QICBoy - HOW2 category

Java programming

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:00:00 GMT

In the Adobe Flash Player post I talked about how Flash can add functionality to the web browser. Java, while less ubiquitous as a browser add-on, is another piece of software that can add functionality to your web browser. Adobe had a census conducted in September 2007 and came up with the graph below which shows the relative market penetration of these two add-ons. These numbers are important because they tell an author using one of these technologies, how likely it will be that someone visiting their page will be able to run their program. The add-on for the browsers that PLAYS the objects are generally distributed for free; Adobe assumes they'll make the money on the software that EDITS the objects. Adobe charges $699 for their Flash editor. You can download a variety of Java editors that are available for free.

In this post I'd like to show you how easy it is to create a Java applet that you can include in your website or blog. We will be using free software and the process should be easy enough for anyone to follow. We're going to be creating the applet featured in the Internet file sharing post that displays the words "Hello world". First you'll need to make sure you have the latest Java version of the installed. If you don't have Java installed, you can find it at the Java website.

Visit the eclipse site and download "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers".
Unzip the contents of the zip file.
Run eclipse.exe (it will ask you to specify the location for a workspace, press ok).
Select the Workbench icon (you can return to this screen by selecting "welcome" from the Help menu).
From the File menu select "New" then "Java Project". Specify "helloworld" as the "Project name" then click "Finish".
From the File menu select "New" then "Class". Specify "HelloWorld" as the "name" then click "Finish".
Paste the following code. To correct the indentation, select all by pressing Ctrl+A then Ctrl+I.

import java.applet.*;
import java.awt.*;

public class HelloWorld extends Applet {
	static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
	public void paint(Graphics g) {
		g.drawString("Hello world", 10 , 10);
	}
}

Select Save from the File menu or press Ctrl+S.
Select "Run" from the "Run" menu or press Ctrl+F11. You should see the Applet Viewer appear on your screen with your applet running inside displaying the test "Hello World".
You will find the HelloWorld.class file by selecting "Window", "Show View", "Navigator". The class file is under the bin folder. You can publish the applet to your blog by uploading the class file to a file hosting service and adding the following tag to your own blog post. You will need to modify the code and the codebase attributes. Read my post on Internet file sharing for more information.

<applet alt="Browser has Java disabled" 
width="425" height="350" code="HelloWorld.class">
</applet>

Internet file sharing

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:00:00 GMT

With the introduction of services like Google Picassa (my favorite), Flickr, Shutterfly, etc, hosting photos online has become pretty easy. Sites like YouTube, Blip.TV, MetaCafe, and others have likewise risen to the challenge of hosting video on the internet. But what if wanted to host a file that wasn't a photo or a video? If you wanted to share a program, for example, where would you go?

File hosting sites have been around for a while. As with any new service, we can look to the big players to get a feel for how mainstream the technology has become. Yahoo doesn't seem to have any stake in this market. Google has offered a Docs service that allows users to share documents but the types of files supported is limited. When you try to upload a Java program, for example, you get a nasty dialog with the message "Sorry, we do not currently support '.class' files." SkyDrive, Microsoft's recent purchase, surprisingly has no problem with files like Java programs.

The thumbnail above shows a Java applet hosted by the SkyDrive service. An image of the applet is included (labeled "snapshot") for those without Java support. The applet is included in this page using the following HTML code. For java Applets I copy the link from the SkyDrive "Download button" and use that for the codebase. I use name of the class file in the code attribute.

<applet border="1" alt="Browser has Java disabled" 
width="118" height="143" code="HelloWorld.class"
codebase="http://ykgi6g.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pipM0-AxCEOFWt1bqbty2pa90XRBICS6TLDOF7gY3umPxkW-NaYImBiZV0e-kVDD4ZkX_cKoDBpk475OFjhd2ZJowN9JbNobK/HelloWorld.class?download">
</applet>

Convert audio between Microsoft and Apple

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:00:00 GMT

Here are a couple scripts to convert an iTunes audio file (m4a) to the ubiquitous mp3 format. The first script converts the file to a wav, the second one converts the wav to an mp3. The supporting software are nice because they're portable, they don't require you to install them. The scripts should work on m4b files as well.

Download and extract mplayer.
Download and extract lame into the mplayer directory.
Download 1m4a2wav.bat and 2wav2mp3.bat into the mplayer directory.
Drop the mp4 onto the first script (1m4a2wav.bat).
Drop the resulting wav file onto the second script (2wav2mp3.bat).

@%~d1
@cd %~p1
"%~d0\%~p0mplayer" -ao pcm %1 -ao pcm:file="%~n1.wav" 
@pause

"%~d0\%~p0lame" --preset standard %1
@pause

Convert video between Microsoft and Apple

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:00:00 GMT

This is probably more information than anyone would care to know. I'm posting it in case anyone's interested in the geeky details of using MPlayer to convert to and from MOV files. It would be far easier to simply download either mov2avi.bat or wmv2mp4.bat and use them with the instructions in the "Editing mov files with Windows Movie Maker" or "Podcast primer" posts respectively.

This command converts from the QuickTime format into something that can be used by Windows Movie Maker.

mencoder -oac pcm -ovc lavc -ffourcc DIVX -o test.avi test.mov

This command converts from The Windows Movie Maker fromat into something that can be used by iTunes. It's useful if the file you're creating is to be used in a podcast.

mencoder -oac lavc -ovc lavc -lavcopts aglobal=1:vglobal=1:vcodec=mpeg4:acodec=aac -of lavf -lavfopts i_certify_that_my_video_stream_does_not_use_b_frames -o test.mp4 test.wmv

If you need more info on batch file parameters, you can find out more from the Microsoft site.

Apple Software Update trouble

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:00:00 GMT

It appears that iTunes + QuickTime has trouble installing when Outlook is running. Occasionally, the Apple Software Update program will appear telling me there are updates that need to be installed. When I tell it to go ahead and install the updates I get a dialog with the following message.

Errors occurred while installing the updates. If the problem persists, choose Tools > Download Only and try installing manually.

If I follow the instructions and run the iTunes.msi installer I get another dialog warning about outlook.

Outlook is currently running on this computer. If you proceed without quitting Outlook it is highly recommended that you restart Outlook after installation.

I run into this problem every time. I've tried a few experiments to see if I can narrow down the problem. This last time I came to the following conclusions.

If outlook is closed when I run iTunes.msi I don't see any dialogs.
If I close outlook before I run the update from the Apple Software Update program it still errors out.

Playa lighting

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 15:20:45 GMT

Trying to power an 18' yurt with a 300 watt power supply during 12 hours of night (the equinox is on the 22nd) can take some thought. Consider the issue of lighting for example. Stringing a strand of Christmas lights might seem like a reasonable way to light the dome. The C7 bulb however can consume 6 watts each. Even the incandescent mini-light consumes 0.48 watts. String 100 of those C7 lights together and you'll sucking up 600 watts in only one hour. You'll consume 48 watts with the mini-lights.

To get a perspective on what these numbers mean, consider the following. The C7 lights would consume the battery's power in half an hour while the mini-lights would consume the battery's power in 6 hours.

A couple companies are offering an alternative to incandescent Christmas lights: LED lights. These lights resemble the mini-lights but consume only 0.08 watts. A 100 bulb strand will consume 8 watts. That's one sixth the amount of power. To say it another way, the lights will take 6 times as long to consume the battery's power or 36 hours.

There is a power loss during the conversion from DC to AC. The process requires a device called an inverter. While the efficiency of inverters differ, the ones I've seen incur about a 10% power loss. For simplicity I haven't included that figure in the calculations but for reference, the times would be adjusted as follows. The C6 would last 0.5 hours, not 6. The mini-lights would last 5.5 hours, not 6. The LED lights would last 32 hours, not 36.

A company called Inirgee sells LED lights powered from DC. Using those lights would conserve the 10% power loss from the inverter.

Flash pet

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:00:00 GMT

HeartGuard has come up with a charming little website to promote their product. At the heart of the website is a flash object that calls flash videos based on what you type. If you type "beg", for example, it will "/video/beg.flv". Type "stand" and it will load "/video/beg.flv". The idea isn't unique. Previous examples include scantily clad and or buxom women carrying our your commands.

The technology that allows this object to work is really pretty robust. Since the object is loaded remotely, it can be updated without the user knowing so new commands can be added after people have added the object to their websites. The flash player is loaded on nearly every machine and the videos themselves are only loaded when the user types a command so the initial download is relatively small. They haven't figured out that making the object embeddable on other people's sites would take their marketing to a new level. You can try, but there's no way to silence that annoying music. They really missed the boat with that. Give the industry a few years, they'll catch up.

<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0"  width="425" height="350" id="site_template_v3" align="middle">
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />

<param name="movie" value="http://www.idodogtricks.com/site_template_v10.swf" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" /><embed src="http://www.idodogtricks.com/site_template_v10.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff"  width="425" height="350" name="site_template_v3" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" />

Hacking Netflix

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:00:00 GMT

The digital rights management software from Microsoft has been cracked. Netflix is offering movies online and hackers have provided instructions on how to download get the movies without paying for them. Here are the Cliff notes.

Pick a movie from the NetFlix site.
Find the URL for that movie in the web page source and download it without getting the key to decrypt it.
Decrypt the file using a program called FU4WM (fair use for Windows media).

Simpson generator

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 16:25:00 GMT

simpsonsmovie.com also has a simpson generator. I think I like this site better. Just go to the site and click "Create your Simpson Avatar" at the top of the screen.

Simpson-ize yourself

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 15:30:25 GMT

At simpsonizeme.com you can upload a photo of yourself and have a simpson character generated from it.