Real World Computing

It's taken a bit longer than I expected to find a free solution to conversion of video files for the Blackberry but I've finally found one. The software to use is called; Internet Video Converter (I used version 1.52 standard) and you can get it from this web site ( http://ivcsoft.free.fr/ ). The application relies on either the FFmpeg or the Mencoder files in order to do the conversions. These files are available separately but I think they're also included with the utility. Converting the File Rip, Download or otherwise obtain your AVI file . Start the Internet Video Converter Application . Click on the Tab marked Transcoder . Click on the button marked 1. Select a Video . Choose a video file to use (there is a 1 second DOS screen that appears - don't panic about this). The Save As section will be filled in automatically. Change it if you need to. In the format list choose; Mobile QVGA 320x240 - AAC/good (.3GP) . Note: If you have a different type of blackberry...

I used to be able to access the Domino server console by using Remote Desktop on the server but recently, the Console started to disappear. At first, I figured that it was something I'd done wrong, until I saw a post on the Notes 8 forum . It's a Windows XP Service Pack 3 issue; So, here's the fix; The command line parameter has changed and if your remote desktop icon for your domino server used to be as follows; mstsc -v: 10.12.2.2 -console you need to change it to: mstsc -v: 10.12.2.2 -admin ...following installation of XP service pack 3. Where 10.12.2.2 is the IP address of your server.

I recently saw a post about using third party software to display pictures and figured that this feature was worth reiterating. Windows XP comes with a built in screen saver called my pictures slideshow which does the trick nicely. There is no need to install third party software. Here is an easy way to configure this screen saver for simpler changes; First of all, you should create a folder on your hard drive where you will store pictures for your screensaver. In my case, I have stored them in G:\SaverPics. Screen Saver Installation Procedure Right mouse click onto your desktop background and choose properties from the pop-up menu In the display properties dialog box, click on the Tab marked screen saver . In the list of screen savers, select " My Pictures Slideshow " Click on the button marked settings . On the settings dialog, you can choose how frequently the pictures should change and how big they should become. I tend to prefer 100% of screen . You can click on Brow...

How hard can it be to buy a server? I've been buying servers for years and I've experienced several types of purchases. The Cheap and Nasty This is where you go out to your local computer shop and buy a no-name, unbranded "glorified PC" server. Luckily, this practice seems to have completely disappeared from medium and large size business but it still goes on in small shops. The thing to remember about this approach is that they end up costing you in the long run. The best I can say about this approach is ... don't. If you really have to go down this track, then don't buy a server. Spend the same money on a good "brand-name" PC with a decent warranty - at least 3 years on site, and 4 hour response time. Also, make sure that you have good backup software and that you backup often. The Enterprise Special This is the exact opposite of the "cheap and nasty". You end up effectively paying $30,000 for what is essentially $10,000 worth of har...

I love Google Chat As a strong Lotus supporter, I know that I should be shouting "Sametime" but the fact is that I secretly love Google chat. Sure, there's no way it's as powerful as sametime and it's not as useful in the corporate sense of the word but as a family and friends tool, it's unbeatable. So, wouldn't it be nice to be able to put a "presence-aware" link to google chat on your blog or web page? The way to do this is surprisingly simple; You need to already have a google chat account (a gmail account). Go to this site http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/New Play around with the settings on this page - there are several different types of "badges" When finished, copy the HTML Code from this page to your blog or website. Group Chats One thing that google chat didn't do until recently was group chats. It's all changed now and there are plenty of articles about how to start a group chat with Google Talk. The problem...

Last Friday night, we installed a new firewall to replace our "unsupported" Symantec model. A Bizarre Sense of Timing Curiously, we'd been complaining to Symantec for years about several of their systems and had been slowly ripping and replacing. Our complaints over their lack of interest in the firewall they sold us had been fairly strong over the last six months but had met with limited responses. I got a call out of the blue on Friday afternoon from "upper" management telling us that they were now committed to sorting out the firewall for us. I had to tell them that their firewall only had three hours of life left. I didn't feel guilty though. I don't think that anyone should be willing to tolerate a lack of service. A Simple Swap-over We cleverly timed the firewall swapover project to coincide with a weekend where there was a scheduled power outage. This meant that instead of having one firewall (point of failure) on site, we had two. We spent a w...

We've already looked at how to use the Blackberry as an e-book reader but what about when you're feeling particularly lazy? Talking books are the answer. You can use the inbuilt Blackberry Media Player but since it has limited capabilities, particularly for browsing (unless you use trickery), I prefer to use the free xPlayer . Recording your Book from an Existing CD If you've already got a talking book on CD, you can simply record it using Windows Media Player's RIP facility. These instructions refer to Windows Media Player 8, but you can use other versions and indeed other "rippers". Insert the CD into your CD-ROM Drive Click Cancel on the AudioCD Autorun Prompt (it's safer to do things manually) Start Windows Media Player Click on the Library Tab, then the Little Arrow beneath the word library, this pops up a menu. On the Menu, select More Options... This will display a dialog box. In the Dialog box, click the Rip Music Tab. Look at the Location to Ri...