Category: ICT

Informatie -en communicatietechnologie, (web)ontwikkeling, software, …

Dealing with grids in Photoshop is a pain

With GuideGuide, it doesn’t have to be. Pixel accurate columns, rows, midpoints, and baselines can be created based on your document or marquee with the click of a button. Frequently used guide sets can be saved for repeat use. Grids can use multiple types of measurements. Best of all it’s free. Honestly, if you haven’t started downloading it by now, you’re probably a masochist. Weirdo…

PHP long running script without Ajax

<?php
header("Content-Type:text/html;charset=utf-8");
session_start();
?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"  content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
</head>
<body>
<?php

$executiontime = 5; // max time for scripting
$sleeptime = 3; // seconds to pauze after execution time limit


if(!isset($_GET["continue"])){

	$_SESSION["numbers"] = range(1,100000);
	$_SESSION["genesis"] = microtime(true); // absolute start time
	echo count($_SESSION["numbers"]);

}

$_SESSION["starttime"] = microtime(true); // 'this round' start time

foreach($_SESSION["numbers"] as $key=>$value){

		sleep(1);
		// abort and 'reload' upon exceeding execution time
		if((microtime(true) - $_SESSION["starttime"]) > $executiontime){
			echo "<p>" . count($_SESSION["numbers"]) . " items left";			
			echo "<br>This round: " . round((microtime(true) - $_SESSION["starttime"]),2) . " seconds";		
			echo "<br>Total time: " . round((microtime(true) - $_SESSION["genesis"])/60,2) . " minutes";
			echo "<p><strong>Pause script...</strong> Resume in $sleeptime seconds...</p>";
			die ('<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="'.$sleeptime.';URL='.$_SERVER['SCRIPT_URI'].'?continue=1" /></body></html>');
		}
		
		// do some stuff while execution time is still ok
	
		unset($_SESSION["numbers"][$key]);
}

echo "<br>Completed...: total time " . round((microtime(true) - $_SESSION["genesis"])/60,2) . " minutes";

How to restore a lost bluetooth connection

A few days ago I encountered a strange bluetooth problem on my Windows 7 (64bit business, Dell E6520). While I was working suddenly my Dell bt travel mouse disconnected. Tried to reconnect a few times, but couldn’t get it working.

Swapped batteries, and tried another computer: no problem whatsoever. Began to think that I was facing a hardware problem (again!), but then I realized that the device might have been blocked somehow. And guess what… I went looking for “devices and printers” and the Dell bluetooth mouse was still listed, however not connected. The problem was easily solved by removing the device (right click, remove device) and then establishing a new connection.

Winamp, need to change your media library location?

Winamp screenshot 5.601

Face it, your library location might change over time. When you’re using Winamp and don’t won’t to loose all valuable data like play count, last play date, … you probably searched around hours to find a solution on how to change the location to your media library (e.g. you swapped hard drives, bought a new pc, …). Rescanning your media folder is the easiest way to rebuild your media library, but you’ll loose play count, play dates and maybe more meta data.

I’ve searched the winamp forum for solutions, but the only result was people asking the same questions without getting the right answers. Depending on your Winamp version you might have tried some none working plugins too. The logical solution would be exporting your winamp media library to an iTunes XML format (and the export process will work!), but you’ll run into fatal errors when trying to import it. It all boils down to getting access to the core data file of your winamp media library (main.dat) and updating an outdated location to a hard drive or directory that has been moved. Continue reading “Winamp, need to change your media library location?”

Extending iPod support in WinAmp

This article is a continuation of ‘Moving your music library from iTunes to Winamp’

The standard distribution of Winamp already comes with basic functionalities for connecting iPod/iPhone devices. However, these features are really basic! Album art, smart playlists and ratings are not transferred.

The plugin ‘ml_ipod‘ enables such features (installation and configuration are self-explanatory). Compatibility should be checked with your device at the ml_ipod website, since Apple is not very happy with third party software.

ml_ipod

 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mlipod/mlipod

Moving your music library from iTunes to Winamp.

It took me a long while to find a decent alternative for iTunes. First of all I wanted to get rid of Quicktime. It’s a player that really likes to hijack file associations. Still, I managed to live with that. Unfortunately the iTunes software keeps getting bigger with no benefit whatsoever. In my case I just need a mediaplayer (music player) for Windows that manages a music library and makes it easy to synchronize with my iPod Classic. I don’t need any other software stuffed down my throat containing drivers, connectors, features, ads,… for Apple hardware which I’m not planning to buy!

Moving from one player to another would be very easy if you hadn’t been upgrading like a good citizen into one of the latest iTunes releases where you followed the candytrail into the sealed fortress. Continue reading “Moving your music library from iTunes to Winamp.”

Raken we dan nooit van iTunes verlost?

Mijn pogingen uit het verleden om iTunes eruit te gooien en te vervangen door iets anders zijn nog steeds niet gelukt. Het probleem blijft nog steeds om alle kostbare (!) meta-data in een ander programma te krijgen én de functionaliteit te behouden om te synchroniseren met een iPod.

Op dit moment probeer ik opnieuw Winamp, maar nog steeds gebeurt niet alles vlekkeloos, maar Winamp komt van alle alternatieven toch het dichtst in de buurt. Continue reading “Raken we dan nooit van iTunes verlost?”