Far far away

In a far away land, lived a poor man. He was happy. He couldn't ask for more, beautiful hills, his cattle, his little cottage by the river, the most beautiful shades of green, orange, yellow and purple for him to see every morning. He never knew what poverty was, and he didn't have much money. He did not know the use for money, so he never bothered making it. He had a beautiful wife and they did everything together. Climbed up the hills, threw stones into the river, cooked great food and made fantastic coffee. They only ever needed money for the things they couldn't make or grow.

He didn't know what 'career' meant. He didn't have one, but he was doing just fine. He wasn't contributing to the society either. He never sold his 'produce', hell, he didn't even know it was called that.

Desperately need some positive thoughts flowing in to stay afloat. I wish I could visit this couple sometime. I am surely running out of them, and my mind needs to flex its power more to keep them coming in. The future stresses me out, but I should look forward to it as eagerly as I have always been.

Download Youtube Videos

Ever seen a YouTube video and wanted it for keeps? Especially if you are on a 256 kbps or a capped 1-2 Mbps connection where every kilobyte counts? Well it has been possible for a while now using 3rd Party Websites, but here's a way you can do it with just one click.

As you know, Youtube videos are available in 3 different formats (as far as my knowledge goes). One's the standard low-quality FLV (uninterrupted stream on a 256 kbps connection), then you have the "HQ" .mp4 version of the video and thirdly, a "HD" version if available.

Use the following "bookmarklets" to download the different versions. Only works on Firefox (and Safari maybe, but I need someone to test that out for me). Right click on the following link(s), and select "Bookmark this Link" on firefox. Warning: Do not left click on them, they will do nothing.

Youtube - Standard FLV
Youtube - High Quality MP4
Youtube - High Definition MP4

Once they're in your Bookmarks (make sure to load them to the Bookmarks toolbar in Firefox for easy access), then when you are on a YouTube video page, all you have to do is click this link. Save file as .flv, .mp4 as appropriate, and you are good to go!

Note: If you have a download manager like freedownloadmanager, it will most likely prompt for you to save it as an extension-less file called "videoplayback". All you have to do is rename it to something.flv or something.mp4 and it will work. If it is a direct download without a download manager, you will most probably get the right extension already.

VLC plays these files perfectly well. I use MediaPlayerClassic though.
Hope that helps someone.

Nokia E71 Internet Radio Upgrade/Failure

For all you E71 users, if you use Internet Radio (a good feature btw), and recently you were asked to upgrade it and it stopped working? This just happened to my yesterday, and I've been looking for a solution.

Turns out you just have to pull out the memory card, delete the following files from /sys/bin

6916 05-23 09:16 IRCacheMgmt.dll
882 05-23 09:16 IRCommandChannel.dll
9315 05-23 09:16 IRDataProvider.dll
5601 05-23 09:16 IRDataStructures.dll
2286 05-23 09:16 IRFavoritesDb.dll
6478 05-23 09:16 IRMediaEngine.dll
5172 05-23 09:16 IRNetworkController.dll
9141 05-23 09:16 IRSessionLog.dll
7337 05-23 09:16 IRStreamSource.dll
22898 05-23 09:16 IRUIControls.dll
4741 05-23 09:16 IRXMLParser.dll
91710 05-23 09:16 InternetRadio.exe
3425 05-23 10:33 InternetRadioInstaller.exe
3504 05-23 10:33 InternetRadioUninstaller.exe
1786 05-23 10:33 InternetRadioUninstallerLauncher.exe
4446 05-23 09:16 PresetPlugin.dll
1062 05-23 09:16 irrfsplugin.dll
5198 05-23 09:16 irsettings.dll
6501 05-23 09:16 isdsclientinterface.dll

And it starts working again.

Thanks to this link.

As I turned on

my geyser/electric water heater today, I couldn't help but feel guilty about the energy consumed. This also encourages water consumption, who doesn't like a hot shower when it's raining outside.

The guilt wore down a little when I realised that the air-conditioner wasn't being used at all these days. The temperature right now in Bombay is Indian-perfect for a life with just a fan & plenty of (drinking) water. That makes my carbon footprint more of a cat-paw print. But then the underlying principle of a fan is cooling by evaporation, and this means I have to drink more water in the day, because I'm constantly sweating without actually noticing it, but only aware of it in theory.

All said and done, I'd like everyone (who aren't already) to be aware of a possible water problem faced by this city, and an energy crises (which hasn't hit us because 24-hr supply is guaranteed at a premium). What can we do to help? Here goes...

• Operate your water geyser in such a way so that all the water heated is used. This doesn't mean you finish off the water yourself, but if there are people waiting after you to shower, the heat will be better utilised.
• Set the hot water flow to such a temperature that's comfortable and not hotter than necessary. Every drop counts and so does every Watt.
• Don't use your air-conditioner just because it is there. Install mosquito nets on your windows & keep the windows open at night when possible.
• Collect enough clothes to do a full load of laundry at a time. This consumes lesser water & electricity when compared to washing clothes in small batches on an everyday basis.
• Turn off fans & lights when they are not needed (a very obvious one).
• Turn off the main switches of appliances that are not being used to eliminate "stand-by power loss". A good article about that here.
• Do not charge your electrical devices more than required. Keep an alarm of some sort when you know the charging will be complete and then unplug. Some devices these days let you know when they're done.
• LCD monitors for desktop PCs are way more energy efficient as compared to the older CRT variants. So if you are going for a new TV/Monitor, consider LCD/LED.
• If you own a car (hopefully not a gas-guzzler), then keep parts well-oiled, check oil quantity, engine coolant etc before you drive. Keep the air filter clean, and drive smoothly and at a reasonable speed. This will ensure your engine (and other parts) last longer, and you consume lesser fuel. Check tyre air-pressure on a regular basis as this is very important in giving you the mileage that you are looking for.
  

That's all I think of for now. If you have any, please contribute here.