Adding Avi’s and other movie files to iTunes
Posted on December 27, 2008, under Mac Tips.
I’ve recently moved to Mac from Ubuntu.
I tend to watch alot of TV from my computer, I’ve been wondering how to add all the shows to my iTunes library without having to convert them to MOV, because that would just take forever!
I came across this little program called Movie2iTunes, it’s a little Freeware app that does just what it says!
It allows you to add any type of movie that Quicktime can play to iTunes, so with the relivant plugins Xvid/Divx and many more.
Drp the app onto your dock or somewhere handy and simply drag and drop your Movie files or Folders containing movie files onto the Movie2iTunes app.
It works by creating QuickTime media links to your movies, it then adds these links to the iTunes library.
It also tries to guess if your movie is infact a TV show, it will correctly set the media type and even try to guess the
season and episode from the file names…
eg. Prison.Break.s01e12.avi
It will automatically match the ’s’ and ‘e’ if followed by numbers as season and episode 
nice!
You can download the latest version from:
http://dettmer.maclab.org/movie2itunes.html
Car drivers hit hard by new road tax rates
Our beloved chancellor has decided to increase the number of road tax bands from 7 to 13.
Basically this means a lot of the everyday cars we see and use on the roads will be re-banded
For example my Toyota Celica current Band E for which I pay £170 per year for road tax… I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I read that from 2009 my Celica was moving to band J meaning that I would have to pay £260 and from 2010 onwards £270 per year!
Some unlucky high band car drivers will have to pay a special rate on any new car they buy for the first year after 2010.
Once again drivers are hit hard when the government decides that I needs some more cash!
Here is the new tax banding’s that Mr Darling has released.
| Tax band | CO2 emissions (g/km) | 2009-10 | From 2010-11 | Typical car | % drivers paying more |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual Tax | Annual tax | ‘Showroom’ tax | ||||
| A | Up to 100 | - | - | - | VW Polo Bluemotion 1.4 Tdi (diesel) | - |
| B | 101-110 | £20 | £20 | - | Skoda Fabia Estate Greenline (diesel) | - |
| C | 111-120 | £30 | £35 | - | Mazda 2 1.4 (diesel) | - |
| D | 121-130 | £90 | £95 | - | Kia Picanto 1.1 (petrol) | - |
| E | 131-140 | £110 | £115 | £115 | Renault Clio 1.2 Quickshift (petrol) | - |
| F | 141-150 | £120 | £125 | £125 | Ford Fiesta 1.2 Zetec Climate (petrol)* | - |
| G | 151-160 | £150 | £155 | £155 | BMW 3 Series 2.0 320D SE (diesel)* | - |
| H | 161-170 | £175 | £180 | £250 | Ford Focus 1.6 Zetec Climate (petrol)* | 60% |
| I | 171-180 | £205 | £210 | £300 | Vauxhall Zafira 1.6 Life E4 (petrol)* | 100% |
| J | 181-200 | £260 | £270 | £425 | Land Rover Freelander 2.2 TD4 GS (diesel)* | 100% |
| K | 201-225 | £300 | £310 | £550 | Peugeot 407 saloon 2.0 Auto (petrol) | 100% |
| L | 226-255 | £415 | £430 | £750 | Peugeot 807 2.0 Auto (petrol) | 100% |
| M | Over 255 | £440 | £455 | £950 | Land Rover Sport Auto 3.6 TDV8 (diesel) | 100% |
If you would like to see what you’ll be paying from 2009-2010 and 2010 onwards then parkers have setup a handy tax calculator
Hockenheim tests dominated by Hamilton
I might not be Hamilton’s biggest fan, I don’t really know why, but I am not denying he is proving himself as good driver.
- Winning Silverstone by over 68 seconds in the wet.
- This week he posted an impressive lap of 1m14.872s at Hockenheim which remained unbeaten throughout the two days testing.
I think he means business leading up to Germany next week.
Driver standings leading up to Hockenheim
The disappointing race from Massa at Silverstone allowed both Raikkonen and Hamilton the opportunity to join him at the head of the driver standings leading up to Germany next week.
| Massa | 48 |
| Raikkonen | 48 |
| Hamilton | 48 |
| Kubica | 46 |
| Heidfeld | 36 |
| Kovalainen | 24 |
| Trulli | 20 |
| Webber | 18 |
| Alonso | 13 |
| Barrichello | 11 |
| Rosberg | 8 |
| Nakajima | 8 |
| Coulthard | 6 |
| Glock | 5 |
| Vettel | 5 |
| Button | 3 |
| Bourdais | 2 |
| Piquet | 2 |
| Sato | 0 |
| Davidson | 0 |
| Sutil | 0 |
| Fisichella | 0 |
Donington gets British GP from 2010
The British Grand Prix will make a surprise switch to Donington Park from 2010, the FIA has announced.
Rumours about a possible Donington bid for the race had circulated in recent weeks amid the continuing uncertainty over Silverstone’s future as a Formula 1 venue, but this morning’s announcement that a 2010 deal had been secured still came as a shock.
Finally the uncertainty is over,
declared Bernie Ecclestone.
A contract has been signed with Donington Park and the future of the British Grand Prix is now secure.
We wanted a world-class venue for Formula 1 in Britain, something that the teams and British F1 fans could be proud of.
The major development plans for Donington will give us exactly that: a venue that will put British motorsport back on the map.
The 2.5-mile Leicestershire circuit will require substantial redevelopment to bring it up to F1 standards.
Although Donington hosted the legendary 1993 European Grand Prix and is still the venue for the British round of the MotoGP world championship, its facilities are not on a par with modern F1 tracks and it has been criticised by the MotoGP fraternity in recent years.
Silverstone held the first world championship F1 race in 1950 and has been the sole home of the British GP since 1987, having previously alternated with Aintree and then Brands Hatch.
But its future has been in question for over a decade, amid regular criticism of its facilities from Ecclestone, and turbulent negotiations between his Formula One Management organisation and Silverstone’s owner the British Racing Drivers’ Club.
After many years of patient but fruitless negotiation with the BRDC, we are delighted that Bernie has nevertheless been able to ensure that the British Grand Prix will keep its place on the Formula 1 world championship calendar,
said FIA president Max Mosley.
We understand that the development programme planned for Donington will achieve the very high standards we and FOM expect from a modern F1 circuit.
Finally, British Formula 1 fans will get the grand prix venue they deserve.
Silverstone had recently received planning permission to proceed with a huge redevelopment programme that it believed would bring its facilities up to the standard that Ecclestone demanded.
But its future had also depended on finding sufficient outside backing, and Ecclestone was critical of the British government for not providing Silverstone with this support.
I am sorry that we could not have helped Silverstone to raise the money to carry out the circuit improvements and run Formula 1,
he said.
I believe that the government should have supported them, which would have cost probably less than .002 percent of the government’s commitment for the Olympic Games.
It is believed that the Donington revamp will be carried out using private financial backing.
Donnington last hosted F1 back in 1993
Source: itv-f1.comAlonso to throw in the towel already?
Fernando Alonso has revealed he will make a decision on whether to stay at Renault into 2009 towards the end of the season.
The Spaniard returned to Renault in 2007, he has yet to achieve anything close to the previous stint in which he won his two world championships. This year is turning out to be the least successful season of his career since his he joined Minardi in 2001.
I’m sure Renault bosses and Alonso are looking forward to the weekend ahead as it is the French team’s home race, with only nine points on the board they will be looking to push the cars to show that they still can win races.
There is much speculation about Alonso being linked with drives elsewhere for the next, and following seasons, he has yet to make up his mind on his future at Renault but has said he plans to announce his plans later in the season once a clearer picture of its form shows in later races.
I don’t know [if I will stay with Renault],
quoted at a news conference on Monday.
It’s not been a good year so far and it has been worse than we expected.
We have not been on the podium, let alone won a race.
We have a lot of work to do. I will take a decision on my future towards the end of the year when we’ll be able to see how far we have come.
Updated: Preview of the S60 Touch UI
The latest promotional video released show us more of how you can interact with the S60 touch UI.
I am personally looking forward to the release from Nokia with this on, I really thought the N96 might get the eagerly awaited software as it certainly looks the part but… I guess that’s wishful thinking.
Any how enjoy drooling over this one:
Freely install unsigned applications on any S60 phone
You can now freely install unsigned applications without the need for self signing, in this post I will explain how to achieve this.
First you’ll need the following:
- A permission hacked S60 phone, follow my previous guide, hack S60 file permissions
- If you have a Symbian 9.2(feature pack 1) device, download installserver92 file.
- If you have a Symbian 9.1(pre feature pack 1) device, download installserver91 file.
- File browser eg. Y-browser, X-plore.
The list at the bottom of the post will help you decide which file you need to download.
Extract installserver.exe from the appropriate zip you have downloaded.
Copy it from your PC to your memory card, I put it into Memory Card/Apps
On your phone load up Y-browser and copy it from E:\Apps (If you are using the same location as me)
to C:\SYS\BIN
Remember you must have a permissions hacked phone otherwise you will not be able to see C:\SYS
That’s it, You can no install any Unsigned application without the need to selfsign each one, just install like normal and you will no longer receive certificate errors.
Here’s the list of devices to symbian version
Symbian 9.1 devices: Nokia E61i Nokia E65 Nokia N93i Nokia E62 Nokia E50 Nokia N77 Nokia N93 Nokia N73 Nokia N80 Nokia N71 Nokia N92 Nokia E70 Nokia E60 Nokia E61 Nokia N91 8GB Nokia 3250 Nokia 5500 Symbian 9.2 devices: Nokia N82 Nokia E51 Nokia N81 Nokia E90 Communicator Nokia N76 Nokia N95 Nokia N95-3 NAM Nokia N95 8GB Nokia N81 8GB Nokia 5700 XpressMusic Nokia 6110 Navigator Nokia 6120 classic Nokia 6121 classic Nokia 6124 classic Nokia 6290
Remove all permission blocks on S60 phone to allow installation of unsigned applications
In this post I will describe how to give full write permission on your Symbian S60 smartphone, this will enable you to install UNSIGNED applications. Freedom!
First off, a couple of things you will need:
- You need to be running windows XP/Vista
- Nokia PC Suite 6.85 or earlier
Nokia have patched newer versions of this software to block this hack.
Already have a newer version of Nokia PC Suite? Uninstall it, download and install version 6.84.
- Download ActivePython ActivePython, install it.
- Download and install PySerial.
- Download and install AppTRK (to your phone).
- Download Hack Perms Script.
With everything prepared lets get on with it…
Use USB to connect your phone to your PC in PC Suite mode.
We need to find out what port the computer is using to connect to your phone, we do this by on of the following methods:
Win XP: Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager>Ports
Win Vista: Control Panel>Hardware and Sound>Device Manager>Ports.
Look for your phone in the list, in my case my phone is labelled ‘Nokia N95 USB (COM14)’
Note down this number in brackets after COM, you will need it later.
On your phone now, open the application AppTRK (you should have installed in preparation for this hack.
Your phone will ask to connect to a bluetooth device, click cancel when it does.
In AppTRK Go to options>settings>connection and change it to USB. Go back to the AppTRK’s main screen and selection options then connect.
You should see the following:
Now open up the Hack Perm python file you downloaded in notepad on your PC, press CTRL+F and search for “ser =” (Without the quotes, ofc). The line should read:
ser = serial.Serial(5) # I have COM6
Change the number 5 in the brackets to 1 less than the number you noted down from the device manager earlier, in my case it was 14, so I enter 13 in the brackets.
Save the file. (CTRL + s)
Once you have done this, just double click the Hack Perms file, if the window opens and closes so quickly you can’t see anything, there was a problem, check all the previous steps and make sure you are using Nokia PC Suite no later than version 6.85.
If window stays open, wait for about 5 seconds, you should see this, notice the “!!!!!!!!!!!candidate!!!!!!!!!!!”, This means the hack was successful, the program will exit just after displaying this notice.
Now your phone is ready to allow you to install any unsigned applications.