Zaphod's Deepest Thoughts

Question answered about the Sylvania SMPK2242, and more!

Yet more adventures with my SMPK2242!

J. H. Wrote in to ask me some questions and after answering them, he thought I should post it in the blog, so here goes.

***BEGIN Q/A***

Q: "Do you know of a firmware update that will allow you to play unlicensed mp3's on the player? I have 5 mp3 players in the house with everyone using different applications to transfer the music (songbird being the newest addition) and this is the only device that isn't working properly."

A:Simple, just connect it so it comes up as a USB hard drive, and put all your MP3s in /MUSIC.

Just as the videos go in /VIDEO.

Honestly, I never installed the bit that lets it work with Windows Media Player, as it would probably try to lock up the device as DRM only (Why? So [Company-X] could make you rent things you already own!).

I Just save things to it, as if it were a normal USB drive (Using windows explorer under Start/Programs/Accessories , it appears as Removable Disk Drive G: on my system. Yours may vary.) So next time you connect it to your PC, don't select MTP device, select USB drive. No special conversion is needed for non DRM mp3s, just copy them to the right directory on the device.

As far as I can tell, the SMPK2242 is one of the most OPEN players out there.

Zaphod

P.S. I repeat, no special programs are needed for the SMPK2242! Get back to me if you need more help.

***END Q/A***

I also added later, that the SMPK2242 can also play .ogg without modification, and that one can put in subdirectories like "/MUSIC/Heavy Metal/AC-DC" or "/VIDEO/Music Videos/New Age/Enya/" to keep things organized.

Of course, I can't leave well enough alone, so I did research on the Curtis International website, about what other Personal Medial Players they have that use the same codecs and media type, found out that the data on the TRANSCODING HELP PAGE should also work with these models:

SYLVANIA SMPK1072
SYLVANIA SMPK2072
SYLVANIA SMPK2242 (My model the page was made for!)
SYLVANIA SMPK8854
SYLVANIA SMPK8854B
SYLVANIA SMPK8858

CURTIS MPK7836
CURTIS MPK7836UK
CURTIS MPK8854

And I would assume, many other off brand players that use the AVI container, and the XviD codec may benefit too. Be mindful to match your player's screen resolution with that in the encoder.

If you have any more questions, get back to me at my CONTACT page!

Zap!

Sylvania SMPK2242 Personal Media Player page added.

For Christmas a friend of mine bought me a Sylvania 2 GB personal media player. It's truely a wonderful gift, and plays all sorts of non proprietary material, so long as you have the right conversion program(s).

Well, after seeing everybody on the web was frustrated by the lack of support for the video conversion utility that came with the player, and it's limited scope, I decided to make a page about how to use Media Coder instead, with much better results.

You can find the page HERE !

Sure hope it helps.

Zap! :)

Why Detroit (and soon the rest of the auto industry) Is In the Crapper.

I'll be as short (Yeah, right, sureeee, I'm angry!) as I can about this. They say that Detroit has run out of ideas... baloney.

Detroit has plenty of ideas, and they have rejected all of them! Why you ask?

COWARDICE!
(and of course, the pointy haired boss)
(with apologies to the great S. Adams)

For years and years, the best and brightest minds in Detroit, the engineers and designers, have been dreaming up the most fantastic, yet attainable cars. They were capitalizing on Americas greatest power, our power to invent!

But then, as usual, some pointy haired boss who couldn't grasp the new car, or even the concept of the new car any further than the fact there was a "concept" in there somewhere...

Slapped the label "concept" on it, showed it to his friends, and relegated it to the dumpster.

Cars that could break 200 miles an hour and hold it for as long as you like.

One seater commuter cars that had room for you, your briefcase, and the ability to go 300 miles on a 3 gallon tank.

Cars that would parallel park themselves at a push of a button.

Electric cars that could run 40 miles on a charge. (For getting back and forth from work, that's all most people need)

Cars that would last for 1,000,000 miles. (Semi tractors do it all the time)

I could rabbit on and on, but the truth of the matter is, since the higher ups in the companies couldn't appreciate how much the public would want one of these vehicles, since they were afraid of the risk in them, they never allowed any of them to reach production. No, they would say something like "Let's take last years model, and raise the trunk, and make it boxier... and we'll call it the Capri EX, as in s.E.X., and that will make people want it!" Then, because people buy it, for they have no other choice that stands apart from the rest of the cookie cutter cars, they think that it was wanted. WRONG!

Now, allot of you may be saying "Man, he's got it all wrong." Oh, have I? Why not talk to the American powerhouse in Milwaukee? Yes, none other than Harley-Davidson. Take a look at the V-Rod if you like, it's a living, breathing concept motorcycle in production. Sleek, fast, good looking, better handling, safe, everything a motorcycle should be! And it sold like mad! Now, Harley-Davidson pwns the world motorcycle market, and all it took was one truly original bike to bring them to light, and then innovative upgrades and redesigns on their big twins to keep them there.

Detroit, you've been a bunch of haughty fools following Japan, and doing nothing original. As a matter of fact, Japan never really goes outside the box either, they just slowly improve on what we've done. You even took the mighty HMMWV stripped it down to a Tahoe with a boxy body (HII) and then castrated it back to an early 80s S-10 Blazer with a less rounded shape (HIII). You have no idea the value of testosterone. I see more women driving HIIs and HIIIs than men. and Even our pickup trucks, once mighty and rugged symbols of manhood, the pickup truck, has become more smooth, soft, bubbly, and slick... just like a minivan! You even tried to marry the two in Excursions and Expeditions!

Enough of this for now, but you will be paying the price and living on the street soon, unless you streamline the path between concept and production post haste. Oh, and try asking the people what they want too.

Zap.

Added Digg, let's see how it does.

Well, I've drank the Ghoul-Aid and added Digg to my blog. Let's see how it does.

If you remember a story, one that you liked from time past, please search it up, and if you can find it again, nail it with a digg please. I am sure others will agree with you.

Why am I so late into the digg game? Well, it used to be that stories on digg would get digged way up by botnets. Now, they've taken steps to clean things up. I don't think any of my goofiness will ever see the front page of digg, but, maybe someone will dig a little deeper.

(I am almost certian my server would bomb with a front page digg anyway!)

It matters! ( Well, at least to the universe it does. )

Yet another article plumbing the depths of time for finding out a universal truth was seen by me today...

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/underground-lab.html

Yet for all the hubbub, it seems to me another group of college kids have just found a way to milk the people for more grant money. ( Ever hear about the frenchies who had a particle detector requiring thousands of gallons of cognac? My LANL friend and me agree it would have been much more worthwhile if they used single malt scotch! )

Here's my 3 simple ideas on why matter won out, and none of them are really testable, but they make allot of sense.

1. God. Yes, it's a cop-out, but if you cant accept anyone's theory, it's what you are stuck with. Lump it. I am most comfortable with this one as it makes the universe allot safer than I think it is. Comfort does not equal satisfaction though.

2. Matter didn't win. There was an "un-eveness" to the matter and antimatter cloud in the expanding universe, and clusters of galaxies we see today, are actually made of antimatter. Some people say the difference could be detected, but I have yet to see honestly HOW. This is the most uncomfortable theory, as in E.T. Could vanish in a multimegaton blast should his ship try to land here. ( Tunguska anybody? ). Conversely, it could make space travel for us slightly buggery, if we should develop intergalactic drive.

3. Matter and Antimatter are known to annihilate and make 2 energetic gammas. Energy can be converted to mass (matter mass mind you, not anti-matter). So quite possibly M + aM = 2y = 2M (Translated... Matter + Antimatter became 2 Gammas, which were then converted back into 2 units of matter.) I find this both comfortable, and satisfactory, as the early universe was so hot that much energy had to become matter, or everything would have just boiled away as photons (Gammas are photons too). Also it follows known conventions of E=mc^2... nowhere in that equation does it allow for antimatter, does it? But allot of E was made by the annihilations in the early universe. Seems like a one-way trip to matter to me.

What's your thoughts? Please comment below.

The Night Owl has flown the coop.

Today, I just received word, that a friend of mine of several years has shucked his mortal coil...

Ray Patterson, SysOp of Opus/Fidonet BBS The Night Owl (307)235-5207 (Now Defunct) has died.

I won't say that we were good friends, in the sense of consistent contact, but I will say that he was at my first Casper Computer Users Group Meeting in the early 80s. His bulletin board (BBS) The Night Owl, I called at least twice a day. It is also rumored, though I never saw it myself, that he had made a one megabyte bank-switched Timex/Sinclair 1000! Totally within the realm of possibilities, but how do you load something like that with cassette?

It's a bit sad actually, that the bringer of his death was a brain aneurism, the man had a wonderful mind.

He had never done me wrong, and I don't think I had ever heard anyone else say ill of the man. So, yet another pioneer of Wyoming technologists flies off, not into the sunset...

But into the moonset this time.

With thoughts,
Zaphod Breeblebrox :(

*** Ray's Obituary from http://www.trib.com ***

Monday, September 8, 2008 7:37 AM MDT

CASPER -- Funeral serves for Ray Patterson, 55, will be held at Bustard's Funeral Home at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008.

There will be a viewing at Bustard's from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008.

He died on Sept. 5, 2008 at the Wyoming Medical Center from a cranial bleed. He was surrounded by family and friends.

He was born Dec. 10, 1952 in Thermopolis, to Harold "Pat" Patterson and Willamette (Gerard) Patterson.

He lived in Casper for most of his life and graduated from Kelly Walsh High School in 1971. He also attended Casper College.

On May 28, 1976 he married Terry Lea Brummond, the love of his life.

He worked at the Wyoming Medical Center as a computer specialist. He was retired from the Natrona County Fire Department.

He was a member of the Eagles, F.O.E. #306, Casper Air Modelers, Wyoming Blues and Jazz Society, Wyoming Modelers Park Association and his nightly coffee club.

His was interested in stock car racing, kite flying, RC airplanes and cars, playing the guitar and motorcycle and RV road trips, among other things.

He is survived by his wife, Terry, daughter Erin Rodgers and her husband, and daughter Deedee, all of Casper; his sister Janet Althouse and her husband, two nieces, one aunt and four cousins.

He was preceded in death by his parents and brother.

In lieu of flower, memorials may be made to the Wyoming Blues and Jazz Society, P.O. Box 1643, Evansville, WY 82639 or The Donor Alliance in Denver, CO, (303) 329-4747.

(Edit #1: Added Obituary)

Fight Back at Instant Messenger Spam!

I am sure you regularly get IM spam messages like...

daddydungbag3424:        you home? ;pdsc

Which you don't dare answer, or you will get link spammed, infected, or e-mail bombed with offers.

Well, I have figured out a way to fight back, and help people at the same time! Here are some things I have found out...

1. Most instant messenger spam comes from infected machines running robots under a rootkit where the normal virus checker can't see it.

2. Most of these infected machines are owned by n00bz (newbies) and are considered "fair game" in skiddie (formerly skript kiddie) circles.

3. 80% (or so) of these "bots" have auto-accept file transfers turned on!

This gave me all the data I needed to know. Now for the fun bits, I wanted not only to stop the machine from sending me something, but wanted a way to alert the owner of the machine that something was wrong, without causing damage.

Thankfully there is a virus out there that isn't a virus, but all virus scanners, even crappy ones see it. I figured if I were to send said fake virus to the offending machine, it would drop outside the rootkit, and the virus scanner would pick it up, and alert the newbie their machine had an infection. Luckily most newbies know to let a true tech take care of viruses (they are scary after all). If a tech were to see the test virus, and knows the person is a newbie, it should ring alarm bells in his head too instructing him to dig deeper.

This magical test virus is known as the EICAR test virus from the European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research. This fake virus file is older than dirt, but still, all but a malware anti-virus scanner would alert on it. This should work with almost all instant messenger programs, AOL IM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo's Y!, Google Talk, Pidgin and more. Here's how you can fight back with me!

1. Make a subdirectory (folder) on your hard drive named... wait, you pick the name, because we don't want anyone, even me to guess it.

2. Go into your virus scanner, and protect that directory from shield and daily scans (else your virus scanner will do it's job, and delete our tool.)

3. Go to http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm read the spiel on what it is, and download the EICAR test file to that directory.

4. Make a few copies of it.

5. Rename the copies to some juicy filenames like (be inventive!)...
mypassword.shs
creditcard.exe
wellsfargo.com
firstinterstate.com
(Thank you Clifford Stoll!)

6. Lay in wait for the next robot to link you to some foul site, or gibberishly greet you, and send them a present! (Some won't accept your poo cookie, but most will (as of the writing of this article))

7. When it happens, know you have pretty much alerted an innocent person that there's an evil spy loose in their machine (Quite like superuser come to think of it...), and started them on the road to safety Oh, and, you got to take a toy away from a bad bad boy.

Zap >:)

(Edited to fix some egregious spelling errors)

A hacker's political sign!

Ever wondered if hackers like you and me are getting the message out to eachother? Here's a simple hack to get your message out...

Set your SSID of your router or modem to whatever message you want to get out. Some automated software will even be spamming your political message all over wi-fi access point maps!

Here's what mine looks like when searched for in XP.

Just incase someone else believes the same way you do, like me you should put a _XXX where X is a random something as a postamble, so every Tom, Dick, and Harry isn't trying to connect to your wi-fi as well as their own. Also this would be a good time to check your modem/router's wi-fi security settings to make sure they are as tight as you like them.

If you have an old 802.11B router around that is not in use, this would be a great use for it! Even better, if you can secure the link, make it a free WAP that people look for! (I have some iffy security in my LAN, and a somewhat slow connection, so I am keeping it closed.)

Oh, yeah, and don't forget to activate SSID and full power output on the device!

Enjoy!

Quick note...

Thingamablog is being a twit and not letting me move my article on the trip to denver back down to where it belongs...

Sorry for the confusion.

GPS Navigation, and How It's Making You Vulnerable.

Used to be a time when if you were lost, it was commonplace to ask for directions. But this was an inconvenience to you, and the person that had to help. And it might put you in danger (heavens no!) of being in contact with the criminal element. Or even worse, as a man, you had to admit to your wife you were yourself lost, and needed to ask directions. Of course, it also meant you might miss out on hearing about the best place in town to get eats (not the place that paid your GPS navigation data provider the most for top placement in their restaurant list.), or maybe even make a new lifelong friend.

There is the oldskool way, the trusty old map and compass. Sure, not many city folks know how to use them, but living in Wyoming, it's a matter of survival. "Huh?" you say. Yes, survival. If you don't stick to the main roads, and are looking for a place to fish, or hunt (as many people do when they come to Wyoming), you better know how to read a map, and to tell if you are on public land, and if not, where is the ranch house on that topo. Not doing so, can get you shot at, and perhaps killed. The last thing a rancher wants to see, is some out-of-stater with a gun, walking through his pasture where he keeps his $150,000.00 prize breeding bull with a bad attitude. That bull doesn't know what a gun is, and will charge you like any other invader, and you will probably shoot rather than run. So guess who might shoot first?

Of course, using said tools, requires you know how to use them. It's called Orienteering. Pick up a book on it at your library, ask a veteran (they love to feel useful), or steal your son's Boy Scout handbook for a bit. What? Your son isn't in scouting? For shame! What? You don't have a son? Then put your daughter into the Girl Scouts, they do it too! .......... Oh, you are too young for kids, then get into scouting! Why? Keep reading.

 In our current state of paranoia there comes a time when one must wonder, in the panic following a good kicking, if our government may turn on its own civilians. Perhaps it won't even be intentional, but in a panic knee jerk reaction, it may do things it thinks will protect everyone, but instead cause mass detriment to the populace.

For instance, the chances of some foreign creep looking to blow stuff up running around Wyoming is pretty slim to none. The US Bureau of Reclamation had decided, along with the Department of Fathe... errm... Homeland Security, that one of my favorite fishing holes by Alcova Dam in Alcova, WY, needed to be fenced off to protect us. I can't drive, or even walk up there to the spill gates to toss a line in the water anymore. You hear this Dick Cheney? This is a place we both have fished at (Not together, but I gladly would), now closed forever due to some idiotic out of state numbnuts deciding it was a target of THE TERRORIST. Horsepuckey! We all know terrorists don't strike infrastructure. They are into flashy areas with lots of civilians, and big bangs.

I have digressed...

The whole point of the preceding being, that Imagine some day, some bureaucrat flying a desk in Washington D.C. gets some bad information about an impending missile attack. Imagine that, the government getting bad information! But they do. (We stayed in Iraq for the right reasons, and we should never have left in the first place!)

So, in a panic, Mr. Faceless and Blameless public servant decides the GPS system should be shut off to civilian receivers (or maybe even accidentally crashes the whole shebang) to avoid providing the missile guidance. You suddenly have no way to figure out where you are... that is, unless you have bought a map (or picked one up at the tourism information center when you crossed the border for free). What I am saying is, GPS is nice and accurate, but it has a fatal flaw, it is electronic, and foulable in so many ways!

Actually, as another sidenote, in a couple years, it won't matter, the terrorists will be using the Russian GLONASS which we have no control over.

This still doesn't mean GPS won't be tampered with, even by nature. It's a microwave radio based system, and that means line of site. I have been down in several deep dark canyons where you might be lucky to see 2 birds at any one time... and this is the last place you want to be lost, is in the middle of nowhere, at the bottom of some pit.

Also, if your system isn't large (as in has a big antenna) or sensitive, severe weather may block too many of the satellites from it. Imagine being lost in the dark, knowing there is an F5 Tornado sneaking up on you. Your GPS has quit because there is too many tons of dust and water held aloft in the supercell above you blocking the signal. You were madly looking for the interstate to escape, but now find yourself in the middle of a corn field at the end of "Bob's Road." Wouldn't it be nice to have a map, and the skills to read it with you to know that the on-ramp is only 2 miles away, but only if you make 3 left turns from where you are, instead of the 3 rights you are going to take that will take you over the interstate with no on-ramp, and right into the path of destruction?

Trust me on this one folks, this planet is pretty oldskool. And it plays by the old school rules. Learn how to use a map, and maybe a compass, and save yourself a bunch of grief. Don't rely on technology, it can betray you at the worst times, and according to Murphy, it will!

Or, you can always lower yourself to asking a local where to go... (I got yer answer right here!).

Zap!