Coretron's Tech Blog

We have Moved !!!

diamondium — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:33:19 +0000

Please visit the following link to experience the new and improved site! Don’t forget to update your bookmarks!

CORETRON.ORG

G1 gets USB teathering without root access hack

coretron — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:32:25 +0000

A program for Windows called PdaNet already has versions for palm os, windows mobile, the iphone, and now android. You install the application on your PC with your phone plugged in USB, it then magically installs the program on the phone. Run the app on the phone and the computer and you have full 3G internet. Its a good idea to keep a copy of the .exe on your sdcard on the phone as an internetless computer will have no way of downlaoding the required application. Its great not only for laptops, but also if you internet connection goes down for any reason. If you have a rooted G1 you can also teather through wifi, which requires no special software on the PC. Get it at junefabrics.com/android/. Im on the 3g now getting 254 kbps down 190, at Luis’ I got over 300 up and down, probably cause its primetime for cell traffic now. 50 pings to google.com yeilds 0% loss, min 125ms, max, 450ms average 243ms. The application can also be used to being wifi access to a computer lacking wifi through tethering.

Avoid repetition, simplify common tasks and more with AutoHotKey

coretron — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:55:06 +0000

Lately I’ve been downloading and sorting 15,000 songs for our new karaoke setup. I’m using the modded xbox with Xbox Media Center to play the .cdg files. I got this karaoke mixer as well as two shure mics for under $100 after shipping. I’ve found about 50 torrents of karaoke songs. The problem now is I want all the file names to be in the format “artist – song name.cdg” About one third are in that format, one third are in “song name – artist” and another third are “disc number – artist – song name”. Fortunately the disc numbers are all the same length so I figured the best way to delete the first 15 characters of a file name would be to get a program that can loop keyboard commands. I found this open source program called AutoHotKey which turns out to be awesome. After figuring out how to use it I made a file called task.ahk, in here its almost like a simple programing language. You can use commands like if this programs open do this, if not run the program and do it. “Send” will send keystrokes or keys in brackets like {tab} or {space}. Sleep tells it to wait a specific amount of time before proceeding in the script. You can even use “waitwin” command to wait till a specific program is done loading before continuing. It can do the same for websites too. Most importantly to me, it loops. After about an hour of looping the command to delete the disc number the task gets harder.

There’s no easy way to move the song name to the end of the file name. I had about 8000 songs that needed this done.My initial thought was to outsource the project to India, but then I got an idea. I would have to manually go through and do it but have AutoHotKey do everything if could to help me. I had assigned numbers 1-9 to macros that would move the corresponding number or words to the end of the file name. Here’s what the script looked like for a one word song name. 1::Send, {HOME}{CTRLDOWN}{SHIFTDOWN}{RIGHT}{RIGHT}{CTRLUP}{SHIFTUP}{CTRLDOWN}x{CTRLUP}{END}{LEFT}{LEFT}{LEFT}{LEFT}{SPACE}-{SPACE}{CTRLDOWN}v{CTRLUP}{BS}{BS}{BS}{TAB}” The script also moves the dash between song name and artist to the correct spot. One key was finding how to select words using the keyboard rather than characters, this is done with control+shift+right. Since every song has two files (.mp3 and .cdg) I looped it once. So now I still have to go through and rename the files but now to rename “Piano Man – Billy Joel.mp3″ to “Billy Joel – Piano Man.mp3″ all I have to do is press 2. The things damn fast too, the entire command for .mp3 and .cdg is executed in about 1.5 seconds. For extra power you can go to task manager and give high priority to AutoHotKey. It’s gonna take about 4-5 hours of work but its worth it for the ultimate karaoke box.

Every time I host a game of DotA I have to type out “/hostbnetpublic DotA v6.59c -RD USA!! LC!” and press enter. Now I can just press alt+h to host. Every task you do on a regular basis should only take one command to execute. AutoHotKey has thousands of commands and functions it can execute to help you, I can guarantee its more complete and complex than you’ll ever need. Get it at autohotkey.com.

Jim Cramer gets destroyed

diamondium — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:19:15 +0000

With the current economy the way it is, this interview could not have come at a better time. Jon Stewart basically exposes Jim Cramer, from Mad Money fame, as well as cnbc for misleading the general public in terms of financial news and advice.

I tried to embed the video, but I guess I’m not tech savvy enough.

Video Link

Google Voice service offers to manage all your phone calls

coretron — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:27:35 +0000

Initially your first thought is, “why would I want Google to manage my phone calls? Calling is already so straight forward, what could Google offer?” Not only will you probably get this service and like it but you might even change your phone number because of it. With Google Voice you have to pick a new phone number which acts as a hub to your old phone number(s). When someone calls your Google number you can have it call your work phone, house phone and cell phone all at the same time then whichever you answer on picks up. You can put your contacts in categories so that your friends will go to your house and cell but not work. I could see how this is useful for some people, but I only have 1 phone.

Here’s a list of the features from Google . You really should go through and check out the videos for each feature, theyre only about 20 to 60 sec each. One thing I realized while watching the video was that anyone who has a landline just got unlimited free long distance. Once your landline is registered as one of your numbers you can either call your Google number to place the call to a contact or a new number, or use the web interface to place the call. All calls to the USA are free and they have a pay rates for international calls which I hear are cheaper than skype and far cheaper than your mobile or local carrier. The benefits of skype on any phone.

Google Voice also handles your voice mail. You can send calls from specific people or groups straight to voice mail. You can even block numbers so they’ll get the classic “Boo BOO BEEP – We’re sorry the number you have dialed is no longer in service…” When you get an incoming call it will tell you who is calling and you can press 1 to accept the call, 2 to send to voice mail, 3 to send to voice mail but listen in, or 4 to answer the call and record it. That’s right you can record your calls at anytime by pressing 4 to start or stop recording. Recordings are available through the web interface where that can be downloaded, shared, or embedded in html. Voice mails can not only be shared, downloaded, embedded in html, but also TRANSCRIBED which can be emailed or texted to your phone. They admit transcribing isnt perfect but it seems to do ok for now. Bold text is used to accent words which are more likly to be translated correctly. And of course given time the technology will improve. Another great improvement to voice mail is the ability to have personalized voice mail greetings. You can have a professional one for people you dont know as well as work numbers, then have a more relaxed one for your friends and a third for your family.

I mentioned earlier that the service can announce who is calling, it not only does this using your contacts but can also be set to screen your calls. When an unknown number comes in you can have the person say their name, Google then remembers the name and calls you saying so-and-so is calling. You then press 1-4 to decide what to do. It’s like your digital secretary. When your currently talking to someone and you receive a third call Google will tell you who is calling and you can press a button to swap over like normal or you can press a button and easily merge the calls. This happens all the time with friends trying to figure something out and they all call each other, now you can easily merge calls. One last cool thing; say your on a call and you just got to work/home, your battery is dead, your don’t want to use precious mobile minutes, or maybe you get bad reception. You can press * to have the service call your other numbers and once you pick up on that line you can hang up the cell phone and continue your conversation.

The service isn’t available to the public for another few weeks, and I must say this has huge potential. If nothing else it can get free long distance to those without a cell phone. Is it just a matter of time till they are reading the transcripts of my voice mail to send me more accurately targeted ads like they already do in gmail? Probably, but I’ve always been willing to give up the privacy between me and a Google server in order to give me better ads. We gave up privacy between ourselves and computers long ago.

Cory?

diamondium — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:20:55 +0000

The Next Generation of Search?

diamondium — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:03:26 +0000

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Most people know “Wolfram” as either the creators of the symbolic processing program ‘mathematica’ or the mathematics resource website mathworld.

The designers have been working on a new search engine. I will not say “google-killer” as it really is not a google killer. It is a different ‘type’ of search engine altogether that I believe can coexist with google. It is not a search engine but rather a “computing engine” with built in artifical intelligence as well as a natural language filter. In other words, this engine figures out the answer to your question and then gives you the answer, rather than present you with the best sites that may contain the answer. It determines what you are asking, then gives you the answer. Intrigued?

Hit the jump if you want to know more.

Lets take a simple query, such as “who was the nba finals mvp in 2004.” There are many different approaches to finding the answer to this question in google. I could simply type in the entire query and could search the results for the answer. The great thing about the internet, is that most questions that one posits, have already been answered. Therein lies the beauty and simplicity of google. Type in a question and google ‘knows’ the question has already been asked, and therefore directs you to the most relevant websites. In this regard, google is a great tool.

Now lets assume, for arguments sake, that this question was never asked, and thus entering the entire query as such would fail to retrieve the answers we so desire. Hope is not lost as google is a clever girl. You could search for ‘nba finals mvp’ or any combination of the words. A little more leg work will be necessary in order to find the exact answer, but nonetheless the asnwer can still be found with relatively little work. After all, entire courses are created with teaching students how to search databases, it is a skill and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

But where does wolfram alpha (WA for short) fit into all this? As I mentioned before, WA aims to incorporate artificial intelligence as well as a natural language filter to help narrow query results down. Let us take the previous query and enter it into WA. If everything goes as it should, then you would be able to enter the query as is and you should get the result you want.

Did you notice that I said ‘result’ and not ‘results?’ Thanks to th a.i. and natural language filter, If i asked the question “who was the nba finals mvp in 2004″ and hit search, the result will simply be “Chauncy Billups.” No results to search through, no websites to analyze.

For too long, we have treated search engines like libraries and not like professors. Let’s use the same query again, but in a world without computers. If I wanted to know the answer, I would go to a library and look it up. I would have to search through books, articles, periodicals, etc to find the answer (Modern Day Search Engine). Another solution however, would be to go to an expert and ask them directly (WA). No searching, no analyzing, and I get the result instantly. In this case, I would ask Professor Luke Walton at the University of Basketball in Los Angeles.

Artist Render

In this analogy, google would be the library and WA would be the expert. In real life, when you ask someone a question, they don’t present you with a list of topics that they think you want to know, they understand the question and give you the answer. This my friends, is what is on the horizon of search engine technology, and WA aims to bring it to our doorsteps.

The implications of this kind of search tool are more than you can come to realize. WA is the first of next generation search engines and I believe will revolutionize the way we conduct research in the future. The type of search engines that we know and are used to have been around for a decade. Google has come out on top and has perfected this technology. But as technology advances so do the people that use them.

I think it will be years before we understand the potential of something like WA and fully learn how to utilize it. The next generation of search engines is in its infancy, but it is coming and it is exciting indeed.

Links:

http://www.twine.com/item/122mz8lz9-4c/wolfram-alpha-is-coming-and-it-could-be-as-important-as-google

Windows 7 Should Allow Multiple Simultaneous Users

coretron — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:32:28 +0000

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine set up his computer, which has two monitors, in our living room while he was living on our couch. He and I were trying to find something on the internet, he searched and I sat there with this second monitor in front of me. I thought, “why can’t I use this monitor?” Computers can have two mice, two keyboards, and two monitors, but not two users. They are more than powerful enough. For that matter why can’t a computer have 5 users on monitors using usb to dvi adapters? Here’s a video of 5 monitors on one computer showing it is possible. Think of the implications for schools, libraries, and businesses. Schools and libraries are always in need of more computers and are getting their budgets slashed. Turn one computer into 5. There’s already a program for linux that does this called Userful Multiplier which supports 10 users, more info at userful.com. This could be SO helpful in saving money on computers, not to mention electricity. But then again Microsoft would only be selling one copy instead of 10. Think that’s why we won’t ever see this technology?

Street Fighter IV

diamondium — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 23:10:11 +0000

Who is getting it?

We need classes on proper and efficient internet usage in k-12.

coretron — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:10:48 +0000

Kids these days take on the internet like a fish to water, but with the internet being the most powerful tool man has ever discovered we need to teach kids how to learn things from the internet properly and efficiently. Hoestly, I don’t know how much instruction on the internet is being taught in k-12 and I’m sure it veries from school to school. For part of a writing class at UCI I went to an hour seminar at the library on how to use Google. Walking in I thought it was going to be the dumbest thing ever. I mean all you have to do is type a search term and press enter. I learned tricks like “define: word”, searching within specific domains, and Google Scholar. They also talked how to use the right keywords to give the exact result you wanted. Knowing whats a reliable source and how to find them is also very important. In most schools I’d venture to say that the kids know more about how to use the internet than their teachers. If every kid knew how to teach themselves a skill or solve problems using the internet they would be far better off.

The internet is the keeper of all knowledge, it can teach anyone anything. Making sure everyone knows how to use properly and effieicntly use it should be a schools highest priority.