Brendon's Ramblings

WordPress 2 for iPhone released

Brendon — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:58:30 +0000

Just installed the new v2 of the iPhone WordPress app. Very nice. Quite a bit faster than the old version. Interface seems a bit cleaner too. Landscape support for typing posts ( but only the body not the headers and the main list view doesn’t rotate either which is a bit annoying). But overall not too bad. Nice feature is the ability to attach pictures to your posts and to view the comments of the post you’re editing. You also get a nice preview of the post (and if your theme is standard it will even show using that). Very nice app. Well done.

WordPress for iPhone

Brendon — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:07:36 +0000

Just testing out the iPhone wordpress client. Very nice. Congratulations to the community.

Push email for GMail accounts on WM

Brendon — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:23:44 +0000

I came across this useful little utility written by a guy called Graham Murray the other day that gives me push email (like Exchange users get) from my GMail account. Basically it uses the IMAP IDLE functionality that Google implemented to receive notifications from the server that there is a new message and this triggers the client to do a download. What this means is you don’t have to continually check your email account or leave it polling all the time. Downside is that this is a very early piece of code and at this stage doesn’t remember your settings so if you reset your device (or kill the app) you have to re-enter all your details again. On the plus side, it works quite happily with Google Apps accounts. Just enter your username as your full domain, rather than @gmail.com and your golden.

Nice work, Graham! Thanks!

The authors blog is here: http://reality-refactored.spaces.live.com/
The Codeplex project page is here: http://www.codeplex.com/ImapPusherService

OMG! How much of a rip off is that Vodafone iPhone pricing?

Brendon — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:52:36 +0000

Vodafone NZ released their iphone pricing the other day. We all thought WOOT! Then we read it $250 per month!?!? WTF! and they still charge you $199 for the privilege! No way! Yeah, I really want to pay $6000 for an iphone!

A couple more must-have addons for MCE

Brendon — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:47:06 +0000

Another couple of add-ons have made my must have list.

Crunchie – a little utility that runs on a scheduled basis and “crunches” the dvr-ms files into divX saving a huge amount of space.
Dr DivX – open-source utility that can convert to DivX with heaps of options (best thing is it can understand those pesky dvr-ms files).

Movember Follow up

Brendon — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:42:55 +0000

Just thought I’d post a follow up to the Movember post and let you all know that it was utterly horrendous having a moustache! It felt horrible and looked almost as bad. won’t be trying that again in a hurry. Oh well, it was all in a good cause….

Movember

Brendon — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 03:15:47 +0000

Hi All,During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I’ll be growin a Mo. That’s right I’m bringing the Mo back because I’m passionate about men’s health and the fight against prostate cancer. Why…

Every year in New Zealand 2,656 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 600 die of the disease, making prostate cancer the second largest cause of male cancer deaths, after lung cancer.
The average life expectancy of a man in New Zealand is 4 years less than a woman.

To sponsor my Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/nz/donate, enter my registration number which is 159710 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the “Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand” clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 159710. Please mail cheques to: Movember, PO Box 87 150, Meadowbank 1742, Auckland. All donations over $5 are tax deductible.

All donations are made directly to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand who will use the funds to create awareness, increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer, fund research and scholarship programs.

For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had and can check out the detail at: Fundraising Outcomes.

Movember culminates at the end of the month at the Gala Partés. These glamorous and groomed events will see Tom Selleck and Borat look-a-likes battle it out for their chance to take home the prestigious Man of Movember title. If you would like to be part of this great night you’ll need to purchase a Gala Parté ticket.
Thanks for your support

Brendon

More info is available at www.movember.com.

Movember is proudly grown by Holden, L&P, The Rock, Tui and Schick.

Movember a proud partner of the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand.

Must-have addons for Windows MediaCenter

Brendon — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 11:40:09 +0000

Here is a list of what I class as must have add-ons to Windows Media Center (although some of them are undoubtedly useful to non-MCE users):

WebGuide 4 - access you EPG and recorded shows, schedule recordings all from your browser. This is just a small sample of the amazing app that is WebGuide (and it’s free too).
XMLTVNZ - EPG grabber for New Zealand TV channel. Ouputs an XMLTV file.
BladeRunnerPro - Import XMLTV files into MCE EPG database.
DVRMSToolbox - convert those pesky dvr-ms files into something more useful
PocketDivXEncoder - convert MPEG2 streams into DivX optimized for display on a handheld device (PDA). Great for taking those recorded shows on the train.

WSS3 and Access 2007

Brendon — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 08:28:56 +0000

Came across a really nice combination of this the other day. Access 2007 has an Issues template that integrates really well with Sharepoint 2007/WSS 3 sites. Means you can have a nice rich client to the issues list. Also means better reporting capability and you can also publish the database to a document library on the site from within Access… nice!

A fix for low volume level in MCE 2005 LiveTV

Brendon — Mon, 22 May 2006 12:45:26 +0000

I bought a media centre a while back (they're fantastic, by the way, once you get the EPG working you can't go back). It runs Windows XP Media Center 2005. The only problem I've had with it is that the volume level while playing live tv (and recorded TV) is hopeless. On my setup, normal cable piped straight into the TV, the volume only needs to be around 12 or 13 to liseten to comfortably (with other noise going on). When played through MCE I need the volume on 35-40 just to be able to hear it! Then you also get the inevitable electrical/mechanical background noise from the sound card. But tonight I found the solution. ffdshow! ffdshow is a open-source, DirectShow decoding filter. What it lets you do it normalise and adjust the volume levels of most video/audio types including MPEG2 and given that live tv in MCE is just an MPEG2 video stream…. Voila! The good thing is it supports normalisation so it doesn't blow the volume of played DVD's (which was fine) through the roof and since it works on the MPEG2 stream and not the system volume, all the beeps and boings that MCE makes when you use the remote don't get boosted either. Fantastic! All my problems solved in one fell swoop. Thanks ffdshow guys!!!! You have my undying gratitude.

Link: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDShow.htm