Archive for March, 2007

Select a theme for your Google Personalized Home

Have you set up a personal, customized homepage for your internet browser?
It can be created in google as simple as just type http://www.google.com/ig in your browser.

The Google Personalized Home lets you add your own customized content, such as news, RSS feeds, stocks, weather, etc.
Previously, you can change columns spacing, text padding, link color, link style, title font color and title bar color by reading this module.

But this morning, I realised this!
My google homepage
Google has finally provided some themes to make a homepage looks better. :) No more dummy interface. No more serious layout.

Let me show you how cute the themes are (click to enlarge).
Beach
Beach

Bus Stop
Bus Stop

City Scape
City Scape

Sweet Dreams
Sweet Dreams

Tea House
Tea House

Seasonal Scape
Seasonal scape

Tell me which one is your favourite theme!

Tags: No Comment

Speedlinking - 19 March 2007

φ Google Talk Gadget(New!)
Add the Google Talk Gadget to your Google Personalized Homepage and get:
• Instant messaging
• All of your Gmail contacts
• Video previews in chat
• Photo previews in chat
*Do not know how to make Google Personalized Homepage? In your browser, type in ” http://www.google.com/ig”.

φ Internet Explorer 7 Pro(IE7Pro)
IE7Pro’s Features:
• Enhance Internet Explorer’s Tabbed Browsing Capabilities
• AD Blocker
• Super Drag and Drop
• Mouse Gesture
• Crash Recovery
• Save Page to Image
• Quick Proxy Switcher

φ Official Wordpress Plugin Directory
• Add your plugin to the plugin directory. Your plugin must be GPL compatible.
• Find your wanted plugin here.

Tags: , , No Comment

Make free calls to mobile phones or landlines

Gizmocall.com offers free calling from any browser. It’s a flashbased site(Adobe flash impressed me today!). It requires Adobe Flash 9 Player for calls to occur.

 Make a free call now!
1. Visit www.gizmocall.com
2. Download Adobe Flash 9 Player if you don’t have one in your pc.
3. Refresh the site after flash plugin installed.
4. Enter a valid phone number and press <Call>.

Things you need to know
1. You need a headset or microphone and speakers.
2. If you register(free), you get 3 minutes per call and 10 minutes per day, else you’re allowed only five minutes of calling per day.
3. You can build a “Call Me” links and send it to your friends so they can make FREE calling through Gizmo Call with you.
4. You can download and install Gizmo Project (free and chinese version provided!) in order to make a call as simple as instant messaging without surfing it’s site.
5. Please key in a valid phone number. For example: If you want to make a call to Malaysia, dial +60 12 658xxxx for mobile phone, dial +60 3 8941xxxx for landline.

So what are you waiting for? Make free calls today!
*Please leave a comment to tell me how do you feel about this free service after you have made free calls in Gizmocall.com.

 Gizmocall.com让你拨打免费通话至任何网络(手机,住家)。这是一个可在您的电脑上使用的免费电话. 你只需要安装Adobe Flash 9 Player就可以拨打任何一部固定电话和手机。

开始拨打免费电话
1. 游览www.gizmocall.com
2. 如果你的电脑还没使用Adobe Flash 9 Player,请下载安装。
3. 下载安装完毕后,请复新(按F5键)其网页。
4. 输入有效的电话号码,然后按.

小知识
1. 你的电脑必须要有耳机/扬声器和麦克风。
2. 如果注册成为会员(免费),你每天可享有总共十分钟的免费通话时间。每通电话不可超过三分钟。如果不要注册成为会员,你每天也可免费使用五分钟。
3. 你可设立一个”Call Me”链接然后寄给你的朋友以方便他们直接进入Gizmocall.com拨电给你。
4. 如果你嫌进入其网站浪费时间,那你可下载安装Gizmo Project(免费且备有华语版本)。它将成为你电脑里一个使用互联网的电话,就如同使用即时信息一样简单。
5. 请输入有效的电话号码。比如你想拨打至马来西亚的朋友,固定线请拨打+60 3 8941xxxx,手机请拨打+60 12 658xxxx。

事不宜迟.赶快开始拨打免费电话!
*请留言和我分享你使用gizmocall/gizmoproject的经验。

Tags: , 2 Comments

Using the Tree Component in Adobe Director

One of the great thing of Adobe Director is user can apply flash components in a director movie. Unfortunately, the Director documentation is not really describe all the flash components’ properties and methods that are to be used in details.

Tree Component
The Tree component allows a user to view hierarchical data. The tree appears within a box like the List component, but each item in a tree is called a node and can be either a leaf or a branch.
By default, a leaf is represented by a text label beside a file icon and a branch is represented by a text label beside a folder icon with a disclosure triangle that a user can open to expose children. The children of a branch can either be leaves or branches themselves.
The data of a tree component must be provided from an XML data source.

Step 1: Where do we get the tree component in Director?
Go to “Library palette” -> “Component”, drag a tree component and drop it in your cast.

Step 2: Prepare script for tree component event.
If you are using Director MX 2004 10.1.1, …»»Continue reading Using the Tree Component in Adobe Director

Tags: No Comment

Create an icon for your website now!

Would you like to display your own icon on the browser address bar when visitors view or bookmark your web page?
If you are having your personal blog site, commercial website, or any .com/.net without an icon for it, here is some simple steps to guide you how to create an icon in 10 minutes.

Step 1:
Select an image(preferable .jpg+square+any size) that you want it to turn into your icon.
(If you are going to download an image from google image search, here is where you should go - Icon Archive.)

Step 2:
Go to Favicon Generator, use the online free service to convert your image file into .icon.
Simply select a picture, logo or other graphic (of any size/resolution) for the “Source Image” and click “Generate FavIcon.ico”.

Step 3:
Click the Download favicon buttonbutton to save output icon zip file.

Step 4:
Unzip your file, then upload “favicon.ico” to your server and make a note of the location.
(eg. www.k-director.com/image/favicon.ico).

Step 5:
Add the following HTML tag to your web page after the tag, before the tag:
<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”http://www.k-director.com/image/favicon.ico” mce_href=”favicon.ico” >

*If you are hosting a blog site, you can go to Favicon Validator to check whether you have inserted the script. Normally the script will appear in your header.php.

If you are having problem in inserting the html tag, try to search “http://www.k-director.com” in Favicon Validator to see the proper script.

The advantages of having an icon
• A trademark and brand symbol of your website.
• Easy to identify.
• Give confidence to your visitor(customers).
• Looks nice professional!

Tags: , 2 Comments

How to display subtitle with a video file?

If you would like to watch a video with subtitle, all you need to do is to install a software plugin called VobSub and get your subtitle file ready.
- Introduction about Vobsub(quite long).

In case you are lazy to read the long introduction about Vobsub, I will brief you a little bit about it.

VobSub Description:
VOBSUB is a filter for Media Player that can load subtitles (ssa, sub, srt, vobsub, …) into movies being played.

VobSub will works with ALL video players.

There are two kinds of subtitle formats which the vobsub package can deal with:
1. vobsub ripped: idx/sub[/rar]
2. textual: srt, sub, psb, smi, ssa, ass

Installation:
A better tutorial about VobSub installation.
NOTE: The custom installation doesn’t include the Virtualdub, Aviuntil, Text for VirtulDub and AviSync plugins. If you want to install them as well, you must choose “full install“.
Virtualdub is the software to support this plugin, therefore you must install this software as well.

Basically there is not much settings to configure in Vobsub. Timing is the only one you should take note on it. If your subtitle is played too slow, set your subtitle timing to negative(-1 to -9999) and vice versa.

About subtitle file:
If you have a subtitle file(*.srt), you must remember to put it in same directory as the video you’re going to watch.
After that, rename your subtitle file to the same name as your video file.
For example, if your video file name is LostS0610.avi, then your subtitle file name must be LostS0610.srt.
After rename your files, run the video file by your default software, the subtitles will be displayed automatically. :)

Where to download video file?
http://www.torrentportal.com/
www.torrentspy.com

Where to download subtitle file?
http://www.shooter.com.cn/sub/
http://www.divx-titlovi.com/Divx-Subtitles.aspx
http://subscene.com/

想在影视里加入任何语言的字幕,那你一定要安装此软件-Virtualdub和VobSub。除此之外,你当然还需要一个字幕档案。
VOBSUB是一个外挂字幕的程序,用来播放 DivX 格式电影必备的显示字幕工具。

安装:
可参考http://www.how2use.idv.tw/secret/movsub.htm

字幕:
字幕档案一定要和影视档案存放在一起。档案名字也必须一样。
如影视档案 = LostS0610.avi, 那字幕档案 = LostS0610.srt

影视下载
http://www.torrentportal.com/
www.torrentspy.com

字幕下载
http://www.shooter.com.cn/sub/
http://www.divx-titlovi.com/Divx-Subtitles.aspx
http://subscene.com/

ps : For you, Vince. :)

Tags: , , 3 Comments

Tracelogfile

Have you ever trace a log file of your director application? It is very useful if you want to debug your application or “steal” other’s application code. TraceLogFile is not only can be applied in director movie, it can be created as an external .ini file to trace the global variable, values and script that ran by the application.

How to create an internal Tracelogfile
_movie.traceLogFile = _movie.path & “Trace.txt”

How to create an external Tracelogfile

In your notepad type this,

on startup
the tracelogfile = “Trace.txt”
the trace = true
end

then save it as *.ini (eg. Lingo.ini)

After that, put it at the same path with the projector.exe. After the director application is closed, a Trace.txt that recorded down all the global variable, values and script will be generated.

Stop Tracing My Application!
To prevent people from reverse engineer your application or “code stealing”, add this script in your director movie.

on startmovie
the traceLogFile = EMPTY
the traceLoad =0
end

*If you know any other methods to read/debug the code, please kindly share it with me.

the tracelogfile = “Trace.txt”
the trace = true
end

Tags: , No Comment

Flash ScrollPane


What can we do if we want to scroll a long text+image+flash animation? Except of using “scroll together” or “drag together” method, I will choose to use flash scrollpane in director. You can use a scroll pane to display any content that is too large for the area into which it is loaded. For example, if you have a large image and only a small space for it in an application, you could load it into a scroll pane. It is very useful if you want to insert an animation or image in your text and make it scrollable.
You can either link a swf (which include animation, text and image) or a jpg/png/gif in scrollpane for display purpose.

1. Go to Windows -> Library palette.
2. Drag the into your cast member.
3. Select scrollpane in stage then …»»Continue reading Flash ScrollPane

Tags: , 2 Comments