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Recently, I received a parcel from Italy from the Skype Store containing the new
FREETALK. This is one of the few webcams that allow HD video in Skype with the latest Skype version. According to the manual required are 1 Mbit/s upload but I have that and I do not get full HD video with my cable internet conection. According to the Skype Store, indeed 1.25, bette 1.5 mbit/s are required for the optimum.

As you can see from the shots, the image is still clear enough with the upload I have to actually read text 🙂 and the camera acts better in dark circumstances than e.g. the Logitech Spehere AF.

The camera works in Windows without extra drivers and on Mac, but for Mac Skype, HD video is yet to come.

Of course you can also try to force it.

Thanks to the Skype store for sending it! AND I will do new snapshots once I switched my ISP in December having 7 Mbit/s upload 🙂

Technorati Tags: Skype, hd video—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

Because I am a fan of retro computing, I am owning and supporting several fan products and services and so I have to start my Windows 7 X64 in test mode and had to sign several drivers manually since none of these projects have the 500 USD to pay every year to Microsoft.

about half a year ago, it happened that I had to reinstall one of those LTP interface drivers, “no problem!”, I thought since the Driver Signature Enforcement Overrider always worked on me for the many years back. However for whatever reason even though done everything correctly, it wouldn’t load the driver if not hit F8 and select to run without driver signature enforcement every time.

A bit of a nerve-racking pain, but hey, at least stuff worked again!
I even had one of the people involved in the development of the drivers looking into it by remote accessing my PC and he also didn’t find the root cause. We guess an update to the system supplied by Windows Update at some point, “fixed” a hole and so this beautiful way of signing new drivers somehow doesn’t work completely anymore (any drivers signed before work still fine, though).

Now, the problem was recently, that my keyboard broke and the new one wouldn’t work all the time in DOS/BIOS mode, according to he changelog of my motherboard, there is a bug in the initial BIOS release.

But the latest BIOS has obviously a bug which would cause my PC to not work anymore after updating. even CMOS clear and recovery boot wouldn’t work. So, I have got a new BIOS chip burned with a backup of the 1.0 BIOS my board came with.

So, at least my PC works again, but still no keyboard until Windows booted up. The work around was attaching a small number keypad that would allow me to control the boot menu and BIOS settings if required but still no way to hit the F8 key to manually disable driver signature enforcement.

Then it stroke my brain: Back then in 2006, there was a second way , a way that was told to be dangerous as it could render your Windows non-bootable but it would automatically select the right menu entry for you prior booting Windows Vista.

I just retrieved it again! It is now even available for booting from a floppy disk or an USB stick. It’s called ReadyDriver v2 and can be downloaded from here. (You need the tool rwwrtwin to write the boot image to disk, or just use the boot CD/DVD image from the other site above.

Anyway, now I just pop in the floppy disk and it automagically selects Windows 7 X64 and then presses F8 and the right menu entry and now no more hassling 🙂

Technorati Tags: windows 7, hardware—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

Skype-to-Skype calls are free, the rest costs “just a little bit”, that’s what Skype has been telling us for 7 years now.

Jean Mercier from the Skype Numerology blog points correctly out, that this promise is boken now since calls over the 3G will not be fre for long and then “cost a bit”.

So we have a lot of “bits” now:

SkypeIn number bits, voicemail bits (usually comes bundled), limited “Unlimited Calls” flat, mobile phone call bits (as not included in the limited “Unlimited Calls” bits, Skype2GO number bits, SMS bits, ur “voicemails converted to text with SpinVox” bits.

And soon we have 3G calls bits to pay. But this is not much of an issue, as Skype isn’t the leader in the IM for mobile phone area, it’s fring. The Israelis have a lot to offer and all for free. Not only do they allow calls over 3G and EDGE (since the limited dropped they immediately came up with a solution), but also video calls – for free of course!

But I want to speak about something else: The new beta with group video calling, also breaks this promise since they want a bit for this of your money as well.

Now people could argue “but group video causes more load on their services and they have to pay for that as well!”

Nope, Skype isn’t server based, it’s peer2peer!

It will be interesting to see what happens next!

Technorati Tags: Skype, 3g—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

Indeed: New ICQ 7.2 officially available exclusive on chip.de for download!

This is no surprise, it has been done before with previous versions.

New is that they put a special icq styled website on chip.de for that. Download ICQ 7.2 here. despite the homepage is in English the client itself is in English and other languages, just like 7.1.!

A slideshow of it can be found here. It is packed with more skins, a better skin management webmail support (Yahoo, GMail, more are supposed to follow in the future (e.g Windows Mail))

You can also decide whether you want to publish your ICQ status messages on pages such as facebook or twitter! (Interestingly this function doesn’t seem to be activated for the public now, the same was the case when chip.de announced 7.1 for dowload before it was on ICQ’s homepage, this is very strange!).

Technorati Tags: ICQ, ICQ7.2—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

So, I wanted to use Linux again and decided to give it a try. I first tried to install Mandriva 2010.0 on it but it would hang on booting after the installation was successfully completed. Looking around I found many people having the same problem but no solution as it’s a bug in this release. I found the hint of using 2009.1 instead and tried that and it worked.

Compared to all the other times I insstalled Linux before, this time I have got all the hardware working!

There however were some devices that didn’t work and needed a workaround. I also want to thank the Mandriva community for helping me out!

So here are the specs: link with the exception that over here it’s sold with Win 7 and twice as much HDD space.

So after that I purchases the following:

-Pearl FreeTec USB -Mini-Bluetooth adapter
-Apple Mighty Mouse Wireless
-Hauppauge Nova-T DVB-T USB 2 TV stick
-4G systems XSStick W14 for UMTS/HSDPA surfing

The first problem was that graphic chipset would not work right, it would always start at the wrong res and cause strange small disortions when opening a menu.

While the first issue was resolved by a system update of the RPM package manager, the other wasn’t, but no biggie!

Also the internal mic wouldn’t even be found by harddrake and serarching aorund nobody knew how to fix that issue. SO I got myself a SpeedLink Vigo USB Audio Card which offers standard jacks for a headset and it’s just costing a few bucks but is supported by Linux, MacOSX and Windows without driver installation.

This way also SKype works now 🙂

And looking around I found that the 4G systems XSStick W14 works for UMTS/HSDPA surfing in Linux.

Just the problem that it is also an USB stick with micro SD card slot so Mandriva would detect the memory but not the modem!

SO thanks to this manual I found that a tool called USB Switch will do it.. I had however to install and run a newer version if it
Then thanks to the Mandriva Community I found out that the script Sakis3g will solve all 3g dial in problems

Last but not least I also found that KDE4Bluetooth could detect the Freetec mini USB Bluetooth Adapter well and the mighty mouse would work with the scrooling and the right mouse buttons even though many report those have problems. Just the problem that sometimes you have to switch it 3 times on and off or so till it’s working

The last thing was getting a DVB-T TV USB2 Stick that would work in Linux and WIndows 7 of course. I borrowed the Hauppauge Nova-T USB2 which works fine in Linux if you start it in Windows beforehand. (There is a workaround for that – do a firmware update but I didn’t try that yet.

It only works in Kaffeine 0.8.xxxx versions by the way. The 1.xxx versions doesn’t let you open the channels!

Technorati Tags: Mandriva, hardware—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

This video by Alexander Lehmann shows very clearly and nicely what happens if the world just starts trying to make the internet cleaner!

Technorati Tags: internet, censorship—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-

Opera submitted Opera Mini for iPhone to the Appe App Store

as you can see in this below video it’s very fast! Believe me after 2 years of slow browsing on the iPhone3G this really is something to look forward to! Here a video:

Also: Check out the Opera iPhone counter on the My Opera community site and enter the contest to win an iPhone. Maybe you will make a good guess 🙂

Check it out and win 🙂

Technorati Tags: Opera, iPhone
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serial driver for Ipevo’s S0-20 also available for 64bit Windows SOON! Unlike other Skype phones you soon no longer need a 32bit Windows XP/Vista/7 for keeping your phone’s firmware current!

This solution has been provided by one of Ipevo’s customers and they are working now on improving it and so making it available for all customers!

More info about this can be found here in Ipevo’s Blog!.

Let’s hope they soon fix the Skype port setting issue!

Technorati Tags: 64bit, s0-20
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Since Windows 7 is out and I own and use it, there is one that disturbed me right away: The Windows XP / Vista QuickLaunch is missing in Windows 7! Sure you can restore it, but it will disappear randomly again! (Which is a bug in Windows 7 according to Microsoft Technet.).

So there is another solution, a freeware one named “JumpLaunch” at this page, just the tiny problem, that it doesn’t work if you have Crap Cleaner installed or other programs as seen on the Forum Thread: Clicking shortcuts does nothing.

There are tons of tools that cost money and other tons of freeware tools that allow you all kind of fancy modifications and real resource hooks! Then I found True Launch Bar which I installed and it just opened as a tiny window in my Windows 7 X64. But then I found there is also a a beta version which is also working in Windows 7 X86 and X64 and is integrating seamlessly into the taskbar just like the good old Quick Launch of Windows XP and Windows Vista and it really works! – Bug free! Thank you, guys 🙂

Technorati Tags: Windows 7, Quick Launch
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So we all know, eventhough Facebook is impressing us with a new layout lately but chatting with it I mean with the instant messaging thingie, it ofteh breaks, is laggy, delayed or it just disconnects you. also you always have to have your browser window openand focussed.

Well, there were clients for facebook chat , but they all died or were bad or hat no history saving possibility.

This has changed a while ago, now there is Chit Chat for Facebook which has all the functionality you always wanted:

A proper contact list, message history saving, multiple tabs in one window, online staus detection.

Only disadvantage yet is that you have to be online on the facebook homepage’s chat (after you went online you can close the page again).

It can be downloaded here, project leader is Daniel Offer who is a nice guy always willing to help and listen to its users 🙂

Technorati Tags: Facebook, chat
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