Wesley's Tool-Box

The latest PDA-phone from Cyberbank has officially debuted. Dubbed CP-X501, succeeding the best-selling CP-X301, is the smallest WM2003-based PDA-phone to hit the market. The unit I have was given by Cyberbank for a test-out. More on this coming soon, I think.

This is a long overdue story. It began exactly 7 months ago, on January 11, 2005.

At Macworld Expo San Francisco, Steve Jobs announced a small form factor Macintosh computer called 'Mac mini'. Right up to that point, I had almost no interest at all in using a Mac. Why, my AthlonXP desktop computer was working fine. I had no need to use a largely incompatible and expensive computer that wasn't even small. But the moment I saw that Mac mini, I was absolutely shocked. A supposedly decent performing computer that has a mainboard that probably measures only about 15cm on each side, and fully operational unit costing as low as $499.

Interestingly, I already owned a computer smaller than this: Sony VAIO VGN-U50, an ultraportable notebook computer the size of a normal 3.5" hard disk. Hadn't I already filled the 'own a tiny computer' need? Apparently not. I saw the potential for replacing my desktop computer in Mac mini. VGN-U50 would still be the 'second unit', a portable device I would continuously carry around with to fill my needs. I needed something small that can be kept sitting around the house. Mac mini was it, I envisioned.

I've done some encoding tests with various settings using PSP Video 9 and altShiiva. I had originally intended to use altShiiva for encoding, but then after encoding one file, I noticed that it would hog my main system's resources for an extended period of time. Therefore I decided to look at alternatives, and chose PSP Video 9. This runs on Windows platform; my backup system has Athlon 64 3000+ for the CPU and runs Windows XP 64-bit Edition and can serve as an encoding workstation.

I was trying to create an MP4 video file that properly works with my PSP with a video encoding application for MacOS X called altShiiva. I think I found the right setting, so I'm writing them down before I forget.

A little hiccup this morning... I was updating some of the server components. To make sure I don't mess up anything next time I do this, I'll write down the procedures.

1. phpBB

Straightforward, actually. Go to phpBB downloads section, and get the latest 'Changed Files Only' version. Decompressing it will give you a bunch of 'version x to version y' zip files, with common files on their own.