Yearly Archives: 2009

Go Faster Encoding

0 minutes, 31 seconds

A while ago I mentioned my quest for a multi-core optimized encoder (transcoder). Recently I was giving DVDFab’s product a whirl and wow! Moving a DVD to an MP4 with their product flew! I’m not on my work machine, but instead on my home machine, which is no slouch, and she really shined. Check out the pic to see all the cores firing in unison. That said, DVDFabs pricing seems quite high, but I haven’t done any comparison shopping nor exactly figured what they offer for free. I will say going to a polished commercial product makes this type of transcoding much easier than learning all the tricks to jump through the open source hoops.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookie Photos

0 minutes, 0 seconds

24 hours in photos

0 minutes, 14 seconds

Hey all! A quickie photo post of pics taken with the new phone. Sunset from the tippy top of Volmer Peak, coffee at the new and wonderful Modern Coffee in the old tribune tower (see S’s post with great lake merit shots!) and then a night at the wonderful paramount theater.

Our Tree

0 minutes, 2 seconds

Quick post to share two photos. Enjoy!

Update: Firefox does have reset & more

0 minutes, 16 seconds

A bit ago I posted about how Firefox 3.5 doesn’t have an easy way to reset all the cookies and cache files and the like. I stand corrected. Not only does it has this feature, it has an even better ‘clear for the last hour’ or ‘clear for all time’. Handy! I took some screen shots to show ya.

From Burning Man-town to Oaktown

0 minutes, 24 seconds

I was riding my bike to west oakland BART this AM when two figures rose up into the sky, out of a commercial space on Mandella Parkway. It’s great to live in an area where artists store the their stuff roadside. A very welcome addition to the morning commute.

Here’s photos of the space in oakland before (via google street view), the space this morning, the locale on google maps and then a pic from bman. Google photos stolen, bman photo used via CC license from flickr.

Gmaps Pedometer + Google Calc = 8.94607843 minutes per mile

0 minutes, 41 seconds

I just got a new pair of running shoes and I wanted to take them for a spin. I have no idea how fast I run because I only run with an ID. I don’t have a watch, a GPS or anything else. Well, OK, I do have my first ever pair of running shorts. However, those don’t tell you where you are or what your mile splits are.

You know how to most easily track your route and distance (again, with out a GPS)? Gmaps Pedometer! It’s a google maps mashup that allows you to easily double click your local (or remote) running route.

After I had done this, and I had noted the time I left and returned, I had this math to do: 4.08 miles per 36.5 minutes to minutes per mile. I thought, heck, why don’t I drop it into google and maybe they’re that smart? Sure enough, they are. Thanks Google!

PhotoRec to the rescue!

0 minutes, 45 seconds

Recently the SDHC card for our new camera went bad. All computers and the camera said that the card needed to be formatted and could not be read. Running windows “chkdsk” reported that “The type of the file system is RAW.” After googling around I found a great app called PhotoRec. This is an open source app for all OSes that focuses on recovering images and movies from a hard drive, USB drive or flash memory. It is DOS based, but is extremely easy to use and does not require you to install anything, just extract the zip contents and away you go.

It not only recovered the images that we recently took and wanted to restore, but also found EVERY photo we’d EVER taken. This, when I think about it, isn’t that surprising given how computers delete data, but I like that it worked so well. I gave a donation with in minutes of seeing my photos restored. I encourage you to download and donate today if you’re data is in peril!

photorec

WordPress Exploit, Fog, Fruit, Plants and Plates

1 minute, 9 seconds

Here’s a random collection of items that happened over the last 10 or so days.

My friend’s blog got hacked! This is because of a WordPress exploit that allows a user to create an admin user and log into your blog. They can then upload random stuffs to do all sorts of nasties. Your best bet is to first check that your blog hasn’t been hacked and then upgrade to the latest version. Sadly, if you’ve already been hacked, the new admin user in there and upgrading won’t boot this user. Plip has upgraded as we weren’t hacked, but we lost our Plipish theme. That’ll come back soon, promise.

Our friend from twtitw joined us for a commute on the Ferry to SF. It’s a lovely way to commute, they take bicycles and sometimes you get spooky fog! Then, when you get to SF, you’re at the ferry building where you can get tasty treats. See pics below.

I was commuting home from a friends house on Wednesday night and there was a big sign that said “Wet plates ahead”. Just before there was one that said “Dirty Knives on Left” and after one said “Sporks in Road”.

Our fave famers market still has strawberries. OMG, do they! Look at this huge one. Can you believe it’s organic?

With the sunlight fading sooner and sooner each night, I’m going for more and more sunset rides. Here’s another pic for the latest on Thursday night.

Finally, our venus fly trap is blooming! Fun.

Every vehicle is a Prius!

0 minutes, 28 seconds

I was riding into work in casual carpool this morning when I noticed a sticker in the rear passenger window: “PZEV”. This stands for “Partial Zero Emission Vehicle”. What!? Isn’t every vehicle a partial zero emissions vehicle? That’s just silly to document something as such. It reminds me of Simpons episode where the newspaper lady says “And to protect Mother Earth, each copy contains a certain percentage of recycled paper.” Lisa asks what percent and she replies “Zero percent…what, zero is a percent!” Which then reminded me of a recent XKCD citing more or less the same issue about asbestos in cereal.