monkeycycle

Worldwide Instant Messaging use

michael — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:49:03 +0000

Jeff LaPorte of EQO Communications has compiled, and released as open data, stats on IM protocols used across the world. This was possible in part because of EQO’s ability to connect through multiple IM networks.

MSN seems to take the global lead though notably absent is details about Skype which remains, more or less, a closed box.

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Displaying Twitter updates

michael — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:34:33 +0000

Though I’m still only experimenting with Twitter I find the potential for micro-blogging from cellphones exciting. There’s lots of potential, including within the activism sector, to quickly broadcast important updates, share information, or otherwise display one’s wit.

When not suffering from crashes the service is quick and pretty cool plus has built up a good base of (sometimes grumpy) users who’ve developed their own tweeting conventions and interesting uses (e.g., poetry and politics — real or fake).

So far I’ve only posted updates from my phone when I’m away from my computer. Thinking of keeping it this way.

One thing that seems to come up regularly is the ability to display Twitter updates in other sites. There are lots of options including the easy-to-use Twitter Tools for WordPress (displayed in the sidebar) and Twitter’s own API opens up lots of possibilities.

For quick and dirty display there’s Twitter’s own HTML badge, a few JQuery-based options and Remy Sharp’s Twitter.js. It dynamically loads tweets after page load is complete and offers up a few options for tweet display including display of avatars and combined feed of your own tweets and those of your friends. Plus, at 3.2k, the required Javascript is a pretty light load.

Twitter’s HTML badge

Twitter Updates

Twitter’s Flash badge

Remy Sharp’s Twitter.js

Please wait while my tweets load.

getTwitters(‘tweet’, {
id: ‘monkeycycle_org’,
count: 10,
enableLinks: false,
ignoreReplies: false,
clearContents: true,
template: ‘”%text%” %time%‘
});

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"We're better. Off with Harper".

michael — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:16:19 +0000

Courtesy Steph and Mr. Icon.

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Vindkraft

michael — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:05:27 +0000

Swedish firm Home Energy has released an innovative wind turbine that spins in a spherical formation. The spherical turbine uses the Venturi principle to lead wind through its blades an offers increased efficiency and lower noise levels

The highly efficient Energy Ball can take advantage of very low wind speeds and would be suitable for small scale energy needs.

The firm, Home Energy, designs and develops small-scale energy solutions for homes, communities, businesses and public facilities.

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Kingsnorth Six found not guilty!

michael — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:36:25 +0000

Great news about the six Greenpeace activists who were charged earlier this summer for protecting the climate. The jury came to a majority verdict of not guilt and they were all acquitted of criminal damage.

Details on the Greenpeace UK site.
Update GPUK has posted a podcast of interviews with the activists.

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How to geocode information

michael — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:29:56 +0000

Nice and easy now, with tools found around.

Create a new Google Doc Spreadsheet with an identifier (ID or name) and address for each location.
Publish an RSS feed from this spreadsheet. Copy the URL of this RSS feed.
Run this Yahoo! Pipe, using the above RSS feed as the source.
Grab the resulting KML from the ‘More options’ pulldown.
Import into Google Earth or Google Maps or do something more with it.

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Secure mobile computing

michael — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:32:50 +0000

Travelers’ Laptops May Be Detained At Border – No Suspicion Required Under DHS Policies

Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post Staff Writer 08-01-2008; Page A01

Spooky time continues. If you travel with business or personal files and have any concern over privacy â€” of either the file contents or the notion in general â€” you should take note.

The recently disclosed Department of Homeland Security search policy allows Federal agents to take a traveler’s laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time. This seizure can happen without any suspicion of wrongdoing and includes the provision to copy and share drive contents with other agencies and private entities for a variety of reasons including translation and data decryption. There is some suspicion that this sharing provision provides the RIAA with access to data for its sweeping music raids and litigation.

Alert IT

In the event of loss, theft, or seizure of your laptop or electronic device immediately notify your IT administrator and change all of your passwords.

For some time international travelers have experienced the seizure and detainment of their laptops, cellphones and other digital devices and having the electronic file contents examined. The DHS policies also apply to American citizens.

The sweeping policies cover “any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form,” including hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover “all papers and other written documentation,” including books, pamphlets and “written materials commonly referred to as ‘pocket trash’ or ‘pocket litter.’ ”
If, at the end of the investigation, there is no material of interest or suspicion the device is returned and all copies of the files must be destroyed but notes and reports on the content can be held indefinitely. There is also concern because the policy has no specific mention of how personal data (incl. medical and financial records) should be handled to protect the individual. The inclusion that all copies must be deleted is a curious one since, as lobbyists and government tell us, digital copies can quickly spread.

Music and Movies

You shouldn’t have any but in case also remove any illegitimate music, movies or software from your computer. Music and movies have the added effect of potentially raising RIAA interests and causing your machine to be held further.

Despite being upheld by circuit courts, this clear violation of privacy furthers the case for careful computing. The situation also leads to a couple of strategies for addressing working and travelling with confidential files while protecting one’s personal privacy.

Confidential material

Secure online storage and retrieval is central to a strategy for protection against loss, theft, or seizure of files stored on laptops and electronic devices. These steps are necessary to protect the file contents and privacy of their owner. Essentially the process involves preparing and storing encrypted copies of files and programs on a secure server, later accessing those files after arrival at the destination.

Getting started

Mostly following the steps laid out in Mobile Computing, a few tweaks (marked in bold) are required.

Create two directories at the root of the memory key: 00-apps and 00-data.
Select, download, and install/transfer the portable applications to the 00-apps directory.
Archive and upload this directory to a secure server space — your own or that of your company/organization.
Copy any files, organized accordingly in sub-folders, to the 00-data directory.
Files can include; your email archive, documents, presentations, images, audio, video, PDF, programs, etc. Including a digital wallet is a good idea.
Create an archive of the 00-data directory, optionally but ideally encrypting the resulting archive.
Upload the (enrypted) archive to a secure server space. This is your backup copy, available for quick download from just about any internet connection.
Optionally test the uploaded files by downloading and decrypting them into a temporary location.
Delete the encrypted archives and any source material from the key.
Scrub or shred deleted files on the key for good measure.
Recreate two directories at the root of the memory key: 00-apps and 00-data.
Install Firefox (Windows or OS X) into the 00-apps directory.
Place a few legitimate but inconsequential files in the 00-data directory.
Optionally you can backup and delete (+ scrub) your laptop’s user directory, replacing it with a clean copy of ‘Documents and Settings’ containing inconsequential files and generic settings — perhaps resembling a ‘loaner laptop’. Doing so results in a rather uninteresting file listing and better odds of not being held.

Your files are now safely stored on a server and both your laptop and memory key contain nothing that would raise suspicion or risk compromise if lost or stolen.

Once you’ve arrive at your destination start your browser from either the laptop, memory key, or optionally downloading a fresh portable copy.
Point Firefox to the 00-apps and 00-data archives stored on the server — Firefox handles both HTTP and FTP file transfers. If prompted, do not store the login name or password — you’ll need to remember these.
Download the encrypted file; decrypting to a safe spot such as your laptop or USB key. Using the key for all file storage means not having to rescrub your laptop before departing again.

Repeat these steps before travelling back, optionally including a date-stamp in the name of the encrypted file for clarity and version control.

Passwords

Do not stored passwords on the key unless they have been encrypted, say as a GPGâ€™d digital wallet file, and require a master password to access. Do not store the master password on the key.

Do not store passwords inside your software including; browser, email, chat, or file transfer, etc. Itâ€™s not as convenient but provides security against unintended access to the key from loss or theft.

If your machine is one of the lucky ones to get extra Homeland Attention(tm) or otherwise taken away
from you the important stuff is safe and still accessible to you once you’re on a new *trusted* machine and ideally running apps of a clean memory key.

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Acer Aspire One BIOS Update – v3.114

michael — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:49:01 +0000

Acer Aspire One BIOS is available for download, supports the A110 and the A150 models.

Get it.

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Netbook SSD speeds and the Acer Aspire One

michael — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:40:08 +0000

There are two different models of the SSD that are being shipped with the Acer Aspire One.

Intel SSD (SSDPAM0008G1EA)
23 MB/sec Read / 5 MB/sec Write
Samsung SSD (P-SSD 1800)
30-35 MB/sec Read / 13 MB/sec Write

Kind of a toss-up, either isn’t great regardless of whether you read or write more.

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Working with ffmpeg

michael — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:58:24 +0000

Getting infos from a video file

ffmpeg -i video.avi

Turn X images to a video sequence

ffmpeg -f image2 -i image%d.jpg video.mpg
This command will transform all the images from the current directory (named image1.jpg, image2.jpg, etcâ€¦) to a video file named video.mpg.

Turn a video to X images

ffmpeg -i video.mpg image%d.jpg
This command will generate the files named image1.jpg, image2.jpg, â€¦

The following image formats are also availables : PGM, PPM, PAM, PGMYUV, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, SGI.

Encode a video sequence for the iPpod/iPhone

ffmpeg -i source_video.avi input -acodec aac -ab 128kb -vcodec mpeg4 -b 1200kb -mbd 2 -flags +4mv+trell -aic 2 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -s 320x180 -title X final_video.mp4
Explanations :

Source : source_video.avi
Audio codec : aac
Audio bitrate : 128kb/s
Video codec : mpeg4
Video bitrate : 1200kb/s
Video size : 320px par 180px
Generated video : final_video.mp4

Encode video for the PSP

ffmpeg -i source_video.avi -b 300 -s 320x240 -vcodec xvid -ab 32 -ar 24000 -acodec aac final_video.mp4
Explanations :

Source : source_video.avi
Audio codec : aac
Audio bitrate : 32kb/s
Video codec : xvid
Video bitrate : 1200kb/s
Video size : 320px par 180px
Generated video : final_video.mp4

Extracting sound from a video, and save it as Mp3

ffmpeg -i source_video.avi -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -ab 192 -f mp3 sound.mp3
Explanations :

Source video : source_video.avi
Audio bitrate : 192kb/s
output format : mp3
Generated sound : sound.mp3

Convert a wav file to Mp3

ffmpeg -i son_origine.avi -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -ab 192 -f mp3 son_final.mp3

Convert .avi video to .mpg

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi video_finale.mpg

Convert .mpg to .avi

ffmpeg -i video_origine.mpg video_finale.avi

Convert .avi to animated gif(uncompressed)

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi gif_anime.gif

Mix a video with a sound file

ffmpeg -i son.wav -i video_origine.avi video_finale.mpg

Convert .avi to .flv

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -ab 56 -ar 44100 -b 200 -r 15 -s 320x240 -f flv video_finale.flv

Convert .avi to dv

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -s pal -r pal -aspect 4:3 -ar 48000 -ac 2 video_finale.dv
Or:
ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -target pal-dv video_finale.dv

Convert .avi to mpeg for dvd players

ffmpeg -i source_video.avi -target pal-dvd -ps 2000000000 -aspect 16:9 finale_video.mpeg
Explanations :

target pal-dvd : Output format
ps 2000000000 maximum size for the output file, in bits (here, 2 Gb)
aspect 16:9 : Widescreen

Compress .avi to divx

ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -s 320x240 -vcodec msmpeg4v2 video_finale.avi

Compress Ogg Theora to Mpeg dvd

Compress .avi to SVCD mpeg2

NTSC format:
ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -target ntsc-svcd video_finale.mpg
PAL format:
ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -target pal-svcd video_finale.mpg

Compress .avi to VCD mpeg2

NTSC format:
ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -target ntsc-vcd video_finale.mpg
PAL format:
ffmpeg -i video_origine.avi -target pal-vcd video_finale.mpg

Multi-pass encoding with ffmpeg

ffmpeg -i fichierentree -pass 2 -passlogfile ffmpeg2pass fichiersortie-2
This article is an English adaptation of Jean Cartier ffmpeg exemples.

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