Every time I use my PlayStation 2 ![[B00004SQPD]](http://www.mikeyp.com/css/external.gif)
, I need to roll my video game cart closer to the sofa because the standard PS2 DualShock 2 controller cable is too short. I don't have this problem with the long cable on the Xbox Controller S, or with the brilliant Wavebird wireless controller on the GameCube .
I've tried a variety of wireless controllers for the PS2, I can't stand any of them. None have the perfect button throw of the DualShock, or the accurate D-Pad. Although the most popular wireless controller, the Logitech Cordless Action , has a really comfortable form factor, it has clunky (slow!) buttons and one of the sloppiest D-Pad's I've used.
My solution? Too obvious! Buy an extension cable. Not a bad option for just a few bucks, eh?
After trying Snappermail and Versamail as email client apps for my Zodiac, I decided to take a look at an email client I already had: iambic Mail. I've been using iambic Mail since I bought a copy of the original iambic Office several years ago for my Sony Clie. I use it to sync my email on my Zodiac with Outlook. I never realized it also had support for IMAP servers, which would allow me to check my email via my Bluetooth Cel Phone connection, just like Snappermail and Versamail. Perfect!
Alas, I've been getting some lockups and hangs with iambic Mail, so I decided to buy the newest version, now branded as Agendus Mail. Here's how the experience went:
Late Sunday Night: Visit http://www.iambic.com, navigate among dozens of Agendus-branded products until I find Agendus Mail for PalmOS. Notice that it includes a copy of Agendus Professional (a calendar viewer app). Add to online cart, fill out purchase info, click "Buy" button, and see an invoice page. I click a button for "printable invoice" and I print it. Text on the invoice page says "Thank You! Please click on link to download Agendus Mail now!" I click the link and get a page that says, "Sorry, that download is not available!" Uh oh. Too late to investigate, will try tomorrow.
Late Monday Night: No emails from iambic (I would have expected a receipt and reg code). I look at the printed invoice, which says Handango, not iambic. Ah, they outsource software fulfillment. No problem, let's visit http://www.handango.com. I click on the "previous orders" link, fill in my email and the invoice number from the printed invoice, and am presented with a download page. The download page attempts to auto-download the file, and Internet Explorer's security decides to block it. I click on the IE security bar, choose "allow download", the page reloads, and tons of garbage data appears on the screen. Oops. I click the reload page button in IE, see the download page, see IE block the download again, click the security bar to allow the download, and see a new web page. It says, "Sorry! Your maximum number of downloads has been exceeded!" Shit. Too late to investigate, will try tomorrow.
Late Tuesday Night: Revisit iambic.com, find customer service page, click the "check order status" button. Am asked to choose to enter my account name and password or email address and invoice number. I choose the latter, click "submit" and wait. And wait. And wait. 5 minutes later, I reload page, try to enter account and password, click "login", and wait… wait… wait. Nothing. Open Outlook, craft a politely terse email to customerservice@iambic.com, include the invoice number from printed receipt (sure am glad I printed it!) and click "send".
Late Wednesday Night: Received two emails from iambic! One has an apology, the other has a download link. The link works, I download and install all software, register the app, get reg code in email, enter code in Agendus Mail on Zodiac, two HotSyncs later, all done. Try a few email syncs with Outlook, works fine. Sync IMAP via my bluetooth Linux connection. Works fine.
Thursday: Try to sync IMAP via my Bluetooth Cel Phone. Agendus Mail locks up and hangs.
The Toxic Avenger , from Troma Studios is a great movie if you like superhero - special effects - comedy - low budget - B-movie films. I find it fascinating how films like that and Class of Nuke 'Em High could be made in the age of Hollywood blockbusters. Lloyd Kaufman, the co-founder of Troma Studios, describes it all in his book, All I Need to Know About Filmmaking I Learned from The Toxic Avenger .
The book wasn't what I expected. I thought I was going to read lessons on camera angles, lighting, cinematography, etc. Instead, Lloyd describes a much more intimate look at the business side of filmmaking, detailing how a somewhat crazy Hollywood outsider (himself) was able to succeed in creating a profitable movie studio business, with hilarious misstep after misstep, plenty of incompetent blind luck, and a pure drive to make his "visions" come to life on-screen.
Trivia Note: Did you know that Lloyd Kaufman was the Associate Producer on the 80's hit movie, The Final Countdown ?
The Tapwave Zodiac is the fourth PalmOS device I've owned and used extensively. Without exception, I've found that doing an occasional hard reset on the device helps performance and recovers wasted RAM.
Before you hard reset, make sure you do a complete HotSync and backup, and note any special configuration settings. On the Zodiac, you can do a hard reset by holding down the Power Button and inserting the stylus tip in to the reset pinhole on the back of the device.
A hard reset of my Zodiac last week recovered 1.5MB of RAM, and performance is noticeably snappier.
I did have issues with boot-up crashes after my first HotSync. It turned out to be some bluetooth configuration files. I simply removed them from the local backup directory (usually in a directory like C:\Program Files\palmOne\YourName\Backup), and reset / reSync. Here are the files I had to remove:
06/05/2005 04:35 PM 502 Bluetooth_Device_Cache.PDB
06/05/2005 04:35 PM 260 Bluetooth_Trusted_Devices.PDB
06/05/2005 04:35 PM 239 BtExgLibDB.PDB
06/05/2005 04:36 PM 1,666 ConnectionMgr50DB.PDB
06/05/2005 04:38 PM 3,135 MMExtraISPs.PRC
06/05/2005 04:38 PM 90,772 Net_Library.PRC
06/05/2005 08:42 PM 35,508 Saved_Preferences.PRC
Plumbing is an easy job, done in the most awkward location.
I spent a rare day off on a lovely Sunday morning crawling under the house and in the attic repairing a cracked waste pipe. Why didn't I just call a plumber to do this for me? Because, for the second time, I had to repair a job botched by a plumber a few years ago.
I can only guess how someone could screw up such a simple task. Fixing ABS pipe is as simple as glue part A to part B:
can work wonders as long as you're careful to not rattle other pipes to pieces.The only hard part about the whole job is getting there, and that can be a real chore. I'd swear I almost stepped on my own lower lip when I contorted myself in to the attic corner today.
Wanna learn more about plumbing? Ortho and Black & Decker both publish excellent guides.
Coinciding with the film release and the BBC 4 radio show of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the BBC created a huge web site repository of Hitchhiker stuff.
The coolest thing there? A fully playable version of the original Infocom Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game, designed and written by game design legend Steve Meretzky. Like all Infocom games of that era, the Hitchhiker game is text-only. However, the BBC held a contest for amateurs to illustrate the game, and the two winning entries are both available to play.
A poster named blackdiamond generously posted the service menu settings for his Samsung HL-R5667W DLP set on avsforum. I compared these with the service menu settings on my HL-R4667W [samsung1080i, samsunghlr4667wservicemenu, samsunghlr4667w, samsungpronto, samsunghlr4667wsettings, exchangesamsung]. While most of the values were the same, there were a few differences, especially in the CCA section.
Here are the service menu defaults for the HL-R4667W (with thanks to blackdiamond for the initial compilation).
To enter the service menu, turn on the set, and using the remote, press POWER, MUTE, 1, 8, 2, POWER in rapid succession.
DO NOT enter the service menu or edit any values unless you know what you are doing!
[DDP1011(L6)]
V-Position: 30
H-Position: 60
LAMP SYNC: Pulse
INDEX DELAY: 49
SEQ SELECT: 0x5
V-FLIP: Normal
H-FLIP: Normal
GAMMA: 2
SLR: OFF
Lamp Boost: 20
Lamp Sync Delay: 0
Test Pattern: 0
[DNIe]
Test Pattern: 0
NR_MAX Y/C: 48
NR_MIN Y/C: 16
Core: 4
B_RATIO: 12000
BLACK_TILT: 120
W_RATIO: 12000
WHITE_TILT: 200
GAIN1X: 1
GAIN1Y: 8
GAIN2X: 4
GAIN2Y: 10
GAIN3X: 1
NDON: ON
CORING_ON: ON
SCALE_R: 92
WTE_CSC: YCCRGB
DITHER_MOD: 0
RED_C_COEFF: 128
GRN_C_COEFF: 128
BLU_C_COEFF: 128
RED_B_COEFF: 128
GRN_B_COEFF: 128
BLU_B_COEFF: 128
Sub Contrast: 105
Sub Brightness: 235
[ADV7402(M)]
AUTO_COLOR: Reset
SOG_SYNC_LEVEL: 8
AGC_TIM: 0
GAIN_MAN: ON
A_GAIN: 275
B_GAIN: 287
C_GAIN: 287
A_OFFSET: 0
B_OFFSET: 512
C_OFFSET: 512
DLL_PH: 0
(remaining values grayed out)
[ADV7402(S)]
All values grayed out
[Xilleon226]
Main/Sub: Main
Y/UV: Y
Filter: gh121a
[uPD64083]
All values grayed out
[MSP4440]
MDB Effect: 56
SRS Dialog: 64
[CCA(ON)]
CCA: ON
Red-x: 636
Red-y: 336
Red-Y: 88
Green-x: 295
Green-y: 617
Green-Y: 418
Blue-x: 148
Blue-y: 57
Blue-Y: 42
White-x: 277
White-y: 298
White-Y: 610
WB Spread:
Move HDMI:
DRedX: 640
DRedY: 340
DGreenX: 300
DGreenY: 620
DBlueX: 150
DBlueY: 60
DCyanX: 205
DCyanY: 270
DMagentaX: 290
DMagentaY: 140
DYellowX: 425
DYellowY: 515
D-White-X: 287
D-White-Y: 295
COMP: 0
[Cinema CCA]
DRedX: 640
DRedY: 340
DGreenX: 300
DGreenY: 620
DBlueX: 150
DBlueY: 60
DCyanX: 205
DCyanY: 270
DMagentaX: 290
DMagentaY: 140
DYellowX: 425
DYellowY: 515
D-White-X: 313
D-White-Y: 329
[SP Actuator]
Actuator Gain: 115
Actuator On/Off: ON
[OPTION]
Lamp Clear
User Reset
WB Reset: OFF
EER Reset
Lamp Life: 6h
AUTO POWER: ON
Lamp Control: Dynamic
MUTE TIME: 600ms
EDID WRITE
DELAY MOD: OFF
226 TEST PATT
DDC Protection: ON
LNA Default: AUTO
PROTECT: ON
WD COUNT: 0
All values same as COMP1 except the following:
[DNIe]
GAIN1X: 16
GAIN1Y: 12
GAIN2X: 8
GAIN2Y: 4
As I've mentioned in a previous entry, a few years ago I wrote some open-source Linux MP3 server software called Venus Music Server. I posted it on SourceForge, where its had a over a thousand downloads.
Today I got an email telling me that a nicely modified version of Venus Music is used to run the… somewhat insane… music site DJ Satan. Cool!
I like to travel light, so I try to carry the smallest, lightest bags possible. However, I tend to carry a lot of gadgets, which can include any number of the following:
When I need to carry all of the above, I use a small backpack. The Sumdex Neo Metro Commuter backpack weighs only 2.6 lbs, but was built to hold a bunch of gadgets as well as protect a laptop in a padded sleeve. The top exterior pocket is designed for a music player and even has a pass-through hole for an earphone wire. The comfortable shoulder straps double as hand-grip when you aren't carry this on your back.
For my daily commute, I usually just need to carry a laptop, PDA, phone, and game machine. For that, I use the Sumdex Metrobrief Lite. I chose this tiny 1.5 lb briefcase over the usual "courier bag" as I can't stand having to open the whole flap of those courier bags just to get a pen. The Sumdex bag has an easy-to-access compartment on the front which can hold pens, PDAs, phones, etc. Below is a separate compartment for cables and power supplies, and inside is a padded sleeve for a laptop. I replaced the included shoulder strap with a more heavily padded strap from JanSport.
When I don't need to carry a laptop, I use the Tumi Charlton Organizer Tote. This tiny bag is organized like a briefcase in miniature, with business card slots, pockets for PDAs and notepads, and plenty of room for a camera, game machine and more. And best of all, it looks good… meaning, it doesn't look like a purse!
I stopped by Best Buy after work on Saturday to buy a new DVD player and ask about calibrating my new DLP [samsung1080i, samsunghlr4667wservicemenu, samsunghlr4667w, samsungpronto, samsunghlr4667wsettings, exchangesamsung] set. Here's how the experience went with Best Buy's Blue Shirt crew:
MikeyP: Hi, what's the return policy on this DVD player?
Blue Shirt Guy #1: 14 days, no restock fee.
MikeyP: Thanks! I bought a DLP here a couple weeks ago, and I want it calibrated. Will the Best Buy Extended Warranty cover calibration?
Blue Shirt Guy #1: Yes. I mean no. I mean, you should talk to that guy over there in the Blue Shirt - he knows all about DLPs.
MikeyP: Thanks!
MikeyP: Hi, I bought a DLP here a couple weeks ago, and I want it calibrated. Will the Best Buy Extended Warranty cover calibration?
Blue Shirt Guy #2 (his hair was slicked back perfectly): Yes!
MikeyP: Great! Will they bring out the calibration tool to measure white level IRE?
Blue Shirt Guy #2: If the first guy who comes out to fix it doesn't have the tool, the second guy who comes out will bring the tool. And if he can't fix it, then they'll pick it up and take it to the shop for you and fix it there.
MikeyP: Well, I meant, are the guys ISF certified?
Blue Shirt Guy #2: Wouldn't they have to be?
MikeyP: Uhhh, you tell me, doctor.
Blue Shirt Guy #2: Yes!
MikeyP: Thanks!
I saunter over to the Magnolia Hi-Fi section of the store. They wear shirts and ties instead of Blue Shirts…
MikeyP: Hi, I bought a DLP here a couple weeks ago, and I want it calibrated. Will the Best Buy Extended Warranty cover calibration?
Magnolia Guy (the lower button on his shirt was straining painfully to contain his gut): No.
MikeyP: No?
Magnolia Guy: Nope. You mean ISF calibration and all that, right?
MikeyP: Yeah.
Magnolia Guy: No, the warranty only covers manufacturer defects and stuff. ISF calibration is a whole 'nother ball of wax.
MikeyP: Thanks!
Checkout time, with the new DVD player…
MikeyP: Hi, what's the return policy on this DVD player?
Blue Shirt Cashier: 30 days, no restock fee.
MikeyP: Thanks!
Regardless of your opinion about Star Wars Episode 1, The Phantom Menace , one thing thing about the film is without debate: the picture quality of the EP1 DVD is absolutely awful. The disk is chock full of everything you can do wrong with production of a DVD. Edge enhancement is apparent everywhere, giving spaceships false ghostly halos, and making the sandy terrain of Tattoine and the lush grasses of Naboo a garbled mess. Bright colors are overdriven, causing nasty "mosquito noise" artifacts in every bright scene. Filmed shots and CGI shots have a different color balance, making CGI characters and vehicles stand out like they were pasted on top of the raw film stock. Even the sound is clipping in places, and the pod race is missing the rumble I remember from the theater.
Compare this to the picture quality on the Star Wars Episode 2, Attack of the Clones DVD. Every scene is nearly flawless, with no noticeable edge enhancement and an excellent color balance. The sound fidelity really exercises a good sound system.
I'm blown away that LucasFilm and Fox would go through the effort to remaster the original Star Wars Trilogy, only to drop the ball on EP1. Maybe we'll see a "remastered" EP1 in a box set of the new Trilogy now that Revenge of the Sith has been released. Wishful thinking? Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.
When I watched a few scenes from my DVD reference disk (House of Flying Daggers) on my new DLP [samsung1080i, samsunghlr4667wservicemenu, samsunghlr4667w, samsungpronto, samsunghlr4667wsettings, exchangesamsung] set, I was disappointed in the picture quality. I could see lots of noise ("mosquito patterns") in the actors faces, and shimmering dithering in dark scenes. I thought this was because of the limitations of DLP technology, as I never saw these artifacts on my older CRT-based HDTV.
For kicks, I decided to watch the same scenes from the movie on my PC. I have an excellent original SGI 1600W widescreen LCD monitor, which I drive with an nVidia G-Force 5700 Ultra video card. And wouldn't you know it, the picture quality of the DVD on my PC was exactly the same as on the DLP.
This leads me to suspect that the DLP is reproducing the DVD picture more or less perfectly, whereas my old CRT "covered up" the DVD quality artifacts. This is both good and bad. Now I'm beginning to wonder, do all DVD's really look this bad? Time to plow through my collection and choose a new reference disk…
(whenever I'm actually home, that is...)
