uzzikie

I took the painful decision to move all my contacts from my Mac address book to Google contacts online over the weekend. I have had it with losing all my contacts whenever I restore my phone. So I exported all my contacts into a *.vcf file and imported them back into a brand new Google account.

While running Mac OS X, I noticed that while i can read from my Windows NTFS partitions, I cannot write to them.
Enter MacFUSE NTFS-3G which will enable NTFS read/write support on Tiger and Leopard machines.

Annnoyingly, I also discovered my new 1TB external HDD had been pre-formatted with FAT32, which means I cannot write files greater than 4GB on it. The only workable solution without having to format the drive was to convert it into NTFS in Vista.

>> CONVERT H: /FS:NTFS

With the above magic command and 10 mins later, the volume was successfully converted. Now I can write data greater than 4GB to all my drives!

Ever since I finally managed to install MacOS on my PC hardware two weeks ago, I have not booted up my Windows Vista.
Cosmetic differences aside, the hard part of getting used to it is to find the equivalent software that I am so accustomed to in Windows

Activity	Windows	Mac
Web Browsing	Firefox, Chrome	Safari
Video Watching	KMPlayer	MPlayer, Real Player
Zipping Files	Winrar	RAR Expander
Office Software	MS Office	MS Office, iWork
CD Authoring	Nero	Roxio Toast
MP4 Conversion	WinAVI	Handbrake
MSN Chat	MSN Messenger	Mac Messenger, Adium
Video Chat	MSN Messenger	Google Talk
Photo Management	Picasa	iPhoto
IRC	mIRC	Colloquy
Antivirus	NOD32	Not needed?
Text Editing	Textpad	TextEdit
SSH	Putty	Terminal
FTP	Filezilla	Filezilla

I no longer game on my PC (Maple Story, Audition, Simcity etc) , so the Mac is more usable for me

I really loved iPhoto.There is this face tagging feature that is similar to Facebook. But shines is its ability to "find" similar faces in other albums and tag them according. It's not 100% error free but I am impressed by the level of accuracy.

MSN Video chat is a hassle for me. I can't get my xbox 360 video cam to work on aMSN, keep getting  "Apple error code -9405"
But I know my cam works under iChat and even Google Talk

Anyway, if anyone wants to build a "Macbook Pro" desktop setup on the cheap, here's a list of recommended components

Motherboard / CPU: Asus P5Q3 (Intel P45 / ICH10R / DDR3) + Q9550 (2.8GHz/1333MHz FSB/12M) = $586
RAM: PC 6400/800 Kingston HyperX 4GB = $88
Casing: CM Centurion 5 2 Fan + Side Window = $89
PSU: CoolerMaster Extreme Plus 3 460W = $65
Graphics: Asus EN9400-GT 512MB Low ProFile HDMI = $95
Optical Drive: Sony AD-7220S 22x SATA OEM = $42
HDD: WD 500GB 32MB (Green Power) = $85
Total = $1050

For $150 more, the RAM can be increased to 8GB and HDD 1TB

The above setup is almost equavalent to a the flagship 17" 2.8GHz MacBook Pro model, at a fraction of the price.
So now, when buying new PC hardware, must make sure that it's "Mac" compatible :)

So you have converted a video file to "*.mp4" and uploaded it to your iPod / iPhone.
But with a few extra steps, you can add chaptering to the file for easier navigation.
E.g. adding chapters to a combat video can allow you to quickly navigate to the track you want.

Here's what you need to do
1) Download DVBPortal MP4Muxer from http://www.dvbportal.de/projects/mp4muxer/
2) Go through the video you want to add chapters, taking note of the time when each chapter should start.
3) Use a text editor and create a new file and name it "*.chap". e.g. "bc39.chap"
4) With the data you have in 2), create the chapter file using the following OGG chapter syntax

CHAPTER01=00:00:00.000
CHAPTER01NAME=Intro

"00:00:00.000" corresponds to the time of the start of the chapter in "hh:mm:ss.ms" format.
"Intro" corresponds to the name of the chapter which you want to give.
So that means for every chapter, two lines are needed.

A sample completed chapter file looks like this:

CHAPTER01=00:00:00.000
CHAPTER01NAME=Intro
CHAPTER02=00:00:45.000
CHAPTER02NAME=Track 1
CHAPTER03=00:07:48.000
CHAPTER03NAME=Track 2
CHAPTER04=00:12:25.000
CHAPTER04NAME=Track 3
CHAPTER05=00:17:47.000
CHAPTER05NAME=Track 4
CHAPTER06=00:23:34.000
CHAPTER06NAME=Track 5
CHAPTER07=00:28:26.000
CHAPTER07NAME=Track 6
CHAPTER08=00:32:27.000
CHAPTER08NAME=Track 7
CHAPTER09=00:39:03.000
CHAPTER09NAME=Track 8
CHAPTER10=00:45:49.000
CHAPTER10NAME=Track 9
CHAPTER11=00:49:52.000
CHAPTER11NAME=Track 10

5) Open and run the file "mp4muxe.exe" which you have downloaded from 1)



6) Under the "Multiplex" tab, click on the browse button to select the mp4 file.
(You need to create a mp4 file before you can add chapters)
7) Somewhere in the middle, you should see a "Chapters" tab. Click on it and click on "Import" and select the *.chap file you created in 4)
8) Click on the "Multiplex" button and a few seconds later you are done! Chapters successfully added!
9) Final step: rename the "*.mp4" to "*.m4v". E.g. "bc39.mp4" should be renamed to "bc39.m4v". If you do not rename the file, chapters will not show up.

Now transfer the video file to your iPod



Now when you play back on your iPhone, you will see a new menu icon appear on the extreme right. That's the chapter navigation menu.



Spiffy eh?

Oh if you have a iPod Classic, chaptering does work too. But you will need to click on the ">>|" forward and "|<<" back button to navigate around.

http://nzglen.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/body-pump-68-tracklist/

1. “Perfect Day” - Indigo
2. “Big Girls Don’t Cry” - Nick Skitz
3. “It’s Not My Time” - 3 Doors Down
4. “What Do You Want From Me” - Cascada
5. “Hook Me Up” - Veronicas
6. “Start It” - Vanessa Amorosi
7. “Listen To Your Heart” - Nick Skitz
8. “My Game” - Darude
9. “Forever” - Chris Brown
10. “Dare To Live” - Andrea Bocelli

 http://nzglen.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/body-combat-38-track-list/

Track 1a: &ldquoWriting on the wall” - 2-4 Grooves
Track 1b: “Because the Night” - Cascada
Track 2: “Try It Again” - The Hives
Track 3: “Like I feel (squad-e mix)” - D:code Feat Emma
Track 4a: “Headbangerz Rock Da Club” - Nick Skitz
Track 4b: “Cold As Ice” - Starsplash
Track 5: “The Best Damn Thing” - Avril Lavigne
Track 6: “No Good” - The Prodigy
Track 7: “Raver’s Paradise (Stadium Mix)” - Nick Skitz feat MC BB
Track 8: “What hurts the most (Al Storm remix)” - Cascada
Track 9: “When I grow up” - Pussycat Dolls
Track 10: “Say (All I Need)” - OneRepublic

Did another run yesterday

http://www.trailguru.com/wiki/index.php/Track:U1Q

but was really dying throughout the journey
think I am fatigued from combat and pump sessions for the past 2 days

sigh....how to run 42km?

I had another run today, this time with bennybo1 and here is the track route:

http://www.trailguru.com/wiki/index.php/Track:SBH

bennybo1 had also recorded his track but accidentally cleared the data from the iPhone as he was holding it with his hand while running. Time to get one of those sports armbands -_-

Please give your encouragement of any kind to him as its his 1st training session :P