kozaru

Long time

Michael — Sun, 24 May 2009 01:24:33 +0000

It’s been a long time between posts, I know. I’ve been quite busy.
Work is flat out on account of a colleauge going on maternity leave, and the decision being made that she will not be replaced, therefore lumping me with the day to day of her job. Along with my own of course.
I will be getting a spot of knee surgery soon. My knee has been annoying me lately. Like a tooth ache or when you bite your cheek, and then keep biting it for days. The end of my leg bone is all rough, and basically needs to be cut and polished. MRI first though, so the guy can see exactly what is going on.
I’m using the wordpress app on the iPhone right now. It’s quite nice, so I’ll make a few more posts.

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Victorian Bushfires, CFA Heroes

Michael — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 03:32:45 +0000

Over 100 dead, 750+ homes destroyed, townships wiped out, fires still burning out of control and will be for weeks. Our worst bushfire ever.

Not that any of them will see it here, but just so as many people as possible know…
The majority of firefighters in the state of Victoria are volunteers. There are only about 30 CFA stations staffed with “career firefighters” in the whole of the state, an area slightly larger than Idaho, and a population a little less than Arizona. We do have a professional force, but they don’t even cover the whole Melbourne metro area.

There are stories coming out now of employers forcing CFA volunteers to take annual leave from their job to go work 24/7 for 2 weeks on the firefront, instead of just letting them go and do it.

What kind of person *volunteers* to drive up to this, get out, and grab a hose?

This kind.

Thanks, CFA Fireys.

- Pictures from here

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Custom Ringtones in iTunes for your iPhone

Michael — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:00:02 +0000

You have a shiny new iPhone, and you want custom ringtones on it. You right-click your favourite song and do “Make Ringtone”…. Nothing. You can only use purchased songs.
OK you say, a buck ninety-nine for my bestest fav song in the world as my ringtone is fair. So you buy from iTunes, right click to make a ringtone aaaand… Nothing.
Too bad, you’re outside the US. No ringtone for you.

Or is there?

Here’s a way to make custome iPhone ringtones from music in your library just using iTunes.

1. Find the song you want.

2. Figure out which 30-second chunk will be the ringtone.

3. Right-click in iTunes on your song a select Get Info.

4. Look for the Start and End boxes, enter in minutes and seconds the start time of the chunk, and the end time, click OK.
Remember it *MUST* be 30 seconds or less.

5. Right-click again, this time select “Create AAC Version”.
If you don’t see “AAC”, go to Edit>Preferences find Import Settings and change the type to AAC.

6. You should now see a 30-second (or less, whatever) song with the same name. Drag it to your desktop.

7. Delete the short version from your iTunes library, say yes to delete the file.

8. Rename the file you dragged to your desktop so that it has a .m4r extension instead of .m4a

9. Drag it back to where it says “Library” above your playlists.

10. Sync your iPhone and enjoy your custome ringtoney goodness.

I got this process from a CNet video, embedded below for your perusal.

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iPhone 3G Battery

Michael — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:48:23 +0000

So, I have a new iPhone. I’m not going to turn this into an iPhone-centric blog, but I will post some things I learn about this device here.

Starting with battery power conservation.

I noticed that I was draining almost all of my battery in a day, but that I was online a lot, getting apps and stuff like you do when you have a new toy. So it got me thinking as to how I could save battery. My friend gilmae mentioned that 3G sucks down the juice so i started from there.

1. Turn off 3G
I know, i know, it’s a 3G iPhone. But I don’t hear any difference in call quality or dropouts with GPRS, so i turn on 3G when I’m away from a WiFi signal.

2. Turn off Wifi
Unless you want to be online. WiFi actually uses less power than 3G, so use it first.

3. Turn Off Bluetooth
It’s off by default, but make sure. I used my BT headset with a more-or-less average result, so I’m sticking with the wired headset. You can’t push files with the iPhone BT anyway.

4. Turn Off Location
Not every app uses GPS, and if you need maps on all the time, you probably don’t deserve an iPhone. Switch this on with 3G (to refresh the maps) when you need it.

5. Turn off Push
Unless you’re a very active, very busy COE, you liekly don’t need to know the second an email comes in. Turn of Push and set your email to Fetch once an hour, or even manually. I do this with GPRS, because a few lines of text downloads quick.

6. Adjust the Brightness
Or have Auto Brightness On. Easy one.

7. Turn off EQ
Do you really need to bass boost songs on your iPhone? Turn off the equaliser, it uses up CPU cycles, and that means power.

All of the above should help somewhat with the battery life on your iPhone. This is what I use, but you may find other combos are better.

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Iphone

Michael — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 02:21:26 +0000

I has an iPhone! But it’s not all fun. I had to call telstra to get my account number for my old service. Three people and a call back later, I had the number. The application went through and I walked out with my new phone with the promise that it would take at worst 4 hours to churn. It’s now 16 hours.
I grabbed an old bill to check the number telstra gave over the phone… It was different. The bill has an extra zero. So now I’m back off to the optus shop to try again.
Still, wireless works fine. I’m posting this using the wordpress app for iPhone :)

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At the start of a long weekend?

Michael — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:48:50 +0000

My Xbox just RRoD‘d.

I already have a return order. I went back to work, got a box and a shitload of bubblewrap. All packaged up for Aus Post.

Always at the weekend.

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links for 2008-10-28

Michael — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:03:50 +0000

Multicolr Search Lab - Idée Inc.

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links for 2008-10-27

Michael — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:05:09 +0000

Hack Attack: Control multiple computers with a single keyboard and mouse

by Adam PashYou don't need a hardware switch to share one keyboard and mouse amongst several different computers All you

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Srsly? WTF!

Michael — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:26:54 +0000

My wife and I try to eat out once a week, sort of as a date. We have a regular restaurant we eat at. More or less local, we go a lot, they know us, never had a bad meal there.
It’s Monday so it’s not open.
So we decide to go to the local pub bistro. We’ve been before, it’s pub food, but it’s OK.
Specials board is interesting. There’s a chicken dish, stuffed with avocado and prawns. Sounds OK.
Wife goes to order. 2 of them please. Chips/Veggies or Chips/Salad was the question. One with A one with B.
$25.00 for the specials mind you. At a pub. Aaaanyway.
Meals come. One chicken thing. One spicy sausage thing. Uhhh…
“Whatever,” I say “just leave it.”
I don’t like to send things back to the kitchen. Especially in this case, it wasn’t the kitchens fault, the fat man stabbing the buttons for the order got it wrong.
It starts to get at me tho, this pissy little chicken thing, wet (not moist mind you, *wet*) vegetables and chips.
So I start complaining. “How fucking hard is it to get a multiple of the same item? I mean really. 2 x product A. Stupid fat guy mashing his hand on the console. You go out for a meal, and you expect what you order. Not a shitty little stub of chicken and some sausage things.” etc, etc, etc.
A few moments later, a waitress comes over. “He’s really sorry, he must have pushed the wrong button for the order. He wants to know would you like some free desserts?”
… What.
The.
Fuck.
Why do some eating establishments think that when they fuck up your initial food order, they can make it better by bringing you more food?
HOW CAN I TRUST YOU NOT TO BRING A FUCKING DUCK FLAMBE INSTEAD OF A FUCKING SUNDAE?
… I think to myself, and just say “No, just… No.”
So I choke down dry chicken, wet veggies (pumpkin and zucchini for the record. That’s it.) and some of Wife’s spicy sausage thing, finish the beer and leave.

Never to return.

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links for 2008-10-20

Michael — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:03:59 +0000

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kozaru

Long time

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