Small Talk

How to watch videos on Hulu outside of US

Ehsen — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 15:57:06 +0000

If you want to enjoy your favourite programs on Hulu.com if you are not in US. There is an easier way to solve this problem by using a proxy server like HotspotShield. Hotspot Shield creates a virtual private network between computer and internet gateway. Hotspot Shield secures your internet browsing by hiding your identification online. It is a free utility supporting by add bar (annoying).

Your very own TVR or PVR

Ehsen — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:59:47 +0000

Apple tv is a simple an easy gadget to watch videos and listening to music. By an accident I have damaged my apple TV and I am looking to get a replacement for it. It would be very easy to get another apple tv but I want to explore what other choices are there.

TiVo is an excellent PVR that can schedule record both free to air and cable TV. It gives the freedome of pausing live TV and on deman videos from internet. TiVo requires monthly subscription.

Boxee

Asus O!Play HDP-R1 Media player – wow I have finally got it right. This long named thing can support most of the video, pictures and audio format but it lacks windows/mac streaming.

Western Digital WD TV live is excellent device for youtube and flickr junkies but it still lacks a lot of features that I would want in a PVR. I would still pick apple tv or Asus ___ .

I have another choice, which isn’t readily available but it will provide me more options control and headaches. My very own PVR using

MythTv, FreeVo or Boxee.

iPhone Application Development

Ehsen — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:47:35 +0000

With the arrival of iPad more developers are inclining towards Apple SDK. I have been thinking about getting some experience with app development for iPhone but my unfamiliarity with Object C and lack of time kept me a bay. I am not sure about learning Object C just for some experiments with iPhone besides I do not even own mac.

I came across a few ways to avoid iPhone SDK and Object C. If you are interested in learning iPhone/iPad application development then check out these cool alternatives. Ruby on Rails have a plug-in ‘Aptana’ which provides preview environment for displaying apps in iphone like screen.

If you want to develop a web based app for iphone then free frame work iWebKit is worth exploring. Titanium is another free iphone app develoment framework where everything is done by JavaScript and HTML. I hope this post will give me some motivation to learn more about iPhone SDK and learn xCode and Object C.

Slow Firefox

Ehsen — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:14:13 +0000

I use firefox on a regular basis but for past few days it became very slow to respond. After bit of analysis I found the way to fix it without installing firefox again. I created a new profile and it’s back on track now.

Close all firefox windows and type “firefox.exe -P” on run prompt and create new account. This is an easy alternative to reinstalling firefox and your old account is still there in case you want to check your browsing history.

Saved bookmarks will not be available in new profile. There are many ways to solve that problem. I use firefox’s ‘Xmarks’ extension to save and synchronize all my bookmarks on my computers.

If you don’t like using ‘Xmarks’ then you can use firefox’s export and import utility for managing your bookmark issues.

Firebug Vs Web developer

Ehsen — Sun, 17 May 2009 13:09:06 +0000

Community involvment of Mozilla Firefox has revotionlized the browsing experience. There are a number of add-ons available to maximise the browsing experience. In the web development section two add-ons strick out

Firebug

Web developer

Firebug is an ideal tool for testing and learning web development. It is easy to use, just point your cursor on the web content to see the underlying code. Firebug provides the error reports on the web page as well. A few firebug intergrated firefox add-ons are available like Yslow. Yslow rates the websites on predefined and user defined rulesets also providing ways to improve the performance.

I have been using web developer and firebug add-ons for learning and developing purpose.