Danny's Weblog
The "nolist" folder
For most of the file folders on this site, when I add a file, or update
it, the file appears on the main page of the blog as a new posting.
The "nolist" folder is different: the software will never add a new or
updated file in this folder (or subfolders) to the main page. So I can
use it for pages which I intend to repeatedly update, but are not
thereby novel enough to be listed on the main page.
About this site
News sites
Utilities
- Check for trojans etc
- Why run checks like the above?
-
Depressing general spyware info
- Another browser security tester site
- Many purportedly anti-spyware products themselves contain spyware
Listing of suspect anti-spyware products
- You can find out about some suspect sites here (if they are in the .com domain)
Netsol whois
- Sysinternals.com have many free and for-money utilities for Windows.
Utilities for Windows
- Another great utility from Sysinternals
RootKitRevealer
- Insecure.org gives away the excellent "nmap" utility for checking
open (vulnerable) ports. It also has the following list of network
attack/defence tools (including, for instance Sysinternals).
Network tools
-
Securia has good listings on vulnerabilities for many products, eg IE:
IE vulnerabilities
- Matthew Skala – Molester
- There are umpteen versions of Linux; compare them here:
distrowatch.com
- The "K-12 Linux" project: using Linux to provide services to
schoolchildren. Check out this site if you are thinking of setting up
an internet cafe.
K-12 Linux
-
The K12 Linux site has a good page on setting up the client machines which
discusses diskless workstations:
Client setup
- and it points to
a site selling the NICs with the boot proms already installed:
Disklessworkstations.com
-
eg Linksys 10/100
-
How to get random
NICs to boot from the network
- PXE is no longer pushed by Intel but seems to have mature support
in hw and sw.
Using PXE network booting
under Linux
- Linux Journal article on remote booting. Good overview (many other
pages address only a fraction of the issues described here)
Remote Linux explain ed
- PXE booting under Knoppix:
Knoppix.net
-
As an alternative to *remote* booting, you can keep multiple system
images on a *local* drive, and reload workstations faster without
stressing the network and server.
Linux Journal 6608
-
Learn about WLAN principles using the Sangoma Wan Edukit.
Linux Journal 6298
-
The link to Sangoma given in the above article does not
work. Try this:
Sangoma Edukit
-
The "m0n0wall" project – a Linux distro optimized for standalone
router/firewalls in many configurations:
m0n0wall
-
Does a scanner support Linux? Find out on the SANE project
site:
SANE mfrs support list
-
The Moodle Learning Management System LMS – a CMS for education.
Follow the link for "resources" at the end for good links
to more LMS info.
Linux Journal 7478
-
You know how tough it is to get back to anything runnable when your hard drive gets scrambled? The "Ultimate Boot CD" (free) is loaded with disk and other
utilities, including Maxtor and Western Digital proprietary software. The
self-extracting .exe is just 73 MB. Download and burn it yourself.
Ultimatebootcd.com
-
As an alternative to the Ultimate Boot CD above, try the Ultimate Windows
Boot CD, which uses "Bart PE" to boot to Windows, so you can use GUI
utilities. Full version(2.5) is: 62.9MB. You *also* need Bart PE.
Ultimate Windows Boot CD
-
Bart PE itself (you need to run a script which pulls in Windows install
files which you provide from a Windows CD; you also need the service
pack; Bart PE now includes a "slipstream" utility which integrates the
service pack into the original Windows CD, or you can use an
already-slipstreamed Windows CD). File: pebuilder313.zip
Size: 2.74MB:
Bart PE
-
Modifying Knoppix to customize it for an "internet lounge". Covers
similar points to those needed for an internet cafe – except for
billing features.
Linux Journal 8081
-
List of articles at Linux Journal. Some, like the above, are free;
some require a subscription.
Linux Journal article list
-
Microsoft Excel info, eg free calendaring system
The Excel Nexus
- Handy list of web utilities useful to users and site creators
Kuro5hin posting
- Free or very inexpensive Unix shell/web accounts
freeshell.net
- New version of Ubuntu – 5.10. Includes thin-client support.
Ubuntu
- Free font editor for Linux and Windows
FontForge
- Excellent intro to RSS standards: 0.91, 1.0, Atom, 2.0...
Linux Journal 7670
- Excellent article on serial boot consoles for Linux;
Linux Journal 7206
- Exceptionally clear display of the time in USA and territories.
time.gov
- Use free VMWare Player and the Browser Appliance for safe browsing
vmware.com
- Apple's Netboot service on OS X 10.4 has new System Image utility
apple.com
- Printed circuit board design using Linux
Linux Journal – gEDA
- Trinity Rescue Kit – Boot Linux, read your NT system files,
automagically create an .iso image on your C: drive which contains
your NT system files so you can then run *that* CD to read and
write reliably to your NTFS volumes. Cool.
Trinityhome.org
- Need a timeserver? pool.ntp.org for your ntp client.
pool.ntp.org
- Damn small Linux ftp folder for apps
ibiblio.org
- Great, long list of Windows utils that run off USB (or CD):
dirk-loss.de
Hardware vendors
-
PC Connection are not cheap, but they're easy to deal with and they
have a solid range of stock. For instance, try searching for network
test equipment.
PC Connection
-
Tiger Direct are the *opposite* of PC Connection. They sell
remaindered and "pre-sold" inventory often missing essential
accessories, warranty cards, etc. On the other hand they often
advertise interestingly quirky gizmos at low, low prices. Gamble.
A wide range of motherboards, and one of the few places selling
motherboard/cpu combos as well as "barebones".
Tiger Direct
-
J & R Music and Computer World sells a wide range of tech toys
including computer stuff, cameras, audio and video. They have a great
paper catalog that I wish I could still get.
J & R
-
Antec sells power supplies, plus a bunch of other things. One that
caught my eye was this power supply tester: I've often wondered
how much load I really need to provide a bare power supply for it
to start up reliably.
Antec ATXPSU test adapter
- Need a special router without paying an arm and a leg to
Cisco and without needing much power? This "Routerboard" has two
Ethernet ports, serial, usb 1.1, Pentium MMX 266 architecture
using a NSC SC1100 CPU, CompactFlash slot, PCMCIA slot, *and
even a standard PCI slot*. 44-pin IDE connector for 2.5-in
drive.
routerboard.com
-
Need a special case for your mini router? This website specializes
in prototype cases. Check out their mini-itx stuff, for instance:
protocase.com
- Need to distribute 12V? Like a power backup system in Phnom Penh?
Amateur Radio (ARRL) power system
- Great list of hardware and software vendors for hobbyists and
experimenters
ask.slashdot.org
Asia
Hobbies
Paranoia
My political views are probably considered paranoid by many, so let's
call a spade a spade.
Miscellaneous
- Need to find a host for your website? Check out hosts here:
webhostingtalk
-
Logical fallacies
-
Introduction to the sf writer Philip K. Dick
- Philip K. Dick and the many movies made from his work
Wired.com
- Good source of info for prescription drugs – but *only* those which
are FDA-approved.
Medline Plus
- Women – can't live with them, can't kill them.
maddox at mission dot com
-
Do you have to keep retying your shoelaces? Then you're doing it
wrong. Nice useful site with lots of diagrams.
Ian's Shoelace Site
-
Wikipedia – info about most things
Wikipedia
- Sets of images produced with Photoshop by ingenious people with
time on their hands
Worth1000
-
Bad Mags – info about all the magazines you were ashamed to buy
Bad Mags
- On-line graph-paper generator. Set many parameters yourself.
www.incompetech.com
- Interested in design? Most design-y websites use red text
on black backgrounds, Flash animation... try this one instead:
designboom.com
- Freely downloadable texts on open-source software
Prentice-Hall/Bruce Perens
- See old versions of any website
Wayback Machine
- Apparently all the major
companies selling fonts are selling forgeries. Proof here. Incidentally,
it seems to be possible for an OpenType vendor to embed your personal details
in the font files it sells to you. Hmmm.
sanskritweb.net
Cute blogs
Cambodia blogs
Sex
People search for sex on the internet so much that some of them actually
arrive at my blog. But they really should try a site like this:
Or click randomly around this page:
[Single-story view]
[/nolist]
[permanent link]
Responses: 1
Name/Blog: mythicaldude
URL: http://www.mythicaldude.typepad.com
Title: reciprocal link?
Comment/Excerpt: Hi,
Nie blog! How about a reciprocal link? I've been linking to you for quite awhile.
Thanks for your consideration....
Cheers,
Mythicaldude
http://www.mythicaldude.typepad.com
[View/add responses]
Click one of the months shown below to get all the articles for the selected month.
Incidentally, by manually typing in the URL, you can also use a
date selection *after* a folder selection; for instance:
My political opinions
in 2005
Although my PKD font is intended to be freely distributable, I did
not set the flag appropriately when I created it. For a long
time I was not sure how to do that, but recently I figured that out.
Now I can make a .PDF file containing the fonts:
www.panix.com
[http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/pdfs/pkdtest01.pdf]
(I apologize for the incorrect Khmer in that PDF: it's just there
as a reference for the PKD phonetic text version.)
However I am still getting a refusal from Microsoft's "WEFT" tool to
create an auto-downloadable .eot file. It's strange: I have a
very old version of the font which WEFT does not object to, so it
can't be impossible – I just don't know which of the umpteen subsequent
changes I made is what it's objecting to. I'm going to have to go
through it one by one.
WEFT link:
msdn.microsoft.com
[http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/fontembed/font_embed.asp]
Once I've figured out the WEFT problem – or given up – I'll provid a
new version of the PKD font with full embedability. There are a few
other cleanups I'll add at the same time.
This info is just for me and may be specific to my Nokia model.
Basically, Nokias, and various other phones using the Symbian Series-60
operating system, store video in .3gp files. The video encoding inside
these files is a flavor of MP4, but the audio encoding is .amr, which is
poorly supported. The Ipod seems to support .3gp files.
I have just started to download these tools and cannot yet vouch for them.
The only tool I *have* tried is the "ImTOO 3GP Video Converter":
www.imtoo.com
[http://www.imtoo.com/3gp-video-converter.html]
It's 29 USD. So far I have not paid up, just using the free download
(quite small). The free download works very well but is limited to
a 60-second output file.
I'm mildly interested in hacking the Nokia. There seems to be no useful
Perl library to handle Nokia-specific features, but Python seems to
be reasonably well supported. Nokia has free downloads for programmers
including full devkits, although their main choice is C++ (yecch).
I think if you download the devkit you get an emulator which can run
Python, but I haven't tried that yet.
Nokia-specific
How to download the Nokia Multimedia Converter
(hint: you have to register on their forum and be online during the install)
(The link below, because of the periods, seems to display wrong if I let
my software create a link for it. So it's not clickable; you'll
need to cut-and-paste.)
www.mobymemory.com/Content/HOWTO. Install.and.use.the.Nokia.Multimedia.Converter.2.0.593.html
Converter software for video on Nokia:
www.xilisoft.com
[http://www.xilisoft.com/3gp-video-converter/cell-phone-list.html]
Python for Nokia series 60. Has many other useful links:
www.forum.nokia.com
[http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/0,,034-821,00.html]
Intro to Python on Nokia Series 60:
www.allaboutsymbian.com
[http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/Nokia_Pythons_Flying_Circus.php]
Python for series 60 at SourceForge:
opensource.nokia.com
[http://opensource.nokia.com/projects/pythonfors60/]
Nokia programming tools page (includes SDKs):
www.forum.nokia.com
[http://www.forum.nokia.com/tools/]
Python tutorial for s60:
www.mobilenin.com
[http://www.mobilenin.com/pys60/menu.htm]
From sourceforge, current version of Python:
superb.dl.sourceforge.net
[http://superb.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/pys60/PythonForS60_2ndEd_1_3_1.SIS]
superb.dl.sourceforge.net
[http://superb.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/pys60/PythonForS60_doc_1_3_1.pdf]
superb.dl.sourceforge.net
[http://superb.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/pys60/PythonForS60_2ndEdFP2_1_3_1.SIS]
Useful library for series 60 Python:
pdis.hiit.fi
[http://pdis.hiit.fi/pdis/download/miso/]
General video software
The www.doom9.org site has a lot of good stuff. Unfortunately doesn't
seem to have mobile-related stuff. Here is their list
of software download links. (Click "show all" on one of the sections –
it starts off only showing a fraction):
www.doom9.org
[http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/software.htm]
K-Lite codec pack (not just codecs but a bunch of utils, 19 MB):
www.free-codecs.com
[http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Codec_Pack.htm]
Some posters didn't trust it.
DVDFabDecrypter – free download – copies DVDs to HD with protections removed.
Note that it is not the same as "DVDDecrypter", which was shut down by
Macrovision:
www.dvdidle.com
[http://www.dvdidle.com/free.htm]
WinAP: tagger program to add tags for Itunes to video files. Needs
dotnetfx.exe, MS's .NET Framework (22.4 MB):
www.abstractvoid.com
[http://www.abstractvoid.com/]
Very nice info on using DVDDecrypter and Folder2ISO. Hopefully should also
work with "DVDFabDecrypter":
www.afterdawn.com
[http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/burn_dvd_folder_dvd_decrypter.cfm]
Folder2ISO:
www.afterdawn.com
[http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_tools/folder2iso.cfm]
DVDSUBEDIT – fast editor of subtitles in .VOB files. Reposition or
resync them. Can run an external OCR to get text from video. Free.
www.videohelp.com
[http://www.videohelp.com/~DVDSubEdit/]
3gp conversion – utilities and info
Producing 3gp under Linux with mplayer:
julian.coccia.com
[http://julian.coccia.com/blog/index.php?m=200409&more=1]
3gp to .AVI using Quicktime Pro
home.planet.nl
[http://home.planet.nl/~huizi468/3gp_to_avi.html]
Producing .3gp with mostly free tools in Windows:
www.sprintusers.com
[http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-71413.html]
Catra Streaming Platform for .3gp etc:
www.catrasoftware.it
[http://www.catrasoftware.it/Streaming/CatraStreamingPlatform.htm]
ffmpeg – command-line tool; uses same library (libavcodec) as vlc:
ffmpeg.sourceforge.net
[http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/index.php]
en.wikipedia.org
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFmpeg]
Large manual page. Has lots of details on various formats:
ffmpeg.sourceforge.net
[http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/ffmpeg-doc.html]
Incidentally, the page above does not list 3gp. My understanding is that
3gp uses MP4 video compression, but AMR audio, which ffmpeg needs an
external library for.
Videohelp.com's list of video utils for mobile phones:
www.videohelp.com
[http://www.videohelp.com/tools?s=36#36]
In general, videohelp.com has excellent info and links.
"Super" video converter. GUI to the libavcodec.
www.erightsoft.com
[http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html]
Vemode is a free prog to convert videos and movies into portable
formats.
Vemode info at videohelp:
www.videohelp.com
[http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=VEMoDe]
Main site:
vemode.corecodec.org
[http://vemode.corecodec.org/]
Japanese free .3gp program:
www.nurs.or.jp
[http://www.nurs.or.jp/%7Ecalcium/3gpp/3GP_Converter034.zip]
This *looks* really good – haven't tried it yet.
Howto guide to output to Ipod includes some info on using the Japanese
.3gp converter program (basically click the dropdown list at the bottom
left to select English menus), also WinAP:
www.tagworld.com
[http://www.tagworld.com/ssj2_goha/PostDetail.aspx?id=8d1b3912-3d83-49b2-abc5-28d6f26e67a8]
I had tried installing the font on some machines in an internet cafe
and been surprised to find I had to uncheck the "install fonts to
font folder" option. It's now occurred to me that on this system,
I am probably not allowed to write to the system folder (including
the fotns folder); presumably
installing a font just writes an entry to the registry, which is
allowed, and which just points to the font file wherever it may be.
It makes me wonder what happens when the My Documents (or wherever
I put the font file) folder
gets wiped, as happens periodically. I think that's what
produces the puzzling "The PKD font is in use and cannot be
overwritten" prompt, even when PKD is not on the list of installed
fonts; there's a link to a previous install location in the
registry, but the actual font is no longer there.
Here's a posting on this:
www.panix.com
[http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Asia/Thailand/Thai-language/pkdthai01.html]
If I detect that you have been accessing a single page repeatedly,
I may redirect your hits to this page.
If you see this page when you were trying to access something
else, please *stop* trying to access it. If you continue to
try, I may forbid aaccess to the entire site.
This is just a list that I want to keep on-line. I don't have
any good links yet, so it won't be useful for anyone else.
Alien
Cat People (both versions)
Dr Zhivago
Intelligence Men
Showgirls
The Empire Strikes Back
The Pink Panther
The Red Shoes
The Tall Target
Duck Soup
The Three Days of the Condor
Chinatown
Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Long and the Short and the Tall
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
From Russia with Love
Should show today's date:
$dannydate::mytoday
My font handles phonetics for Khmer, English and Thai: this
note is just for Khmer.
Generally I have tried to allow all the phonetics used by
Huffman, following for instance his use of the "h"
character to represent aspiration. This allows him to
avoid needing special characters like "bp" and "dt".
|
B
|
oUB
|
The "breve" character – that's what Huffmann calls it in
his books. (Hence "B".) This is the thing that looks a bit like a tilde
which he uses to indicate that a pair of vowels is
pronounced short not long (his default for vowel pairs).
In order to get it to appear in the right place, you
need to key it at the *end* of the pair of vowels, and it
then automagically appears in the right place. Likewise,
I needed to *supply* a pair of vowels to get it to show up
properly. Note that the "accent" diacritics that I use
for Thai, like mAiF chAiF also
show up to the left of their entered position.
|
|
C
|
C
|
I generally want to follow Huffman's system, but I have
always been unhappy with the way he represents final consonants,
especially the "ch". He just says they are unreleased; to my
ear, a final "ch" sounds a lot more like "kt". The other
final sounds are not so bad. Anyhow, I decided to throw in
this character in order to represent what I feel is a different
sound.
|
|
E
|
E
|
This of course is the sound of British English "met", or when
long, "air". The unshifted e, of course, represents an Italian
e sound.
|
|
G
|
G
|
The "ng" sound, as in English "singing", etc. Many sources
get away with representing this sound with "ng", but that
really isn't optimal.
|
|
I
|
I
|
This is the sound often represented as "eu", a nasal. I find
the use of a sort of "i" a little unintuitive, but it *is* the standard
as used by Huffman. I needed to make a lot of space around the
character to allow diacritics to be used; maybe I should also
increase the width of the bar of the i, so the gap is less
disturbing.
|
|
N
|
N
|
The n-tilde character sometimes represented as "ny". It's
important to use a single character for it in Khmer because
that makes it clear that when used as a final, it is
unreleased.
|
U
|
U
|
This is the 'schwa' character often represented as "er". it's
a little unfortunate that I need to use a "u" to get a
character that looks like an "e", but oh well. Actually,
"u" is used for this sound in the Royal Thai romanization
scheme.
|
In order to display this page correctly you need to download and install
my font. It's about 35 kB and there's no restrictions on use (I will
probably go for a Creative Commons licence).
Download here:
www.panix.com
[http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/fonts/pkd.ttf]
I think it's uniquely easy to use, because you can access any of the
characters just by using the shift key – I've replaced most of the usual
upper-case characters by the new ones needed for phonetics.I think
the allocations I chose are not hard to remember, eg "N" for
n-tilde (ny), and "G" for "ng".
Because none of the characters have unusual bytecodes, this phonetic
text can easily pass through 7-bit ASCII email systems, and can be
created and edited with any editor and keyboard. In 7-bit ASCII of
course, the font definition is absent, so what you see will be
something like this:
kNOm rOOk mIn kIN te
which I think is not to tough to handle mentally.
If you have already installed the font on the computer you are using,
and assuming your machine is set to use CSS to accept font
definitions, it should display properly here:
kNOm rOOk mIn kIN te
In W2K, you install a font as follows:
Start - settings - control panel - fonts - file - install new font
The file selection window is rather primitive and it may be
easiest to just copy the file to the root of your hard drive
if you don't now the path to your My Documents.
Windows may complain "is currently in use and cannot be replaced";
if so, uncheck the "copy to fonts folder" option.
1. Intro to using Cambodian fonts on computers the old-fashioned
way, ie Limon (etc) rather than Unicode fonts:
www.panix.com
[http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Asia/Cambodia/Khmer-language/fonts03.html]
2. More of the above, including a discussion of zero-space fonts:
www.panix.com
[http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Asia/Cambodia/Khmer-language/fonts05.html]
3. Another tutorial on embedded fonts (off-site):
www.spoono.com
[http://www.spoono.com/html/tutorials/tutorial.php?id=19]
4. My sample webpage:
www.panix.com
[http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Asia/Cambodia/Khmer-language/fonts06.html]
5. Do you have to use .eot fonts, or can you use .ttf directly?
This CSS2 document says you *can* use .ttf, but is it supported
by real browsers?
www.w3.org
[http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/fonts.html#descdef-src]
6. The .eot format itself is now unsupported by Microsoft (although
still functional in IE itself):
www.panix.com
[http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/Computers/Internet/embedfonts04.html]
This is only a test; please ignore.
I hope this information was useful. There may be a great deal more
information on this site that is relevant to what you need.
Take
a look at the "site map" display at left; you
can click on a topic to see many recent items on that topic.
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