espresso cup. Unfortunately, the paint ran out at this point and no one could remember where the spray can was originally bought. This could be a problem, more on that later.

Anyway, more cutting, first up was marking out the holes for the fan air intake with an Ikea pencil. This is possibly the best pencil I have ever used for drawing on any material. Seriously.

Front hole for the 180mm fan marked up with screw positions.

Hole marked out for a 120mm exhaust fan. No screws for this one as they don’t fit, the fan fits perfectly with friction, will have to add some double sided tape to secure the fan and prevent vibration noise though.

I am no metal cutting expert and was not sure which of the girlfriend’s father’s tools to use. I didn’t want to ruin his woodworking tools so I had to wait until the next day for him to come back from holiday for some help.

On his return he was more than enthusiastic about helping, and being an expert metal and wood worker almost had both the holes cut by the time I’d been to the toilet and made a coffee. I did manage to get back in time for some pictures of the work in action.

Apparently his metal disc for the rotary cutter was broken so he did all the cutting by hand using right-handed metal scissors.

Front hole roughly done with the tools required for smoothing the edges.

Offcuts.

Here he is filing the back hole. I should say he is a perfectionist so the results of this hole were beyond my expectations. He cut so well it actually looks like it was part of the original design.

Very nice! So cutting done, next up, painting.

As I mentioned before, no one could remember where the can of red spray paint was bought. So we bought two more with what was the same colour. At least we thought it was. The paint colour code was exactly the same but the new paint was more red than the previous and did not leave a finish as naturally smooth. This being my first time spraying where the final finish was important this was not as I wanted, as I also have very little experience sanding. No amount of watching The Mod Men youtube channel for tips is going to beat experience, and given that I had a lack of time surrounding the build of this mod I wasn’t going to start. I decided to just spray and see what happened after the paint cures.

I decided that the inside of the case and the back should be black, with the top and side panels red, and leaving the giant fan white. I didn’t really have a theme in mind, just decided that would work. Here is the front usb panel, HDD caddy, motherboard tray and inside side panels in black after the first two coats.

The case, upside down showing the two fan holes nicely.

Time for some red:

I genuinely have no idea how I managed to get so much paint on the newspaper and not on the panels! I made a mess! I’m sure I could have got away with just one can for the whole case if I could actually paint. More practice needed I think. Above the side panels you can also see that I decided to do one side of the motherboard tray red. It wasn’t a real decision, I ran out of black. In the end it actually looks really cool.

Some slight unevenness with the paint coverage. Was fixed with the next coat, but by then the battery had gone on the camera so no more pics. My girlfriend did however get a nice picture of the dog watching me work:

OK, so not really watching, but he is called Lord Byron after all, and what Lord actually watches his minions work.

After a brief trip abroad I came back and finished the “beast” (OK, so not the most powerful PC around but is good enough for now!). Check out the pictures below.

Starting with the cable management. This being the first time I’ve actually tried this properly I had no idea how difficult and time consuming it actually is!

Take a break, take a pic. Work in progress…

And here it is resprayed and all done up nice with a reminder of what it used to look like. A big improvement I must say. The wonders of a can of spray paint!

Unfortunately, after putting it all together it weighed in at 11.2kg. Given that in the three flights I took in the past 2 weeks every airline seems to be acting very strict about the 10kg allowance for hand baggage this was a problem. So, after hours of cable management I had to remove the power supply and DVD drive to bring it down below the 10kg limit. So they have to go in the hold and be refitted on the otherside.

Lessons learned:

1. Make sure you have enough spray cans before starting. This caused more stress than anything else. If I hadn’t seen the colour of the test spray I would be even happier with the red I have now.

2. SATA is the way forward. The ease of cable management and airflow benefits are priceless.

3. Make sure you have enough time to let the paint dry to put a protective coat on the outside. I have already managed to scratch the paint. Boohoo.

4. 10kg is not a lot for a full computer. Gives me an idea for the next PC, it must be under 10kg with everything (but I have to wait for The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim to be released to work out what I’m going to buy. MicroATX is definitely what I want.)

Upload A YouTube Video To Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 17:34:00 +0000

Adding a YouTube video in your Blog post should be a simple task, but in reality it is not as straight forward as it seems. Follow the steps below to embed a YouTube video within any of your posts.

First you need to find a YouTube video. Simple. Then, below the video box you will find a button labeled "Share", circled below. Click it.

Now a whole bunch of new options will appear. Ignore them and click on the button labeled "Embed", circled below.

Now we have to choose our options. Take a look at the picture below:

Boxed is the code you need, but I'll come back to that. First you need to select how you want the video to appear in your blog post. The check boxes are OK to leave as they are for now, you may want to edit things if you know more about their functions. Clicking on the question marks will give you more info about what each one does. But really it is OK to leave it how it is.

More important is to select the right size. This is found at the bottom of the selection box. Some standard sizes are offered, with the smallest probably being the best for most blogs. If, however, you know what width you want the box to be (e.g. if you want it to be the same width as your images) then type a width into the custom box and YouTube will automatically give you the correct height. Awesome.

Once you have done all this copy the HTML code in the box (boxed in red in the above pic). This then needs to be pasted into your New Post in Blogger. Make sure you paste this in the "Edit HTML" page!

Below is an example of how this will appear with the check boxes left as default and with a custom width of 500px:

Nuclear Free Blog!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:11:00 +0000

Is yours a Nuclear Free blog? Do you want to show your support for a nuclear free world? Then use this image on your blog.

Right click and save the image, upload to your favorite image hosting website and share with the world.

"It's Not A Computer Mum" Media Player PC - Toshiba U400 Mod

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:33:00 +0000

Just after New Year, the backlight on the screen of my Toshiba U400 decided to give up. After 7 countries, over 20 flights, 100’s of trips in my backpack, and 2 years and 2 weeks of use it wasn’t happy anymore. The simple solution to this problem is to replace the light, or if necessary get a new inverter. Boring.

Stock U400 Photo – as usual I forgot to take a picture of mine first

My better half had decided on getting a MacBook Air (I don’t really like it but I can see why some people would absolutely love it, it’s what a Netbook should be, but with OS-X) so she would be giving me her laptop, which was better than mine. Time for a project. At my parent’s house computers aren’t allowed in bedrooms until Uni. My sister is only 16 so still has some way to go. At the moment she uses the internet on the DS Lite I gave her after “Lights out” for important Facebook business. While checking emails etc. on the DS is fine, it’s not really useful. So this project was destined to be a surprise present for her when I got back from Japan.

The idea was to have essentially a media centre PC, something to keep all her music, videos and pictures. I wanted it to play the music and videos well enough for viewing from her bed (her head would be about 2.5m behind the desk) but most importantly give her the internet. Not just so she could check stuff that seems important to her (but really isn’t ) but for Skype. Me and my brother live far away from her so the only real contact we get is by phone. Currently she has to Skype on the family computer which offers no privacy, this way she would be able to talk freely (and watch BBC iPlayer from her room).

The basic layout expertly created in Paint

Thompson iPod Speaker Dock

I’m not much of a planner but I thought I would do something to give you an idea of what I’m doing. The computer will sit in a vertical position at the back of her desk, not taking much of the useable space. I’m hoping the depth can be kept to less than 10cm and the width to a sensible minimum. The power button and webcam will be position on the top, above the screen, and 4 sets of speakers below. The speakers are attached to the iPod Dock and speaker control. This is donated from a Thompson iPod dock that was given free with my iPod (from a shop in Australia call Dick Smith). The dock can charge the iPod when the PC is off, but will not connect it to the PC for syncing, my sister will have to do some work. Next there will be a few USB ports from a spare hub I have lying around and the power cables will come out the left hand side.

Before I show more let me state that prettiness on the inside is not really an issue here, it needs to look pretty from the outside, so there may be some less than ideal looks inside.

First up, take the laptop to pieces, my favourite part:

The bits

While taking the screen off I did manage to do some damage though…

While peeling the cables from the back of the screen cover, the tape ripped one of the cables in two. All I can see now is a massive design flaw (unless I’m very wrong). The frayed wires you can see are from a cable that runs the same length and same direction and the coloured cables, yet it is bare! There is no sleeving. This can’t be normal, can it?

Anyway, once the majority of the dust was cleared out (there was a lot) I reattached the heatsink (using Arctic Silver) and put it back together for a quick test with some USB powered LEDs in place of a real backlight.

In this picture, there are 8 USB LEDs under the screen shining onto a piece of white Perspex balanced on a USB hub and the light itself. Not the best example I know but it shows that the basic idea of using the LEDs should work well enough (no high quality videos will be watched on here, just Mean Girls and the like…).

Next up building the back of the case. Here is some wood:

The long piece is not bent, my camera seems to be exhibiting some major distortion

Testing the first idea for the layout:

Bottom right is half of the wireless keyboard I intend to use to control the computer. It is actually a Play Station wireless keyboard and joystick module. There were pictures of this but my memory card decided to do a wipe out. The green board at the bottom is the speaker power and volume control with the iPod dock and the orange board is the amp and power. I will be using a cable splitter for the speaker socket on the motherboard so that her stereo or headphones can be plugged in.

After this I decided against removing the motherboard from the laptop body. Though it would be prettier inside like this, by leaving the keyboard and mouse attached and housed properly, maintenance for me would be easier. After this was decided, it was time to do a quick measure and mount the screen.

I apologize for this. I was trying to take a real photo but the other half kept adding toys into the frame. Then she made me promise to put it in so here it is. Anyway, you can see that the screen is mounted with the hinges still working.

Here is some exquisite craftsmanship. Might need to tidy this one up…

With the screen hinged up, I have access to the normal keyboard and touchpad so was able to reinstall windows, and boot up the software to allow the wireless gamepad to control the screen (http://atzitznet.no-ip.org/Joy2Mouse3/). It works!

With all this up and running it was time for a real test. I used two sets of the LED lights, one on the left and one on the right. The white Perspex was held behing using electrical tape, and a sheet of scuffed transparent Perspex and the diffuser sheet were laid between.

All hooked up and vertical with wires everywhere. Running on battery.

Showing backlight bleed and current contrast and brightness with room lights off.

Screen brightness and light distribution with room lights on.

Close up of lighting distribution

There is still a lot of light escaping from the top and bottom of the screen, and I’m guessing that the light distribution will improve when that is taped up.

A few days later I had managed to sort out some of the positional aspects of the design. Above is what the finalised layout for the computer will be. I’ve swapped the placement of the USB hub and the speaker control to avoid any unnecessary rewiring. Also I have used electrical tape to prevent almost all of the backlight bleed from before, though I still have to do the top when everything is put together.

Here is a closer view of the bottom portion. I’ve rearranged the speaker position as I won’t be able to fit everything as I had originally intended, but it will still look nice like this, especially with speaker grills fitted on the front panel. The speakers themselves need to be rewired as the original wires are not long enough to reach the controller board.

A closer view of the speaker PCBs. These are now fixed in place with foam from a make-up set acting as spacers. The orange/horrible brown board is the amp and power, the green board does the fun stuff. On the green board there is the connector for the iPod, and 3 buttons. If you look closely you can see a red LED, which is the power on light. Above that is the power switch, to the left of that volume down, and to the right volume up. I still haven’t thought of a nice way to actually click those buttons, but I’m sure I will.

On the left there are three cables coming away from the base. At the top, the white one, is part of the splitter cable. This will be connected to the left of the case to allow for headphones or bigger speakers. The two black cables at the bottom are the PC power and speaker power respectively.

The all-important macro shot that everyone seems to have. Except that I don’t have a sexy motherboard to show off…

Next jobs are, painting the inside of the case, refitting all the components already screwed in, finding a way to attach the speakers and USB hub, and making a cover for the whole thing.

Unfortunately, as I got to this point in the mod, Japan got hit by a 9.0 earthquake, resulting in a devastating tsunami and problems with a Nuclear power plant. I made a hasty departure from Japan and so the project had to be left behind. By the end I had painted the mounting frame and fixed the iPod dock and speakers. The screen had been fully light sealed and black electrical tape fixed around the metal edges of the screen to keep the colour flow when all was switched off. It was difficult to leave this behind, and I will be sure that the next project is built to impress. Here are the final shots.

The speakers setup. They were fixed with super strong double sided tape and with an electrical tape wrap around two screws fixed either side of the speaker. There was no vibration even on full volume.

All together. Painted wood makes a lot of difference to how things look. It’s good to know this now as the next project will be mostly wood, and being able to visualise what the final product will look like is very useful.

After all this I have now decided to go bigger and better for the next project. Rest assured it will be a beauty, and not at all portable...

Edit The Widget Title Text In Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 05:35:00 +0000

An important consideration in making your blog is how much coordination you want it to have. If you want individual designs for each widget in your blog then individual coding is required, if however you want to add a global effect to a series of similar attributes, then read on to find out how to edit the widget title text in Blogger.

Old and New

If you look at the columns on the right of this blog, you will notice that the titles to the widgets have little chevron images before each of them. Here is a guide on how to do the same to your widgets. This works especially well if you couple it with related images for your post titles.

1. In Blogger go to the Design View and click on Edit HTML. As always, download the full template to keep a backup before you make any changes. Do a search and find the following code:

/* Headings
----------------------------------------------- */
h2 {
font: $(widget.title.font);
color: $(widget.title.text.color);
}

This is the part which controls the sidebar widget headers. This is where you can add or change the CSS code to change the look of this section. It is important to note that some change you make here can have effects on other parts of the blog. I haven’t been through them all so use the preview function to check nothing additional was affected by your code.

2. To get the effect I have on this blog I added lines and ended up with the following code:

/* Headings
----------------------------------------------- */
h2 {
font: $(widget.title.font);
color: $(widget.title.text.color);
font-variant: small-caps;
background:url(/gadget_title.png) no-repeat;
padding:0 0 0px 16px;
}

I added a font-variant to give the titles small-caps to keep the design consistent with the rest of the blog and I added an image.

The image was added as a background and given padding to line up the image how I wanted. Here you must be careful, I found that some padding changes had an effect on the date header too, so be sure to preview first!

3. The next part is adjusting the text color, this can probably be done in the design view, but if you want to do it in Edit HTML then find the following code:

<Group description="Gadget Title Color" selector="h2">
<Variable name="widget.title.font" description="Font" type="font"
default="normal bold 14px 'Trebuchet MS',Trebuchet,sans-serif" value="normal bold 16px Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif"/>
<Variable name="widget.title.text.color" description="Title Color" type="color" default="#ffffff" value="#ff9900"/>
</Group>

It is the last part (highlighted in orange) that you want to change to a hexadecimal color code to change the Gadget title color.

Fix Image Thumbnails In Blogger Popular Posts

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:12:00 +0000

You may have noticed that for the past couple of days any new posts you write refuse to show up with thumbnails in the Popular Posts widget (the official one!). There is a temporary fix floating around the internet that I will outline below. Hopefully Blogger will get this fixed automatically.

The problem has something to do with the image hosting for the thumbnails, but I won't go into that. In order to get the thumbnails to show you need to do the following to the first picture in your post, you do not need to do it for all.

After adding the picture into your post, switch to Edit HTML. In this section you will find a part that looks like the following (look for the first one, at the top):

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.nintendo.co.uk/NOE/en_GB/nintendo_3ds_23802.html"
imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"
target="_blank""><img alt="Nintendo 3DS Logo" border="0" height="56"
src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/--AWSNblmvZA/TWt8UC2yFDI/AAAAAAAAAI0/vY8suL7AggQ/s400/3DS+Logo.png" title="Nintendo 3DS Logo" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">

You need to change what is highlighted in orange to the following:

src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/--

You can do this to older posts too by editing them after and it will load up new thumbnails in the widget. (The part where is says "lh6" may be different for your images so leave it as it appears in yours.)

This does work, but it needs to be done to all posts so I hope Google gets this fixed as soon as possible.

Add A Widget (Menu) Above The Title (Header) In Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 05:56:00 +0000

Browsing around websites you may notice that the vast majority have a small menu bar at the very top of the page. This sometimes adds consistent functionality to the site on all pages, or like the one on this blog adds basic quick links and some info. Adding this is a simple way to make your blog look more professional, or just to add some fanciness.

In order to do this you need to go into the HTML and edit some of the code to provide the ability to add widgets to this section in the Page Elements area.

1. First, in Blogger go to the Design View and click on Edit HTML. As always, download the full template to keep a backup before you make any changes.

Then do a search and find the following code (hint: I found that the instances of the search term – ‘Header’ – only occur here so you may be able to search for just this):

<div class='region-inner header-inner'>
<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='1' showaddelement='no'>
<b:widget id='Header1' locked='true' title='Bottom Left (Header)' type='Header'>

2. Here you can see that maxwidgets is set to just 1, showaddelement is set to no, and locked is set to true. Change the maxwidgets to a higher number (I used 3) to allow more widgets to be added. Change the showaddelement to yes to allow for the add widget link to be selected. Finally, change the locked attribute to false to allow you to move the default position of the header. You should now be left with the following code:

<div class='region-inner header-inner'>
<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='3' showaddelement='yes'>
<b:widget id='Header1' locked='false' title='Bottom Left (Header)' type='Header'>

3. Now save the template and go back to the Page Elements area in the Design section of the Blogger Dashboard. You should now have the ability to add widgets to this section! You can add anything you want here but my advice is to keep it simple.

Nintendo 3DS Hands On In Tokyo

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:53:00 +0000

On March 25th Nintendo will release it's new handheld gaming console, the next generation DS, now in 3D. So is it as good as they want us to believe? Should we trade in our older boring two-dimensional DS's and upgrade to 3D goodness?

In January I was walking around Akihabara's biggest digital tech store and I bumped into the 3DS show stand. Literally bumped into, I was looking the other way at a shiny red Wii (I sold my Wii to help buy a one way plane ticket, worth it but I still miss it...) and I walked into the back of the display. That was how much Nintendo needed to advertise their new console in Japan, everyone knows about it. Walking around the other side I saw there wasn't much of a queue. Ah. Lunchtime. Everyone has lunch at the same time here. So I decided to join the mini-queue and have a little play.

I say little play, and I mean it. I got 2 minutes on the toy, even though there was no-one waiting. Doesn't give people enough time to form a negative opinion after the initial wow factor I'm guessing, or maybe it was because I am obviously a foreigner and nowhere near as obsessed as the locals.

So, 2 minutes. I got to play one bout of Super Street Fighter 4, and I can say I was impressed. The 3D slider probably needs adjustment for every individual but it is hardly a bother, and the 3D does exactly what it is meant to. It really does add an extra dimension to the game. Alas, it is not the third dimension.

When I say that, obviously the 3D effect is 3D as we know it, but this certainly is no Avatar. The 3D did not "pop-out" at me and make me duck and dive as the punches and kicks kept coming (I did pretty badly and lost the first round in less than 15 seconds). What it did do was compensate for the "lack" of graphics. I put lack in inverted commas as this really is a comparative statement, the DS was never intended to compete with console or PC gaming, it is aimed at short semi-intensive play-time fun. Instead, the 3D effect got me more involved in what was going on, even in Street Fighter! I do like it.

However. How should I put this? I hate glossy screens. If there is one thing I despise on a laptop it is a shiny screen. I don't care if it gives me a better contrast ratio, I don't use my computer exclusively with the lights off, and I do open the curtains during the daytime. These glossy screens seem to have a vendetta against me to always shine the light directly in my eyes no matter where I position myself. Unfortunately the 3DS suffers from the same problem. As I moved the Nintendo I would get strip lighting, led lighting and my face reflected back at me. I don't know if the gloss is required for the 3D effect but it really is a problem for me. I fully realise that others don't have that problem and it is not as bad on this console as it is on the Asus netbooks, so definitely try before you buy.

Picture from www.techrepublic.com

Overall I have to say I am impressed with the Nintendo 3DS, but I will not be buying it on launch day. [Incidentally, you may be thinking that March 25th is a strange day to launch something as big as the 3DS, but it makes perfect sense - in Japan. Here the school year ends on Thursday 24th March, so Daddy can by his son the new toy on the Friday after work as a well done present. Lucky Japanese kids.] Much like when the original DS Phat was launched, I will be waiting until at least the second revision. I currently have the DS XL, having upgraded from the DS Lite, and the larger screen size is something I love.

So this is to you Nintendo, make the screen less glossy, and make it bigger and I'll buy it. Heck, I'll buy two, one for me and one for my sister.

Copying Text From Word Into Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 23:34:00 +0000

Most times when preparing a post for blogger you will first write it in Word and want to transfer the text into Blogger using copy and paste. This can present a problem as a straight copy and paste will result in Word’s markup language being copied with it, bypassing any font, size and format settings you have set in Blogger. This is an easy problem to solve, simply copy the text as you would normally, but instead of pasting into the “Compose” tab, click on the “Edit HTML” tab and past into there. Then feel free to click back into “Compose” to do any further editing or to add images. It really is that simple! Happy Blogging!

A Short Essay On Piracy

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 05:15:00 +0000

From the time I got my first tape recorder I remember pirating songs. But it wasn’t called piracy back then. At least not in the mainstream world, and the term certainly wasn’t thrown around the news as it is today. Yet the question still remains as to what the real difference is between taping a song off the radio and downloading a torrent.

The first songs I remember taping and making into an almost complete album was Guns ‘n Roses Appetite for Destruction. I diligently paid attention to radio listings and DJ’s comments for upcoming tracks and recorded them onto my tape, and then played it back endlessly. I was 9 years old at the time. The first copied game I played was Duke Nukem 3D which some altruistic pupil had loaded onto the school network for all to play, and copy to floppy disks. Back then I had no idea that this was “costing thousands of people their jobs”. For me it was listening to music I liked and playing a game that someone had given to me.

Time passed and I accumulated a larger collection of tapes from the radio. By this point I had purchased both Appetite for Destruction on CD and a real version of Duke Nukem. Then came Napster. Amazing. I could get all the songs that as a school boy with no allowance I had no hope of getting. I was happy.

Fast-forward to now, and I would be branded a thief. By stealing music I was stripping the artist of hard earned money and ruining their lives. I am a bad person. But really, am I?

The grey area surrounding torrents is one that needs to be laid down in plain English (or French, Italian etc.) for everyone to understand. As I have progressed through life I have heard that taping songs off the radio is actually illegal. But I have never seen this written in an obvious way and I have certainly never heard it mentioned by a DJ on any radio station. If it is indeed illegal, and has been for some time, then why have I never heard stories of police knocking on peoples doors demanding young boy’s and girl’s mix tapes to be destroyed and fines to be paid? How many parents have copied films broadcast on TV on VHS for their children to watch at a later date? Surely this is tantamount to piracy too?

And what of downloading TV series that are freely broadcast on TV? If a UK citizen is outside of the UK he is not able to watch programmes on the internet from his home country, though in all probability he is paying his TV license. So he downloads the same programme from the internet. He is now a thief. Something his friends and family watched at home, and maybe even recorded, is not accessible to him in a legal manner. What of broadening the scope, to US shows for example. They are full of product placement and internal advertising, yet even the shows broadcast for free are not allowed outside the country. Advertising is still advertising.

I fear the answer is not what we are being told. While it is obvious to all that downloading a film or a game that has not yet been released (recent examples would be Wolverine and Crysis 2) is bad behaviour and does have a negative impact on projected earnings, other material on the torrent sites is more dubious.

Many people download a film that is in the cinema in lower quality and quite happily watch it and never give any money to the companies involved in the production of the film. The same goes for music. But there is a hint of viral marketing present in torrents. Advertisers continuously talk about the advantages of word-of-mouth advertising and torrents perform this task admirably. There are many bands I would never have heard of without Napster or Limewire, and as a result of these programs I did go out and by legitimate copies of the albums. I also came across albums from bands I liked that were terrible and would have made me upset to buy. I, like many people, have a budget for how much I spend on music and films, and I always spend that money and very rarely any more. I would not spend more if torrents were unavailable. They do, however, afford you the chance to avoid buying something that you won’t like, which would in reality equate to negative advertising. If you buy something you don’t like that you have been told was good by company X, you would be a lot less likely to buy anything from company X again in the future.

Before I give my reason for why I think that piracy has become such a prevalent topic recently let me state that I agree with the idea that stealing is wrong. It is true that the same people who download from the internet would not generally speaking walk into a shop and steal the CD or DVD. Torrents have made stealing easier and no one can deny that.

I think the answer lies with how easy it has become to see who is copying what. Before, no one could monitor what you were recording at home. You could potentially tape every new release off the radio and amass a ridiculously large collection of music for free, and with the advent of digital radio it would be in comparable quality for the average listener. Now you have to go through your ISP which can track your bandwidth and as a result you would receive a threatening letter. It seems that because the record labels and film studios now have a way of detecting copying they are acting upon it to get more money. The argument that it hurts employee’s salaries in a significant manner has not yet been substantially shown. Everyone in the US will remember the writer’s strike not long back over low salaries, but there has been no executive director strike over the same issue. If the studios are not appropriating their money proportionally or correctly then that cannot be blamed on torrents.

So we come to the point of corporate greed, something which everyone has strong feelings about, yet we still have precious few facts surrounding this. While it has been shown that some are indeed overly greedy, we cannot say the same for all as we have not sat down and studied the facts. If the songs and films I did download in the past adversely affected someone’s life then I am truly sorry, and I agree that a lot of people making almost imperceptible dents will make a noticeable difference.

So yes, piracy is bad, if I want to know if I will like a film I should watch the trailers and find a film critic who I trust. If I want to know if I will like an album I should… Hmm. This one is a bit more difficult. Am I meant to filter through every band’s website and see what they have put up for me to hear as a reflection of their album? Do I listen non-stop to the radio? Do I subscribe to their YouTube channel? I’ll go with YouTube.

YouTube. Here we have what seems to be the world’s most institutionalised piracy forum. Everything seems to be there. Every song you can think of, even complete films can be found. And yet this website, which unlike the Pirate Bay hosts the videos, is legal. This is a website which popular artists use non-stop, yet alongside their own songs are the same ones uploaded by someone else. But the other ones are not allowed. They are illegal and in some cases are taken down. The artists then complain endlessly about how much they disagree with their songs being uploaded by other users. Now if the artists weren’t being hypocrites they would take themselves off YouTube and host all the videos and music on their own sites along with all the promotional benefits. But the promotional benefits are what drove them to YouTube in the first place. People go onto YouTube because they can watch what they want and listen to any song whenever they are near the internet. That is why the artists get their publicity. The users are not there solely because of you! They are there and happy to see you too!

This duplicity is what undermines the entire concept of convincing people that torrents are bad. It cannot be done both ways, either you accept the torrents and find a way to use them to your advertising advantage, or you stay clear of anything that comes close to resembling piracy. Please make your choices, either twist this to your advantage, or actually cut it out. Do not badmouth it from one side yet seemingly accept it from the other, it is confusing and will not help anyone in the long run.

Logitech G5 Budget Mouse Mod

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 08:29:00 +0000

A bit of background to start:

One day while bored at uni one of my friends lent me his copy of Custom PC. This is where my problems began. Within a month I had spent my full terms student loan on a new computer. It was beautiful, expensive, and didn’t work. Having never actually seen the inside of a computer before, I didn’t realize that you needed a graphics card and a motherboard. Woops. So out I went to get the latest and greatest graphics card, an ATI Radeon X800. Far Cry looked awesome! Still couldn’t really play it though. My keyboard was a crappy generic PC World home brand. It was time to introduce myself to the world of peripherals.

The funny thing about having no money is that you are more willing to spend it, so out I go and come back home with a Logitech G15. Ooh, light up keys and an LCD! I got instantly better at jumping around like a lunatic. Still couldn’t actually shoot anything. OK, time to get a mouse. Having decided that I like Logitech, and being slightly OCD sometimes so everything must match, I got a G5. Love at first sight. And I’ve been using the same mouse ever since. I’ve always had an eye out for a replacement but nothing seems to suit me better!

Stock G5 image. Got too excited and forgot to take a pic of mine first.

So why cut it up?

In the past 3 years I have worked in 3 different countries so unfortunately had to abandon desktop power and live with a laptop. This meant that though the mouse comes with me everywhere (even to work) I had to leave the keyboard behind (actually I sold it on ebay for more than I paid for it in the first place, after 3 years. Some people have a serious problem). Now, this isn’t really a problem, but the first thing I noticed after leaving the keyboard is how often I used to look at the clock on the display. Seems silly, but sometimes you have to live to a timetable so it’s good to know the time. A couple of weeks ago I had the first problem with the mouse, the side scroll and right mouse click stopped working. I was not happy.

Time to take it apart at last. Then I figured, I might as well put a clock in it. So there it is. All this talk and all I’m going to do is add the time. Having been provided with many hours of entertainment on various modding websites (notably www.bit-tech.net) I thought I would take a plunge and contribute something, even if it isn’t very much. Besides, given the obvious technical expertise of some of the modders out there I was surprised not to find more on people modding their mice (or at least they’re not showing us) so thought this could help start some new ideas.

First things first, take it apart. Here it is in all its glory:

To be honest I’m surprised at how small the actual electronics board is. I thought I was getting more for my money.

The sacrificial watch:

LED awesomeness. Got this watch from Next 4 years ago and have never really used it. Apart from the LEDs it’s pretty ugly.

At this point I realized that I had a problem. To see the time on this watch you have to press the top right button, otherwise you are presented with a blank screen. Also, to change the time you need to use loads of buttons, and then there is changing the battery. Initially I was planning on putting the clock near the surface of the palm rest much like the LCD screen added in this mod (http://metku.net/index.html?path=mods/loginoki/index_eng). Then I remembered. The G5’s adjustable weights cartridge! Putting the clock in there means it is removable so changing the time and battery would be simple. Still doesn't solve the problem of how to light up the clock, but I’ll think about that later…

Anyway, here is the basic idea:

This would mean that the time would be visible from a rectangle cut just above where it says “Logitech”, right aligned. I wanted to cut as little as possible from this top plate so that I didn’t upset the curves and comfort too much. So cutting had to be done in stages.

Now I have to explain the budget part of this mod. It is not that this mod doesn’t cost much (it really doesn’t) it’s that I am in Japan now and all my tools are at home in Italy. My dremel, my beautiful dremel! So I had to get new tools here and I really didn’t want to spend much money on stuff that I will inevitably leave behind. Off to the 100 Yen shop (Japanese equivalent of a Pound Shop). Little side note, in the 100 Yen shop, things actually cost 105 Yen. It’s an extra 5 for tax. Liars.

Here are the tools:

Total cost of everything here: 5 quid. And yes, it is a battery powered “dremel”. The packaging says that is spins at 1200RPM! Well, maybe not that fast, but it is close. The problem is that it has no torque. It’s probably fine for engraving but when it comes to drilling, it’s pretty poor. Cutting is also hindered by the fact that I couldn’t find the right part to hold the circular cutting blade. So to cut, I had to drill out many holes, and then use one of the metal filers to cut through. It took a long time. All the cutting so far actually took about 5 hours and 8 batteries. Given that I have to do this all outside where it is cold here too, it’s not fun. But anyway, here’s what I’ve got so far:

There’s still some filing to be done by hand and painting the top plate, but it looks better than in the picture in real life. It’s a bit difficult to take pretty pictures when it’s raining outside.

You may have noticed that there is still no button anywhere to actually show the time. This is something to think about later. To get to the button and fully depress it about 8mm of travel is required (this allows the pin to come back far enough for the weights tray to be removed easily) which is quite a lot. My only idea at this point was to use the top part of a clicky pen with a spring and a plastic needle on the right side of the mouse. This may not look great though. The size was not really an issue to be honest as I’ve checked and my hand won’t actually be on that point, so no discomfort.

1 week later

So, the mouse is now done (edit – not quite). Having played around with the watch a bit more I found out that closing the circuit does not leave the watch on, there needs to be an actual circuit change, so I found a switch that does just that. Having not studied electronics I don’t know the name of this type of switch, but it has a permanently closed circuit and pushing the button seems to just flick the circuit(?). I’m not sure how to explain it any better than that! The button cap I found on one of those key ring LED lights. The switch is going to be glued to the inside of the mouse with the button poking through the smallest hole possible to keep the mouse looking as clean as possible. The switch will then be wired to two rails on the cartridge loading tray. The watch will be wired so that when the cartridge is inserted, the two halves of the circuit make a connection with the rails and close the circuit! Genius! This simple idea took me a long time to implement though (edit – so long I haven’t finished it yet!).

The switch and button:

Personally, I’m quite impressed with the way this looks from the outside. Not having the right tools does not help when trying to make circles, I resorted to drilling a hole with a 1.2mm drill bit and then hand filing using a circular file bit by bit. The circle is not perfect, but the more I seem to try to correct it the bigger the whole gets and at the moment it’s the perfect size. With the silver button installed it looks almost factory drilled (OK, kidding myself here a bit but it does look good, right?)

The next little change to plan was the idea for the brushes to connect the cartridge to the rails. I left two compartments for weights in the cartridge originally just because I could, but I then found out that the cartridges themselves will conduct nicely, so they could be used instead of brushes and make the inside a bit more elegant.

The rails themselves are made from cut and bent aluminium alloy 3104-H19 (yes, alumin-i-um. There is definitely an “i”). Sounds professional, but wait, the metal itself was procured in the following form:

Recycle, it’s the way forward!!

What you may not know is that the inside of these cans is lined with some sort of plastic which has to be scraped off with a knife first. This procedure results in lots of aluminium dust being thrown in the air, which I believe is bad for your health. Oh well.

So here it is, Logitech G5 Version 2. Having seen what it looks like with the first couple of coats of paint I realize there is a lot more refining to do to make it look perfect. The main task is to file the edges of the cut-away a lot more to make the cut blend into the shape of the mouse better, because at the moment it looks very “cut” whereas I want a more “formed” look. Having taken the pictures in macro I now realize the amount of effort that some of the serious modders put into filing and sanding plastic. While everything looks fine normally, when you zoom in you can really see all the defects, so some refining is required on my part on the internals. Because, even though you can’t see anything from the outside, I will still know about the mess inside, and that will drive me crazy.

As you can see in the picture I have found “dust blocker” for the cutaway in the mouse. This is a semi-reflective golden screen cover for a phone I found at the 100 Yen shop. Having put some in as a test I think it will match the orange LEDs nicely (and the little orange running man which I can’t bring myself to paint over, it’s just too pathetic when you really look at it).

Edit: I actually wrote most of this post at work before starting any of the work a few days before, unfortunately while gluing the switch onto the shell I got a bit overzealous with the glue and managed to glue the switch permanently shut. Damn..

So what remains is filing, painting and wiring. Hmm, sounds like what I said needed to be done in the first post. Funny, seeing as I have spent so much time on this already (not nearly as much as I would have liked, damn pre-Christmas workload.

Another week gone

So, it’s finally done. Overall I’m quite happy with the result but in hindsight I realize that the whole process would have been much smoother, easier and prettier if I had access to the right tools. Hardware from the pound shop just doesn’t cut the mustard. I’m sure it is still possible, but this being my first mod I had a lot to learn. Fixing things is a very different game to creating something. The paint job still hasn’t materialized as I still haven’t thought of a design I really like, but the mouse had to go together as I need to kill something (my wireless Elecom Scope Node though very good with office tasks just struggles with head shots, and I got used to customized switchable sensitivity). So here it is. I apologize for the shot of the mouse with the clock on, I haven’t got a tripod so it’s a bit difficult to take the picture and press the button at the same time, rest assured that when the lights are off in the room (gaming mode) the time is clearly visible and not blurred.

Yes, I used solder as my conducting wire. I figured it would be a good conductor.

All wired up and ready to go! The wiring for this was requisitioned from the TV out cable for my camera. Who uses that anyway?

So here is an out of focus picture of the clock lit up. Lights off of course because they always are when I’m doing anything full screen.

From the right. You can just see the button for the clock here. Sufficiently subtle for my tastes.

I like this picture. I think it really shows off the gold reflective film matching the orange LEDs. (And yes, being that reflective it does make it difficult to read the time in daylight, next time the clock comes closer to the surface.)

Before and after.

Thanks for reading!

Edit The Read More And User ID In Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 00:52:00 +0000

Editing the read more and user ID appearance in posts is a small change but can help make your blog look more like how you want it. Changing the user ID in particular makes your name stand out, which is always good!

1. First, in Blogger go to the Design View and click on Edit HTML. As always, download the full template to keep a backup before you make any changes.
To edit the Read More you need to find the jump link section in the HTML code. In order to do this you need to click on Expand Widget Templates and find the following code:

<b:if cond='data:post.hasJumpLink'>
<div class='jump-link'>
<a expr:href='data:post.url +
"#more"' expr:title='data:post.title'>
<data:post.jumpText/></a></div>
</b:if>

The section of this that needs to be controlled is data:post.jumpText. This is the part that draws in the text from the built in editor when you edit the jump text in the Page Elements. There are two things you can do here. You can delete the entire part and replace the text manually, or you can just edit the appearance with HTML tags. I just added HTML tags as I had already made my changes to the text in the Page Elements section. The code I ended up using was as follows:

<b:if cond='data:post.hasJumpLink'>
<div class='jump-link'>
<a expr:href='data:post.url +
"#more"' expr:title='data:post.title'>
<center><span style='color:#ff9900'>
<small><data:post.jumpText/></small>
</span></center></a></div>
</b:if>

Here you can see that I first centered the text with a center tag. Then using span style=’color:#ff9900’ I changed the color to orange. I also added a small tag to remove emphasis from this part, as it is already orange!

Edit: The center tag is no longer recommended for use as it has been deprecated so use style="text-align:center" instead.

2. Editing the user ID adds emphasis to who is posting, you! Once again to edit this you need to click on Expand Widget Templates, then find the following code:

<div class='post-footer'>
<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'>
<span class='post-author vcard'>
<b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>
<data:top.authorLabel/>
<span class='fn'><data:post.author/></span>

I found the easiest way to find this is to search for ‘vcard’ as there is only one instance of this, so you will jump straight to this section.

The part of this that wants formatting is the data:post.author. I made the following changes:

<span class='fn' style='color: #ff9900;
font-variant: small-caps;'>
<strong><data:post.author/></strong></span>

Within the span section I change the color to orange and added a font-variant to give the name small capitals and added a strong tag to make the name to appear in bold. Once again, feel free to experiment and use the preview button to see the effect of any changes you make.

Editing The Post Box In Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:00:00 +0000

This guide is a description of how to edit just the area where the posts are written, from just above the title all the way down to, and including, the labels. Editing the post box is something that I found difficult to tailor properly in the Template Designer, jumping into the CSS and HTML turned out to be the best way of adjusting the look to what I wanted. The problem with this is that there is a lot that can go wrong when making these specific changes to a site that you haven’t coded yourself as you have no idea where to start looking for the specific code. One trick that I use to find the relevant sections is the Inspect Element option provided in Google’s Chrome browser.

To access this open any website you want in Chrome, then right click on the section you are interested in (menus, text, boxes anything) and choose Inspect Element from the drop down menu. This then shows you the applicable HTML and CSS code for that section. You will then notice something else that is quite frankly amazing, as you move the mouse cursor over different parts of the HTML code shown on the bottom of the screen, Chrome will in turn highlight the applicable section of the site page that is being affected by that part of the code! This is incredibly helpful and I use it to speed up page coding massively. Anyway, back to editing the posting box.

1. The first thing was to add a border to the post section to match that of the date header. In the date head image I used I had a two pixel orange border, so I will need the same here. In Blogger go to the Design View and click on Edit HTML. As always, download the full template to keep a backup before you make any changes. Do a search and find the following code:

/* Posts

Below this I added the following code:

.post { padding: 5px; border: 2px solid #ff9900; background-color: #080808; background-image: url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFRipMmusWBK6trkK-xH9efOCN8bvh42DcuJUATF2ccabuUQ6A-F81u3OGTRZHVbjdr9ygjSJezuQOECh6cDK2nQQUpvjmbkd6IH9O11pa9qJHaqaLqSLLD5wUlEomBHamGIbKRYvP1vsq/s800/post_fade.png); background-repeat: repeat-x;}

The .post definition doesn’t exist by default so you will need to copy and add the entire code. In this case I added padding to keep the text away from the border. The border itself is set at 2px, orange, and as a solid line. Next I added a background-color of a dark grey to give some difference from a black site background. I also added a background-image (10x100 pixels) to give a soft fade from black to the background color at the top of the posts to get rid of the inherent block effect of large areas of dark solid colors. This image was made in GIMP using the gradient brush of black to transparency set to repeat only horizontally.

2. The next edit was to the post title. Editing this in the HTML gives more control over the appearance than in the Template Designer. The following is the code I used:

h3.post-title {

margin-top: 0px;

background:url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcaUAtlkuh6impwpIhPgm7Uln00qvpRxH0F3kceQssESz0tfAavvhRjjEEoCJZxVhKzG-I3-EMKCcJPVBbUfiS6EXt2Rt6DA2P7fKa_bnxBjC0nfJ4tdA5_94cHn1movyR-q9iBTIjx8sH/s800/post_title.png) no-repeat;

padding:0 0 4px 28px;

font-variant: small-caps;

color: #ff9900;

}



h3.post-title a {

font: $(post.title.font);

color: $(post.title.text.color);

font-variant: small-caps;

}

To make the title always appear with small capitals I had to add the code in 2 places. This is so that the capitals appear both on the front page and also in the full post view. To do this you just need to add a font-variant. There are other font variants available should you wish to try something different, just do a google search to see the available options.

The rest of the edits can be done in h3.post-title. Here I set the color of the post title to orange and also added an image to always appear next to the post title. I added the image as a background and set it to no repeat. To stop the text from appearing on top of the image I added padding to the text to move it to the right. Depending on the size of your image you may need to change these values.

Once again, experiment with the CSS here to see what else you come up with to suit your needs.

NB. I check everything in Chrome and Firefox to make sure it looks right. In Internet Explorer some things render differently than in the other browsers. Though I do check to make sure nothing is horrendously out of place. I want my site to look nice, and both Chrome and Firefox seem to render the code more accurately so I will stick to optimizing for them.

Format The Date Header In Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:46:00 +0000

Sometimes you may not want the date to be on the left above the post title. I didn’t, so I looked at ways to change this. This guide may not be the most in depth in terms of editing the date but it does give the basis for doing more if you know some CSS. By adding your own background to this section you can further customize the look allowing for some interesting effects, enhancing the look of your posts dramatically. On a side note, remember that submitting more than one post in the same day causes the date to only appear once at the top of the most recent post. Bare this in mind when editing the look of the posts as it may result in unwanted effects.

First you need to be in Design View and click on Edit HTML. As always, download the full template to keep a backup before you make any changes.

1. In Edit HTML find the following:

.main-inner h2.date-header {

font: $(date.font);

color: $(date.text.color);

}

This is where you will add any code you wish for editing the date header. I suggest using the preview option on this one to see the effects of anything you may change.

2. This is the code that I have used up to this point:

.main-inner h2.date-header {

font: $(date.font);

color: $(date.text.color);

text-transform: uppercase;

text-align: right;

}

Using float: right; to right align the date has the effect of lowering the date resulting in the post title wrapping around the date. I use text-align: right; as this just moves the text to the right without changing the vertical positioning. I also added a text-transform: uppercase; making all letters in the date appear as capitals. Play around with the CSS here to see what you can do.

I went even further to add a folder type look to the date and posts with the following code:

.main-inner h2.date-header {

font: $(date.font);

color: $(date.text.color);

text-transform: uppercase;

text-align: right;

padding-right: 3px;

background: url('/date_bground.png') top right no-repeat;

}

By doing a Print Screen I was able to make an image for the background of the date header in GIMP on a new layer. To keep the transparency I recommend saving the image in .png format. Then I used this image as a background for that section. I added some padding to the right to space the text away from the border I had drawn in the image. The image is placed in the top right and is only displayed once (no-repeat). [Replace /date_bground.png with your image link]

This is actually a very powerful way of editing the look of your posts as you aren’t limited to only changing and using the backgrounds that the Blogger Template Designer shows.

Default Justify Blog Posts In Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 07:38:00 +0000

I tend to think of a blog as a book. If you were to print your diary and publish it for the world to see then the print would most likely be justified. This may not always be the best solution though. A lot of websites, including news website, do not justify their text. This may be because as the horizontal space for text reduces, the formatting may start to look out of place. I, however, always prefer justified text as I like having the straight lines. If you decide you want to justify your text then do the following.

First you need to be in Design View and click on Edit HTML. As always, download the full template to keep a backup before you make any changes.

1. In Edit HTML find the following:

.post-body {

line-height: 1.4;

position: relative;

}

2. Add the following code within the parentheses:

text-align: justify;

So your final code will look like this:

.post-body {

line-height: 1.4;

position: relative;

text-align: justify;

}

By replacing the word ‘justify’ with either ‘center’ or ‘right’ you can align the posts in the center or to the right respectively.

Change The Blogger Favicon

noreply@blogger.com (Bottom Left) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:02:00 +0000

EDIT: Blogger now incorporates a favicon uploader in their "Design" page on the Dashboard, so you no longer need to do this!!!

Pretty much all websites now have their own favicon. A favicon is a 16x16 pixel image that is shown in the explorer bar and when people bookmark your site so it is nice to have one personalized. You can either draw your own picture in paint or GIMP, or resize your own picture. The advantage of dawing your own is that it can be perfectly personalized. The advantage of resizing is that you get the advantage of automatic software blending, so that the edges don’t seem as sharp. The choice is yours. Once you have your image (jpg, png, gif, bmp, ico or tiff for this method) take the following steps.

1. First go to http://www.iconj.com/ which is the online favicon generator and host that I use.

The home page should look similar to the screenshot above. Click ‘Choose File’ and browse to your image that you want to use and choose a sharpen level (I always choose ‘No Sharpen’) and click on ‘Upload Now’.

2. You should now be presented with the screen below:

The link that you will want to use for Blogger is the Direct Link. This means the favicon is hosted at IconJ’s own website. I don’t know how long it stays there, but all mine are still going strong, but keep an eye out just in case you need to repeat the process. Copy the link provided here.

3. Now, in Blogger go to the Design View and click on Edit HTML. As always, download the full template to keep a backup before you make any changes.

Next find the following code:

Now just paste the code provided at IconJ below this. The final code should look something like the following (with your own link of course!)

You now have your very own favicon!