Archive for February 2005
Expansys Goes Finland!
26 February 2005 in Root | Comments (1)
I didn’t notice it before on Friday, when searching for ThinkOutside’s Bluetooth keyboard, that Expansys is now in Finland, too. Expansys doesn’t always have competing prices in comparison to Finnish e-stores, but they do bring stuff and gadgets over here that most Finnish e-stores don’t bother (?) getting like PocketPCTechs’ replacement parts and WriteShields.
The website isn’t translated into Finnish (or Swedish) but is currently in the international language of English. Which is a-OK in our bilingual country, I believe. Although, terms and conditions should be translated ASAP, to avoid a warning from the consumer ombudsman. 
Hacking The Pocket Loox 720 Camera Driver
25 February 2005 in Code-ing & Pocket PC | Comments (1)
One of the problems with using the integrated 1.3 megapixel camera on the Fujistu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720 in third party software was that there was no documentation available from FSC about the camera. FSC should follow HP’s example and put up a website with more info about their hardware for developers, but they still haven’t done so and I doubt that they will ever do that. 
But hey, the camera needs a driver, and the DLL file goes by the name of HTXcamera1.dll, so why not do and swim around the OP codes of the driver? I did, using a freeware hex editor suitably named XVI32 (if you don’t get it, then think Roman numerals). What did I find? Well, the driver should allow external calls (not a surprise), but not in the same way as other HTC manufactured Pocket PCs, like the iMate Pocket PCs.
What I found were these methods that are probably possbile to call directly from the driver DLL:
Camera_Begin - Starts the camera, or takes a photo. Remains to be seen…Camera_Deinit - Deinitializes the camera and probably shuts it down so it doesn’t eat the battery the whole day.Camera_End - Sort of “closes the shutter” (if this was an analog camera)? Or calls the Deinit function?Camera_FlashLight - Has got something to do with the LED flash (duh!).Camera_GetProperty - Probably for getting the image quality currently set.Camera_Init - Initializes the camera. (A no-brainer… )Camera_SetProperty - Probably for setting the image quality to use, or if we want to record a video.
What I missed is a Camera_Start since there is a Camera_End function. 
Where is it, if not in the driver?
Oh well, with this info in the public, I hope that someone with more times on their hands can write a .NET class library for us to use in our .NET apps. 
I would write this myself, if I only had time for such things… 
Also, maybe someone with contacts should get this to Microsoft Research so that they can update Microsoft Portrait to use the Loox’s camera.
Gator CPO at the Department of Homeland Security!?
24 February 2005 in Root | Comments (0)
Just read this over at slashdot.org:
D. Reed Freeman, the “Chief Privacy Officer” of Claria Networks (formerly Gator), the creators of the pervasive spyware package GAIN, has been appointed to the Department of Homeland Security’s “Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee
S*it… 
I wonder what changes he will make to Homeland “Security” and the Patriot Act, which currently is pretty much an invasion of privacy…
New Site Layout Not Working In IE
24 February 2005 in Root | Comments (1)
I just took a shot at visiting my own website using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and boy was I surprised to see the right-hand menu looking so down (literally speaking). I’m quite busy with some university work right now, so I don’t have time to play around with CSS to see what IE isn’t liking, so you will sadly have to continue using my website’s strange layout in the future. Either that, or download and use Opera or Firefox…
… or maybe not…
21 February 2005 in Root | Comments (1)
The new default theme that came with WordPress 1.5 is so sweet, that I can’t stop refreshing my own website! Oh, and all the good plug-ins available makes me wanna install them all, ’til my server chokes on it. 
Sweet New WordPress 1.5
21 February 2005 in Root | Comments (0)
Wow! WordPress 1.5 is a truly nice blogging software! I like it much more already than the last version 1.2.something…
If you are looking for a more superior alternative to MovableType and other commercial weblogging software, then this is the software that you’ve been longing for. Give it a try, you might find yourself hooked. Oh, and yeah, WordPress does know how to import MovableType and more third party blogging software into its own database. Withouth any problems on my behalf, I want to add.
Now back to coding some software for some university projects… 
Mono is Going System.Windows.Forms
11 February 2005 in Root | Comments (0)
Mono, the project porting .Net to other platforms, is doing hard work getting support for System.Windows.Form (the GUI component that dotNet projects usually use - almost the same as Java’s Swing / AWT). They’ve put up some sweet screenshots of their latest builds on their WinForms blog which certainly looks promising. Go Mono team, go!