HOWTO: Block spam voice recordings, faxes and SMSes

Info on blocking spam e-messages (i.e. voice recordings, faxes and SMSes) can be found here.

It’s really simple. Just dial 1835000 using the phone you want to block unwanted calls for. There are three different registries: for spam voice recordings, spam fax, spam SMS. You can also look up current registration of a phone number (or lack of it) using the online registry.

Just take 5 minutes to register your numbers for these registries and you’ll get fewer spam calls in ten days~~~~ ^v^ ^u^ ^o^

ImageStation download software walkthrough

If you have been reading my blog, you should know that Sony's ImageStation web site is closing on Feb 1, 2008. That means the photos and videos hosted by the web site will no longer be available for viewing or download from then on. ImageStation offers a few options for its members to keep their photos available. One of such options is a software that runs on the user's computer to download the originals of all the photos from his/her online albums. I dedicate this post to walkthrough the software.

Software download
Once you sign in the ImageStation web site, you can find a red banner at the top of the page. The link on the banner takes you to the available options for keeping your photos. In particular, you will find the following section:


Click on the "Learn more" link regarding download of full-resolution original photos. You will be sent to a page that lets you download the photo download software according to the operation system that runs on your home computer.


I picked "Windows version" for my computer running Windows Vista. If you use a Mac computer, choose "Macintosh version". Follow the download instructions provided by your web browser.

Software walkthrough
Run the application from where it has been placed. On Windows, you may need to answer to a couple of security warning dialog boxes in order to have the software up and running. Here's the first screen of the software running on Windows Vista. You are prompted to enter your ImageStation user ID and password.


Once you have filled in the information and clicked "Sign in", the software begins to collect information regarding your hosted photos. The screen shows how many albums you have, and how many it has collected information from. The time it takes to complete this step varies by how many photos you have uploaded to the web site. In my case, I had over 300 albums and presumably over 10,000 photos on the web site. It took a few minutes for the step to come to completion.


Once the software is done with collecting photo information, you are told how much disk space is needed to download all your photos. You are also prompted for a location on your local computer to store the photos to be downloaded. You are free to hit "Download" to begin the lengthy download process. Before doing so, you may take a look at the advanced options you are given.


More download options
Clicking at the "Show Advanced Options" checkbox, a host of new options are shown at the bottom of the screen.


The "Organize images into subfolders that match my album titles" option is preselected. Uncheck the option only if you do not want photos to be saved into subfolders corresponding to their albums. I'd not disable this option.

The next option is a bit tricky. The software asks for a prefix for the names of the files to be saved for the photos. Why, you may ask, would I need to care about that? It's at Sony's fault. They claim that once photos have been uploaded to ImageStation, their original file names are removed on the web site. Therefore, the software cannot come up with the original file names for the hosted photos. The software preselects "is_" to be the file name prefix. Yet you can specify a different prefix. I personally think it is a really bad default value. More importantly, I think it is just dumb the way ImageStation handles the file names. When the photos are uploaded, the titles of the photos are by default their original file names. So in case the title of a hosted photo stays unchanged (that is the case for 99% of my photos), the software can correctly reconstruct the local file names of the photos. I will probably make this request to ImageStation afterwards.
You can also find at the bottom of the screen options to specify proxy server information to establish proper network connection to ImageStation. This again I find dumb as this option should be made available on the first screen of the software, it tries to connect to the ImageStation online service.


Conclusion
Well, this software is far from being perfect. But this is the only option you have if you want to get back the originals of your precious memories. A couple more things before I close, I haven't tried proceeding with "Download" yet. That's why I haven't shown you the download progress screen and whatever comes after. Secondly, the way the software asks for a prefix for the local file names suggests to me that the software may not be downloading hosted videos onto the local computer at all! I cannot tell for sure until I attempt the download myself. If you have already tried, please post your findings as comments here. Otherwise, I may create a test ImageStation account (if the web site still takes new registration) and try it out before playing with my eronmous collection of hosted photos and videos. I wonder if it would take days to download them all. That's given the unstable wireless connection my computer uses survives throughout the download!

HOW-TO: Add reminder for your mom's lunar b-day in MS Office Outlook

I used to manually look up the dates of my mom's lunar b-day year by year and add them into Outlook. But I knew there would be a smarter way. There is. And I am going to share it with you today.

There are two steps you need to follow in Outlook:

1. Display the lunar calendar as an alternate calendar
2. Set up a recurring appointment in lunar calendar

Have fun!

究竟ActiveSync班人唸Ｄ乜？

為一位外行的新朋友找找如何可以把Pocket PC的備份還原至另一部機，便上網搜尋資訊。不少網站也有相關的敎學：

• PocketPCAddict.com: Weekly Tip: Backup & Restore Your PPC with Activesync
• fots.nl: Backup and Restore with ActiveSync
• Compaq Whitepaper: Backup & Restore for iPAQ Pocket PC
• hardware.mcse.ms: active sync contact problem
• monash.edu.au: Pocket PC 2003 - Using ActiveSync Backup/Restore

看得我也心思思想用ActiveSync為自己部機做備份。點知～～～

Microsoft ActiveSync 說明
備份與還原資訊概觀

備份與還原資訊概觀注意：只有 Windows Mobile software for Smartphone 2003 與之前版本，以及 Windows Mobile software for Pocket PC 2003 與之前版本，才支援備份與還原資訊。

How to tell if you are a US resident?

The answer is tricky if you don't hold a green card. Topic 851 on the IRS website has the details.

Before installing Virtual Server 2005 R2...

... please remember that:

• Some IIS features must have been turned on. See this link for details: Virtual PC Guy's WebLog: Installing Virtual Server 2005 RC2 on Vista RC1 / RC2
• Your R2 machine states are not compatible with those with R2 SP1.

HOW-TO: Open Microsoft Office 2007 documents using older version of Microsoft Office

You may soon encounter documents saved by Microsoft Office 2007. The newly released productivity suite saves its documents in new formats by default for added functionality which you may or may not care. To open these documents using an older version of Microsoft Office (i.e. Office 2000, Office XP and Office 2003), install the free Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats.

HOW-TO: Read Chinese on non-Chinese Windows Mobile devices

More than once I was asked about how to get a non-Chinese Windows Mobile device to display Chinese characters, in order to turn the device into a portable electronic Chinese Bible. I previously thought the only, simplest way is to purchase and install a third-party Chinese input software... until I did a search on the Internet and found the link below. Well, it is still correct that it is the simplest to buy a software for this, but now at least you have the choice to hack it up yourself. (Note: this hack at best enables your device to display Chinese characters, but won't allow input of them.)

Disclaimer
Please back up all the data on your device and make sure you have a matching device, the required tools and font files that are mentioned in the article, as well as good understanding of the registry of your device before attempting this hack. Improper configuration of your device may corrupt its registry and render it unbootable. After you finish the hack, double check to make sure it has been done properly, and check again, before attempting to reboot the device. And lastly, by attempting the hack this article links to, you agree not to hold me liable for any damage to your device or data lost resulted from following the instructions of the hack. Simply put, do it at your own risk!

Here's the link: It's possible! Install Asian fonts on English Smartphone

HOW-TO: Get rid of WGA

A friend mentioned his concern over the pre-release version of Microsoft's WGA being delivered to his computer as an important update.

This link from Microsoft that details "How to disable or uninstall the pilot version of Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications".

Martial arts on wikiHow.com

I have grown to become a fan of wikiHow.com these days. In particular, my personalized Google home page yesterday showed something appealing to me: How to Choose a Martial Art. I was curious about martial arts because a friend of mine educated me a little bit on karate earlier this week, and because I haven't been doing a whole lot of exercise. To my untrained eye, the article was a pretty good material about the subject. After all, I am a guy and was curious about what to do in a fight, eh... just in case. So I followed the see-also links one after another onto articles such as How to Avoid a Confrontation, How to Win a Street Fight, How to Walk Away from a Fight, How to Take a Punch, How to Fight, and a whole bunch of articles about Jiu Jitsu. Before then, I had no clue what it was. (For those who are as curious as I am, here's a sample link for your taste.)

HOW-TO: Fold a paper rose

Instructions on wikihow.com

Have you ever thought about...

Connecting to multiple IEEE 802.11 networks with one WiFi card? It's not just a dream!

BTW, you must be a computer geek if you care to read this one...

Learning about SSH

I am not a Unix person but SSH sounds indeed a very powerful tool to learn about.

How to install OpenSSH sshd server and sftp server on a Windows 2000 or Windows XP or Windows Server 2003

HOW TO: Avoid re-installing Windows

Crazy thought, maybe useful one day

HOW TO: Fold a t-shirt

I ran into this video again today by chance. Not sure if it will really save you time when folding t-shirts.

Click here to watch the video

HOW TO: Recover a Windows computer

This article is for you:

How can I gain access to a Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 computer if I forgot the administrator's password? How can I reset the administrator's password if I forgot it?

The tools it mentioned sound truly promising. Some of them don't even require much computer knowledge.

＂：；、。，！＠＃＄％︿＆＊（）＿＋－＝／？＜＞＼｜﹀［］｛｝？＂

A friend asked, "how to type in Chinese punctuation characters on Windows XP?"

Here are the few ways I know of doing so:

1. The easiest way is to run CharMap.exe. Choose the font named MingLiU. Scroll to and double-click on the Chinese symbol you want. Click the Copy button to send it to the cupboard. Then you can paste it to the window of your desire.
2. Download from the Microsoft Taiwan site a free software called "New ChangJie IME 2003". After installing and selecting the new IME, you can enter Chinese punctuations in full font size mode (you can change font size mode with Alt-Shift). Also you should be able to find a Symbol option in the Language bar for the IME. Selecting it brings up a virtual keyboard showing various symbols on its keys.
3. In addition to "New ChangJie IME 2003", download also another piece of software called "Microsoft IME Pad 9.0" from the Taiwan site. After installing both software and selecting the New ChangJie IME, you will see a couple options for the input method on the Language bar. One of the new options is to bring up the IME pad. In the IME pad, you can use mouse or other pointing devices to graphically write the character/symbol/etc that you want.
4. The friend got back to me with a solution that I didn't know about. With Quick IME, you can type in Chinese punctuations by hitting Z and then another characters. Different combinations give you different set of symbols!