B10[m|g]

Since I now own a fancy Nokia N95 (8GB), I also have the barcode/qrcode reader which is quite handy. When you see an image like the one below, the scanner will extract the URL and allows you to open it (beats a lot of typing).

A QRCode image looks like this:

This little bookmarklet can help you surfing the web. Drag it to your bookmark toolbar and hit it whenever you want to view that page on your phone too. It'll create a QRCode image with the URL of the page you're viewing.

qrcode, barcode, bookmarklet, nokia

VoipBuster is a website I quite like. They offer cheap (inter)national phone calls from phone to phone. To make the phone calls, you can download some Windows software, or use the web-interface. Since I don't use MS Windows (and think running VMWare/Wine for such a simple application is overkill), I end up using the web-interface.

The only problem is that I cannot seem to remember people's phone numbers (including my own), so I wrote a little Greasemonkey script called: VoipBuster Addressbook

It's really quite simple. All you have to do, is use VoipBuster like you're used to. But, when you add a phone number (either your own, or a destination address), the script will prompt for a name and adds that to a drop down list. The next time you want to make a call, simply select the name from the drop down and the number is entered for you.

greasemonkey, voipbuster, addressbook

Nu.nl is the main Dutch news website and every now and then, they offer video streams too. Too bad for people running Linux without a functional FireFox mplayer-plugin (that means you, Joffie ;-)

For lazy people like Joffie and me, I've created Nu Flash Video. Usage is rather simple. Install the greasemonkey script and simply click on the "Bekijk video" links on nu.nl. That will redirect you to this page, where we will download and convert the video for you (if not done already).

nu.nl, video, flash, wmv, greasemonkey

In the WebWereld article I was dubbed "Dutch Hacker". The first thing my wife said after reading the article was "Wow, I'm married to a hacker!". That and my new job made her give me an iPod Nano (for I travel to work by train now).

After picking up the iPod Nano, I went to look how to work with it. First, I hooked it up to a Windows Laptop and was planning to use the official way, through iTunes Unfortunately, this application seemed too hard for me. I messed with it for a while, but I really couldn't figure out how to use it. It's just too hard!

So I went for the preferred syncing method, through my own Linux box. I plugged the USB cable in and my OS recognized it straight away. What a relief! So it was time to give gtkpod a go. Too bad it was like iTunes: too hard for me to grasp (I still really have no clue how those two programs work!).

But thank god there were some Perl tools, called gnupod. Easy to use tools, good documentation, and I can finally put my noise on my iPod!

gnupod, gtkpod, linux, iPod Nano

After my 30Boxes greasemonkey script had been implemented on the website, I figured it was time to look at more possibilities.

The iPod Nano I have always tells me it can offer me calendars, so why not give it a go? I already found out how to put music on the iPod so let's see if I can get more stuff to work!

The format iPod supports (for calendars) is ics (the iCal file format). 30Boxes makes it a breeze to grab this file. Just login, go to Setting, Sharing, Entire View and there you'll see a link pointing to your ICS File.

After mounting your iPod, all you have to do is something like:

$ GET [ICS File URL] > /mnt/ipod/Calendars/30boxes.ics

And you're good to go. Your 30Boxes calendar can now be viewed on your iPod.

Sweet, but of course a calendar isn't too fun to look at all day. It usually contains appointments and data concerning boring meetings, so lets see if I can also get some photos of my wife on there (believe me, it's much more fun to look at than a calendar ;-).

Sure enough this is easy too! GPixPod, a python solution, is designed just for this. After installing it, it worked straight out of the box.

So now I can listen to (part of) my collection of metal CDs by using gnupod. 30Boxes is providing me with an ics file, so I can keep track of my appointments and in the meanwhile, I can look at my wife, thanks to GPixPod. That leaves me with the Contacts option, but I first have to find a good way to store addresses and phone numbers (... as if I didn't try half a billion things already). Feel free to recommend me a service like hiveminder or 30boxes with solid addressbook functionality :-)

gnupod, 30boxes, gpixpod, ipod, linux, ics, ical