Free calls to anywhere? (PC-to-PC, PC-to-Phone)

I guess most people know what Skype is by now. However, Skype do have a cost associated with it's use, especially when calling a landline or mobile. And most recently, if you are calling Skype over 3G. This become silly, since you're already paying 3G connectivity, so why should there be cost of running Skype over 3G. One way to go around this is to have a jail-broken iphone and have special apps to convince the voip apps that they are talking to Wifi when they really are talking to 3G.

But wait, now there is a new kid on the block, that challenges the Skype paradigm. It's called Callarc . It is supposedly supporting Symbian, iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile devices. I look at the website, and have not seen where to get access to the downloads/apps. Time will tell how CallArc will stack up against all the existing VoIP apps.

WDTV Firmware update 1.03

I haven't visited Western Digital's website for so long that I've missed this WDTV firmware upgrade for such a long long time. But note that now there are 2 generation of the device, so choose your version carefully.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/wdtv/

What's New?
Release 1.03 (11/9/2009) (includes all previously released updates)

Added video playlist support
Added support for the drive lock function on the new My Passport and My Book external storage devices
Improved metadata support for music. For example, browsing by genre is broken down into artists, then albums, then tracks
Enhanced cover art, album art, and thumbnail support for media files and folders
Fixed bugs reported by the WD TV user community

For those of you who are brave and adventurous, here is the link to the custom firmware. It's enhanced and interesting... it is now called : WDLXTV. It is based off of the 1.03.01 firmware, but with many extra features.

http://b-rad.cc/wdlxtv/

Features included in WDLXTV:
external dvd drive capability with cd-manager-0.7 **fixed**
ext2 & ext3 filesystem support ** (un)officially supported now **
ext2 & ext3 hotplugging
all media (including network shares & optical devices) can be viewed in ‘All Videos’
USB Hub support
mounting of WDTV Optware package (if available) at boot, for access to ~1300 additional programs
mounting of app bin packs (if available) at boot, for plugNplay addtional functionality
mounting of OSD overlay (if available) at boot, for full theming (sample)
limited USB Ethernet support
IP via DHCP (by default, configurable)
Samba/CIFS support aka windows share mounting (requires Samba app pack)
Experimental wireless adapter support (thx to Zorander) (requires wireless-mod-wdlxtv app pack)
Ximeta NDAS device support (requires ndas app pack)
Telnet server
pure-ftp server (requires pure-ftpd app pack)
configurable to automount NFS shares (requires nfs app pack)
user customizable background & screen saver images ** new **
selectable 4/8/10/12/21 video thumb view (see Changelog)
selectable 4/6/8 file list view (see Changelog)
sleectable 10/15 photo/music thumb view (see Changelog)
user customizable init.d scripts for full os customization ** new **
emergency flash recovery


And for the EXTREME upgraders : WDLXTV-Live http://b-rad.cc/wdlxtv-live/
This is based on earlier WD firmware

Features included in WDLXTV-Live:
Movie Sheets
external dvd drive capability with cd-manager-0.7
Web Server
Python, Perl, and PHP
Deluge Bittorrent client w/ web interface
nzbget NZB downloader w/ web interface
SSH server
Telnet server
FTP server
NFS share mounting in local folders and Network Shares
sshfs for mounting a remote server as a local directory
curlftpfs for mounting remote FTP server as a local directory
unionfs for consolidation of multiple directories/locations/servers/etc as one entity
patched samba configuration for better detection of Windows shares
user customizable background & screen saver images (3 backgrounds to choose from)
extra subtitle size options of 44, 48, 50, 56, 60, 64, 68, 72, 76, & 80
selectable 4/8/10/12/21 video thumb view (see Changelog)
selectable 4/6/8 file list view (see Changelog)
sleectable 10/15 photo/music thumb view (see Changelog)
ext2 & ext3 filesystem support ** (un)officially supported now **
device hotplugging
all media (including network shares & optical devices) can be viewed in ‘All Videos’
USB Hub support
mounting of app bin packs (if available) at boot, for plugNplay addtional functionality
mounting of OSD overlay (if available) at boot, for full theming
user customizable init.d scripts for full os customization
emergency flash recovery

Want to create a fancy looking website fast?

Bought your web hosting? Want to quickly get up and running with a website that looks great and ready to rock?

Most web-hosting companies now come with "Simple Scripts" which is a service to install opensource applications quickly and painless for most people. It even creates the mySQL database and do the linkages from the app to the database.

Usually, there is a whole bunch of applications to choose from, but if blogging is your thing, there is Wordpress. For something more sophiscated, there is always Joomla or Drupal.

But installing a fresh copy of Joomla just give you the basic shipped look that most people get bored!!.. Afterall, you want your own personality to be stamped across all aspect of the site. Thats where pre-built templates come in. There are many sites with free templates available for Joomla, but they are mostly fairly basic.

Then comes paid templates, there are also many choices on the internet.. but I must say I'm most impressed with RocketTheme . They are awesome, especially the newer 2010 ones which are powered by their Gantry framework.

Make my PS3 the ultimate media center

Having a PS3 in the living room is great for gaming and bluray movies on the big LCD TV. However, sometimes the media you can get your hands on do not match the format that PS3 supports.. which makes PS3 media center experience somewhat jaded for the average consumer.

But behold the PS3 Media Server open-source software ( http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/)

It is DLNA compliant which means that you simply install this on your PC, Mac or Linux machine where all your media/videos are located at and PS3 will auto detect the existence of the server (if on the same local network/router)... and you will be able to browse all your content like folders on your PS3. Not only that, you can virtually play any video content - yes, even those that PS3 do not support. This is because the software on the PC/Mac/Linux end actually re-encodes the video in real-time to stream to the PS3... yummy..

One disadvantage so far is wireless connection may not be able to handle HD content smoothly... so I'd suggest a wired network connection.

Apps for My Mobile Phone

With the popularity of the iphone and various new smartphones, I've decided to spin off a new blog called "apps for my mobile phone" or http://afmmp.blogspot.com
This new blog will focus on iPhones & Android phones - as I believe Windows mobile & Symbian will likely die a natural death not too long into the future.