How to use Google

Google is very well known for the search engine (duh.. obviously) to the extent that there were actually a verb for it to express the use of Google to search for anything. My colleagues and I have had the term: “ask uncle Google”. For those who don’t know how to use Google Search, check out Google Guide.

As the primary business of Google is the search engine, Google also has lots of products with their own innovation that I would say that they are very interesting.

Here’s what I’ve been using out of Google.

1. Search Engine to search the Internet
2. Google Mail for my email
3. Google Calendar to maintain schedules of my life
4. Google Contacts to maintain my contact list including contacts’ birthdays with integration of Google Calendar
5. Google Sync to synchronize my contacts and calendar entries with my mobile phone
6. Google Maps to learn new ways of how to get myself from one place to another place that I know very little about
7. Google Talk to communicate (chat or voice or video call) which can also be used in GMail
8. Google Chrome as my Internet browser, which is fast and lightweight but powerful

And quite a lot more that I might be too lazy to mention that I haven’t used extensively like Blogger, Latitude, Google Sites, Google Docs, and Google Wave.

My Karaoke Program

After being deserted for months, I finally made a working program for my dad to get his new hobby a lot easier for him and his friends at home. I called it KaraokeSys for no specific reason ^_^

The program uses simple SQLite database to store the song details and VLC media player to play the video. I’ve seen quite a lot of free and open source karaoke programs, but somehow I feel that the requirements here is quite unique, that they usually prefer to use the karaoke VCD rather than custom made videos.

For now, it has features to:

1. Manage songs (add, edit, delete, and multiple edits of song properties)
2. Drag & drop files to upload songs
3. Multiple monitor support to view live video at secondary screen while still doing anything else in the primary screen (including searching and selecting songs)
4. Search anything (any displayable text within title, artist, genre, and even tag)
5. Manage playlist (add and delete songs for future use)
6. Play, pause, stop, next song, previous song (this is very obvious)
7. Switch to left, right, or stereo audio channel for vocal + music or music only
8. Volume control
9. 3 seconds fast forward and rewind with speed control without chipmunk effect (thanks to VLC)
10. Preview song in mute volume

What it doesn’t have for now is pitch control, which can be easily controlled with hardware; at least the only missing feature I’ve thought of.

And this is how the real thing looks like. It simply needs a Windows based computer with dual monitor and sound enabled.

FML

Have you ever feel so fed up with your life? that everything is so f***ed up? Will it make you feel better knowing that other people are experiencing worse that you? Check out F My Life, it compiles tons of funny life stories.
I’ve been reading the stories since last year and I can’t stop visiting it every day. :)

Karaoke

Karaoke, a word so familiar to myself but have not even had the thought to search what and where it came from. Wikipedia has an article about it and how it came from.

For me, I've known karaoke from my dad.. Yes it's one of his hobby. It came to me even more when He bought a (so called) computer that stores karaoke video files for him to call upon (using remote controlled numbering combined with a papered catalog to search songs from). It the stroke me to search more on how I can make such application.

It began more than 6 months ago that I saw the same program in Melody Family Karaoke in town and then shared the idea to my dad. He simply expressed: "Why don't you see what you can do, then come again and we'll talk seriously."

So.. since I've been in Visual Basic .NET for years I gave it a shot. Started looking for some video presentation technologies. Started with WMP but figured out that I couldn't switch the audio channel to mono left or right, I looked at VLC.

Using the SQLite database and .NET Connector for SQLite, it's almost done.

Finding your way with Google

A friend of mine asked me to pick him up to go home. At the other hand, I had no idea where his exact location were.
Then out of nowhere I decided to use Google Maps to find the way and trying to pinpoint his office. Turned out that it wasn't enough; I didn't know which turn to make (this one or the next U turn). So I thought of Google Wave and the Map gadget.
Invited him and it took 2 minutes for the invitation to get there and he's in the wave. Made a wave and put in the map gadget and... u guys figure it out in this video.

The ride came and I didn't have the time to collaborate on the location, so I was thinking of using Google Latitude to have his location. It all sounded perfectly until my friend's Blackberry couldn't connect to the Internet. -_- FML.

Picasa on Facebook

I've been using Picasa for years and since I've been in Facebook for the last few weeks, I've been wondering if I can simply upload my photos using Picasa. A simple google gave a direct answer. ^_^

Try it out here.

Linux Mint

I've been struggling to find an easy way to install audio and video codecs in Ubuntu so that it can play mp3 and avi files. I've been craving for some out of the box linux distribution that supports those codecs out of the box.

I kept searching.. until I found Linux Mint this morning; it's a ubuntu based linux distribution.

It simply plays mp3 and divx files out of the box. That saves a lot of hassle for those linux machines that are not connected to the Internet.

Current stable release is still Linux Mint 6 (based on Ubuntu 8.10) and I'm looking forward to the next release (based on Ubuntu 9.04)

QVGA Pocket e-Sword

Okay.. new problem comes after installing the new ROM update of HTC Touch Diamond. The display of Pocket e-Sword seems to get wrong.

I posted a thread at XDA-Developers forum and found out that it's the .NET Compact Framework 3.5

I hope there will be some sort of fix for this.

Ubuntu in 22 days

I haven't checked the website for months it says that a new release is coming in 22 days. ^_^

Free development tools for Windows platform

This might be too late to post this, but anyway...

If you are working on Microsoft Windows platform and wanting a free development tools to develop system, this would be one of the list.

1. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition for IDE
2. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express Edition for database engine
3. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express Management Studio for database management
4. Paint.NET for image processing (additional plugin for icons)

These are the tools/technology that I have been using to develop applications and I pretty much enjoy it.

Google Map with GPS

Downloaded Google Maps for mobile devices yesterday but forgot to test it out until this morning.

With the 3G network, it's even faster than my internet connection when it loads the images. I was evern more thrilled when I turned on the GPS, it just works. ^_^

This was my last location before I lost the GPS signal as I entered the office building. quite accurate. The only problem is that Google does not give enough detailed view of maps in Indonesia (as in not updated and not enough resolution). But.. good enough for now.

Screen Capture Utility for Windows Mobile

Ever feel like capturing the screen in your Windows Mobile device?

I found out this little tool that will just do the job; it's free of course. ^_^

And listening to local radio at Mix FM (90.8 FM) screen capture; I like the colour mixing in the interface. ^_^

Chinese in Windows Mobile

I'm trying to read Chinese characters from e-Sword and found out that by default, my device does not support them. Did some search and found this site. Just download the Chinese fonts and install it. I was depressed as it didn't work at first, but I got the idea or restarting the device. Walla.. it works.

I have been receiving some messages (SMS) with Chinese character in the past and couldn't read it. We'll see later. Usually those kind of SMS come during Chinese New Year. ^_^

The New HTC Touch Diamond

At last... I got myself a brand new HTC Touch Diamond and sold out the old Xda O2 IIs that I bought on August 9, 2005.

How fast do you type?

76 words

Form Border and Title Bar of .Net WinForm

I came across a case where I've got to display a form right under another's control and found out that the Left and Top property is based on the Form, not the screen. Thus, the form border height and form title bar height must also be considered in the codes.

Here are the codes:

'in VB.NET

Dim BorderWidth as Integer = (Me.Width - Me.ClientSize.Width) / 2

Dim TitlebarHeight as Integer = Me.Height - Me.ClientSize.Height - 2 * BorderWidth

//in C#

int BorderWidth = (this.Width - this.ClientSize.Width) / 2;

int TitlebarHeight = this.Height - this.ClientSize.Height - 2 * BorderWidth;

Fortunately, other guy had solved the problem.

Open Source Library

I've been searching for open source library system for the past 2 weeks and finally concluded that I'm going to implement OpenBiblio in the church library.

The first step is changing the operating system from the pirated version of Windows into a legal Ubuntu copy. ^_^

I came across few nice other open source OPAC and ILS in the Internet; here's the review.

1. OtomigenX
   This Indonesian-made library system is nice and sleek, but I've got some errors for simple tasks like adding new bibliography records at first experience.
2. Senayan Library
   A web-based library automation system which is one of the open source projects that supports IGOS. I find this system very robust. However some of the AJAX features are quite annoying:
• lots of message boxes (JavaScript) that displays silly information like "Welcome to Library Automation, <Username>" and user must click the OK button
• The page goes black (supposed to be some kind of animation) every time I click something; perhaps the developer wants to express that the system is loading but it's kind of annoying to me

Of course there are more open source projects that can be more complex, but I'm looking for something simple enough to be implemented in a small library. So the winner for now goes to OpenBiblio.

I'll update with the result when I'm finish with it. ^_^

Open Source Church

I wrote a small desktop application that runs on top of Microsoft .Net Framework and now I don't feel like implementing it in the church's library.

I promised them of that system long time ago and I don't feel much of confidence lately, moreover this naive thoughts of legalizing the software in church.

I've been thinking of implementing open source systems to the church. I wrote this post some time ago and still no action has been taken (even from myself, I don't know why.. Perhaps the fear of rejected and not able to convince the council that they shouldn't use pirated software.)

I just spoke out with some close friends of installing Ubuntu into two of the computers in church (the administration and library).

Windows Live Writer

Just installed Windows Live Writer on my home PC. Looks cool too. Haven't got the time to play around with it yet. This blog entry is posted using Windows Live Writer.

Converting DV

Installed Hardy Heron on my laptop, but there seems to be some problem with the display adapter. Have been struggling with it with no luck.. I'm not a hardcore user any way -_-'

I just want to install Ubuntu to convert my DV videos into XviD using mencoder in Kino. Don't know exactly why, but I seem to like to do it in Linux and open source software.