A while ago Creative Labs told me that they won’t fix the dolby surround bug in their Windows 7 X64 drivers as the card is too old. By poor accident, I actually scanned with DriverMax for new drivers and found out that roughly a year after my complaint they released new drivers that even fix my problem with the dolby surround not working! That’s so cool because I worried that I would need to exchange it by a new card! Maybe enough people complained so they were forced to do it! Thanks to everybody for the support so! 🙂 Technorati Tags: X-Fi/a>, Windows 7—- Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-
jaxtr sms – free international SMS released!
Just recently, Sabeer Bhatia, co-founder of Hotmail, the first free email service, released a new SMS app for almost any mobile phone OS you can imagine: jaxtr sms.
There is controversal feedback about this service on the internet. some say they see no reason why to use jatrx sms instead of one of the tons of other free SMS services out there!
I have tried it with many different destinations and I can tell so far: Because it just works!
To fulfill Indian regulations a user may only send 200 free SMS per day max.
Other than that it offers your mobile phone number as caller ID and you can really send it to any network and country.
How do they cover their cosst? With ads at the end of each SMS and (soon to come) adds in the app for your mobile/smartphone.
I have tried out many other free SMS services, none of them were really reliable but jaxtr sms so far is!
SO, do not hesistate and try it out!
Technorati Tags: JaxtrSMS, skin—- Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-
Bye bye O2 (Telefonica), welcome Vodafone
Telefonica, a mobile operator from Spain recently gained very much power, not only in Spain and Latin American countries but also in Europe. Especially UK and Germany.
I am writing this post becausse I wanted to show how it’s possible for an operator to cut your calling freedom. The story is the following:
Usually in Germany, everything is charged extra:
Using an iPhone as a modem? (tethering), does cost you extra. Using VoIP (Skype, etc) on your iPhone? forbidden until you pay for it extra. Using your SIM card to browse the internet on a notebook? You could, but guess what… they try to charge you extra. This goes on with many other things….
This is why I decided to leave German Telekom as a provider in March 2010 as O2 Germany was the only one allowing EVERYTHING without extra charge.
Since I knew back then that E-PLus blocked the free call-back service “Rebtel”, I asked O2 whether they do the same. I was ASSURED that this is not the case and never will as Rebtel uses national landline numbers and such are covered by my free national landline calling plan!
And this is what happned a month ago:
When I assigned a new local landline number to a friend’s mobile phone in Bulgaria, I received an automatic message telling me that the number I dialed is no proper landline number annd might be charged as it isn’t covered in the landline flatrate I do have.
Wondered by this I called the customer service hotline the same evening. I was told that there is something wrong with the number Rebtel assigned and it doesn’t seem to be properly registered. [……] … and even Googling the number brings no result. (OH sure, google is the new phone number validator!).
I didn’t believe this at all…….. So I emailed Rebtel about it. And below are their replies. (My email continues below!).
On Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:41:25 +0200, Rebtel blackberry[at]rebtel.com wrote:
> Thank you for contacting us!
> > I will be happy to help you with your questions.
>
> O2 is not blocking our numbers, however, they are charging 0.09 cents to their customers who called our numbers. I have therefore now changed the local number which were assigned to your contacts so you now have a new contact list with new numbers.
>
> Please try calling this numbers and get back to us with the results.
>
> We are currently in discussions with O2 about how to resolve this issue. We provide Rebtel service in almost 60 countries and have had no problems with any operator apart from O2 in Germany in the last few years. > > Rest assured that we will be bringing this up with Neelie Kroes (VP of Digital Agenda in European commission), who has a very harsh view against operator pressure and unfair competition, since we strongly believe that O2 are abusing their market position.
> > > Please feel free to contact us if you need further information
> > Kind Regards,
> > Janine > Rebtel Customer Support Team
I want to stress the fact that indeed I know what I am talking about. I worked for an ISP and telephony provider in the technical department for years, I read routing tables, troubleshooted connection issues, red SIP communication dumps, etc!
O2’s brilliance doesn’t stop here, I remember a case of last year where I couldn’t exchange SMS between me and friends in Peru.
They asked me to contact Claro Peru instead. So I sent them an email and forwarded their reply back to O2.
A few days later O2 called me and told they cannot read the email, because Claro Peru wrote in English HAAHAHAHA and so they cannot help me?
In the end, after 8 months (!) they fixed the routing problems. If you have experienced similar issues with O2, Telefonica, i.e. one of their national service brands feel free to share with me, I would gladly listen:
I have decided to cancel my contract with O2 and will then continue with Vodafone (as German Telekom is too expensive for the services I want!).
Contact me at nafcom[at]c64.org
Technorati Tags: O2, telefonica—- Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-
Reviewing nice IT certification service “uCertify” – part 1
Certification is very important in nowadays’ IT world especially if you want a more advanced and higher paid job.
You can go for the original certification books and software (e.g. from Microsoft) but I found the translations are often questionable and the training software often crashed or didn’t work at all on my computer. Plus they tend to be expensive or require a lot of hardware (multiple computers to install for practicing some parts).
uCertify is cheaper and different in this aspect
uCertify PrepKit Tour from uCertify Video on Vimeo.
The training works without a book and comes as a download. The software consists of 2 parts, the lessons that first explain you some things and then inquiry you about what you just learned and the training area.
The training area is pretty cool as well!
If you go through a training and then checks results, it not only shows you your false answer and the correct answer, but also explains you why it is in “fact” the way it is!
*this review will continue as soon as I had a chance to dig into it a bit deeper!*
Technorati Tags: uCertify, review—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-
ICQ 7.6 final with GTalk support, ICQ for iPhone 2.8 and ICQ on-site released!
As announced by Moshe Kigler in the ICQ Beta Testers facebook group, ICQ 7.6 final and ICQ on-site beta has been released.
So, now ICQ can connect you to 4 different IM accounts at once:
Google Talk, Facebook Chat, AIM and of course ICQ itself.
Despite being mentioned as not working in the Known Issues list, ICQ for Mac and ICQ for Linux can handle GTalk contacts as well. You cannot add them from within the client but if you have added them using ICQ for Windows or ICQ for iPhone, then they will display as available if they are online and you can chat with them.
ICQ on-site beta however is a widget you can put into your blog or website to provide visitors an abillity to chat.
Interesting is: For the first time the ICQ Team even provides a direct way of support incase you have any problem with the widget!
Last but not least they also released ICQ for iPhone 2.8 to add GTalk functionality. Android will be coming later!
Technorati Tags: ICQ, 7.6—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-
ICQ 7.6 Beta with Google Talk (GTalk) and Skype 5.5 final with Facebook Chat released!
The different instant messaging worlds just came a bit closer to each other as recently, as new compatibility features were included in both, ICQ and Skype:
The ICQ Team finally released ICQ 7.6 Beta and Skype its Windows client in version 5.5 final. Now you wonder why the final and why not blogging earlier when the beta was out? Because the beta caused so much CPU load that it was bareably usuable!
Technorati Tags: Skype, skin—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-
Pretty Geeky Project: Watch DVD with your friend over Skype
Wanna have some nice DVD evening with a friend, but (s)he is too far away from you to pop by?
Then this “preety geeky project” is your thing! Impress your friends, scare your family.
So here is what I used:
A Terratec Grabster AV 350. (Having problem getting it to work in Windows Vista or Windows 7? email me I will help 🙂 ). The video grabber is connected to your DVD player, PS2, XBOX or any other DVD playing device.
(Note, it won’t work with blu-ray due to the HDCP contect protection!).
One of the best grabbers out there I think! 🙂
Another thing I used is a cheap USB soundcard because I needed some microphone connector as my PC’s internal soundcard’s micrphone output is already used by something else, also this allows you easy access in case you want to change something.
The sound source is also important. As everything is connected to my Logitech 5.1 sound system I have choosen this as my source. But you may also use your TV’s headphone connector or a separated audio cable coming from your DVD player, etc.
Just as you please.
Other things needed:
2 computers for you and the watcher. Why? Because otherwise you cannot hear each other while you watch the movie together!
So what you do:
1) In Skype, instead of your webcam, choose the grabster video grabber for your webcam picture.
And select the micrphone jack of your PC/USB soundcard as micrphone so your friend can hear the sound of the movie!
Etablish a video call with your friend. Your friend can put the webcam pic on full screen.
2) Launch Skype with your account on a 2nd PC. Ask your friend to create a new skype account and run it on another computer just for being able to skype with him during your watching session.
Since Skype is not server based but peer-to-peer you can call as many people at the same kind from your account as you like, but since you cannot call your friend a 2nd time since you are already in a call, your friend needs a second account you can call instead!
Technorati Tags: ICQ, Skype—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-
My Forum is back!
Regular readers of my blog probably wonder why the “Forum” button has been broken for so long.
Problem is that I always relied on free services of friends. Unfortunately such kinds that don’t make backups or suddenly switch off their service/servers.
In fact The buttons used are still hosted and managed by my blogger friend Mr. Dew who is in touch with me since 6 years now.
And in the years 2006-2010 Opera and Blogger had some issues that would automatically insert garbage when editing some template code. Thanks to Nebulous who is kind of a celebrity in the German video gaming scene, the code got repaired!
But regarding the forum I always missed somebody 100% reliable so here you go Facebook, thanks to its pages and Discussions App, I found a way to connect it to my blog’s Forum feature. I hope you will use it and find it useful.
Infact I often receive emails with advertisement offers or emails from people who ran into similar issues I reported on my blog and ask me for helping them.
One of the coolest was probably an email from a Brazilian university professor who told me he refers to my blog during IT seminars to his technical students.
That’s pretty cool, especially if you consider that my blog was created just for fun without any aim or destination, and I still don’t go over my written text and correct any grammar or spelling errors because it’s “Crap Blog”, so let it be!
Thanks for your continued support over the past years and I will try to stay available for you!
Technorati Tags: blog, forum—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-
Retrobit Firecore Sega RetroGen with firmware v2 – playing Afterburner I…
So I have finally managed tp connect all my game consoles to a video grabber and upload my first two official YouTube videos! Click on the headline of this blogpost to visit my channel.
Below is the 1st of the 2 videos I have uploaded today! More will follow soon!
Technorati Tags: youtube, Nafcom—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-
Help yourself: ICQ login problems
Due to being so famous lately and it’s running over me on AllExperts:
Having the problem lately that you can’t login to your beloved ICQ account?
“Oops, something went wrong.”?
But you are sure your password is correct because you have enabled auto-login?
Yeo, but still, it won’t!
First question: “Have I been hacked?”
Answer: “No, you haven’t”.
Solution: Cancel the automatic login process and re-enter your passwird and then click “login” again and voilla, there we go!
Happy ICQing!
Technorati Tags: ICQ, login—-Wanna discuss this post? Then do it in my forum! 🙂—-