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How to Adjust the timing on a Subtitle SRT file using Subtitle Workshop 4

In a previous post, I discussed ways to find subtitles to add to your AVI movies and I also looked at using Google Translate to modify them if they weren't in English (or your chosen language). Note: All of the software mentioned here is free. See: Finding and Adjusting Subtitles on AVI Files . In this post I want to look at how to change the timing on subtitles. Why would you need to do this? Movies have different frame rates depending upon the country that they are shown in and the system they are shown on.  Common frame rates are 23, 25 and 29 frames per second.  You'd be surprised how quickly subtitles can get out of whack if they're designed for the wrong frame rate. Find the Start and End of the Dialogue. Open your movie in a player, like the excellent VideoLAN (VLC Media Player) and locate the first and last sentences in the movie.  You'll find the time in the bottom right hand corner of the player - make a note of it. Adjusting the Subtitle File

Notes and Domino 8.5.3 are out...

The Server I've upgraded our test server from 8.5.2 to 8.5.3 and it took slightly under 5 minutes. Now that's what I call a good server upgrade (are you listening Microsoft???) Anyway, so far, so good, everything seems to be working but then I haven't done a whole lot of testing yet. The Client My client took 21 minutes to upgrade from 8.5.2 to 8.5.3, which felt like a long time. It also came back a little weird and some views didn't populate immediately. Refreshing them made a big difference. Again, so far, so good (mostly). Unfortunately I lost the ability to click on a URL and have it launch my default browser (Chrome). Instead, it pops up Notepad (weird!!) and a bizarre little message. The filename, directory name or volume label syntax is incorrect. I'm on a 64 bit Windows 7 Professional PC and Chrome is located in; "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" I've already checked my HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\http\shell\

Finding and Adjusting Subtitles on AVI files

If you enjoy watching foreign films or if you're hard of hearing like me, then subtitles are a must in your movie collection. In my last post, I covered how to convert movies from DVD to AVI for playing on a portable player. In this post, I'll be discussing subtitles. There are two types of subtitles, burned in and selectable. Obviously the selectable type is best because you can turn them on and off and you can obtain different languages too. Within the selectable type, there are a few formats with the most common being sub/idx files, txt files and my personal favourite, SRT files. In order to get your subtitles to play in players like VLC VideoLAN and on player boxes like the WD TV box, you'll usually need to put the subtitles in the same folder as the AVI and name them the same. So if you movie is called "Return of the Scary Kittens.avi" then your subtitle should be called "Return of the Scary Kittens.srt". Some players allow you to have mult

Converting DVDs to Good Quality AVI Files - Part 2 (The Procedure)

Forget the why and wherefores of what we're doing - That's part one which you can read here . Lets get started; Ingredients A computer with a large hard drive 20GB Free? Pentium 4 3GHz or Faster and a DVD drive A copy of DVD Decrypter - it's free A copy of AutoGK - it's free DVD Decrypter http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/ This software allows you to copy the files from a DVD to your hard drive. The project was shut down some years back but it's still possible to get hold of it on the internet. An alternative to this is DVD Fab. There's a free version and a commercial version. The difference between the two is that the commercial version handles more DVD protection schemes. http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm AutoGK http://www.autogk.me.uk/ AutoGK is short for Auto Gordian Knot which describes a knot so difficult to untie that it was cut instead. It's quite apt considering the purpose of this tool. It's not a single piece of software but rather i

Converting DVDs to Good Quality AVI Files - Part 1 (The Waffle)

I'm very much a believer in the idea that "files" will be the next big format for video entertainment after DVDs. I guessed right from the start that blu-ray would win the format war against HD-DVD but I never thought that either would take over. About 15 years ago, after having ridden the music upgrade from LP Records to tapes and to CD, I stumbled across this "new" format called MP3. Back then, there were no MP3 players, just computers but I was enthralled by the idea that with enough storage, I could save my music collection in a way that meant that I could play them without ever having to get a CD out of the cupboard again. I emarked on a quest to convert my entire library of Music CDs to MP3. People thought I was weird but a few years later as MP3 players became more readily available, I reaped the rewards. I didn't have to convert anything - it was already done. I see video entertainment as following the same path. As with my early MP3 conversio

Scheduling Maintenance Tasks on the Domino Server

I'm sure that most Domino admins have been doing these tasks regularly but if you don't have occasion to touch them often, you might this post useful. As I mentioned last week, we've been having issues with the JVE running out of memory on our server. One of the "solutions" (band-aids) was to restart the domino HTTP task. I've been experimenting to see how long I can leave it and the shortest it's been is about 30 hours. It seemed to be a good idea to stop and then restart the domino HTTP service on a timer. In admin-talk, that means a program document. Procedure The steps I'm using here are for Domino 8.5.2 but I don't think they've changed in years. 1. Start Domino Administrator 2. Click on the tab marked Configuration 3. In the left hand navigator,click on Server (and expand it) 4. In the left hand navigator,click on Programs This will take you to a screen where you can expand your servers and see what other regular tasks are scheduled. If

Domino Resource Issues under XPages

A couple of weeks ago, we launched a new XPages app. Hopefully the first of many. It was very impressive and we got a lot of hits.... ...until the server crashed. Not a big deal. Our server is set to restart automatically, and it was up and running in no time. Then about 1.5 days later we had another crash. We've decided to tackle this on a few fronts, first of all we're rewriting some parts of the app to be a bit less intense and to take better advantage of the recycler. That's all cutting edge development stuff, so it's really not "me". On the admin side, I wanted to see if we could release resources a bit. I checked the server close to a crash but there's no indication on the Windows 2003 side of things. Of course, the Notes Logs tell a different story. HTTP JVM: CLFAD0211E: Exception thrown. For more detailed information, please consult error-log-0.xml located in e:/Lotus/Domino/data/domino/workspace/logs HTTP JVM: >>>> HTTP JVM: The XP

How to Do a Mail Merge to Email using Lotus Notes

Why do one? In today's "green" world, it makes much better sense to send out emails than letters but you still want to personalize them. Sadly, by itself Lotus Notes doesn't support mail merge to email. Of course, we know that outlook does (but then it lets anyone and anything send emails for you - even when you don't want them to). So, how to do it in Notes? OpenNTF The first port of call is OpenNTF ( http://www.openntf.org/ ). This place is full of great things but most of them are really badly documented. Still, these guys give things away for free and they develop in their spare time, so we should be grateful for what we get. There's a great little project there called MailMerge Excel to Notes . Go there, click on releases and download the ZIP file. Getting to the Code The installation is tricky though I've noted that since I asked the author about the install, it's been updated (so maybe these steps are less necessary). Unzip the files to somewher

How to Turn off Local Encryption by Default in the Notes 8.x Client

What's this All About If you have a test environment for your Lotus Notes applications, then chances are that you regularly find yourself copying (not replicating) from Production to test - and probably via a Local connection. If you do this a lot, then chances are that at some point you've forgotten to deselect the default local encryption. This is a great security feature but it's quite embarrassing when you arrive at your test site with a database which won't open. Did you know that you can change the default. It happened sometime in release 8.x but I don't know exactly when. I just know that I changed it a while ago and a few times since I've had developers express surprise because they didn't realize that we now have that feature. Here's How to Turn it Off by Default In your Notes client; Click File then Preferences from the Menu On the left hand side of the preferences screen, expand Replication and Sync . Click on Default . In the middle of the

If you were buying a PC today...

I'm often asked to tell people what to look for in a PC and recently I was asked to provide something in writing for all our staff members. These people aren't serious gamers and generally aren't all that computer literate (or computer-adventurous for that matter). I thought I'd share it with the rest of the world. Note that prices are in Australian Dollars and specs are as at 11 May 2011. I've ignored netbooks even though I personally find them cool. I've also mostly ignored non-windows platforms because as I said, these people aren't adventurous. Finally, where I've mentioned brands it doesn't particularly mean that they have my overall endorsement or condemnation. It's just my experience with them - and the "vibe" I get from other people who use them. What for? Throughout this document, you need to be thinking about the use to which you intend to put your computer. Is it just an office machine? Is it only for the internet and w

Book Review "IBM Lotus Domino: Classic Web Application Development Techniques" by Richard G. Ellis (Part 2)

In part one of my review, I looked at the opening and closing chapters of this book. They're fairly non-technical and provide a very useful set of guidelines for the development and testing of Lotus Domino applications - and they're just as relevant to XPages development. In part two, I want to look at the middle chapters. These chapters cover CSS and JavaScript as it relates to forms, views and agents. The book talks about some features which are only available in Notes/Domino 8.5 but it never discusses XPages. If you're already a domino developer and you're looking to move into XPages, then this book certainly isn't for you. If however, you've been using Notes and want to quickly port some applications to the web or if you're familiar with classic HTML, CSS and JavaScript but want to get some Domino projects off the ground, then this is the right book. Of course, if you're on a version of notes/domino prior to 8.5 with little prospect of upgrading

Book Review "IBM Lotus Domino: Classic Web Application Development Techniques" by Richard G. Ellis (Part 1)

I'm doing this review in two parts because the opening and closing chapters of this book are vastly different from the rest. I have to admit to wondering, when I was first asked to review this book, exactly what the market was that it's aimed at. After all, aren't all domino developers heading towards XPages now? Could a book on "traditional web programming in domino" still be relevant today? Well, surprisingly it is. The opening chapters deal with issues and requirements that our developers and I still constantly struggle with . They cover version control, issues logs, staging servers, commenting/documentation, standards and the big killer "scope creep". There are sections on using the "champions" in your office to drive projects, maintaining consistent URLs and setting up a developer test environment. These are aspects which affect all domino development regardless of the technology level (XPages, Notes, Pure HTML or JavaScript/CSS). If you r

Microsoft's "Killer" Update for Powerpoint 2003

This morning I got a call from a colleague who was having problems opening one of our Microsoft Powerpoint files. After quite a while of saving back and forth (My newly created and not-yet-updated PC had no problems with the files), we discovered that it affects everyone in the office - in fact, everyone in the world. As it turns out, Microsoft issued a "Killer Update" on 12 April which causes Microsoft Powerpoint to fail when opening presentations or presentation templates which have a graphical background (like our company logo for instance). Microsoft's "Workarounds" They've acknowledged the problem here. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2464588 Their fix generally suggests that you upgrade; Workaround 1: Open the Affected file in Powerpoint 2007 or 2010..... Workaround 2: Open the affected file in PowerPoint 2010.... Workaround 3: Open the affected file in PowerPoint 2007... Workaround 4: After the error message is displayed, save a copy of the presenta

Lotus Notes 8.5.2 and Microsoft Windows 7 64 Bit

We're currently testing Windows 7 - Not because we actually see a business need. It's not about support, applications or even new features. It's simply that it's too hard to buy PCs with Windows XP loaded on them these days. Over the last few months, I've learned one very valuable lesson: There is NO benefit in Windows 7 unless you go 64 bit! Of course, that doesn't mean that there are many 64 bit applications out there to run on it. Why is 64 bit so important for Windows 7? Well, like all new Microsoft Software, it uses a bit more disk space and a bit more memory that its predecessors. Unfortunately, there's a 2GB memory limit in 32 bit windows - and it still applies to Windows 7. That means that now Windows itself takes up more space but your maximum memory remains the same. Even if you have a PC with 4, 6 or 8GB RAM, 32-bit Windows will only use 2 GB. Windows 7 64-Bit is a different story but weirdly, the limits aren't imposed by the bit-space bu

What do I have on my Blackberry?

A couple of weeks ago my Blackberry Bold suffered misfortune during a canoeing event with the Scouts. I had to temporarily revert back to a barely functional pearl. Now however, I've got a replacement Bold and I'm reloading all my "stuff" onto it. I could have simply restored my settings from a backup of my old Blackberry but I figured that I'd rather exclude applications which I haven't used. So I did a manual reinstallation. I thought this might give me a chance to talk about some good blackberry apps. So... what have I got on my blackberry now? The Default Applications It goes without saying that I have mail, calendar, SMS, Messenger (which I never use), MemoPad (which I use heaps) and all of the rest of the default Blackberry apps. Google Applications Google Mobile App ( http://m.google.com/search ) - FREE This is usually the first thing that I put back on the blackberry. It gives you a google search portal but more importantly, it's a great starti

How to get your Notes Webmail working in Firefox 4

Note: This isn't my solution, all credit goes to "nickbeee" who posted a couple of lines on the firefox site. I've had to document this for our internal users and figured that other people may benefit from a more detailed explanation. Also: I'm a stickler for long explanations with pictures.... It seems that the new security features in Mozilla Firefox 4 prevent Lotus Notes/Domino Webmail from working. Here's how to get that functionality back. First: The problem that you see looks like this; It states on the webmail screen simply (and cryptically) A problem has occurred which may have caused the current operation to fail. The problem seems to be that firefox has security-blocked your webmail. In order to unblock it, you need the Remote XUL Manager extension. To get it, browse to: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/remote-xul-manager/ and click Add to Firefox. You'll be prompted to install the extension and then you'll be told to restart

The Perfect Storm: How a Combination of Random Events can lead to Disaster

No, this post isn't about that Wolfgang Peterson & George Clooney movie but it does borrow from the concept in a business sense. This week we skirted close to disaster but the rest of the business was completely oblivious to the danger. I wasn't worried, it was all under control but my boss said to me later, "we nearly had the perfect storm today". I thought about his words and realised that he was right. I was wondering just how many times we, and other businesses nearly have the perfect storm and don't even realise. What is a Perfect Storm? In the book and movie of "The Perfect Storm", the storm wasn't a cyclone or any kind of normal severe storm event. It was just a normal storm in which several other conditions were perfect. It's simply the combination of several unlikely events which results in disaster. Our Experience Factor 1: Backup This week we've struggled a bit with backup. We had a faulty tape which meant that we missed o

IBM Celebrations at Packt Publishing (20% off)

In case you've missed it, Packt Publishing is holding an IBM Tuesday celebration because; They're publishing four IBM books on the same day IBM is turning 100 this year. To celebrate, they've got 20% off IBM books for the entire month of February. Go here to read all about IBM Tuesday. It doesn't end there though because they've got a competition which is drawn on the Tuesday of each week, the prize for which is a years subscription to PacktLib, their online library.

How to Change Your Notification Options for New Lotus Notes Mail in version 8.x

Don't worry, I'm not patronizing you (my readers), I just decided to re-document this for one of our internal users and thought you might want to be able to use it in your own user documentation. WHAT IS THIS DOCUMENT ABOUT? Some people who don't get a lot of mail, like to be notified when such an event occurs. Notification can be; via a sound via a pop-up box via the system tray (where the computer clock is) The pop up box looks like this; Other people, who like myself, get too much mail would rather not be notified. The aim of this document is to tell you how (and where) to turn these options on and off. CHANGING YOUR SETTINGS To change your settings from the Notes 8.x client; On the Menu, click File , then Preferences... On the left hand side , click on the little plus sign to the left of Mail to expand the options. Click on the option marked Sending and Receiving . In the middle section, under receiving, you can control your notifications. If you untick the box mark

Resolving the Lotus Notes 8.5.1 (and Higher) Attachment Issue

A long while ago, November 2009 actually, I posted about an Attachment Problem which was introduced in Lotus Notes 8.5.1. At the time, I pushed IBM for a solution and they eventually produced a half-solution (slightly better but no cigar). Since then we've been living in pain. Recently a commenter named "CIS" left a note on my original post to try putting AttachmentsUseCaption=0 in the notes.ini. It worked **THANKS** - you're my hero of the hour! I decided to describe the problem and solution here in case others were in the same boat. Here's how our attachments used to look prior to using the Lotus Notes 8.5.1 (and higher) clients. At 8.5.1, the text under the attachments disappeared completely. This left me with a screen with two PDF files and no description. Not a good look for our extranet service. We halted our Notes 8.5.1 rollout until IBM provided a fix but when they did, it wasn't a particularly elegant one. Here's how it looked; The attachme