New word I just learned

Bloatware - annoying, unwanted junk software pre-installed on a new laptop.

Sad

(Don't) change the region of your DVD drive

Recently someone I work with had to change the region of the DVD drive in a laptop in order to get a professor's DVD to play for a screening.

This was OK for a one-time-only situation, but based on the warning reproduced below (highlighted in red) I'd say anyone who uses a laptop computer DVD player needs to be aware of how dangerous it could be to do this.
(click on image to make it a little bigger if you need to)

What this says to me is that the DVD drive itself has firmware that registers region code changes and will lock the drive when the change counter reaches zero.

If you need to do something out of the ordinary with a disc - like sync a separate subtitle file with it (one that you created yourself or downloaded from a sub site like this one) - then you should really take the time to rip the files (or re-capture the movie) from the disc and re-author in a program like DVD Studio Pro with the subtitle file added into the package. That's all potentially illegal, but what can you do? Sometimes you want to show a movie that's in another language to people who only speak English. If you do all that then you'll have a disc that can play in a standalone player or your laptop.

This is one of those "there's no free lunch" things. Or maybe it's one of those DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) things.

PS. I don't know why, but it still freaks me out a little bit when people watch DVDs on their laptops. Call me old fashioned, but in my day we watched DVDs on a TV set (LOL).

In case you need something in black

Philips DVP 5140

At Amazon.

To make it region code free follow these instruction:
1. Turn on the unit
2. Open the loading tray
3. Press the "Setup" button on the remote
4. Navigate to the "Preferences" page using the right arrow key
6. Press the down arrow once to enter the Preference page
5. Enter 138931 on the remote
6. You will now see the current region code displayed
7. Use the Up/Down arrow keys to select the region required or "0" for all regions
8. Press the "Play" button on the remote

The best region-free DVD player I know of

Philips DVP642 is the model, and we use them as region free players in almost every projection booth on campus.

It also plays DIVX and other .avi files with a variable, but acceptable success rate. I download fansubbed anime, and on more than one occasion I've been able to fit an entire series (anywhere from 13-26 episodes) onto one DVD+R without recompressing anything.

They're under $50 on Amazon

And I found the region code adjustment right in the discussion forums on Amazon:

"1. Turn on the player.
2. Open the tray.
3. Press the following sequence on the remote:
7 8 9 OK 0
4. The number 0 will appear on the lower left side of your screen.
5. Your player is now region free! Put in a DVD and enjoy! :)

NOTE: The 0 in the sequence above represents the region code. 0 = region free. If you want to change your player to just a specific region code, replace the 0 with the region number you want.

worked for me immediately, fast and simple. good luck!"

I really like this player and recommend it to people again and again.

Copied images that self-destruct

No this isn't going to be about Mission Impossible.

The other day I copied some images from a website to a folder on my desktop and then re-uploaded them onto a blog post. (I did credit the source and even linked to the original page, and the pix had a watermark on the besides.)

The next day I looked at my blog and the images were blank with little red Xs in their upper left hand corners.

Dang, they had an anti-copying timed self-destruct code in them.

Couldn't let that one stand. I wasn't claiming them for my own, after all. I was actually using them to entice people to buy something from the original owner of the pics themselves.

I tried something, and two days later it seems to have worked. The pics are still there.

So here's what I did.

Go back to the original web page and re-save the images.
Open Photoshop.
Drag first image into Photoshop.
Duplicate layer in Layer menu (as a background copy).
Select Background layer (the original image), in the layers tab (probably in the lower right of your screen). It's probably locked, but that won't stop you from...
Delete-ing that layer in the Layer menu.
Now you're done, you've eliminated the data the had the self-destruct code.
Before you can re-save as something other than a .psd (the file type native to Photoshop) you'll have to flatten image in the Layers menu. I know this seems silly since the image only has one layer, but just do it.

Then do a save as and you're ready to re-upload without fear of self-destructing images.

Remember to give credit where credit is due.

Hold onto that flash drive!

When you use your a flash drive to carry presentation files to the site of your presentation, plug it into the onsite machine and transfer your files or folders to that machine's desktop immediately.

Then get that flash drive back into your pocket or purse!

Two reasons for this:

1. Your presentation will run faster from the hard drive of the on site computer, especially if it's graphics intensive, and

2. Losing your flash drive is to be avoided.

If you're nervous about copyright and intellectual property and all that, just delete the files after you're done (and remember to empty the trash too).

YouTube uploading + tabbed browsing!

If you upload videos to YouTube and you use a browser that has tabs (like Firefox or Internet Explorer 7) then here's a way to approximate the sort of "batch" uploading that you can do at still image sites like Photobucket (my photos there) and Flickr (and there).

First open as many tabs as you have videos to upload and send each tab to the "upload videos" page for your YouTube account. If you can use the same description for each video - if you are uploading several videos on the same subject for a blog or several clips of the same show or movie (which you might get in "trouble" for doing because of copyright) - then type it once and then copy and paste it into all the other tabs.

If you can use the same tags for all the videos, then type those once and then double click in the tags field on the other tabs to open the memory menu of all the tag sets you've ever typed into YouTube and just select the same set of tags for each tab.

You'll want to title each video individually, probably just before you click through to the "select file" page so you can keep track of which file goes with which title on which tab. Another way to help you keep all the files in your batch straight is to match your YouTube title to the title of the actual file that you'll be uploading.

Oh yeah, remember to select a category for your video from the category list before you click through to the next page.

Now all you have to do is select the video file that matches to each tab and click through to start uploading each one, one after the other. Leave each tab open, because the uploads will take a long time, especially since you will be uploading many at the same time.

I usually do this at night before getting in bed so I won't feel compelled to keep checking if my uploads are finished. A watched pot never boils and all that.

I doubled the number of videos on my YouTube channel in two nights when I figured out this batch upload trick. (here's my channel)

In a Hurry to Turn Off Your Laptop?

Sometimes a laptop computer can take well over a minute to shut down by the standard method of clicking on start - Shut Down - Shut Down, or however you do the same thing through the pull-down menus on a Mac.

Sometimes, like when the time to end one course lecture and start another (with a different computer hooked up) is very limited, you just don't have a minute to spare.

So all you need to do is hold down the main power button (the same one you use to turn your laptop on) for about 5-10 seconds and you're done.

This is especially fun on Windows machines if you leave all your applications running when you hold the button down. The computer "frantically" (excuse my anthropomorphosis) starts quitting applications and closing windows before suddenly going blank.

You can do this on your desktop machine too, but I can't figure out why you'd need to hurry like this with a desktop.

Wait a Moment

If you plug your USB flash drive into your laptop before booting/powering it up, you might regret it.

Apparently, some OS configurations actually might try to boot from the flash drive, the same way a desktop machine will usually try to boot from a CD if one was left in the drive when it was shut down.

Of course booting from the flash drive won't succeed.

If you're loading something from your flash drive, just wait until your desktop is showing before you connect it.

You can plug in your USB mouse before booting, though. Even a laptop is smart enough to know it can't boot from a mouse.

'nuf said.

Virus Avoidance Musings

I hope we all know by now not to open attachments in unexpected emails from unrecognized senders.

There's a special file type that really everyone should just know with total confidence to leave completely alone (I'm talking about Windows machines here - one of things Mac people like about Macs is that they are not so susceptible to virus attacks, and in this case a Mac couldn't even open the file if you did click on it).

I'm referring to a ".exe" file.

Dot E-X-E is an abbreviation for "executable file" in the same way that Dot D-O-C is an abbreviation for "document file." In file structure parlance everything after the dot is used by the operating system to make sure that the file gets opened by the right software (as in the case of .doc files opening automatically in Word).

As an aside, an easy way to encrypt something in a very loose and sloppy way is to just change its file extension so that it will just crash whatever application that file type would normally launch. Changing a .wmv (a movie file type) into a .doc will crash Word if you just double left click on it, but if you right click and then "open with" a media player of some sort it will run as it ought to (no one else would ever think to try opening a .doc file in a media player, that would be dumb). As I wrote the other day, changing .avi files into .mpg files enables them to work in a PowerPoint slide show. There are probably other tricks one can do with file extension switcheroos too.

Back on topic, though. Executable files are software programs. You might not know this, however, because most executable files AKA software programs have installer software associated with them that create the desktop icons and such that we all associate with launching applications from our desktops and "All Programs" menus. The only reason I know about this is because I've downloaded enough freeware to have noticed that simple, small programs coded by people who code freeware don't always have installers. I suppose installers add another level of complexity that hobbyist programmers have little use for. Alot of freeware just sits in a folder wherever you put it on your hard drive waiting for you to double click on its attendant fill-in-the-blank.exe file name.

Then it launches and does whatever useful thing someone designed it to do - just like all those fancy icons on your desktop launch their attendant programs.

The upshot of all this is that the only time you should ever click or double click on a .exe file is when you or your system administrator put that file there deliberately and for a specific purpose that is known to you the clicker. I guarantee you something will happen that you don't want to have happening if you click on unfamiliar .exe files.

If you're one of those bold explorer types who just likes to open files to see what's in them, then do yourself a favor and copy the stuff before the .exe into your favorite web browser to learn about it instead of actually launching the file.

This goes for all those ads you see on web pages too. Don't ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, click on one of those things. If one of them really looks interesting to you, just note down some of the text from the ad window and Google it. That way you can expand your horizons without collapsing your operating system.

What I Use for My Collection...

I have burned an awful lot of CDs, VCDs, SVCDs, and DVDs at home. Years ago I searched far and wide to find a product line that I like. This is the one.



These cases transformed the small mountains of disorganized discs in my house into a compact, easily shelved, organized, and acessible media library. The company's website even has templates for printing contents pages that slip easily under the clear wraparound covers of the locking binders or "wallets" as they call them. These fit perfectly into briefcase, backpack, or even purse in the case of the small 10-disc wallets.

I see more and more professors bringing their materials to class on home-or-office-burned media (which is becoming less risky now in terms of player compatibility issues). These products are great for keeping precious media safe.

Here's the link right to the page of my own personal favorite products.

Look around the other parts of the site if something different might better suit your needs - they have many different designs.

They're in Ohio, too, so shipping is fast across the border into Michigan (where I live).

PowerPoint Video Trick

I just found out last week that PowerPoint doesn't like .avi files.

Just won't play 'em if you try to link them into your slide show.

If you're like me and have a digital still camera that shoots .avi files in movie mode, and you'd like to shoot one and link it into a PowerPoint presentation this could be a real show stopper.

But -

Then I found out that if you just change the file extension from .avi to .mpg it suddenly works as expected as if by magic - at least if you're in the Windows environment.

If you go back and forth between Mac and Windows machines as I do, you'll probably guess that this doesn't work on the Mac platform. Macs don't let you get away with kooky stuff like this. Personally, I prefer Windows, in part because there are wierd loopholes like this in the way the OS works.

I'll update later with a more detailed tutorial on how to do this from start to finish (I'll have to get my hands on a Windows machine - which are scarce here at work - to do this).