Irrelevant is my relevant …

I have been looking to back up my files to the internet for a long time, but I have never managed to find a solution that met my needs. Well that is until now.

My needs were:

• Filesystem integration with my OS, syncing client and mapped drive etc
• Large storage capacity
• Secure storage, i want my data to be private
• Secure webpage access to my data
• Share / collaborate for my family and friends on pictures etc
• Mobile phone access to my data
• Be able to back up more than photos (rules out flickr!)
• Not too costly
• Fast internet access

I have found my saviour in a company going by the name HumYo

HumYo meets all of my requirements, ignore the odd name! I have been using this service for a while now and am overly impressed.

They offer a free account to home users which will give you 10 gig online storage but no sync client (IMO the best part). The premium account matches all my criteria, gives you 100 gig online storage and is only £45.99 a year. You can even pay monthly. You can have a free 15 day trial of this account, worth doing to try out the sync client.

The web interface is very tidy and provides a large amount of functionality, it even has a built in thumbnailer for videos and pictures.

HumYo Web Interface

Double Clicking on an image or video in the web interface will bring up a media player allowing you to view albums of photos or even videos. Perfect for showing family and friends without downloading the files. This web interface has been simplified for the mobile phone version but still has the same functionality.

HumYo Media Player

The sync client for the PC makes backing up simple, choose the folders you would like to keep in ’sync’ with the online storage and leave it to it. Whenever you change a file or add a file to one of these folders it will be automatically be updated online and vice versa. You can even throttle the amount of bandwidth the client uses.

The operating system integration goes one step further again by providing a mapped drive to access and upload your files too.

There is a client for Windows x86/x64, and a Mac client.

Upgrading a copy of Windows 7 RC to a retail copy is much simpler than you could have ever expected. I am sure there are a million and one guides on the internet on how to do this by now. But I thought I would blog my experiences. The process is a painless one but one that will require you to walk away and make a few cups of tea.

Steps:

1. Don’t try and ‘upgrade’ straight off the DVD it will not work! you will see this:
2. Instead, copy the DVD to a folder on the local hard drive and then edit the file \sources\cversion.ini
3. Change the cversion.ini ‘MinClient’ option to a version before or equal to the version on the notice on your desktop stamp.Example if the desktop says

   

   then change the file to

   

   And save the file.

4. Launce Setup.exe in the folder the DVD was coped to and select the ‘Upgrade’ option when prompted.
5. Follow the on screen instructions and wait.
6. Tada!

Hope it works, worked perfectly for me!

I am not sure I could ask for a better windows blog writing application. Appears to work seamlessly, sometimes Microsoft just do things right!

hurrah!

Test image insertion:

Test hyperlink:

Test URL

Brilliant!

How to make Skittle Vodka.

Looks good, particularly the colour.

Skittles Vodka Tutorial | Mix That Drink.

SiN Computer Game

SiN was one of my favourite games when I was younger and clearly showed improvements on the Quake 2 engine from which it was based. Unfortunately at the time of release Half Life was also released as a result SiN was thrown into shadow.

In my oppinion SiN was a better game, I wasted many hours playing the game online and sniping from the crane.

SiN seems to have almost died on the internet, finding the source code for the game proved a difficult thing. Therefore I have hosted it here for any other fans who fancy a look through the source code. It makes a fairly interesting read.

Download SiN Source Code (~500k)

The download file was originally sin110source.exe but has been repacked. No one wants a self decompressing file, it is now a .zip not a .exe.

Additional Resources:

Interesting article on the development of SiN

Original SiN game site on Archive.org

Hi, Well I have finally got round to finishing enough of this application to give you a version. Unfortunately all the features I wanted to release are not there but its close enough. Future versions will incorporate these.

This application is basically a sound board with the ability to add user created content.

As before, requires .Net 3.5 CF.

The sample sound themes included in the application are a little weak and could do with some extra ones being created. Post your creations in the thread please

There are two types of themes available, a button theme and an image theme.

The button theme uses positionable windows image buttons to play the sounds.

The image theme uses an image to play the sounds. So for example you would have 2 images one for the background on the application for the user to see and one for the application to use. The overlay image will contain a single block of colour where you want to place a button, this colour is then indexed in the themes XML file. So when you press down on the background the colours are matched and the matching sound played.

The best way to get to grips with the themes is to look at two of the themes I have provided. The XML files are fully commented and quite simple to understand.

Example of ButtonTheme, \content\Roy Walker\RoyWalker.xml
Example of Imagetheme, \content\Mr T\MRT.xml

I am sure there will be bugs, but I wanted to get a release out as soon as possible to get some user created content. Please post any creations on this thread and I will include them in the .cab file with the next version.

Any feedback or suggestions please post on this thread also.

Future features:
Volume Control
More audio support, e.g. mp3 etc
Options to save last theme and other stuff
visual feedback on an Imagetheme button press, perhaps a greying of an area (Simple but havent had the time)

Any way have fun!!
Download

I have just received a shiny new HTC Diamond Touch, after a day or so of having it I thought it was time to create an application. This is what the few minutes during my lunch break at work came up with.

A Roy Walker sound board! Only 4 samples unfortunately, you wouldn’t believe how hard these audio samples are to find.

Enjoy, the start of many to come I hope.

Download the Cab Now – It requires the .Net Compact Framework 3.5 to be installed on the device.

Screenshot

Running order for BloodStock Open Air 2008:

BloodStock 2008 Running Order

Click on image to englarge.

Impressive lightning video

Flash video of lightning striking in very slow motion,