22 June, 2006

Firefox alt-left alt-right not working

Few days ago I noticed that my Firefox alt-left, alt-right keyboard shortcuts are not working anymore.. As I am using the keyboard extensively especially those 2 hotkeys and I was very annoyed by this problem. I was sure that this trouble was generated by one of my many extensions. Due to the large number of extensions installed disbaling them one by one was not a practical sollution. So I checked all with KeyConfig and found a bug in DuplicateTab extension. I like this extension because it can clone the browser history to the new tab along with the url so I checked the extesion and searched for an update but Firefox said one was not available.. I then went to extension's page and found out that there is an update indeed.. Installed it and everythings got back to normal.. Pretty weird that Firefox's extension manager didnt noticed me about the update.

03 June, 2006

iCall Free VOIP calls to US/Canada

This is for real. I just stumbled upon a site that offers free calls to US and Canada. They basically are based on advertising so you probably should call some numbers for their sponsor and also they sell some stuff online so if you need something then this is the place to buy (to promote this kind of business). They might knock-off skip if they receive enough advertise!

They offer calls world wide but just to North America they are free. The amazing thing is that they don't require you to enter your credit card details unless you are willing to make calls to other destinations than North America.

The software is a little buggy but can be used without any problems. You can also receive an inbound phone # for as low as $0.99. iCall is using SIP technology as far as I can tell but unfortunately they won't give out SIP details (at least not for the moment). I suspect they won't give out SIP details for free since they probably make money from the softphone (it has a link where you can call a sponsor). They could consider selling pre-configured hardware devices (adapters) so you will have the possibility to use a hardware phone with iCall.

Another shortcoming is the lack of low bandwidth codecs but this might be improved in the next releases of their softphone. Being at a start point iCall sounds very promising so I recommend you to give it a try: www.iCall.com.

NOTE: I tested their services calling a mobile in Canada and it's incredible: very good voice quality!

Guess who's back: The Pirate Bay


The Pirate Bay is back and kicking! As we got used with they're mockery they are rebranding the tracker to The Police Bay..
For the moment the site it's not back online, if you visit them now you can see they are working right now at the design. For a moment I got an image of the new logo and made a screen shot. The search function is still unavailable but they promise it will function later today. For the most curious there are available thru different torrents videos from the police raid.

I guess they moved to another hosting provider (LeaseWeb) since the IP changed from 83.140.176.134 into 85.17.40.36. They also updated some system internal.. Updated apache and also switched to php5. No update to the tracker software as far as I can see.. I think they restored an older backup to new servers. Also, worth reading this article about

From http://tpbeng.blogspot.com/:

Gottfrid Svartholm, one of the men behind Pirate Bay and owner of web host PRQ, was arrested shortly after 11.30 AM yesterday[May 31st]. "The police denied me a public defender, so I told them nothing at all", he says.
Why were you denied a public defender?
- According to the policemen, I'm not risking a prison sentence for the crime I'm a suspect of, and hence they don't have to give me a defender.

Today, after the police razzia, Gottfrid Svartholm is busy with helping all the customers of PRQ, who, despite having no connection to The Pirate Bay, have been affected because the police seized the servers their sites were on.

What happens to the Pirate Bay now, when will you reopen?
- I'm not really involved in that work, but it'll be soon, Gottfrid Svartholm says.

Here in Sweden, or abroad?
- Abroad.
Antohre recommended reading is the blog of Mikael Viborg.

Anyway, long live TPB!

01 June, 2006

ThePirateBay servers seized: seeders at risk?


I was amazed to access thepiratebay.org and see a notice that the site is down and under investigation. For those who don't know, Swedish law does not consider a breach of copyright law the act of linking to pirated material. That's what amazes me the most.

My personal theory is that is a late April's fool joke.. As I remember last year, May 31th something similar 'happened' but it was just a joke. I hope I am right. It's kind of hard to shut down thepiratebay because they (Swedish) even have a pro-piracy political party.


LATER EDIT: (6/1/2006) On thepiratebay.org the SITE DOWN notice change into:

SITE DOWN - WILL BE UP AND FULLY FUNCTIONAL WITHIN A DAY OR TWO
So it turns out that I was right! Yeah, baby!
END OF LATER EDIT.


Quote from the thepiratebay.org:
In the morning of 2006-05-31 the Swedish National Criminal Police showed a search warrant to Rix|Port80 personnel. The warrant was valid for all datacenters of Rix|Port80 and was directed at The Pirate Bay. The allegation was breach of copy-right law, alternatively assisting breach of copy-right law.
The servers are known not to keep logs of the clients using it but the .torrent files will unveil the IPs of the seeders. Seeders are the people sharing the actual files. Wouldn't be illegal for the authorities to use the info stored in the torrents files?

For a little background about ThePirateBay I will quote some interesting wikipedia content below:
At approximately 11am [1] of May 31, 2006, some 50 officers of the Swedish National Criminal Police raided a Rix|Port80 datacenter, as well as other sites, hosting The Pirate Bay's server farm, confiscating all its servers in an investigation surrounding allegations of storage of illegal content.[2] The three people arrested in the raid are aged 22, 24 and 28. According to sources in the IRC community of The Pirate Bay the three admins were released from police custody in the evening of the same day.

Several servers unrelated to The Pirate Bay (notably those belonging to the lobbying organization Piratbyrån and fellow file sharing site Swebits) were also confiscated by the police. There have been claims that servers of other customers of the datacenter have been confiscated without any reason. [1]

It is not clear why the raid was carried out at this particular time. However, Swedish national broadcaster Sveriges Television cite unnamed sources claiming that the raid was prompted by international political pressure by the US.

The Pirate Bay is known in the online file sharing community as one of the more prominent websites which distributes torrents that point to copyrighted material. In much of the world, offering such torrents would be illegal, but due to the nature of Swedish law, this is not the case. In July 2005, new anti-piracy legislation was enacted in Sweden; however, this did not affect The Pirate Bay which only offers .torrent files, which in and of themselves do not contain copyrighted material. The Pirate Bay is well known for the "legal" page it hosts featuring mockery of organizations sending copyright infringement notices and cease and desist letters to them.

(Google cache can help you to retrieve the static.thepiratebay.org/legal page)


For your amusement I retrieveded some responses:

1) reply to Sega:
I have the distinct pleasure of informing you that no Swedish trademark and/copyright law is being violated, regardless of how the situation may or may not be under UK law. I would advise you to read up on Swedish trademark law, more specifically Varumarkeslag (1960:644), as this might save you a great deal of future humiliation.

I would also advise you to
a) not write the subject all in UPPERCASE, as it makes spam filters go nuts
b) not attach meaningless data from trademark registrys in PDF format and
c) stop lying.

2) mail and reply (DreamWorks)
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 18:21:43 -0100 (GMT)
From: anakata To: KMWLAW@flash.net
Subject: Re: Unauthorized Use of DreamWorks SKG Properties
On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 KMWLAW@flash.net wrote:
> Dennis L. Wilson, Esq.
> KEATS McFARLAND & WILSON, LLP
> 9720 Wilshire Blvd., Penthouse Suite
> Beverly Hills, CA 90212
> Tel: (310) 248-3830
> Fax: (310) 860-0363
>
>
> August 23, 2004
>
>
> VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL
> AND U.S. MAIL
>
> ThePirateBay.org
> Box 1206
> Stockholm 11479
> SWEDEN
>
> tracker-40-aa-5f-03-412675c8@prq.to
>
> Re: Unauthorized Use of DreamWorks SKG Properties > http://www.thepiratebay.org
>
> To Whom It May Concern:
>
> This letter is being written to you on behalf of our
> client, DreamWorks SKG (hereinafter DreamWorks).
> DreamWorks is the exclusive owner of all copyright,
> trademark and other intellectual property rights in
> and to the ^ÓShrek 2^Ô motion picture. No one is
> authorized to copy, reproduce, distribute, or
> otherwise use the ^ÓShrek 2^Ô motion picture without
> the express written permission of DreamWorks. [...]
> As you may be aware, Internet Service Providers can
> be held liable if they do not respond to claims of
> infringement pursuant to the requirements of the
> Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In
> accordance with the DMCA, we request your assistance
> in the removal of infringements of the ^ÓShrek 2^Ô
> motion picture from this web site and any other sites
> for which you act as an Internet Service Provider.
> We further declare under penalty of perjury that we
> are authorized to act on behalf of DreamWorks and
> that the information in this letter is accurate.
> Please contact me immediately to discuss this matter
> further.

As you may or may not be aware, Sweden is not a state in the United States of America. Sweden is a country in northern Europe. Unless you figured it out by now, US law does not apply here. For your information, no Swedish law is being violated. Please be assured that any further contact with us, regardless of medium, will result in a) a suit being filed for harassment b) a formal complaint lodged with the bar of your legal counsel, for sending frivolous legal threats. It is the opinion of us and our lawyers that you are fucking morons, and that you should please go sodomize yourself with retractable batons. Please also note that your e-mail and letter will be published in full on http://www.thepiratebay.org. Go fuck yourself. Polite as usual, anakata

31 May, 2006

708USD for Google Calendar Synchronize Application

I just stumbled upon on msmobiles blog of a pretty strange guy. I've read some post of him threatening that he will sue anyone bad-mouthing him and other MS like behavior. Few posts earlier he promotes Google Calendar and Open Source..

Anyway, to get to the point this guy offers 555 EUR (or 708 USD or 380 GBP) to whoever 'will create complete application that would synchronize Google Calendar with Windows Mobile'. Very interesting he requires the app to be freeware and open source.
That's a nice attitude, man, but stop threatening people bad-mouthing you, this is so childish! As Bob Marley would probably have said: Stand up for your rights!

If you are interested in earning those $708 you can read more here.

There are already solutions to synch GCal with WM but thru OutLook, if interested check it out: http://remotecalendars.sourceforge.net/. For symbian phones check this post about synchronizing google calendar with symbian mobiles. For the Vista users we might have even some better news.

Synch Google Calendar with Symbian phones

Google Calendar has a nice set of features but it's lacking mobile support and synch possibilities. As I am using a Symbian based mobile device I would like to Synch my phone's calendar with GCalendar. I would also like that Google let me set-up reminders on web so my partners can add meeting reminders online and my phone would remind me even if I am offline.
By this time all of you are aware of the features Goggle Calendar offers so I wont discuss about this (well, except a nice feature I really like).

Google Calendar allows you to post on the web events for users to click-and-add to their calendar. That's one of the best features unfortunately it lacks others. It would be a great idea to add SyncML server and why not contacts synch (like Yahoo! did but I will post about this later). Anyway, there's a workaround for the symbian synch shortcoming: http://www.gcalsync.com/

  • Download events from Google Calendar to your phone's calendar
  • Upload events created on the phone
  • If an event has been changed in Google Calendar since last sync it will be updated on the phone
  • Specify time period you want to sync as number of past days (default: 1) and number of future days (default 30)
GCalSync is still in its early stages, so expect some rough corners.

LATER UPDATE (1yr later): Google just launched a mobile friendly version of their Calendar application. Too bad they forgot to add some functionality besides view and add (like a search function, posibility to add to a certain calendar without the need to switch them, jump to date etc). Here's a screenshot I took on my E61:




Technorati tags:

Blogger Spellchecker Fun - Gogol

While I was testing Blogger's spellchecker I was amazed to view the image below. If your blog contains the word 'google' Blogger's spellchecker offers to replace it with googol. It's pretty funny that Google owns Blogger but Blogger doesnt know who/what 'Google' is..
Same happens with Firefoxand other well known industry names and terms (try spellchecking 'blog').

Google Notebook review - Clip and Save

I just stumbled upon Google Notebook last week and curiosity pushed me to install it. From the start I liked the integration part, it integrates in the status bar of your browser. While I am using mostly Firefox, sometimes I need Internet Explorer. Google Notebook installs on IE the same way.
Second thing I like about Google Notebook it's the possibility to select partial contents of a web page and 'note' it down in your notebook. If that page changes or gets offline you'll still have the contents (including images and formatting).



As opposed to what many thought about, Google Notebook it's not a competitor of del.icio.us but a tool to help you organize information. For example I used it to write down every single interesting info or post I stumble upon the web if I plan to blog about it.

I might use it for different things in the near future and then I'll create another notebook (yes, you can have multiple notebooks on one account).

Despite it's lacking tags and timestamps (which I find very useful) Google Notebook fits me perfectly. It was not intended to be a del.icio.us replacement but a simple tool that helps you write down information FAST! That's what I like most about it and that's what stopped me using del.icio.us. When I note something to Notebook I don't have to write any tags, lose time thinking about the 'perfect tagging' nor descriptions. Just note it baby!

I would love to see time stamps on the snippets in the Notebook and sorting but I wouldn't like this app to evolve to something similar to del.icio.us. Also, it is hard for me to imagine how someone would share it's notebook with the world.. I mean, notebook its for sketch and ideas not for loosing time designing it like one would do with a blog. I can hardly see it as a social app (social like in web2.0).

29 May, 2006

Untrusted Certificate, Gmail on Nokia's Symbian Series S60

As many 'road warriors' out there like having gmail on the go, I also wanted it. Profimail seemed the ideal solutions and I installed it on my 6680 few months ago but didnt like it because it generates loads of traffic thru my gprs connection. I think that exact version I've tested had a bug and didnt knew to handle properly gmail's pop protocol.

Since then I used GMail-mobile, hosted on my server. GMail-mobile has the big advantage of being very lite. It's using WAP protocol so it generates pretty low traffic. This wasn't the best solution either, I wanted something similar to the phone's embedded mail checker using automatic retrieval - to be notified when I get a new mail rather than checking it from time to time.

Setting up GMail on your series 60 phone is pretty easy but it will bore you to death with the "untrusted certificate" message, especially when you activate the automatic retrieval option. Actually, automatic retrieval wont wont check the email until you choose 'continue'.

I also had another email address (let's say mobi@domain.com) that I used to send pictures and all sorts of things from my mobile phone, especially when no computer was around. That email address was 'indexed' by some Russian spammers and cannot be used on mobile since then - it receives about 20 spam emails per day.

Given the above I thought that redirecting mobi@domain.com to my gmail account (for the amazing spam filter) and getting past the untrusted certificate problem would solve my 2 problems.

Untrusted Certificate - problem solved
If you are using an S60 then you probably should make the first try here: Thawte Roots Certificate. If this won't work for you try the S60v2 solution: point your phone's web browser to www.ocasta.co.uk/cert.html and install the certificate. Thanks Ocasta for this certificate!

UPDATE (May 16th, 2008): It's been almost two years since I published this post and new phones came out.. For the newer phones (N95 and recent) take a look on this blog post.

08 April, 2006

DAP could not be loaded. Please press "back" button on the browser.

I used to install DAP to be used with firefox as download accelerator but after few days of testing I didnt liked its behaviour and decided to uninstall it. Somehow, it seems that Download Accelarator Plus doesnt like to be unistalled so he decided the firefox extension will be still useful to me. When I try to download something with firefox I get a pop-up info window saying:
"DAP could not be loaded. Please press "back"
button on the browser."
When I press OK a gray screen appears with the message:
"Download Accelerator has added the link to queues.
Press "Back" button to return to normal mode"
This aborts the download.


Somehow this stupid plugin doesnt remove itself from firefox and annoys me big times. I tried re-installing and the same thing happens. After some google search I found out that many people are annoyed by this stupid error so I decided to install it on another computer and monitor the instalation changes made by the both the installer and uninstaller.

I found out that DAP doesnt remove all the files it installs. It forgot some dll in Firefox installation directory. If you want to get rid of it you just have to go into Firefox install directory then you'll fins a directory named plugins. In this directory search and remove the file named npdap.dll and you're done!