Shantanu Vs The World

This script is the result of a weekend’s hacking to get my TV to display incoming calls/texts which I miss invariably because the phone is buried under a sofa or in a different room. Earlier I had done this using my Odroid U2 and Tasker/AutoRemote but this was limiting as this meant that I could see the notifications only when I was watching something through the Odroid. Samsung TVs, which are DLNA enabled, also include a hidden service called “Message Box” which can display different information on the TV natively irrespective of which display mode/input mode you are in. [Read More]

So I got this beautiful piece of headset a few days ago, called the EarForce PX5 by TurtleBeach. It’s claim to fame being an awesome virtual surround sound headset which also does the double duty of providing game audio as well as voice chat over the same headset. I preferred this over the Sony PS3 Elite headset as the PX5 is more generic and can work across multiple devices since it uses the regular bluetooth for A2DP and voice chat and the wireless transmitter has standard optical/RCA inputs and outputs. [Read More]

I’ve followed the 80 column rule almost always when I code, i.e., I keep a soft limit of keeping my lines of my code limited to 80 characters max. unless breaking up the line really messes up the readability of the code. I was asked recently why do I bother now in this age of 24" widescreen monitors (and above) with resolutions of 720p at the bare minimum. I could certainly afford to have more than double that limit staring back at me from the screen without overflowing. [Read More]

Recently, there has been this trend. Blogs look for patents filed by companies and then report on each of them as if they are second coming of Jesus in technology. Especially if it is Apple who is doing the filings. A few days ago, this new patent showed up about Apple’s “new wave approach to fighting malware” with the author giving up half-researched commentary on it. I was intrigued by this news (if you can call it that), not because it’s something new but instead because process isolation is hardly a new concept. [Read More]

So, my wife got me a new slim PS3 today to replace my old YLOD’ed phat (Yes, Awesome wife I know. And slim PS3 cuz I hate the looks of the new superslim). But, I digress. The issue at hand is that everything worked fine when I unwrapped it, hooked it up to the power and TV and switched it on. However, once I started the PSN store (or what is now called Sony Entertainment Network Store), nothing worked. [Read More]