Recently I got an iPod Touch, and I wanted to be able to listen to my music without needing an iPod cable. I found the FireFly Media Server for the iTouch in Installer.app, but it wasn’t working as its made for an older firmware and not the one I’m running (1.1.3). After searching around Google, I stumbled across RupertGee’s blog and found instructions to set it up properly. Check it out here. Thanks for posting the instructions, Rupert! Now I can enjoy my music without the need for headphones or an iPod cable 
Streaming from the iTouch
May 13th, 2008Unix Lucas Fork Program
April 5th, 2008I wrote this program for a class a few semesters ago. It is a Lucas Number calculator that uses forks/pipes (a requirement of the project). Works great, hopefully it will help someone out there! It is also available for download below.
/* Lucas Fork & Pipe*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h> // to print the time
float fib(int); // fibonacci function, recursive
int fork(void);
void sleep(unsigned);
int main(void)
{
int n; // input variable
int i; // for the loop
int start = time(NULL); // get the time the process started
char buf[100]; /* store the characters read */
// pipe needs an integer array of size 2
int fd[2];
printf("Create the pipe\n\n");
pipe(fd); /* fd[0] read; fd[1] write */
printf("Enter a number: ");
if (scanf("%d", &n) != 1) { // check to make sure there is input
printf("Input error.\n");
return 1;
}
printf("Create the child process using fork\n");
if (fork() == 0) { // child process
close(fd[1]); /* close write end */
printf("child is running...\n");
printf("about to read from the pipe\n");
n = read( fd[0], buf, 100); /* child reads from pipe */
printf("after reading from the pipe\n");
printf("the value of n is: %d\n",n);
printf("the value in the buffer is: %s\n\n", buf);
for (i = 0; i <= n; ++i) {
printf("fib(%2d) = %d\n", i, fib(i));
sleep(1);
}
}
else { // parent process
close(fd[0]); /* close read end - not needed for this example */
printf("parent is running...\n");
printf("about to write to the pipe\n");
write( fd[1], "Writing to pipe\n", n); /* parent writes to pipe */
printf("after writing to the pipe\n\n");
for (i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
sleep(1);
printf("Calculating...elapsed time = %d\n", time(NULL) - start);
}
}
return 0; // exits program
}
float fib(int n) // fibonacci function, recursive
{
if (n <= 1)
return n;
else
return (fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2));
}
Two Months!
March 20th, 2008Wow, I can’t believe its been two months since I last updated this blog. Quite interesting actually. I had a phase last semester where I really wanted to blog just so I could put information I found helpful on the internet out in a place where I could easily access it (and others could too!).. and now I’ve noticed that I don’t really search around much anymore for random information. Not sure why that is. I do have some iPhone information I haven’t posted up, but you can go to any other site and find that info as well (such as unlocking an iPhone/iPod Touch, or getting EDGE to work with the iPhone on T-Mobile). Maybe if I get bored sometime I’ll write it out.. sorry for the lack of updates though! Even if I decide to stop updating one day, I’ll keep the blog up for the information that is already on here.
Nyko’s Wii Remote Charging Station
January 19th, 2008The Nyko Wii Charge Station
New Year, New Beginnings
January 5th, 2008First of all, a happy belated new year to all! I would have posted earlier but I didn’t have anything to write about… and still don’t to be honest . This is an extremely late post, at 3:50AM, but I’m not really too tired. College starts back up on Monday so I’m not sure how that will affect my posting.. it will probably stay the same but you never know I may post a little bit more. I’m hoping that this semester will be more successful for me socially then the past few ones have been, and hope that my grades aren’t affected by it (unless its for the better!!). Alright, that’s it for now.. nothing too major but enough to hold me over until next time.
Idiots, morons, and American Express Gift Cards
December 23rd, 2007Recently I received a holiday bonus from my boss in the form of an American Express Gift Card. This is the 2nd time I’ve gotten one of these, and I’m completely happy with the card. I remember being able to access a website to check my card balance, so I searched for “american express gift card” on Google and found the site for the AMEX gift card. But something caught my eye, and I decided to check it out before going and checking my balance. A Consumer Affairs website listing complaints about AMEX gift cards is where I ended up, and I started reading around for fun.
Here’s one of the complaints that made me chuckle:
Another hitch is you have to use for the exact amount of the card, and can not make up the difference, example: if you purchase something for $101. then it will be rejected and you will be billed $2.00 by AMX for going over the card limit. -David from Plano, TX
ITS A FREAKIN’ PREPAID CREDIT CARD!!! Does your normal credit card let you charge $101 when you only have $100 left, and not reject it and charge you fees? Most credit cards reject a transaction that goes over your balance. What makes this one worse is that its from a local idiot, as I live in Plano as well. Great job dumbass!
This one also made me laugh. This person’s a sales clerk and should know better, but again the idiot factor has played a huge role in her complaint:
I am complaining as a sales clerk and a recipient of an AX gift card. As a sales clerk when we have a customer use one with a balance, if they do not know the balance, we must stop, call a special 800 number to get balance, then continue This is a nightmare when we are busy. I recieved one last Christmas. I used part of it for a small purchase. Since then, every merchant I go to does not know how to find the balance so this card with approximately $80 is worthless to me. I now encourage customer and friends not to purchase them -Terri of Huntley IL
You are a true moron. As stated earlier, its not a gift card like you get from Target or Walmart. Its a prepaid credit card. Meaning only the cardholder can check the balance. Meaning that stores are NOT allowed to check the balance through an automated system. Meaning you, as a customer, need to do the work. And merchants have no authority or right to ask the consumer if there is enough balance. If there isn’t, it will automatically be deducted and the consumer will be charged for their stupidity. So if you know you have $80, just go use it. If the merchant asks, tell them they have no right to ask.. if they insist you tell them then guesstimate. And if you wanted to prove to me that you aren’t a complete idiot, you could simply flip over the card and call the 877 number on the back to get your balance. A phone number on the back of the card to call when you don’t know your balance – what an amazing concept!
I could go on and on about these idiots complaining about stupid shit, but I would prefer not to because I would be laughing for days at their antics. I’ve got a great idea – for Christmas, lets give all these complaining morons an AMEX gift and let them beat themselves to oblivion with their stupid complaints!
Tragic Loss of Life
December 18th, 2007I heard about this story through my parents, because they have known this family since they immigrated to the U.S. Although I personally didn’t know any of the family members, I still feel horrible about what happened and its hitting me at a really deep level. I won’t really elaborate, because the news story says it all.
The news story from the Indy Star:
4 from Carmel die in icy accident (by Scott Thien) December 16, 2007
Icy road conditions led to at least four deaths Saturday as a winter storm hammered Central Indiana.
A Carmel mother and her three children died after the family’s van slid off the road Saturday night and crashed into a retaining pond in Hamilton County, trapping them in the submerged vehicle.
Rescue divers removed driver Batul Abbas, 47, Westfield, and her three daughters from a pond near 141st Street. The four victims were taken to Methodist Hospital in critical condition late Saturday, where they later died.Abbas, 1585 Charity Chase Dr., Westfield, was driving the van carrying Shazreh Abbas, 18; Shaail Abbas, 14, a student at Carmel High School; and Azmeh Abbas, 8, a student at College Wood Elementary in Carmel.
Batul and Shaail died around 3 a.m. today, and the other two daughters’ deaths were announced just before noon.
The coroners’ reports showed Batul and Shaail’s deaths were related to complications from hypothermia.
Abbas Khan, a distant cousin in Karachi, Pakistan, who grew up with the mother, said Abbas was delivering food to a friend in the area who recently suffered a death in the family.
Khan said his cousin wouldn’t have risked traveling in bad weather unless she thought it was important.
“She was always that sort of person … she was always helpful toward her friends and family,” Khan said off Abbas, who grew up in Pakistan and lived in Houston, Texas, before moving to Indianapolis in the 1990s.
The girls’ father, Hadi Abbas, was out of town on business and stuck in Ontario, Canada, because of the weather, said Saleem Haidery, a cousin calling from a Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
“He knew they were in a car wreck” but didn’t know their exact condition, Haidery said today by phone.
Hadi, he said, grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, and studied engineering in Houston, where he got bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
“He’s a nice guy, a very nice guy,” Haidery added.
According to Carmel Police, Batul Abbas was traveling east on 141st Street near the Lincolnshire subdivision about 9:30 p.m. Saturday when she lost control of the vehicle and slid down an embankment and into a pond on the northwest corner of 141st Street and Towne Road.Abbas apparently called 911 from the accident scene. The vehicle was completely submerged when officials arrived.
Fire departments from Fishers, Indianapolis, Zionsville and Westfield were among those who responded to the scene, as well as dive teams from Fishers and Indianapolis. The Hamilton County Sheriffs Department also responded.
Neighbors in the Abbas’ neighborhood expressed shock at the overnight developments.
“They were just a wonderful group of people, … loving and kind and very giving,” neighbor Angela Moreman said of the family this afternoon. “(Batul) was a very classy lady, a beautiful person inside and out.”
Moreman added that Batul was taking college classes in the area and was known for planning graduation parties and weddings. The Abbas girls were described as studious and outgoing.
Another neighbor, Gayle Fedele, said her daughters were friends with the Abbas children, some of whom babysat for others in the tight-knit Carmel neighborhood.
“It’ll have an effect on all the kids in the neighborhood,” she said.
Only thing I want to add is I’ve noticed that this version of the story was pulled from their website (I’m not sure the reason) and I had to use Google’s cache feature to pull it up, because this was the first article I read on it.
I hope their souls rest in peace.
SharePod Is Better Than YamiPod. Period.
December 15th, 2007Lately I’ve had a lot of issues with YamiPod. While backing up my music, YamiPod would almost always freeze up on certain songs. Regardless of copying in a batch or one by one, it would continually freeze on these songs for some reason. I honestly have no idea why, but it was getting extremely annoying – with a library of over 5000 songs, backing up takes time and I usually leave it running while I’m not there to monitor it. Anyway, after searching around for an alternative I decided to take a crack at SharePod, another 3rd party iPod manager that offers copying back to the PC from the iPod (and the reverse as well). To test it out, I decided to use the specific songs that YamiPod always jacked up on – and I was extremely satisfied with the result. SharePod copied over those songs with ease – no errors, problems, or missing data whatsoever. I tested each MP3 file the previous program was having issues with and each one was copied successfully from iPod to PC.
Though its not as important, SharePod’s user interface is MUCH nicer as well, and offers something nice to look at unlike YamiPod’s plain Windows 95 look.
Now I’m testing out to see if it will copy my entire library without a problem. Currently it is about 20% done, so I’m leaving it on overnight (though it won’t take more than another hour) and hopefully will wake up to good results. I’ll update this post with what happens!
“Simpler” Means More Difficult
December 14th, 2007I register my domains through GoDaddy.com. Lately a lot of my e-mails have been bouncing, so I thought I would finally get off my lazy ass and implement an SPF record. For those who don’t know, an SPF record is basically just a verification stamp that the e-mail address is valid at the domain its being sent from. Anyway, most of my domains I can control through my private hosting setup. Only one domain can’t be controlled through it, because I don’t host that on the same server as my other sites (its a Googlepages site at a domain). All my e-mail is hosted using Google Apps For Your Domain, and their SPF page is here.
For DNS management on that domain, I have to use GoDaddy.com. I’m thinking “no biggie, it should be the same way I did it on these.” WRONG! GoDaddy created an interface, which ended up screwing everything up even more because I had no idea what was going on. I would think that at least they would have a place where someone could manually type in the record, but they don’t even have that. Luckily while searching on Google I stumbled upon this post which described it in its entirety and cleared up my confusion. Below is a quote of the steps that need to be taken.
- Login, and go to the “Total DNS Control Panel”
- Under the TXT section, click “Add SPF Record”
- Select “An ISP or other mail provider” and click OK
- Select the “Outsourced” tab, and enter aspmx.googlemail.com as the outsourced domain
- Click OK
- GoDaddy will display a confirmation with the correct SPF record listed.
- Click OK
And that’s it! When you click OK, it will generate what the SPF record will look like – it should look like this: v=spf1 include:aspmx.googlemail.com ~all
Once it looks like that, simply wait and it will propogate through the system. Now you have an SPF record for that domain!
So many friggin’ passwords!
December 13th, 2007Today I decided I was going to change all my passwords. No reason as to why, they were just getting old. I went ahead and did it and found I had to change them in so many places – from e-mail addresses, to my phone (IMAP/POP client), to social networking sites and so on. If only there was a site that would contain all my passwords and let me change all of them on the fly! Oh well, at least Firefox saves the password so if I do forget I can just look it up there