How to bypass the Wikipedia blackout

Here is a very simple way that will allow you to bypass the Wikipedia blackout

As you may well have experienced today, Wikipedia has blacked out its English language content in protest of a proposed change in US online copyright laws (see below for Wikipedia’s statement.)

However, there is a very simple way that will allow you to bypass the blackout.

Here’s how you do it.

Simply  add  ?banner=none to the address in the address bar:

e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy shows the blacked out page:

So we simply type ?banner=none in the address bar at the top and press enter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy?banner=none  returns you to wikipedia’s normal page:

Enjoy !

Polaroid Pogo and iPhone (Jailbroken!)   

The Polaroid Pogo printer is a tiny handheld bluetooth photo printer. You can take a picture on your phone, and wirelessly print a photo to it.

Unfortunately Apple does not support OBEX printing which this printer uses. After some research and a bit of patience I found the answer I was looking for.

The program through Cydia called iBlueNova solved my problem. I am now able to print through Bluetooth to my pogo printer.

-This tutorial will show you how to get printing with your iPhone to the Pogo printer.

OK, so I bought a new camera:

The Fujifilm FinePix HS10 is a DSLR-style camera with a massive 30x optical zoom lens and 10 megapixel CMOS sensor. Offering a focal range of 24-720mm, the Fujifilm HS10’s 30x lens has a twist-barrel manual zoom control and triple image stabilization to help reduce camera shake. The FinePix HS10’s Back Side Illuminated CMOS sensor offers a 200% increase in sensitivity over a conventional CMOS sensor. The HS10 also offers 10 frames-per-second high speed continuous shooting at maximum resolution, full HD movie mode (1080i) with stereo sound, a Super High Speed Movie function to freeze the action, 3” tilting up or down LCD screen and an electronic viewfinder.

Obligatory flower shots:



Large 720mm (30x) zoom means you can shoot for the moon -literally !

Today is World Backup Day

Well we have a day for just about everything else  – why should Backups be forgotten ?

World Backup Day (WBD) was proposed about a week ago by some members of Reddit, the social bookmarking Web site, and has caught on in the way things do online: A Web site was created within hours and there’s already a dedicated Twitter account.

More importantly, WBD is supported by a handful of organizations who are using the day to make special offers and product announcements.

WBD’s timing one day before April 1 isn’t coincidental, and nobody should be made an April’s Fool if their hard drive dies or they accidentally wipe 10 years of family vacation photos. However, those behind WBD are keen to point out that aim of the day is to raise awareness about backup, and not simply remind people to do so. After all, backing up should be done every week or even every day.

Sadly, backup is one of those dull and monotonous tasks that few of us take seriously.

A survey last year showed that:

• almost 90 percent of home PC users don’t do regular backups,
• around 67 percent had lost data because of it.

Another survey suggested that one third of home users don’t even backup at all !

As for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), a survey from Symantec earlier this year showed that around half don’t have a disaster recovery plan should catastrophic data loss occur, and only half of SMBs surveyed back up their data weekly. Only 23 percent back up daily.

There are essentially three ways to backup data when it comes to workstations:
to an external hard disk (such as a network-attached storage device),
to a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray disc,
or to using an online cloud storage provider.

Some of the best:

Dropbox – As well as syncing your data across PCs, it also backs up to dropbox’s online servers

dropbox provides 2GB for free, or up to 100GB for a yearly fee

LiveDrive – No storage limits here, livedrive offers unlimited backups and you can also install it on unlimited computers,

for just £10 /per year from some resellers on ebay (e.g. this one)  it’s  a no brainer.

Forget 3D glasses.

Both the LG Optimus 3D  and HTC EVO 3D have thrown their hats into the ring with the Nintendo 3DS, offering a full 3D effect without needing to wear any 3D glasses.

Both devices can take their own 3D pictures and video with dual stereoscopic 5MP 3D rear cameras and 1.3MP front cameras, and powered by 1.2Ghz processors and 1Gb of RAM.

HD Video recording is at 1080p for 2D, and 720p for 3D.

Panasonic SD SDHC Camcorder

We all know the horror – accidentally deleting photos from memory cards.

While there are many file-recovery programs out there to get your files and photos back, when similar happened to me with a SDHC camcorder, none of the programs I tried would find any video.

The 16GB SD card in question had been full of video, then formatted and a further 3GB of footage recorded on.

The usual suspects Ontrack EasyRecovery and PC FileInspector failed here, not showing any previous footage other than the current 3GB.

At the stage of giving up, I found panasonic’s software (though probably works with any AVCHD / SDHC SD card based camcorder.

Lo and behold,  despite the oddly translated english in the menus and the fact that an initial scan found nothing – I ended up with a directory containing 15GB of .MTS files after 30 minutes of crunching.

You can get Panasonic’s recovery software below:

Panasonic SDHC recovery [ 3.6MB]

This seems to be a great deal at the moment at amazon (and elsewhere)

Around £40 for a 500GB portable usb hard drive emblazoned with a Michael Jackson “This is it” logo:

500GB portable hard drive – includes pre-loaded full length movie

Luxurious colour and elegant pattern – Sony Pictures special edition

Premium materials – hi-glossy finish and leather-like material

Compact size and streamline shape

AutoBackup and SafetyKeyTM – SecretZoneTM encrypts data on a virtual drive

Available at £39.99 @ Amazon.co.uk

It also comes with the movie preinstalled on the drive.

Pictures of the drive with the included sleeve case:

This external drive is actually currently cheaper than the price of an internal drive,

but opening it up, instead of a standard SATA drive, there is a non standard drive with a usb connector soldered to it:

It’s still a bargain of course, but don’t buy one if you intend to open it up to use the internal drive inside your laptop !

Hotmail users will finally be able to get e-mail push notifications and sync their contacts and calendars on smart phones, according to reports.

Microsoft is adding Exchange ActiveSync support to Hotmail next week. All Hotmail users will be able to use ActiveSync with mobile devices that support it, including the Apple iPhone, Google Android phones and — soon — Windows Mobile 7 devices.

iPhone users, for instance, can currently connect to their Hotmail accounts via the e-mail app, but they aren’t fully synchronized. Through ActiveSync, Hotmail users will soon be able to get enhanced syncing capabilities: when they delete an e-mail, it will be deleted from their Web-based Hotmail; when they reply to an e-mail, that message also will be available online; when they create a calendar event, that appoint also will show up on their Windows Live calendar.

These features are already available to Gmail subscribers, for instance, through IMAP and to people who use a company e-mail system through Microsoft Exchange.

Now, Microsoft is opening up that ability to users of its free e-mail service.

Intel has just launched a new dual-core Atom processor, the N550. This new processor is geared toward enhancing the processing power of highly portable devices. This means the new dual-core CPU will be found in netbooks, and possibly even some tablet PC’s. To add to this, there are some big names such as Acer, ASUS, Fujitsu, Lenovo, LG, Samsung, MSI, and Toshiba already shipping netbooks using the new core.

Along with the additional core, the N550 supports DDR3 memory, comes clocked in at 1.5GHz and has a TDP 8.5W. With these specifications the Intel Atom N550 will have improved multi-tasking capabilities, but still only create minimal heat. Additionally, the low TDP will also prolong the battery life of netbooks, which is due to the N550 having a similar power requirement as the single core, N450.

The netbook market has grown in leaps and bounds over the last few years, so it makes sense Intel is aggressively pushing its Atom processor line.

“In their short history, the netbook category has experienced impressive growth,” said Erik Reid, director of marketing for mobile platforms at Intel. “Having shipped about 70 million Intel Atom chips for netbooks since our launch of the category in 2008, there is obviously a great market for these devices around the world.” and will see action in netbooks that arrive from next month onwards.

Full specs below: