Author: alex

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PSP

PSP 2.71 SE-C with Devhook 0.50

If you have a firmware 1.50 PSP, (or downgraded from 2.71 to 1.50), you can now install a special treat – a Special Edition Firmware version of the PSP 2.71 firmware together with the latest version of Devhook.

The latest revision discussed here is revision C of this firmware. You can download it from PSP-Hacks (and other sites).
What does all this do ? Let me list it :

  • You no longer have to boot into your 1.50 firmware, then use devhook to boot into your emulated 2.71 firmware, and then -finally!- start up your favourite game that needs 2.71 firmware.
  • Using the latest revision of this custom firmware (revision C) you can even launch umd games that require 2.80 firmware !
  • You can run homebrew software, both the ones written for 1.50 and for 2.71 firmware. Just put the homebrew for 1.50 in GAME15 en the other in GAM271.
  • No longer do you need to launch devhook to launch an iso on your memory stick. You can now load them from XMB (not tested)

So this means you can keep using homebrew software together with launching normal games together with all the benefits of the 2.71 firmware.
The install process is a lengty one, even with the Devhook Ultimate Installer 1.5.1 (you need to download the Advanced edition), and, ofcourse, you need a windows pc for it (grr). Still, when you follow the instructions exactly (there are few readme’s in the root of your memory card and the dh folder that you positively need to read) it should work out fine.

I deviated in one thing – to actually start the SE-C install, you need to copy the flashfiles in the GAME150 folder to the PSP/GAME folder otherwise you won’t see them (afterwards you can delete them).
Please be advised though, that if you frick this up, you will have a brick on your hand – the install process overwrites the firmware flash, so please be sure to have a fully loaded battery and your charger plugged in and follow the instructions !

Categories
Blog News

SpamSpamSpam… ting !

I’ve just noticed yet another flood of spam that is stopped by Akismet. While thinking what a great service this is (and all for free!) I noticed that there is a whole range of addresses that come back every single time.

If I’ve done this right, the range 84.110.240.0 – 84.110.255.255 is now blocked from entering any more spam comments.

Cheerio Bezeq International from Israel ! Good riddance !

Update 14/01/2007 : just added another part of Ukraine to my blacklist. 82.255.188 and 119.

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Blog News

Sam knows what to say

I’ve been writing down the new words that Sam is learning and saying all the time.

Sam has learned to speak the following words :

Nov 6, 2006 : Opla (Hopla), Pipira (Piet Piraat),Umba (Bumba) : all children shows, several of which we have on dvd. His favorite seems to be Opla !

Nov 20, 2006 : Oenen (Schoenen), Jajaja, tutut

Nov 28, 2006 : Klaaaa (Sint-Niklaas), Pakke (Pick him up)

Dec 2, 2006 : auuuto (auto = car)

Just reading over this list he seems to learn a few new words every week or so. Amazing the progress that children can make at an age like that. He understands quite a bit more than he can say.

Categories
Hardware Links

Instant lust : the E-ten Glofiish M700

Glofiish M700
I just saw my new dreamphone: the E-ten glofiish M700. It’s got everything but the kitchen sink :

quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, GPS (SiRFstar III) with TMC, an FM radio, an integrated camera, and Windows Mobile 5.0, the M700 has the added bonus of a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. No 3G support, it seems, but it still looks like a great all-in-one device.

It is supposed to be available before the start of the XMAS shopping season : somewhere in November…

Categories
Blog News

About 7 entries a month on my blog

I just checked my posts : over the last 23 months, I’ve posted 161 times, giving an average of about 7 posts a month.

There are way more bloggers out there posting a lot more, but for me and my time-pressed life I find this not bad at all !

Spam Comments seem to come and go in waves. So far 1066 spam comments blocked since I activated Akismet (the plugin is installed by default into WordPress, but you need to get a free key to activate it).  It really is an extremely good solution to combat spam.

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Links TechScience Future Websites Caught !

Cool ! Easing phantom limb pain using Virtual Reality

This seems to be a great way for amputees to ease their phantom limb pain :

The research has focused on a small group of patients who had lost a limb between one and 40 years ago. Two were upper limb amputees and two had lost parts of their legs. They all used the virtual world between seven and 10 times over the course of three months. Each session lasted for 30 minutes.

The patients were fitted with special data gloves and sensors, and their head and arm movements were monitored. They donned virtual reality helmets and entered a world where they could see their missing limb restored.

In this virtual universe, patients can move their fingers, hands, arms, feet and legs. They also have hand eye co-ordination, and can use their virtual limb to play ball games, the researchers say.

The results shocked the researchers: four of the five patients reported improvements in the phantom limb pain, and much faster than the team had expected.

Project leader Dr Craig Murray said: “One patient felt that the fingers of her amputated hand were continually clenched into her palm, which was very painful for her. However, after just one session using the virtual system she began to feel movement in her fingers and the pain began to ease.”

If this actually can be applied for all amputees, this would be a great way to help these people and get rid of the phantom pain for all of them. Bio-feedback at its best.

Categories
Blog News Programming

Now Reading plugin conflict (MySql Error)

I have been trying to implement the “Now Reading” plugin from Roblog as I thought it was a great way to keep track of what books I read and at what date.

But I couldn’t get it to work. It kept crashing with a MySql error whenever I wanted to add a book to the list in the admin interface. Despite several comments in the blog entry by me and others who had the same problem, the author of the plugin did not react to propose a solution.
One enterprising soul who had the same problem, found the answer however, and I’ve since corrected it and activated the plug in (although it won’t show up on my homepage as yet). I’m now documenting the fix here as well.

The problem is that Now Reading re-uses a WordPress variable called “query” without reinitializing it. Normally this does not cause any problems, but if you have a plug in (like for example weathericon) that query variable is already used, and thus contains data.
Solution : in the Now reading plugin, modify the add.php file and add a line all the way in the beginning :

$query=””;

This resets the variable to “empty” and thus the result returned to the browser will be valid.

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Blog News

Using Deli.cio.us and keeping your bookmarks

While everybody seems to be using Deli.cio.us I never really found a valid reason for me to use it. Using the bookmarks system was ‘good enough’ for me.
Recently though I’ve visited so many websites of so many different types that my bookmarks were becoming bloated. On one of my (Firefox) browsers I had the delicious buttons installed, and I’ve started using them to ‘tag’ those websites I wanted to find back later, without actually bookmarking them. This worked so well that I will reserve bookmarking only for those sites I want to find.

Actually, I need a good cleaning of my bookmarks!

But when I wanted to install this on my other Firefox browsers all my bookmarks were sucked into the delicious system and I no longer had any bookmarks, only the delicious tags, which I find a kludge to find anything in it if you don’t know the name and you haven’t given it your own tags). There seemed to be no way to get just the buttons in the top navigation bar.
Turns out that there are two versions of the delicious plugin : one can be found in the add-on for Firefox (Tools, Add-ons) and it installs both the buttons and replaces your bookmarks and one can be found on the delicious website itself, and installs only the buttons.

Categories
Blog News

Sam has learned to shake his head to say 'no!'

This week Sam has learned a new thing : at the age of almost 17 months he can now shake his head very clearly to indicate ‘no’. Yes is a word he already can say (ja) and when he says it he nods his head very clearly.

Our life is suddenly much easier again now that we can sorta know whether he likes something or not.

His vocabulary is growing, he understands quite a bit more than you think at his age. For example, when he woke from his nap this afternoon I was playing with him, moving a black sheep toy quickly to and from his head with him laughing. I put in on my head when he sat up and he hadn’t noticed it. But when I saw him looking for it I said that it was on daddy’s head and he immediately looked up and saw it.

He still won’t say his name though, maybe that S-thingie is hard to learn, I suppose it comes later.

For now he has a bit of a fever (vaccinations) and I stayed home today caring for him. Apart from not letting him out of my sight (unless you want a mess everywhere) he is quite a fun boy, we played with the cars and he loves looking through books with pictures of animals in them (Tom did as well).

Categories
Blog News

WordPress upgrade to 2.0.5

I’ve just upgraded my site to the latest WP version 2.0.5 – no problem at all to upgrade.