Computing

Screenshots on a PocketPC

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Since it took me a while to find out how to do this myself, I’m going to use this opportunity to tell you how to take screenshots on a PocketPC or Windows Mobile device – in my case, Windows Mobile 2003.

First of all, you need to know that, as far as I can tell, your device does not have a screenshot capability built in. It’s not like a Windows machine where you can hit Print Screen or a Mac where you can hit Cmd+Shift+3 – you will have to install some software first. I’m sure there’s some fancy-pants shareware jobby that will do the job painlessly but in this instance we’re going to use Pocket SnapIt (link no longer available), which is available for both normal Windows Mobile/PocketPC devices and Windows Smartphone handsets. There’s also a Windows version for your PC. It’s free and open source.

Choose the relevant package – for my Dell Axim x50v, I chose the PocketPC package – and download it to your device. This may mean downloading it to the Mobile Device folder in My Computer and then using ActiveSync to send it across. Then, click on the cabinet file on your device to have it install. If you’re using Windows Mobile 2003 (and probably 5.0 also) you’ll probably get a warning saying that the application was designed for an older operating system – you can ignore this. Now, go to Programs and run the newly-added Pocket SnapIt icon.

You’ll now need to define a hotkey to trigger the taking of screenshots. I chose the ‘/’ character – to set this, click on Menu and select Options. Then click Menu again, expand Options and choose Capture Options. Now click Menu a third time and click Select Capture Button. Click OK and then select a key on the keyboard. Click OK to go back to the main screen, and then click Start.

Now, open up the program you want to take a screenshot of and press the trigger key – you should hear a noise when you do. You should then find a bitmap file in your My Documents folder call Snap001.bmp – this is your screenshot.

You can see my effort further up the page – this was a shot from Skype for PocketPC. As you can see, the capturing mostly works but it chokes on the font smoothing, so you may want to consider turning this off first. You’ll also need to change the image format to something other than bitmap if you want to post your screenshot on the internet (since bitmaps are not compressed) – PNG is probably the best format to go for. The image I posted is less than 13KB.

Mac Stuff, again

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I think this will be the last post of this series for at least a few days now, since I’ve pretty much explored the OS now.

  • Managed to get 10.4.2 to install. It turns out I needed the ‘Combo’ update and not the standard one, which is presumably only for US English users or something. It would have been nice for the non-Combo installer to tell me this though.
  • I also managed to finally sort out the keyboard mapping problems using this UK keyboard map. It’s a shame I had to resort to third-party software to fix the problem – Apple should really have addressed this in the operating system, especially as one of the selling points of the Mac Mini is that you can bring your own keyboard and mouse.
  • Now my next keyboard problem: getting the Home and End keys to do as they do in Windows. In OS X, they do nothing. Any ideas?
  • One of the flaws I heard about the Mac Mini was its headphone socket and poor quality output. This is something I’ve noticed as well; there’s not nearly the same depth of sound as on my laptop. It sounds very muffled when hooked up to my stereo, for example. Sure, it’s only supposed to be a headphone socket but it is the only built-in audio output, and when you consider it comes with software like GarageBand and iMovie you would expect something a bit better. I may have to consider the Griffin iMic (£30 or $40), especially as the Mini has no way of inputting sound (no microphone or line in).
  • The network tools applet in Utilities is awesome! Whois, DNS lookups and allsorts, all in a nice interface. Nice one, Apple.
  • I gave in and downloaded StuffIt Expander for the Mac. Even though the StuffIt web site uses browser sniffing and will only let Windows users download the Windows version. Thankfully I have Chris Pederick’s User Agent Switcher installed so I pretended I was actually a Mac user and it was okay.
  • The main reason for this is so that I could install Windows Media Player 9 for OS X since I imagine I’ll need it to view some movies. Alas VLC doesn’t yet support many of Microsoft’s proprietary media formats (or at least not on its non-Windows builds) so I’d better get it just in case. And you need StuffIt to be able to open WMP since it doesn’t use a disk image like, um, just about every other piece of Mac software I’ve downloaded recently.
  • I also have a feeling that I’ll need to get a copy of RealPlayer for OS X. Unless, of course, anyone can suggest another program that plays RealMedia files?

Even more Mac stuff

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I’m sure these posts will stop eventually, but anyway…

The Good Bits

  • Despite what Joe said, Adium X looks really good. The lack of internet at home has meant I haven’t had much chance to play with it, but the interface is very nice and I like the cute duck icon, whose eyes open when Adium is launched. It’s everything that Gaim should be on Windows.
  • Like I was expecting, software installation, and indeed uninstallation is a breeze – arguably easier than Windows and much, much easier than Linux.
  • NeoOffice seems to work well, and being based on OpenOffice.org means that I’m immediately familiar with the interface. Alas, it still uses the same interface as the Windows/Linux versions so it looks a bit ugly, though it is an improvement on the standard OpenOffice.org builds for the Mac which also require X11. My other complaints would be that it is based on OOo 1.1.4 which means it doesn’t yet support the OpenDocument formats (which some of my work is saved in) and the splash screen is ugly – too much text. The icon is nice though, however quite what a galleon has to do with an office suite I don’t know.
  • Deer Park also works mostly okay bar some minor display issues; Thunderbird seems to be fine.
  • After upgrading the firmware on my router, Airport is working fine. We’re using WPA-PSK in the house to encrypt the Wi-Fi transmissions. It still doesn’t work with my Wintel laptop but I’ll put that down to the rather old 802.11b PCMCIA card and not Windows XP itself which supports WPA as of SP2, and in SP1 with an optional download. I’ve got a new 802.11g card with WPA support on order.
  • Unlike in Linux, I’ve barely had to use the terminal for anything – the only thing it was useful for was for finding out where a CD was mounted so that I could use it with DOSBox which is a pretty niche use. Mac OS X gets it just right – the Terminal is there if you feel the need to use it, but there’s usually no reason to unless you need to engage in some real geekery.

The Bad Bits

  • Still not got the keyboard thing sorted, however I’ll check these threads out:Ucontrol may also be worth a look.
  • Can’t seem to be able to install the 10.4.2 update. As far as I can tell I just have plain vanilla 10.4, but when I try to install the 10.4.2 package it tells me my disk is “not suitable”. It doesn’t tell me why it’s not suitable, nor how I can make it suitable though. This thread seems to cover my problem so I’ll look into it.
  • On the subject of updates, in addition to the OS, I’ve had to update iTunes, iPhoto, iSync and QuickTime. This is a brand new machine; why weren’t these already on there? iTunes was at version 4.7.1, yet 4.8 came out in early May – surely the best part of 3 months is ample time to include an update. 4.9 has been out for over a month too.
  • I don’t really appreciate OS X creating .DS_store files on my laptop when transferring files over, however there is a way of disabling it. It does require dropping to the Terminal and a reboot, though.
  • More StuffIt ranting: StuffIt is not included in Tiger, so any new Macs, like mine, don’t support .sit archives. Ironically I’ve had to expand them on my PC using ExtractNow before copying them over. Mac people: please, please use .zip files from now on 🙂

More Mac Stuff

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If you’re not in the least bit interested in my experiences with my new Mac then you can safely skip this post. Otherwise, read on…

The good bits

  • Bootup and shutdown are very fast in comparison with my Wintel laptop, but this may be because my laptop has quite a bit of software loaded on it and a number of things which run on bootup: virus scanner, memory manager, ActiveSync, phone manager utilities, Microsoft Antispyware and a series of hotkey/background utilities for managing my sound and video. The majority of those won’t be needed on the Mac.
  • Despite mice with more than one button being a rarity in the Mac world, my two-button wireless mouse with scroll wheel works just as it did in Windows. If you’re only used to one button then trust me, you don’t know what you’re missing.
  • Not really tried it yet but installing and uninstalling applications looks like a sinch.
  • iPhoto is an awesome tool to have out of the box. Not quite as powerful as Picasa for Windows but a nice tool to have.
  • Seems to work fine with all of the hardware that I’ve plugged into it thus far.
  • Preview works well as a PDF viewer. And I appreciate native support for creating PDFs when printing, rather than installing an add-on like PDFCreator (or the full Acrobat package, obviously).
  • The Terminal, and all its Unix command line goodness.
  • Nice to see iChat making the first steps into cross-network support by allowing connections to Jabber and Bonjour as well. That said, I’ll be downloading Adium X to enable the other networks.

The bad bits

  • OS X is still not properly respecting my keyboard layout. Sure, I’ve found the options that let you change it, but what it thinks is a UK layout, um, isn’t. When I press Shift+2 I should be getting “, not an @ – that’s what it’s labelled as.
  • Closing applications takes some getting used to. Clicking the red X doesn’t actually close it – it just sends it to the dock. You have to press Alt+Q or right-click its dock icon and choose Close. Minimising sends it to the right-hand side of the dock, incidentally.
  • Though it’s not as bad as many PC manufacturers (see Ed Bott’s weblog entry) there’s still a bit of bundled crap that I don’t really want, namely trials of Keynote and Microsoft Office:Mac 2004. I’ve downloaded NeoOffice to replace the latter.
  • iSync doesn’t support my phone (Nokia 7250i) or PDA (Dell Axim X50v). Though I will be getting a better phone soon (next 6-9 months, I reckon) and The Missing Sync fixes the latter problem, albeit at a cost of $40.

Software I have lined up to install

  • Deer Park Alpha 2
  • Thunderbird 1.0.6
  • Adium X 0.82
  • NeoOffice/J 1.1
  • VLC 0.82
  • Flickr Uploadr for Mac OS X
  • Flickr plugin for iPhoto

Any other suggestions? I’m considering buying Transmit but would appreciate some free alternatives. I might give FireFTP another spin once DPA2 is running.

It’s here!

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All booted up

So, it’s here. Actually, it would have been here yesterday but no-one was in when the delivery guy called.

First impressions

Setting up was pretty easy – not much more than a case of plugging everything in and pressing the On button. Which, confusingly, is on the back.

It picked up my mouse and keyboard fine, although it did ask me to press the key next to my left Shift key just to verify the layout. Even then, it’s on the US layout and not the UK one, despite saying I was in the UK the whole way through the setup. Will have to adjust that later on.

Network settings were picked up no problem and it detected the wireless network in the house too. It couldn’t actually connect to it but then neither can my laptop so I’m guessing it’s an issue with the base station. It probably needs a firmware update but we’ve not been able to get on the internet to do it.

The first-run installation looks very nice, with the revolving dialog animation. All in all it took under 5 minutes, after which I was looking at the OS X desktop in all its white and silver glory. Work commitments have meant I haven’t been able to explore much though.

Since my monitor has DVI inputs as well as VGA I’m using a DVI cable to connect the two together and this seems to work fine. OS X even defaulted to the 1280×1024 resolution, which is the highest the screen can take. Using DVI has the added bonus of not needing a KVM switch when switching back to my laptop; I’m hoping to use Synergy to share the keyboard and mouse between the two machines.

So yeah, I’m pretty happy right now 🙂 . Unfortunately we still have no broadband, and now the phone line itself doesn’t seem to want us to make calls, so I’ll have to keep using my laptop in the library for now. Small though the Mac Mini may be, when you include the keyboard, mouse and screen the package gets somewhat bigger, and not exactly portable.

Here’s a Flickr photoset of the unpacking.

Woohoo!

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Just got this email from Apple:

Today Apple announced a new Mac Mini. Accordingly, we are pleased to revise your recent order by substituting the original product you ordered with the new Mac Mini at no extra cost to you. The new configuration either matches or exceeds that of the original product. In fact, depending on the configuration you ordered, you may be entitled to a partial refund. If you are paying by Credit Card, Loan, or Leasing, the price will be adjusted automatically.

The new Mac Mini is basically the same as the old one but includes 512MB of RAM as standard instead of 256MB, and the 1.42GHz model includes Aiport Extreme and Bluetooth as standard. I’d gone for all these options which means that Apple should hopefully be refunding me £46 very soon.

Mac on Friday

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The latest update to my Mac Mini’s order status suggests it will be ready by Friday, so hopefully delivery will be either then or the beginning of next week. I don’t yet know if it’ll be one of the “new” models or a standard one, but seeing as it has taken some time for it to be ready I’m hoping it’s the latter (I ordered it 9 days ago). We’ll see, anyway.

This week is somewhat less interesting than last week was, though I am going home to York this weekend for a friend’s 21st birthday.

Update: As you may have guessed, it didn’t come on Friday. Apple’s current estimate is on or before next Tuesday (9th August). I’m guessing the launch of the new model is the cause of the delay, but considering that it’s going to be considerably cheaper and that I still have no proper internet at home I’m not too bothered about the wait.

iPod Recycling Programme

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At the risk of annoying Dave, who’s just bought a iPod Mini to replace his 2G iPod, Apple have announced an iPod recycling programme, whereby if you take your old iPod to an Apple Store in the US, Apple will recycle it free of charge and give you 10% off a new model (if you buy one on the same day). The old iPod will then be dismantled and recycled within the US, so that no hazardous chemicals, such as lead, are shipped overseas.

It’s a good move by Apple. On the one hand, they’re ensuring that unwanted iPods are disposed of and recycled properly, instead of being dumped on landfill sites. And at the same time, they’re encouraging users of old iPods to upgrade to newer models, thus bringing the company more revenue.

Let’s just hope that Apple extends this to other countries and that other manufacturers take a hint and adopt similar policies.

It’s here!

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Side by Side

Okay, after this I’ll hopefully shut up about the screen, because it arrived this morning (yay for ParcelForce delivering before 10am). It works fine, although I found that you really do have to follow the instructions by turning the computer off first, then turning the monitor on and then the computer on to get it to work – you can’t just plug it in and expect it to work. RTFM, as they say.

Having a 1280×1024 resolution is so much better than 1024×768 – the machines at the university use it, as does my parents machine at home – but I’ve had to put up with the latter as my laptop screen doesn’t support it (but then it is only 14”). The screen arrived with no dead pixels, which is good.

Oh, and it works with my PDA, as well 🙂 .

Update: Since I got a rather large birthday money cheque this morning, I’ve also treated myself to a Belkin wireless keyboard and optical mouse, thus meaning I finally have the luxury of a full-size keyboard. It’s USB and both PC and Mac compatible, which will be handy when I order the Mac Mini in a few weeks time.

My one problem now is a lack of desk space…

Quickly compress PNG images

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Before posting any PNG images on here, I use the open source Pngcrush tool to compress the images as much as possible first. Even when I set the compression to its highest value in programs like IrfanView, Pngcrush is still able to make most images even smaller.

Unfortunately, Pngcrush is a command-line tool, so it’s not the easiest tool to use in Windows. So here’s how to add a ‘Crush’ option to the context (right-click) menu in Windows Explorer for quicker crushing.

Firstly, you’ll need to download Pngcrush, which is availble at Sourceforge. You’ll want the win32 version. Download it and unpack it somewhere.

The instructions that follow are for Windows XP; for older versions they’ll be a little different.
Open Control Panel and choose Folder Options. Select the File Types tab, and scroll down to the ‘PNG’ entry. Click on ‘Advanced’, then click on ‘New…’.

In ‘Action’, type Crush, and in ‘Application used to perform action’, type the following:

C:\Downloads\pngcrush\pngcrush.exe -e 2.png "%1"

The first portion should be the location of the pngcrush.exe file that you extracted from the archive. The ‘-e 2.png’ bit specifies what the outputted PNG image will be called, which in the case it’ll be the filename with ’2′ appended to it (so the crushed version of ‘catpicture.png’ would be called ‘catpicture2.png’). You could also use the following:

C:\Downloads\pngcrush\pngcrush.exe -brute -e 2.png "%1"

This does the same as the above but does a ‘brute force’ crush – rather than use one of a few common methods to crush the file, it will use all of them. It’ll take longer, especially on older hardware, but may result in a smaller PNG file.

And you’re done. Now, when you right-click on a PNG file, you can select ‘Crush’ and have Pngcrush your image for you. Remember that the compression is lossless – you won’t lose any quality by using the tool.

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