Try out Google Chrome OS

You can try out Google’s Chrome OS easily no matter if you use Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux. The long version of the instructions are at TechCrunch. Here is a rundown at Ars Technica.

Basically, you need two things:

1. VirtualBox, which will let you create a virtual machine on which to run Chrome OS, and
2. a pre-built disk image of a Chrome OS machine.

Just create a new machine, and use the image you download (named ide.vmdk) as the system disk.

Use the login name mentioned on the torrent page, and create a new Google account to play with (don’t trust something you downloaded from an unknown source). Et voilà:

It is pretty much a basic operating system, that just runs the Chrome browser. All “applications” are the usual web-based ones by Google, and others.

Parsing (X)HTML with regular expressions considered harmful

From @dakami, a good reminder for not trying to parse (X)HTML with regular expressions. You have to read the whole thing because this excerpt doesn’t even give feel for the original.

You can't parse [X]HTML with regex. Because HTML can't be parsed by regex. Regex is not a tool that can be used to correctly parse HTML.

Fun with a Sony Ericsson W760a phone

I just switched to AT&T because T Mobile had really poor signal at my workplace. And, I got a new phone: a Sony Ericsson W760a. I love it. I’ve always liked SE’s user interface: it’s quick, and fairly intuitive, e.g. hit “C” to delete a message or image etc.

Of course, AT&T had the phone locked, preventing the use of other providers’ SIMs, as well as preventing one from downloading Java applications (games, GMail, Google Maps, etc.) and music files, and using the GPS. So, I paid DaVinci Team about $15 to unbrand the phone and flash it with the latest firmware from SE. This lets me download my own music and applications (SE has a whole bunch of free games). Plus another $45 to unlock the phone to allow using other SIMs, say if I travel back to Malaysia.

The flash and unbrand worked great, after a little chat with tech support. It released features such as an RSS feed ticker, and geolocation of photos taken with the phone. Unlocking hasn’t worked, yet: their server which generates the unlock code has been reporting as busy for the last few days.

Of course, since I unbranded it, all the settings for Internet access (a.k.a. WAP), and multimedia messaging (MMS) broke. So, I’ll outline all the things I have found out about getting the phone running again.

1. Buy some credits from DaVinci: 10 credits for flash/unbrand, and another 50 for unlocking. You will then get a download link for the software used to do the hacking.
2. Buy the DCU-60 cable to connect with a Windows PC.
3. There is a trick to getting the software to recognize the phone. The default instructions are incorrect. First, plug the computer end of the cable into the computer. Start the software. Then, while holding down the “2” and “5” keys, plug the phone end of the cable in. The software will recognize the phone and bring up a new window with options for re-flashing it.
4. Once the unbranding is done, you will want to get all the settings for the internet, MMS, etc. The easiest thing to do is to go to Sony Ericsson’s site. You fill in some information, and they upload the settings right to your phone.
5. WAP settings can be set here.
6. Email settings are here: you will have to have confirmed your access to the MEdiaNet webmail service, and chosen a username. Pick “AT&T World Net” as your service provider, “yourname@medianet.att.net” as your email address, and the appropriate password. No work. :(
7. Go through a similar process to have your MMS settings sent to your phone.

A bit long, but not terrible. While you can use other email providers, Facebook will not recognize them as AT&T. If you don’t care, you can set your phone to transmit email via GMail. And you get to load your own MP3s to use the phone as a music player (it takes Memory Stick Micro, as large as 16GB), and get dumb games like the Lightsaber game which uses the built-in accelerometer to make lightsaber swishing sounds as you swing your phone around.

UPDATE: Well, from a bit of experimentation, I figured out that AT&& MEdiaNet email strips EXIF data from pictures. So, if you would like geotags in your pictures, say to make putting your pictures on a map in Flickr easier, then you should use GMail which passes the EXIF tags unscathed.

UPDATE 2: What a mess. It was late and I was very confused. A few things:

1. MMS settings are separate from email settings. MMS will fallback to using email if you do not have an MMS proxy configured. The last step in my list above will configure MMS just fine.
2. The EXIF stripping occurs when sending an image by MMS, which is the default sending mode from the camera function.
3. All that stuff about the MEdia Net email is wrong: I have NOT figured out the POP and SMTP servers for MEdia Net. However, the MEdia Net webmail link IS correct.

Mysteriously, auto-geotagging of photos seems to have worked in ONE instance only. All subsequent pictures, while they have regular EXIF data, have no GPS data. The difference has been that I edited that image with the built-in editor.

UPDATE 3:And, I found it: MEdia Net does NOT provide POP3 or SMTP.

UPDATE 4: The phone will also do Active Sync, i.e. sync with an Outlook server. Since Google now provides this service, I can sync email, contacts, calendar, and tasks with a “push” option.

UPDATE 5: Well, I finally got the unlock code downloaded. And, whaddaya know, you also have to get the phone reactivated to be able to use it. So, that’s a total of 70 credits -- 50 to unlock, 20 to activate -- to unlock the phone. At about $13.50 per 10 credits, it cost me as much as the phone did in the first place. Of course, if I did not need to port my old phone number over, I could have gotten the phone for free from an online vendor. As it is, i had to go into a store, and the clerk was nice enough to do the phone number port from a different area code. To sum up, I recommend finding a local phone vendor who will unlock it for you. When I was in Boston, I found a kiosk cellphone vendor who offered unlocking services for $30 a go. The kiosk was in the Prudential Center.

LibraryThing and the CueCat

I’m a fan of LibraryThing, a book catalog with social tagging. To make adding books easier, I just bought a CueCat from them. It’s great.

I actually had one of the original CueCats, which came with an issue of Wired. I went down to the RadioShack to get it. It had a PS/2 interface, though. I have no idea where it is, now.

Anyway, the one I got doesn’t seem to work with Delicious Library, a great Mac application which catalogs books, music, movies, and games. Their help page says that an appropriately modified CueCat can be used to input ISBNs and UPCs, but I’ve had no luck.

Technorati Tags: cuecat, lazyweb, librarything, delicious library

Gmailto

I use GMail and want to have mailto: links be handled by GMail’s web interface, rather than Mail.app. Jack Dorsey wrote a simple handler program called GMailto. It was nice: set it as the default email application, and any email links clicked would call up GMail’s new message composing page.

Then, it stopped working. Thankfully, source code is available, and I was able to make the little mods to get it working again. Here’s the hacked source. You’ll need to compile it yourself with XCode.

Technorati Tags: gmail, gmailto, google, mail

Safari browser in beta for Windows

I found this amusing. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. Apple now has a version of their web browser, Safari, for Windows in beta testing.

Useful Firefox add-ons

I know there are tons of lists like this, but why not add my own to the soup? It’s not vastly different from most lists, but I’ll try to boil it down to as few as possible to address security and annoyances:

• NoScript is indispensible to filter out annoying Javascript on a per-site basis.


• AdBlock filters out ads on a per-site basis. Plus, you can select individual elements in a web page to be filtered out.


• AdBlock Filterset.G Updater automatically downloads a list of ad sites which are to be blocked.


• Greasemonkey is more of a “meta-add-on” in the sense that this add-on allows you to write scripts which modify any web page you browse. The most useful one I’ve found, just because I’m on MySpace a lot, is the style remover. It gets rid of all the headache-inducing pimping on people’s profiles.

Reading In the Miso Soup (Ryu Murakami)

Technorati Tags: firefox, firefox, web, add-ons, annoyances, security

iPod Mini disassembly

Well, I couldn’t wait. So, I found this video featuring the late James Kim, who demonstrated how to take apart the iPod. It wasn’t difficult, actually easier than the Mac Mini disassembly.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a simple mechanical fault that was causing the central button not to work. It looks like the switch itself or a connection is not working. Maybe I can find someone on craigslist willing to part with a broken iPod for parts.

Anyway, I’ll probably upgrade the battery: a 750 mAh one will give about 18 hours of play time, for about $25. Less on eBay. The current battery lasts about 5 hours. Eighteen hours would be nice for a plane trip back to Malaysia.

See this Flickr set for all the pix.

Technorati Tags: disassembly, ipod, mini

Why I hate Windows

Technorati Tags: ie, internet explorer, malware, spyware, windows

iPhone, iTV

Well, all the rumors were right. Apple just unveiled their mobile phone, and TV appliance. Live coverage at macrumorslive.com.