Accessing Facebook Via Facebook Mobile Site From My PC

With a dial-up line and a 14 year old Windows 98 PC, accessing Facebook via the URL http://www.facebook.com/ is a pain for me. Compared with Firefox version 3.6.8, the Opera web browser provided some improvement in terms of speed in rendering the Facebook pages. But on the whole, things are still crawling. Disabling the loading of graphic images does not help much. It has more to do with the heavy usage of Javascripts, I believe.

It is a welcome relief when I started accessing Facebook via the Facebook Mobile Site http://m.facebook.com/ on my desktop PC. My experience on Facebook has certainly improved. I have been using this URL instead of http://www.facebook.com for about a week now. With less graphics and Javascripts, the responsiveness of Opera is certainly much better, even when I have 3 other tabs opened simultaneously in Opera - and this is on a Windows 98 PC with 128 MB RAM and AMD 333MHz processor. Also, I do noticed that hard disk activity is significantly less compared to previously.

The user interface design of the Facebook Mobile Site is definitely plain, with not much bells and whistles. But I believe all the functions on Facebook that one normallly use are still there. I think I will be adding more Facebook Pages to my news feeds in the days to come. I could not do much previously as Opera was crawling all the time when loading Facebook.

Converting YouTube's .FLV files to .MKV format

This is what I did to convert YouTube's .FLV files to the .MKV format with Avidemux. Video and audio in the .FLV files are encoded in the H264 and AAC codec, respectively.

FM Radio Stations In Ipoh

Here is a list of FM radio stations that I can tune in to in Ipoh. There is a total of 21 radio stations in all. I do not think I have missed any out. I wish I could tune in to more FM radio stations like what they have in the Klang Valley, especially the news and talk radio stations (e.g. BFM - The Business Station).

Traxx FM, Broadcasting To Ipoh In Stereo But Audio Output Is In Mono

One can tell if a radio broadcast on the FM band is in stereo by just looking at the LED indicator on a radio set. When a broadcast is in stereo, the LED indicator will be illuminated.

One can tell if the audio output is really in stereo by using a pair of stereo headphones, or by just placing ones head directly in the middle between a pair of speakers of a radio and listen attentively. In mono, the audio output in the left and right speakers will be the same, while in stereo it will be different.

I find it strange that RTM's Traxx FM (formerly Radio 4, Blue Network) is broadcasting to Ipoh in stereo but its audio output for music and jingles is in mono. I have tried it with 2 radio sets, Winamp TV (on Windows XP), and Gnomeradio (on Ubuntu) and it is all the same. It has not always been this way though. I have some tapings of BBC World Service's "Top Of The Pops" that were broadcast about a year ago by Traxx FM and all were in stereo till around January 30th 2012. Everything went mono after that. And it still is today. I wonder why? Perhaps somebody forgot to flip on a switch or something at the transmitting station at Kledang Hill.

Where Are The Free FM Radio Tuners For Windows?

I find it odd that there are not many free FM Radio tuner software for the Windows platform. FM Tuners for Linux, yes - and with the source code too. But for Windows there is none. The best that I could find is just a plug-in for Winamp called Winamp TV version 1.9Beta8 - the page on this link says version 1.9lite10 but upon installation the Winamp TV documentation says version 1.9Beta8.

Defective Card Reader From DSTT

I just found out that the card reader that came along with the DSTT For NDS cartridge is defective (see http://www.dgemu.com/forums/index.php/topic/400563-flashcart-dsttttds/). During the last 3 years or so, I have always been curious as to why IPodDS will misbehave, or why MoonShell or any other .NDS program will not load successfully after some months of DS usage. A reformat and a restore from backup to the MicroSD is the only option when this happens. For a time, I was having suspicion that I have got a defective MicroSD flash memory card, but I was having trouble believing this.

Guess I have to get a new card reader now. A multi-card reader would be a better investment for the long run I suppose.

Cranky Power Button On My Nintendo DS Lite

I thought I have found an alternative way to power on my Nintendo DS Lite by simultaneously pressing the L, R and X button without using the side Power Button slide switch. After doing some thorough investigation, it turns out that I was wrong.

The Power Button has been cranky for about 4 months now. There was a time when the DS will power itself on without anyone touching it - and it can even turn itself off sometimes. This morning, I found out that I could trigger the DS to power itself on/off by just pressing down hard on the X button. And if I have used the slide switch, and everything is just in the right orientation somewhere in the DS, a gentle push on the X button is all it needs.

Still, this is an option that I could use when the power slide switch is not responsive.

Speeding Up My Ghost Backup

Files on my C: drive are fairly static, consisting mainly of just the Windows system files, page file and other programs that I may install or upgrade from time to time. All my work files and TV captures go into different partitions - backups consist of just a simple "copy" to a flash drive for these files.

I will initiate a (Symantec) Ghost backup on the C: drive only after when I have installed/uninstalled new/existing programs or after when there are many changes in the Windows registry due to parameter changes in the Windows system or software program settings that I have made.

This is what I do to speed up my the Ghost backup on my C: drive.

V2CRS Does Not Like Windows System Restore

I do not really need a user login account for my Pentium Dual Core computer that I use for TV captures. Security is not a concern as I am practically the only user on this PC. But I have a need to use V2CRS for scheduling my VirtualDub TV recordings. And one of the requirements of V2CRS is that it needs a user login account with a password.

Windows Scheduled Tasks

In the documentation of V2CRS, there is no mention of what the user login account should be. So I just create an account called "user" (with administrative privileges) that requires a password to login. Since I can use V2CRS to schedule and record without any problems, I did not give much thought to this after that. I thought everything was alright. That is until when I did a "Restore my computer to an earlier time" via the Windows System Restore. Some, but not all, of my scheduled V2CRS task will not launch. A look into the Windows Scheduled Tasks window, which V2CRS actually uses to schedule the task, shows a status of "Could Not Start" next to the task.

Solved: Freezing Problem On Nintendo DS And TTDS/MicroSD

My Nintendo DS Lite (with a TTDS cartridge and a MicroSD memory card) used to freeze a lot while loading. It will either display the happy face MicroSD graphic (and doing nothing else) or the "No Card" error message with the sad MicroSD graphic. It also used to freeze at times if I accidentally touch the TTDS cartridge/MicroSD. A temporary fix for me is to just reseat the MicroSD card. Numerous attempts may be necessary at times. If this does not work, I will try reseating the TTDS cartridge.

As this looks like a contact problem to me, with a tinge of similarity to one of my previous post "Bad Contact In The PC Slots", I decided to coat the metallic pins of the MicroSD card and the TTDS cartridge with some contact enhancer - I use Electrolube's "EML Contact Cleaner Lubricant".

It has been about a year now, and I have not encountered the 'freezing' problem with my Nintendo DS since.