Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts

Friday, July 8, 2011

Chrome To Phone alternative for Android 2.1

The Chrome and Firefox has a simply extension to pull links into mobile,but sadly it's not compatible with my phone. There is an free alternative which doesn't requires to have an GMail account,works on Android Eclair and Symbian,Windows Mobile phones and you can pull not only links but also:

  • Geo location on Google Maps
  • Phone Number
  • Calendar Event
  • Contact Information
  • SMS
  • Text
  • Wifi Network login details
It's called ZXing and you can download it from the Android Market or official website. It's a QR Code scanner and you will need to copy the link or text you want and generate the QR code using online QR code generator

QR code of my blog.
Lunch the ZXing app on your phone and it will automatically read the code.


 Now you may wonder how to pull links from phone to computer. It's quite simple,just download an Opera Mini for your phone and turn on Opera Link feature in settings menu. 

Here is some good QR code scanners for other mobile phones.




Thursday, July 7, 2011

Covert videos to Android phones...

Well this method works for all mobile phones and portable media players (PMP).

One of the best free converters I found without ads or junk after install is Format Factory . 
The best things I love about it that I can rip whole DVD into single file and the lets you to pickup
language for audio and subtitles. Also it can convert download Youtube videos into MP3.

Start the program and from left menu click on Video bar. Select All to mobile.

From the models list I selected Google phone and 480x320 resolution since my mobile has HVGA resolution. To find out your screen size you can check your phone model at manufacturer website or PDAdb.net and GSMArena.com . 


If you have large SD card sure you pick a better sound quality when default.
Press OK.


In the new dialog select the files you want to convert and press OK. 
In the main window press start button and have a coffee while you will get all your videos converted.
And press the "Output folder" if it doesn't popup for you and simply copy all the videos into your phone
using PC suite or WiFi.

How to convert DVD into mobile video?

From the main window select the "DVD to Video file"




Make sure to check Youtube for detailed tutorials about Format Factory. 

As alternative you can FreeMake Video Converter. It requires .NET Framework 4 . Make sure to check their "How to" section with lots of video tutorials.



Battle City - Free Remakes

Battle City or Missile Tank 1991 was one the first video games I played. It was coming in with NES/Famicom console clone bundle. Simple game play was pretty addicting and one the best feature in two players mode.
You can watch the video from orginal game.

Anyways after more than 15 years I decided to take a look at PC version of this game and I was really satisfied with games I found. All games are free and full versions.

Tank Commander - A one of the best remakes with great effects and graphics. Has a two players mode and includes 4 different zones and about 40 levels.

Battle Rush -  A 3D clone of Battle City with simply graphics and two players mode. Too bad there is not much levels to play.

Diamond Fighters - A remake for Linux and comes with 30 levels.

Combatant Area - A simple 2D remake with new graphics and two players support.

Battle City X - Really nice clone with original graphics and power-ups. Includes lots of additional levels in
addition to all original levels.

Battle City Tanks - Original game made in Python. You will need to download PyGame and Python to able to play it.

Normal Tanks - A game with nice 3D rendered sprites and single player game mode. Great action packed game. Wacth the gameplay

Post in comments if you find some more :)

Online 8-bit sounds generator


There is one little great tool that generates 8-bit video games like sound effects. You can generate tons of random sounds like coin pickup from Super Mario Bros. or explosion sound from Galaga game.

Today I randomly found this little app ported into Flash so you can generate all the sounds online. It's free for any use including commercial titles. It will come handy in making old school retro games.

Check it now!
http://www.superflashbros.net/as3sfxr/

I hope there is more tools like this. :)

Monday, July 4, 2011

Download Youtube videos to PC

There is probably lots of tips and tricks how to download those. I often search for some Flash game development tutorials and sure I want to watch video again without internet connection. With old Flash Player plugin it was easy since all the videos was saved into browsers cache folder, but now the Flash Player holds the downloaded video in <User Name>\Local Settings\Temp (well on WinXP anyways :P) folder *.tmp files. They are locked by program and cannot be copied. I tried various force copy handlers,but not much help from those.

After testing  a few Firefox extensions I found the one that does the job well. It can download vidoes in High or Low quality and in .FLV or .MP4 format (yep you can watch your downloaded videos on the phone or iPod) . It's called Flash Video Downloader Youtube Downloader Facebook . Sure it does downloads any embedded videos from any websites. To use it simply press Play on the video and right click on the player and select "Stop Download"

Find the blue arrow near address bar or in the bottom right corner and click it.

A dialog should appear with all available video formats. Pick the one you need and wait until extension downloads the video.


Even more goodies available at extension developers website:
http://www.flashvideodownloader.org/

Enjoy!

Chrome Web Apps... make your own

If you still using your default browser on Windows like Internet Explorer 6 then I feel for you. You really need to download Google Chrome. Like other modern web browsers it can be expanded with extension and apps available from Chrome Web Store and while those extensions can be not very perfect you may find some really great apps. Sure one of the popular is the Angry Birds game.

Chrome Apps is most times just a website bookmarks and it might be good idea to make one for your own website. You will only need to create and few site icons and manifest file.

And here is my manifest.json file:



{
  "name": "GintasDX Blog",
  "description": "Techonology and random blog",
  "version": "1",
  "app": {
    
    "launch": {
      "web_url": "http://gintasdx.blogspot.com"
    }
  },
  "icons": {
    "32": "32.png",
    "16": "16.png",
    "96": "96.png",
    "128": "128.png"
  },
  "permissions": [
    "unlimitedStorage",
    "notifications"
  ]
}

You need read a developers guide if you want to know what exactly each line does. Basically all you need is a 128x128px size icon and this sample manifest file. Finally you need to pack your extension using Chrome.

Start Chrome and push the wrench icon in the right upper corner. Go to Tools->Extensions....
Select the Developer Mode and press the Pack Extension button. In new dialog you need select the folder where you put an icon and manifest.json file .

Later just drag and drop the .crx file on Chrome browser window. You will see a some warning at the bottom,but since you are using your own extension you can press Continue without worries.

A dialog like this should appear:

After pressing Install you will have your custom app in a main
start page.


Saturday, February 5, 2011

Need a DropBox invitation?

 Looking for a place to share your files online with  a friends? I can say DropBox is the best place for that.
It features 2GB of free space and doesn't limit a file size uploads,plus it's so easy to sync files across computers by installing their neat app.

If you want an free invitation just drop me an email:
aliencide (at) gmail (dot) com


With invitation you will get a additional 250mb for your 2gb storage ;)