But this doesn’t account for those rare but possible times when you are not on your machine, or don’t have access to a browser set up to your tastes. No extensions available.

That’s where “KeepVid” comes in. Just enter your URL and it automatically extracts any video(s) found on that website and allows you to download in both FLV and MP4 formats. The MP4 would play on your Nokia, iPhone, or Blackberry too. The FLV file is a flash viewer file, and easily played using common video players–if you don’t have VLC, get it pronto.

Here’s a straightforward screenshot:

The ALTER TABLE ...ALTER COLUMN...TYPE... command is useful only if you want to alter the data somehow, or change the data type. Otherwise, it’ll be an aeon before this finishes even inside a transaction on a database of any meaningful size.

Until now, I was not familiar with any sensible mechanism to simply change the size in PG. But yesterday, Tom Lane himself suggested something ubercool in the list.

Let’s assume for the sake of simplicity that your table is called “TABLE1” and your column is “COL1″. You can find the size of your “COL1” column by issuing the following query on the system tables:

select atttypmod from pg_attribute
where attrelid = 'TABLE1'::regclass
and attname = 'COL1';

atttypmod
-----------
24
(1 row)

This means that the size is 20 (4 is added for legacy reasons, we’re told). You can now conveniently change this to a varchar(35) size by issuing this command:

update pg_attribute set atttypmod = 35+4
where attrelid = 'TABLE1'::regclass
and attname = 'COL1';

UPDATE 1

Note that I manually added the 4 to the desired size of 35..again, for some legacy reasons inside PG. Done. That’s it. Should we check?

d TABLE1

Table "public.TABLE1"
Column  |  Type                 | Modifiers
--------+-----------------------+-----------
COL1    | character varying(35) |

Such a simple yet effective trick. Of course it’d be nicer if this is somehow included in a more proper way in the database, but this does the job.

To cut the geek-speak, this simply means that you hard disk may have certain files that may have “bad sectors”, or are corrupted in other words.

Fortunately, this is a common enough problem in our technically advanced world of external storage. I recommend solving this on Windows (I use both XP and OSX Leopard at the time of this writing).

Step 1: CHKDSK

Use what Windows offers you by default. The chkdsk command. Just open an MS-DOS command prompt window and go to the drive you wish to check (I’m hoping you already know your way around a command prompt; if you don’t please consider Step 2 below). With the command prompt showing the drive letter of the disk you wish to check, enter this command:

e:> chkdsk /R

Here, “e:” is my drive to be checked. The “/R” attribute asks the chkdsk command to “recover” whatever bad sectors it finds during its scan. In most cases, and if you’re lucky, this ought to do it.

Step 2: CDCheck (Free)

Only if the problem you were facing still remains after you have run the chkdsk command, should you consider doing this. This is a freeware program that makes it super-easy to check/recover your disk. It can be any disk–your current hard disk, a CD or a DVD, or even an external hard disk. The interface is pretty simple as you can see in the screenshots here.

Step 3: SpinRite (US$ 90)

If all else has failed, just save yourself some heartburn and go straight to SpinRite. This is hands-down the best software for this purpose, as anyone in a dire need of data recovery will confirm. I would trust any piece of software from GRC. Only catch: it’s not free, but when you use it you know why it’s worth every last cent. It gives you a simple option to save an ISO file, which you can then easily burn on to a CD using any CD writer tool (including Windows’ own right-click). Then reboot your machine so it starts from the CD. SpinRite will automatically report and recover whatever is recoverable.

Next Steps

Basically, a CRC error is the beginning of the end. If this is on an external hard disk, I highly recommend that you consider backing up the data immediately.

I wanted to turn this off, but without turning off other auto complete functionality:

• I want to retain the autocomplete in forms (which can be managed from Tools -> Options -> Privacy)
• I also want to retain the autocomplete in the search box on the right (which can be turned off by right-clicking inside the box, and then checking off “Show Suggestions“)

But the Location Bar is a somewhat more involved beast. After hunting in the innards of “about:config” I discovered that this was possible. Just follow these steps:

1. In the location bar, type about:config. The location bar is of course the place where you type URLs. Note that this is your internal Firefox configuration. Don’t mess with it.
2. In the text box that appears at the top of this page, enter browser.urlbar.maxRichResults as the preference name. (Tip: copy it from here and paste it into that box.)
3. Set the value to 0 if you wish to disable the auto-complete altogether. I have it set to 2 so I get some suggestions but it doesn’t crowd up the experience.

Here is how I did.

1. First, close Safari. This is VERY important, as it does not work otherwise.
2. Start Terminal. (Go to Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal, or type Terminal in Spotlight).
3. Under Terminal type “sudo -s” without the quotation marks to log in as root.
4. Then enter:

   defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

5. Go to the blue (or gray) apple at the top left of the screen, then select Force Quit. From the menu of items, click on “Saft” and click on the Force Quit button.
6. Then, in the same Force Quit window, click on “Finder” and click the “Relaunch” button.
7. In the Finder window, on the top right bar (the Filter spotlight bar), type “saft” without the quotes. Delete with delight any file called Saft. Note: This may reveal a few other files that may contain the word “Saft” such as threads.py in my case (a Python file). Naturally, you want to NOT delete these. Just get rid of the Saft files.
8. Empty the trash. If there is a file that won’t delete because it’s in use, then Force Quit “Saft” again as in Step 5 above, and then Empty Trash again.
9. Go back into Terminal, and type “sudo -s” again without quotation marks. Then enter:

    defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

   This will set the Finder back to the way it was before. Then type “exit” and it will exit out of the root.

10. Now navigate to the folder: /Library/InputManagers. Note that this is NOT the “Library” folder in your Users folder. This is the Library folder from the root. Inside InputManagers is the “saft” folder — get rid of it.
11. Empty Trash (again). If it says Saft is in use, reboot the machine and empty it then. Or if you use some excellent utility like MainMenu you can “Force Empty Trash”.

Go back to your happy, problem free Mac! 

Problem: Nokia’s WLAN option kept prompting me for the WEP key *everytime* I would connect to my email or any website.

After googling for a good many days and bumbling around on Nokia’s forums, I have finally figured out how to make Nokia remember the cotton-picking password. Simple answer: you need to lose your cached WLAN entry, which may be stored as a non-WEP access point.

Here are the more detailed steps:

1. Delete your current WLAN access point you’ve created for the E61i. This is the secret sauce.
2. Now, under

   Tools > Settings > Connection > Access Points

   Select Options and create a new access point using “default settings”. We’ll tweak them below.

3. Under Connection Name, pick a name for your connection. This doesn’t have to be your wireless network’s SSID, but you can keep it under the same name.
4. Under Data Bearer, select WLAN.
5. Under WLAN Network Name, select manual entry and type in your SSID name.
6. Under Network Status mark “Hidden”.
7. Network Mode will be the default: “Infrastructure”.
8. Under WLAN Security Mode, choose your security type. For instance, mine is WEP, so that’s what I selected.
9. Under WLAN Security Settings, go to WEP key settings and define your encryption level, format, and key. For instance, for WEP you might have 64 bit, ASCII, and “xyzabc” as your level, format, and key respectively. If you don’t know this stuff, this entire tutorial is perhaps not for you, otherwise you know what these values are. (You can always login as admin user into your wireless router and reconfirm these settings for your specific case.)

That’s it. You can now connect to some website or your email server on your mobile phone, select the WLAN with the name you chose in Step 3 above, and your Nokia e-series phone will remember your WEP password for good. Finally.

Recently, I started using the Vienna client on OSX, which looks good but it’s a pain to manage the feed listings in two places– Google Reader, and local Vienna.  Yes, you can import your Google Reader OPML into Vienna, but to have them synced, you need to import it often.

But that’s a manual sync and not very useful.

If Vienna’s user forums are any indication, the automatic synchronization between Google Reader and Vienna is among the top requested features, and I can understand why.

Well, I won’t be waiting for Vienna anymore, as the Adobe AIR Google Reader client is here, and it works like a charm!

The interface is very Mac OSX like, very clean and nifty. Just set up your Google email and password:

And you are ready to roll. Of course, it doesn’t (yet) have the functionality to tweak font sizes or flag important items or share — i.e., a complete desktop alternative to Vienna or Google Reader, but this is a fantastic start.

The suggested workaround to disable this revision function is to enter a variable in your wp_config.php file. But this takes away the functionality from the entire blog.

Revision Control plugin for Wordpress

I discovered a superb plugin today that makes this process very simple. It allows you to define the setting from the WordPress aministration interface on a Global basis. That is, to

• Disable All revisions for all posts/pages
• And override on a per-page/post basis.

For example, I can set Revisions to Disabled globally, and then enable it to store say 5 revisions for a Specific page(Without affecting any other pages).

You’ll find some Info ( & Download link) on it here:
http://dd32.id.au/wordpress-plugins/revision-control/

This is not MU compatible yet (untested).

The best part is the live collaboration that Google or the likes of Zoho have made possible. Online collaboration among team members was something in which Microsoft has also dabbled, but in its typical manner of releasing “Enterprise” features. No surprise that that has never really become the norm outside some corporate microcosms.

Today, Google has upped the ante in the war for online document editing by launching the templates. Simple addition to their rapidly growing arsenal, but a shape of things to come. From wedding invites to business letters, it’s an easily expandable service. The API and “open source” extensibility thinking of Google will make sure that you or I can contribute our own templates to the gallery. Nifty.

1. MainMenu. Free. Superlative. Creates a neat little menu item on the top bar. Better than most other tools I have tried for this purpose, especially in its clean interface. Sometimes, if you have the pleasure of experiencing a situation when the Trash won’t clean because OSX says that the “Application is still in use” but you’re sure you quit it and it’s not live anyway, MainMenu’s “Force Empty Trash” is a fabulous tool to have at your fingertips.
   
2. Little Snitch: Tells you everytime some program on your machine wants to “call home” and connect to some server. Great flexibility in allowing the program to connect to a server, a port, or in general. Allow (or Deny) it to connect only once, or until the application quits, or Forever.
   
3. RCDefaultApp: Just as it is on any OS from Windows to Ubuntu, it often happens that you would like to associate certain file types with certain applications. On Mac OSX, we do have the same right-click contextual menu as Windows that allows “Open with [Application]” and “Make this the default application”, but for some reason this doesn’t always work, and occasionally doesn’t even show up as an option. No matter. RCDefaultApp is the application that allows you to do that superbly, and then some.
   
4. Butler: Another small utility with a negligible footprint that allows for some nifty shortcuts to stuff already on your machine.
   
5. Perian: No Mac should be without this. This pretty much explains itself. There’s a nice video tutorial here that shows how easy it is to install and then forget it. Suddenly your Quicktime (and iTunes) will be able to play a whole raft of video formats. If you want to be really equipped, get the Divx codec, the 3ivx, and Flip4Mac which plays wmv (Windows Media Player) files on your Mac. Of course if you get really frustrated there’s always the tried and tested VLC Player.
6. CleanApp: The best application uninstaller out there, hands down. Don’t believe for a minute when the OSX manuals tell you that on a Mac all you need to do is drag the application into the Trash and you’re done. BS. Many applications (think Adobe) install several things in several locations. CleanApp 3 tells you all the associated trappings of these applications and allows you to uninstall them all together.CleanApp is not free, alas (there is always a poor man’s AppCleaner, which does some basic stuff) but it allows for much more granular control. The best part: CleanApp has a “Logging” service that keeps track of whatever you install, and then knows in granular detail everything that you need to uninstall later; you can enable and disable this logging service at will, so it is useful to keep it generally off and only switch it on before you are undertaking a serious install of software, such as Final Cut Pro from Apple for example.
7. TinkerTools: To modify the many system preferences in your OSX that should have been made tinker-able but are not. Us Windows switchers are used to modding everything, so this is a fabulous tool.
8. Transmission: The best torrent client for OSX. Very simple, no-nonsense, and yet pretty interface. BitRocket is all google-juiced as it has been around longer, but it went down more often than Paris Hilton’s pants.  Limewire now has an OSX version too, but I am done with crashing and slow download speeds unless you cough up a few dollars.
   
9. Candy Bar: If you really, really want to modify your icons. Panic is one of the better software developers for the OSX platform. Their Unison tool, a native OSX Usenet client is pure code poetry. There’s a lot of iconography available at their partner website IconFactory. CandyBar is not free though. If you are short on cash, you can always try the somewhat barebones LiteIcon.
10. Vienna: The best and most elegant RSS reader client for OSX at the moment. Now if only they could sync it with Google Reader, Bob might be my uncle. How long has the Google API been out now!?
11. Chicken of the VNC: The best VNC client out there, connects without problems to Windows VNC servers too.
    

    

12. OmniDiskSweeper: As you start using your OSX, and installing applications and such, your hard disk usage keeps mounting (no pun intended). The fast, small footprint OmniDiskSweeper does this job faster than anything else on the market, including the somewhat visually prettier WhatSize.
    
13. Monolingual: Like Windows, OSX also comes with about a gazillion languages preinstalled, which take several gigabytes on your hard disk. Likewise, OSX the operating system also comes with a number of architectures such as PowerPC even if you have an Intel system, because the same OS needs to support older Apple hardware. Anyone who has bought a new system with Intel’s architectures (the latest Macbooks or iMacs) can safely get rid of the other architectures. Monolingual is a simple, free utility that does exactly that.
    
14. Tech Tools Pro: Explanation coming soon.