How to solve a wifi issue between Nokia 5530 and a Thomson TG787 router

So, my wife bought a Nokia 5530 Xpress Music phone and was very eager to try it, especially the Wifi since she could now connect to Facebook and e-mail at home without having to use my Mac or iPod Touch :-)

However, the experience was not that thrilling since the phone was unable to connect to our our home router (a Thomson TG787 provided by our ADSL provider).

After trying several different configurations (with WEP, WPA, WPA2, without encryption, etc...) and with other gadgets (iPod Touch and Nokia N80 could connect successfully to every configuration) I was very frustrated that I couldn't find a working solution.

At that point I went out and while at a shopping mall I was able to try some public wireless networks and it worked immediately. This increased my frustration to an even more absurd level. Back home, the problem remained.

It was only when, while using some Google-fu, I was able to find this forum post (in Portuguese) that I could finally solve the problem. Even though this post refers to the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music, the solution appears to be suitable for the 5530 model as well.

So, basically all you need to do is some Terminal action:

• Open Terminal (on a Mac) or a command window (in Windows)
• Run the following command: telnet 192.168.1.254
• This will give you access to the router, but you have to insert the username (Administrator) and password (the password you defined)
• Once an administration console appears, write: wireless qos config mode=disabled
• Then hit Enter
• After that (it takes a few seconds to compute) write: saveall
• Then hit Enter
• Just exit and you're done

The Nokia 5530 phone was able to connect to the home wireless network... success, finally!

Final note: I don't know exactly if this affects only this type of phones, but my Nokia N80 worked fine without the need to do this hack. Also, I don't know exactly what this hack does to your router so beware. So far, I haven't noticed anything different on all other devices, so I won't reverse it. By the way, if you need to restart your router, this configuration is lost, so you'll need to do it again.

The invisible flash

Using the flash while taking some photos may be, in some situations, the only choice you have in order to produce decent lighting in a picture. However, most flash pictures are ruined because of the excessive light in the foreground and not enough light on the background.

In the ideal world of photography, a camera would be able to capture just enough light to make the picture perfect but not suffer from the disadvantages of using flash. Basically, what we need is an "invisible flash". But how can one produce such a paradox: a blast of light but that is not visible?



The answer is given by a student of the New York University, Dilip Krishnan and his advisor Rob Fergus. They have developed a dark or invisible flash which uses infrared and UV light to take photos in dark places without the nasty glare of a standard flash.

Basically, what they did was modify a light bulb to emit light over a wider range of frequencies (not visible at the human eye). They also changed their camera to adapt to these new conditions by using a set of filters to prevent the silicon image sensor from detecting infrared and ultraviolet rays.

This is not exactly new as this is more or less like night vision works. The difference is that, instead of having those photos where we all look like vampires, they managed to find a way to produce the correct colour balance by taking a quick colour image right after the dark flash image.

Even though the image produced in this second image is of low quality (grainy and unclear), the colours are correct. This allows them to produce a correct final image by using special software that combines the information from the photos (you can see the process on the 3 images above).

The technology is not yet perfect but it definitely looks pretty promising. To know more about it, you can check the website here.

Source: Engadget

Rechargeable batteries with solar cells

Now here's a great idea: integrate a solar cell directly into a rechargeable battery so that it can recharge just by facing the sun.


The SunCat batteries were born when its creator wondered as to why "hasn't anyone made a battery with integrated solar cells" and answered: "The batteries should just bask in the sun like a cat and left for a while, in a sunny window, they would slowly recharge."

I think it's a great idea and the good part is that you can do it yourself... that is, if you can get around the necessary parts and have the skill to build them :-)

Just check the SunCat blog post for details, here.

The Following/Followers dilemma on Twitter

I usually follow everyone that follows me on Twitter (except when it's clearly spam users), but there are a lot of people that use that nasty little trick to gain some followers: follow a lot of people and once those people follow them back, they stop following the people. This way, they can boost their ego (and maybe their dicks, I'm not sure) by showing off a huge difference between Following/Followers.

I don't really care about the number of followers that I have, but I do have to watch out for the amount of people that I follow, because an overcrowded timeline is useless since I don't have the time to read everything. And a good way to purge the Following list is to start by removing those "non-followers".

Since the Twitter web site doesn't allow having a cross-referenced view of the list of Following/Followers that would allow you to easily discover these "non-followers", I decided to make use of one of the available Java APIs for Twitter, Twitter4J, and create a small program that would give me that information.

So, if you're interested, download the JAR file here. You'll also need the Twitter4J JAR file: you can either download from the official website or you can download it from here.

To run the program, just type on a prompt terminal:

java -cp crossfollow.jar:twitter4j-1.1.4.jar dev.follow.twitter.CrossFollow username password

Just substitute username password with your data and you're ready to go. Also, you can run the program without providing the username and password, in which case, the program will prompt you for it.

Then, you'll get the list of the users that you follow that are not following you and for each user, the corresponding Twitter URL will be provided for you to then use as you pleased. The program does not change anything on your following or followers list. It simply provides the list as described above. It's up to you to perform the necessary changes directly on the Twitter website.

If this program gets successful, I might consider creating a real app for this, with a graphical user interface and all :-)

Any problems/questions/suggestions, please comment...

DISCLAIMER:
This software is distributed here freely and as open-source. It is done so as a means to ensure dissemination of technical work on a non-commercial basis. All rights therein are maintained by the author. It is understood that all persons downloading this software know that the software is provided AS IS and in no way the author is responsible for anything that may happen to your hardware and/or software on your computer or network. This software may not be re-distributed without the explicit permission of the author.

How to freak out your friends with a ligthbulb hack

DIY: how to create an invisible cable holder in less than 5 minutes

In my work desk, I have these loose cables coming from below that allow me to connect some of my gadgets to their corresponding chargers:

One is for connecting my Nokia N80, the other is to connect the Bluetooth headset Nokia BH-210. The grey USB cable is connected to a 4-port Hub where I connect some other gadgets such as my printer, a mouse and the iPod dock that you can also see on the image. This way, I can have all of these connected to my laptop by just using one USB port.

The problem with these loose cables is that they are loose...obvious, right? And because of that they're always falling, which means that then I have to go under the desk to fetch them and gently putting them back on top of the desk, hoping that they won't fall again.

What I really wanted was a way to maintain them easily accessible (and obviously not loose), yet not visible, in order to garantee a pleasant view of my desk.

I'm pleased to report that I achieved my goal, and the best of all is that I did it using simple objects that you can find anywhere and under 5 minutes.

What you'll need:

• A hole punch
• Some duct tape
• An old business or credit card that you won't be using anymore (plastic ones work better)
• A scissor or other cutting uttensil
  

Got everything? Good, let's start...

Step 1: Use the hole punch to make one hole for each wire on the business card. I'm using 3, as explained above, but this hack will work for any cable, such as network cable, laptop charger, etc...


Step 2: Using the scissor, cut a small passage between the edge of the card and each hole, as shown on the picture below. This will allow you to place the wires in the right place and still prevent the charger connector from falling.


Step 3: Using the duct tape, place the business card under the table and slide all the wires through. Some of the cables (such as USB) can be somewhat heavy, thus you'll be needing a strong enough duct tape to hold everything together.


Step 4: Marvell yourself with the beauty and simplicity of your new invisible cable holder:


I hope this will help keep you desk more organized too :-)

Need to hide something?

What if you hide it in the least probable place? Watch the video and you'll understand...



Source

How to turn Firefox into Google Chrome: part II

As if the use of extensions to turn Firefox into Google Chrome wasn't enough, now you can use Chromifox, a theme that will give your Firefox that bright and soft blue look as in Google Chrome.

Source: Lifehacker

No Google Chrome for Mac? Don't worry, Firefox will do just fine

At first I was somewhat sad that Google didn't release a Mac OS X version of their new open ultra-mega-super-sweet browser, Chrome. Well, why shouldn't I? They even published a nice comic book that explains how they came up with it.

But then everything went back to normal when this Lifehacker's post reminded me why it's so great to have extensions in Firefox. :-)


Anyway, this won't stop me from trying the Mac OS X version of Google Chrome as soon as it's released. I'm actually looking forward to it. Well, let's wait and see...

I want to believe

No, this post is not about the upcoming X-Files movie. This is only to reveal an important fact about UFO sightings. Ever since Photoshop was released, UFO sightings have suddenly started looking more real and convincing, right? :-)

Image source

How to really cool down you Mac (or any other laptop, for that matter)...

I used to work on a glass desk, which always kept my Mac's temperature under control. But ever since I had to change to a wooden desk (the glass one no longer fitted the space in the new room), my Mac started heating up more than it should.

At first, I tried using some leftover pieces of wood to place the Macbook Pro a little higher...that is, to avoid having direct contact with the table.


This helped maintain the computer's temperature a little lower, but doing some CPU intensive tasks (like my PhD simulations) triggered the Macbook's fans to work at its maximum, thus making the aluminium case hot enough to turn it into a nice frying pan where I can make some scrambled eggs.

As I was thinking about following Ikea Hacker's suggestion to use the Lämplig trivet as a cheap laptop stand, a friend of mine that had similar problems with his Asus laptop, recommended using a cooling laptop stand with extra fans that he bought on Amazon. So, I bought the Antec Notebook Cooler.


This nice notebook cooler stand works like a charm. It's very silent (due to having two speed settings - "low" for normal use and "high" for some hardcore cooling) and it's USB-powered, which means that I don't have to carry an extra charger. It is also very light, making it possible to carry everywhere in my laptop bag.

It really keeps my Mac's temperature down, which in the long run means that the hardware will probably last longer. And I know what you're thinking: "But the Macbook Pro only has 2 USB ports and keeping one of them occupied with this might be a waste of USB connectivity". Well, the guys at Antec thought of that too. The very own notebook cooler stand's USB connector is a small USB hub making the USB port still usable for other devices.

Cool, isn't it? (see what I did here?)

Source: The Mac Newbie

Twitter + Quicksilver = WOW!

Twitter may just be a new trend on the Internet, but you can't deny that this "micro-blogging" is sometimes useful. Whether I want to follow Imogen Heap's third album recording and production progress or the Nasa's MarsPhoenix ice-seeking activities on Mars, this little web service really comes in handy. And most naturally I decided to join in too.

You can update your Twitter status in many different ways (SMS, Web or IM), but the one that I most often use, Instant Messaging, is almost always down. And it's quite boring to have to have Adium logged in just to update the status. Visiting the website is also quite slow and not that handy.

Since I use Quicksilver for several different tasks on my Mac, I decided to give Google a try with the magic words: Twitter + Quicksilver.


And the first result was exactly what I wanted: a way to use Quicksilver to update my Twitter status. It does need some fiddling around with Script Editor and Keychain Access, but the tutorial is quite simple and direct and you'll have this working in no time.

How to download musics from MySpace using Safari and "wget" (on Mac OS X)

DISCLAIMER: even though the instructions provided in this post may be (mis)used to download copyrighted material, this blog or its author do not support any piracy activities and cannot be held responsible for what others do with the knowledge acquired here. The author disseminates this knowledge with the sole purpose of allowing users to backup musics that MySpace's publishing artists already allow users to download, which is the case in the given example.

MySpace is a great social website that has specialized in providing access to a lot of musical material from musicians around the world. Some of those musicians publish their musics in their profile and even allow downloading them (as you can see in the figure below that shows the music box for Ani DiFranco), but for doing that you have to be logged in to your MySpace account.


But what if you don't have (or don't want to create) a MySpace account? Well, that's what I'm going to show you:

1. First of all, let me remind you that this can only be done using version 3 of the Safari web browser and a small Unix utility called wget. To install wget in Mac OS X, check here (I tried using Firefox 3 but the Page Info's Media tab (Tools -> Page Info) does not show the necessary files)
2. So, let's start. On the music box on the musician's profile (in this example, I'll be using Ani DiFranco's profile) click on the music you want to download and let it load entirely (you'll see it loading if the blue thin line is growing in the progress bar of the music player)
   
3. Open the Activity window in Safari (Go to Window->Activity)
   



4. Search for the file (or files, in case you've already load several songs) with a larger size (around 3 MB - may vary depending on the duration of the song) or you can search for the file with the address having some sort of combination of the words "cache" and "music". Then, double-click it.
   



5. Safari will open a new window and will start playing the music that you just selected. If you take a look at the address bar, you'll notice that the URL points out to a complex address of an MP3 file. This is MySpace's cache file for the song you selected and can be downloaded directly.
   



6. However, this cannot be done in Safari. If you try using the File->Save Page as... option, you'll notice that it's not enabled. That's where "wget" gets into play.
7. After installing "wget", the command with the same name will be available on Terminal's prompt. Just copy the URL (until the "mp3" part, as shown in the figure above) and paste it after the command at the Terminal, as you see in the following figure:
   



8. This will download the file and will place it in the current directory (In the figure, you can see that I did this in ~/Desktop)
9. Then, just use the MP3 player of your choice and enjoy! :-)

Final remarks: the cached MP3 file is often of lower quality, so don't expect perfect CD quality whilst listening. Also, the downloaded MP3 file comes with no tagging information, so you'll have to fill in everything on the MP3 management application that you choose. I didn't try this in Windows so I don't know if it's possible. If you test it in Windows, let me know the result in the comments.

Source: The Mac Newbie

Quantum Superposition, or how can video games be creative

Imagine you play the same video game 1000 times. Then, imagine that you create a video where you superimpose all off those 1000 iterations into one single video game flow using the concept of quantum superposition. Also, imagine that you add a nice background music theme to make the video even more enchanting. Here's the result of doing just that using the popular racing car video game TrackMania:

Isn't this just amazing?

Source: Reality of Nature

So, you thought your Bluetooth headset was secure?

More DIY videos at 5min.com

DVRs, TVs and infrared sensors

If you'd prefer to read this post in Portuguese, check this post at my other blog.

I've recently joined the new Tivo-like service in Portugal, which is called Meo (in Portuguese). The installation was done without any problems and the service was working perfectly. During that day, I tested all features and I was quite amazed on the potential of the service.

When my wife arrived home (she arrived around 8 P.M.. Yes, this will be relevant.) I wanted to show her the newly acquired gadget. Suddenly, the DVR box wasn't responding. The remote was sending the infrared signal (see NOTE for an interesting diagnosis tool) but the box wasn't receiving it. I had to be standing at about 1 meter (around 3 feet) for the DVR box to receive the signal from the remote and execute the desired action.

So, I called the help desk and told them about the problem that I was having. They told me that the remote had a problem and that I should replace it in a store. And so I did. The next day, I went to a store with the remote and explained the problem again to one of the technicians. After doing some testing with my remote on their DVR box, the technician tells me that there isn't anything wrong with my remote.

So, I decided to go back home (around lunch time) and test the all thing again and to my surprise, everything was working perfectly. I thought: "Ok, last night the remote had a glitch but it's gone now". But at night the problem came back again. So, after a new round of calls to the help desk service and discussions with store technicians, they decided to send a team to my house to check out the problem. Of course, I told them that the team would have to go there at night, since the problem was only manifesting at that time.

And so they did. The next night, a technician went to my house and at first, everything was working (he arrived around 7:30 P.M.). At this point, my anger was starting to rise to dangerous levels. But as soon as the technician was starting to say (around 8 P.M.): "Ok, it seems that there's nothing wrong with this, so there's nothing I can do", the problem started to manifest again.

The technician decided to change the DVR box with a new one, but the problem remained. He was even more amazed than I was because he wasn't able to understand why this problem was occurring. We started thinking about interferences with other devices on my living room. I removed everything that could cause any interference at the infrared level (DVD Player, Playstation, laptop...) but still the problem remained. It was only when the technician placed the DVR box away from the television (about 3 meters away) that we started seeing some improvement (but it didn't solve the problem entirely).

The technician (very intelligently!!) concluded that the interference was caused by the television and that there is nothing he could do, that the only way to solve this was to place the DVR Box really far away from the television. Oh really? Thanks genius!!

But of course, I wasn't satisfied with this diagnosis, especially because the problem was only manifesting at night. So, after searching (for about 2 hours) the web for similar problems, I finally discovered what the problem was. But first let me tell you about what I've learned and what I've tried:

• Infrared light is present in sunlight and fluorescent light bulbs (the ones usually found in kitchens) and so these sources of light should not exist in the same place as infrared devices - it wasn't my case
  
• Having white walls directly facing the DVR is also not a good idea, because the light reflected on the wall (from various light sources, including the TV images) may also interfere with infrared devices - I have in fact a white wall on the back of my couch which is facing forward the TV and the DVR but that was not the cause of my problem
• Other people have complained about the interference that some wireless routers cause in infrared devices - this wasn't my case and I find this very hard to believe as one is based on infrared light and and the other is based on radio signals
• Some people have also complained that the excess of light in a room can cause interferences with infrared devices and that a bit of duck-tape over the infrared sensor of the TV or DVR should help filter the light sources - this wasn't my case

It was only after thinking a lit bit more about the fact that the problem only occurs at night that I decided to analyse the problem from another angle: check the settings of the TV to see if anything was changing at that time of the day. I didn't find anything that would explicitly change the TV settings at a certain time of the day but I did come across a very interesting functionality: dynamic light adaptation.

My Samsung LCD has this functionality to adapt the screen brightness and contrast according to the amount of light that exists in the living room. For example, if it's bright enough, the TV adapts to display a more bright and contrast image and vice-versa. So, I decided to turn off this option and guess what... everything went back to normal again.

I don't know the details on how this functionality affects the communication between the DVR box and the remote (maybe the TV's infrared sensor for this feature uses the same light frequency as the DVR box and remote), but now it's easy to understand why this was only occurring during that time of day (around 8 P.M.): because this was when the light in my living room (which is faced West) was changing because of the sun going down.

I've been using the system for a few weeks now (with the TV and the DVR standing really close) and since then, the problem has never occurred again :-) So, if you're having a similar problem with infrared interferences and you're unable to detect the source of the problem, remember to check your TV settings for any dynamic light adaptation.

NOTE: this tip works for all infrared-based remotes. To diagnose a problem with your remote, simply point it to a camera-based cellphone (or any other camera, such as a webcam or camcorder) and click any button. If you see a light blinking, then it's working properly. Because remotes work with infrared, this blinking light will only be visible in the camera and not at the naked eye.

How to see YouTube videos that are blocked

You've probably came across this message on YouTube, right?

Or maybe that other message saying that the current video has restricted content and you have to login and verify your age to see the movie, right?

Well, there's a way to bypass that restriction. YouTube video links have the following format:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEOID

where VIDEOID is that sequence of letters and numbers that univocally identifies a youtube video in their huge database. The access to the video through this link format will feature any restrictions that the uploader may have set.

However, a simple hack lets you see the movie (but only that, since this link will only give you access to the YouTube embedded player). Just change the link to the following format:

http://www.youtube.com/v/VIDEOID

And that's it! Now you should have access to the same video without any restrictions.

But I guess this won't work for long. As soon as YouTube figures out that this "back door is opened", they'll probably apply the same restrictions and "close" it for good.

Ladies and Gentlemen: all the gaming consoles' laptop versions

I was already amazed when some guy decided to create a laptop version of the XBox 360. But this guy went all the way with laptop versions of all the gaming consoles:

The XBox 360 laptop:

The Wii laptop:

The XBox 360 laptop:

I'm speechless, except to say: WOW!

Images source: Engagdet

How to remove the Blogger Bar from your blog's header

If you have a blog on Blogger/Blogspot, you probably have noticed that there's a Blogger Bar on top of your blog. I actually like the Blogger Bar on my blog, for several reasons:

• It is a complete search engine for my blog only. It's kind of like having Google on my blog
• It has some nice shortcut buttons that always comes in handy when you want to make a new post ("New Post") or change something on the blog's layout ("Customize") - otherwise I would have to specifically navigate to blogger.com and then access these options
• It allows me to check exactly what's the account I'm currently signed in on Blogger (in case you have multiple accounts) and quick navigation out ("Sign out")
• It has this nice "Next Blog" button that works kind of like StumbleUpon, where every time you click it, you are taken to a different (and potentially interesting) blog
  
• It blends in quite nicely and does not stand out making the blog design look ugly

What I don't like is the fact that they force users to host this Bar on their blog. And while this works out fine for me for the reasons that I pointed out above, for other users this is a real hassle that ruins a blog's design or layout.

Since there's no real option available on Blogger's blogs preferences to change this, you have to do some coding yourself. So, go to the "Layout" setting of your blog and on the "Edit HTML" section, add the following code:

#navbar-iframe {
height:0px;
visibility:hidden;
display:none;
}

"Where?" - you ask. Well, good question. Check this image that shows where to put it:


Source: MuioMuio.Net (in Portuguese)

10 things you can do yourself at home...if you have the time

I barely have the time to do some blogging, let alone do any of these things on the list. But if you do have the time (and patience and skills) Lifehacker has posted a very interesting list of the Top 10 DIY Home Projects.

These include a CD Stack Lamp, a Hands-Free Toilet Flusher, a Secret Bookshelf Door and a Remote Control Deadbolt.

Enjoy your weekend :-)