blog.less.ness again !!

I’m going off to a land far-far-away where I won’t have any access to the interweb [I can already hear some long breaths of relief].

I know for many it will come as a huge relief that they won’t see my blog in their random search/surfing for next 10 days.

Unfortunately for those who still end up here, may God be with you, as I’m not taking him with me on leave this time coz I am not even that selfish [though I am a little]. Also I don’t want to take any chances having him around when my better half is nearby [I told you, I am a little selfish].

Over & Out

    holiday, leaves, bloglessness,
    holiday, leaves, bloglessness,

                

DVD & The Fcuking Regions !!

After waiting for 2 months and 700 bucks later, I finally got my hands on Special Edition of “The Last Samurai”, the 2-DVD pack.

So, after flying on my bike back home [that is covering the distance in 15 mins flat which generally takes 25 mins], I started my Philips mini-HiFi system and loaded the DVD, and …. waiting …. waiting …. waiting ….. ERROR

ERROR !!! Fcuking ERROR !!!

I switched off the HiFi system from mains and restarted it. Damn !!

Again … waiting … waiting … waiting … ERROR

WHAT.THE FCUK !!!!!

Then it struck me !!! I picked up the cover of DVD and had a look. The DVD is for Region 5 [Eastern Europe, Russia, India, Africa]. SUWEET. Then I picked up my Aliens DVD pack and had a look & WOW!! It’s for Region 1 [USA, Canada].

That’s just very nice ! I bought mini HiFi system in India which does not play DVD’s with Region code 5, that is DVDs for Indian Region.

So I went back to the DVD vendor and [hoping against the impossible] inquired for same DVD with Region 1.

“You are kidding !!” he said. “Why do you want Region 1 DVD when everyone else want Region 5″ ??

“Coz I have a fcuking HiFi System which only plays fcuking Region 1 DVDs”, I said.

“Oh! Sorry man !! I don’t have any Region 1 DVD pack for The Last Samurai. But I’ll inquire about it and will call you if I’ll get it !”
he said “Or, you call up your HiFi system vendor and ask him to give you the steps to make your system Region Free !”.

WOW!! Why didn’t I thought about that !! Because I had already tried that and IT DIDN’T WORK !!!

Isin’t it funny !! One side all the movie and music companies wants us to stop piracy and buy legit softwares, and on the other hand they are making things more difficult. One of the main reason I read about the Region-ification of DVDs is “a tool to protect copyright and film distribution rights, since movies were released in theaters in different parts of the world at different times throughout the year” ! This, upto some extent, was correct, but from past 3-4 months or so, more and more movies are getting released on same day throughout the globe !!

Even the hardware companies are at fault !! Why are they selling the product that won’t run the software of same region ? And even if they are selling why don’t they fcuking tell us !!

So now I have 2 ways in front of me ! Either I buy DVDs of only Region 1, which is a big issue. Or second, I buy a local Region-Free DVD player, which will run any and every fcuking DVD.

So who is at fault here ? ME for buying Legit software & hardware !!!

    dvd, dvd+region+code, personal, annoying
    dvd, dvd+region+code, personal, annoying

                

Social Bookmark Bookmarklet for wordpress.com

Sounds like a toung-twister !!

I got over-enthusiastic yesterday, after tinkering around with my tagging-bookmarklet, so I decided to work on something I have been planning to do for quiet a long time, the Social Bookmark Bookmarklet, that is a bookmarklet that generate the necesary code for posting the blog entry to social bookmark sites, directly from blog.

Yes I know this is not something new. There are hundreds of scripts that does that. But the problem I face is the limited freedom we get with wordpress.com, I can’t call any external script to generate links on the fly.

So I decided to make myself one, specifically for wordpress.com and below is the code:

[SNIP]
CODE MOVED HERE
[/SNIP]

It is a very simple script that have following 3 steps.

First, it asks for the URL of your blog, which is to be entered without the “http://” and without the trailing “/” [as you can see in the image on the left] then click on OK.

 

Second, it asks for the Title of the entry for which you want to generate links. Make sure that the Title you give here is same as you are giving on your blog, because the links are generated based on this text. To be on the safe side, it is good to just copy the title from your blog & then paste it in this window. Then click on OK.

Last, you get the code that you have to copy & paste at the end of your entry.

There are few things that are necessary to point out here:

• First, the current script generates bookmark links for del.icio.us, digg, blinklist, furl & yahoo myweb2.0 only, I will add more as and when I’ll get to know about them. In meantime if you add some other social bookmark service, then don’t forget to let me know to update my script
• Secondly, the icons that are currently associated are hotlinked to my geocities account. As long as I have enough space I will keep on hosting them there, but I would appreciate if you modify the script to point to your own iconset.
• The bookmarklet works with Firefox & Flock both.
• It can be used only for wordpress & specifically for wordpress.com accounts

If you want to know how to add the bookmarklet using the code above, then goto Bookmarklet Builder, then specify a name for the bookmarklet in “Bookmarklet Name” [I use wpBlogBMLet] and copy the code in “Javascript Code” window and click on “Compress” button. You will see a new link by the name you provided below the “Format” button. Simply drag that link and drop it on Bookmark toolbar.

Enjoy the Bookmarklet !! And if you face any problem, then feel free to let me know.

UPDATE 1:19.Jan.2006
I have updated the script above to include Simpy, Shadows & Spurl as well. Also there is a problem I saw today, somehow the “alt” in “img” tags vanishes once we save the post. I’m working on finding the solution and will update once I’ll have it.

UPDATE 2:19.Jan.2006
In earlier code there was a problem whereby occurance of “.” and “&” was not removed as wordpress does. That has been ironed out and the code updated. Please use the above code.

UPDATE 3:20.Jan.2006
I have created a webpage at geocities for both the bookmarklets, CLICK HERE to visit that page. Henceforth I’ll be updating the script there only, but will put an update here as well.

UPDATE 4:23.Jan.2006
Added BuddyMarks to the bookmarklet. Updated bookmarklet & code is available HERE.

    bookmarks, bookmarklets, tools, social+bookmarks, wordpress, wordpress.com, blogging
    bookmarks, bookmarklets, tools, social+bookmarks, wordpress, wordpress.com, blogging